Jessa blinked rapidly at the older gentleman in front of her.
At first, she thought she’d misunderstood what the man had said. But when she turned around and saw the horrified look on Max’s face, she had a feeling she’d heard him correctly.
She searched Max’s eyes for answers but unfortunately found none. “Max?”
The uncertainty of her voice seemed to cut right through him because he suddenly cringed and said, “Jess, I can explain.”
“Then maybe you should,” she stated firmly. “Because right now I don’t have a clue as to what the hell’s going on.”
And she clearly wasn’t the only one. The man in the doorway claiming to be the new health inspector looked just as confused as she probably did. But he at least seemed to understand there was something happening. Something that this guy apparently wanted no part of. “Ms. Gibson, I can see that you’re, ah…busy. Why don’t I set up a time to speak with you at a later date? I have my appointment book in my car if you’d like to walk me out so we can arrange something for later in the week.”
“I, uh…yes, I think that would be best.” She ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Okay, let’s do that.”
Max stayed inside the truck as she stepped out with the inspector. That was probably a good thing because she needed a minute to register what was truly going on here and didn’t want to say any more until this guy left. She followed Mr. Halloway across the parking lot to a white Buick and waited as he reached inside.
When the man straightened he held a leather-bound scheduling pad, and clipped on the side was an official badge that identified him as the city inspector. Jessa swayed in place as nausea bombarded her stomach. God, it was true then? Jerry Halloway was the new city health inspector. And if so, who the hell was Max and why in the hell had he lied to her all this time? It’d been a couple of weeks since she first met him.
Mr. Halloway named a couple of different dates and times for the following week and asked her which one she preferred. Numbly, she told him any of them would be fine although she never actually paid attention to what he said. Her overwhelmed mind and pounding heart were both still racing over the shocking news that Max wasn’t the health inspector.
But the man didn’t seem to notice her total indifference to what he was saying. Or maybe he did but understood that she was very upset at the moment by something going on and was just playing along, hoping she’d actually remember to show up at her scheduled time. Because the moment she agreed to whatever date he’d mentioned, the man said his farewell to her and got the heck out of Dodge.
Jessa walked back to the food truck, her gaze directly on Max’s somber face. He watched in silence as she stepped back inside the truck and shut the door behind her. When she turned to face him, the deep regret in his eyes said everything she needed to know. “You’re not a health inspector.” It wasn’t posed as a question. Just a plain, glaring fact.
“No. I’m not.” Max hung his head. “But it’s not what you think.”
A stony silence lingered between them as she played back the last few weeks in her mind and put together the sequence of events that had led to this very moment. She didn’t understand anything about what he’d done or why, but enough of the puzzle pieces clicked into place that she could see the bigger picture. Max was a liar. “You conniving prick!”
He winced. “Baby, please. I—”
“No.” Jessa crossed her arms, closing herself off to him. She’d warned herself not to get involved with him, but apparently she didn’t know how to listen to good advice. Max had been lying to her from the first day they’d met. And she couldn’t think of anything else to say except for, “Why? Why would you do this to me?”
He closed his eyes and expelled a hard breath. “That first day when I came over here to talk to you, I pretended to be the health inspector because you were parked across the street from my buddy’s restaurant. He was losing business, and I was trying to help him by forcing you into leaving.”
Unbelievable. She shook her head. “So you manipulated me into believing that you wanted me just so that you could ruin my business and run me out of town? You’re a…a…shameless asshole.”
“No, you don’t understand, Jess. That’s not what happened. In the beginning, I only meant to harass you a little. Actually, I didn’t even know you owned the truck. And of course I never dreamed we would actually wind up in bed together. None of that had ever been planned out. You have to believe that at least.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Max. I don’t have to believe a damn word you say. You think just because you hang a curtain of excuses over a dirty window that the dirt isn’t still there? Whether it was intentional or not, you slept with me, damn it. And you did so while knowing you were lying through your teeth. Do you even have an actual job?”
Max sighed. “Yes. I’m an electrician. I run my own business, but my larger jobs usually involve working for Sam’s construction company. That’s why I was able to make my own hours and come by here so often.”
If she thought that it couldn’t have gotten any worse, he’d just proved her wrong. Fury lit through her faster than a hot fuse on a firecracker. “So Sam and your other friends knew that you were lying to me all along?”
“No, not the whole time. They found out when you kissed me in the bakery. That’s why I was acting so weird. I was afraid one of them was about to accidentally rat me out so I told them after you left.”
“Well, that’s just great. Well, I hope you all had a great laugh at my expense.”
He reached for her, but she moved out of his grasp so he let his hand drop to his side. “Honey, no one was laughing at you. They were all pissed as hell that I was lying to you and have done nothing but encourage me to tell you the truth ever since. This isn’t on them. It’s all my fault. They had nothing to do with it, I swear.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel any better?”
“No, I’m sure it doesn’t. I’m sorry, Jess. If I could go back in time and take all the lies back, I would. I never meant to cause you any pain. You have to believe that. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Yeah, well you did.” Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she blinked rapidly to keep them at bay. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of him. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Please leave.”
“Sweetheart, just listen to me…” He reached for her arm again.
She shrugged him off and moved away. “Don’t touch me ever again. I mean it. You may have fooled me once. I’ll give you credit for that. But trust me when I say it won’t happen a second time.”
“Damn it, Jess. It wasn’t like that. I never meant to—”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear anything that comes out of your lying mouth. Not anymore. You had every chance to tell me the truth and chose not to. Maybe you’re smooth enough to fool all the other women in this town, but if you think for one second I’m going to believe another word you say, you’re delusional.” She shoved him toward the door. “Now get out of my truck.”
He stepped outside but stayed on the pavement just outside the door. Apparently, he wasn’t giving up that easily. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded, motioning to the two of them. “Don’t throw this thing between us away over something stupid that doesn’t mean anything.”
Jessa blinked. “Doesn’t mean any—” She couldn’t believe the nerve of this man. Her gaze locked with his. “You know what, Max? Maybe to you this doesn’t change anything, because you weren’t the one being lied to. But to me, it changes everything.”
“What are you saying?”
“You wanted my absence, right? Fine. You’ve got it.” She stepped out of the truck and slammed the back door closed before heading around to the driver’s side of the vehicle.
He caught up with her as she opened the front door, his eyes wide. “You can’t leave like this. What about us?”
Although her heart shriveled in her chest under his pleading eyes, she climbed confidently into the cab of the truck and gave him a look filled with disgust. “There is no us anymore. Good-bye, Max.” With that, she slammed the door to the truck closed and locked it for good measure.
“Jessa, come on. Open the door. Don’t leave it like this.” When she started the truck and turned on the headlights, his pleading became more urgent. “Baby, I’ll do anything to make this right. Please. I don’t want to lose you. I need you.”
His last words hurt so much that she knew she needed to drive away or she would end up opening the door and falling back into his arms. So she put the truck into gear and pulled away from the curb.
* * *
Hours later, Max beat on her front door for the umpteenth time.
He had no doubt Jessa was inside and just ignoring his persistent banging, but if he kept doing it much longer, someone was going to call the cops. The neighborhood dogs were already barking like crazy, and her neighbors’ lights had recently flickered on.
“Jess, I know you’re in there. Just let me in to talk. Five minutes, okay? That’s all I ask.”
“No,” she said from the other side of the door.
Okay, that was progress. She hadn’t answered him for the last half hour. Maybe he was wearing her down a little. “Baby, please. Five minutes. After that, if you want me to leave, I’ll go and won’t bother you anymore tonight.”
“Yeah, like I can believe anything you say. You’re a liar!”
He sighed. “I know I lied,” he told her, his face pressed against the cool painted wood of her front door. “But I’m not going to do it again, I promise. I never meant to do it in the first place.”
“No, I mean you’re lying right now. If I give you five minutes, you aren’t going to leave when those five minutes are up.”
He flattened his palm against the door. “I swear I will. If that’s what you want.”
There was a long enough pause that Max didn’t think he’d gotten through to her, but the front door finally creaked open to reveal Jessa standing there in a white robe.
For some strange reason, he’d expected her to have a bright red face, filled with anger, as well as surly eyes and an expression that mimicked a shark right before they took a bite out of you. But instead, her face was drawn, and her cheeks were stained with dried-up tears. But it was the deep sadness he saw in her eyes that gutted him completely. He’d done that to her, damn him.
At first they stood there, regarding each other cautiously. Then she said, “You get five minutes. After that, if you don’t leave, I’ll call the cops on you myself.” It was said in such a civil tone that it was hard to even fathom that it was a threat.
“I promised you I would. I wasn’t lying when I said it. I plan on keeping every promise I ever make to you from now on.”
“I don’t want any promises from you. In fact, I don’t want anything from you. I clearly can’t trust you to tell me the truth.” With that, she pushed the door open to allow him access and backed away as he passed by her, as if she couldn’t stand the thought of him accidentally touching her.
Once they were both in the living room, Jessa pulled her robe around her and tightened the knot. The sore spot he’d created with her had only been festering for about two hours, but seeing her gut-wrenching reactions to him only made Max acutely aware of how much she was trying to protect herself and keep her distance.
He tried to take her hand, but she took a step back. “Don’t touch me.”
“Okay,” he said, releasing a heavy sigh and backing away to allow her some breathing room. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her again. “First off, I want you to know how sorry I am. I know apologizing doesn’t fix this, but I need you to know how sincere I’m being right now. I never meant to hurt you, Jess.”
“Yet, you still did.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I did. But you have to know it wasn’t intentional. When I first met you, I didn’t know you were the owner of that truck. You know that, Jess. You were there.”
“I do know that. But once you found out who I was, you could’ve told me the truth. You didn’t have to keep lying to my face.”
He shook his head. “You’re right, I didn’t. But I was trying to help out my friend. He’s an old man, and his only source of income is the café across the street from you. He was losing all of his business, and he was going under.”
“Don’t try to guilt trip me with that. It wasn’t like I was intentionally poaching his customers. I had no idea. Why didn’t you just walk over and tell me that to begin with? I would’ve moved my truck voluntarily. I wasn’t trying to harm anyone else’s business…unlike you.”
“Jessa.”
“No, I’ve listened to you. Now it’s your turn to listen to me. What I did to your friend was harmless and unintentional. Hell, I didn’t even know I was doing anything wrong. But what you did to me was despicable and disgusting. All of those ordinances you spouted off. Those were fake, right?”
He cringed. “Yes. I made them up on the spot. It was stupid and rash, which is why none of them made any sense. I didn’t even think you would buy any of it to begin with.”
“Yet I just took what you told me at face value and never once questioned it. I guess that makes me the trusting dummy, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not what I meant, Jess. Yes, you’re trusting, but that’s one of the things I love about you. I don’t want what I did to change that about you.”
“Well, you’re too late on that one. I told you from almost the beginning that I don’t like being made a fool of. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”
He shook his head. “You’re not the fool here, Jess. I am. This was all on me.”
“You’re right, it is.”
“Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I care about you, Jess. But when I first started all of this, I didn’t even know you. And once I had already lied, it was too late to back out of it. I was stuck in a bad position and didn’t know how to turn things around. But I didn’t want to lose you. You have to believe that, Jess.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I get wanting to help a friend, even if your methods were questionable. But what I can’t wrap my brain around is why you would continue lying when you knew you would be hurting me. You had to realize I would find out the truth eventually.”
“I did, but I didn’t have a choice. I owed it to Pops. After everything that man has done for me…”
Jessa shook her head adamantly. “What could your friend have possibly done for you that would require you to pay him back by screwing over someone you claim to care for?”
Max stared at her in silence. He wasn’t comfortable talking about his issues with food and didn’t want to explain how Pops made him a special every day so that he could stay on track with his health and fitness goals. So finally, he said, “He’s just been a good friend to me.”
She gazed at him curiously, her interest clearly piqued. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s more to that than what you’re telling me?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But I’m betting you do.”
Damn it. He didn’t want to lie to her again by denying it, but he wasn’t ready or willing to share that part of himself with anyone. “I told you—”
“Yeah, I know what you told me. And I’m not buying it. As sad as it is, you still can’t be completely honest with me, Max. But that’s okay because I now have the common sense not to listen to you anymore. Nothing else you have to say to me matters. I think it’s time you leave.”
“Jessa, wait.”
“No. Your five minutes are up. You promised you would go. I expect you to keep your word. I don’t want to lose any more respect for you than I already have, so you need to leave.”
Max felt a heavy weight sink inside of him, but he moved toward the door in silence. She followed him, and when he stepped outside, she started to close the door behind him.
He put his hand against the door long enough to say, “I’m sorry, baby. I know you might not believe me, but I am. And I’m not giving up on us, Jess. I’m leaving now only because I promised you I would, but don’t you think for one second that I’m not coming back for you. I will always come back for you. You can count on it.”
“Don’t bother,” she said, her voice trembling. “I won’t be here much longer anyway. I’m packing up and leaving town.”