Chapter 8
"And what is the truth?" Victoria asked.
Jarrod sucked in his breath. Might as well tell her right now. "When Carol left without a word six years ago, it was because I paid her to."
Victoria stiffened. "What?"
"I offered her a thousand dollars to just leave, get out of Nick's life," Jarrod said. "She took it."
"Who gave you the right to do that?" Victoria was livid.
"Nobody gave me the right! I just took it!" Jarrod said, getting angry himself, especially now that his lip was really beginning to hurt and his eye was swelling shut. "He was 22 years old and she never loved him. She was just out to get married and then dump him for a nice divorce settlement. I told her I'd fight her and I offered her some quick and easy money to forget the whole thing. She took it and left."
"What if she did love him?"
"Would she have taken the money if she loved him?"
Audra came back with a towel full of ice. She gave it to Jarrod, who thanked her and put it against the left side of his face, where all the damage was.
"What made you think she didn't love him?" Victoria asked, more calm now, understanding now.
Audra, however, now looked surprised, having missed the rest of the conversation. Jarrod glanced at her before he said, "Think back, Mother. Don't you remember the look on her face whenever he kissed her cheek? Did you ever see her reach for his hand? He always reached for hers, and she never held very tightly to his when he did. She was stiff as a board around him, but not around any of the rest of us, because we didn't try to touch her. She never wanted him to touch her."
Audra sat down, saying, "I was too young to understand. She said she loved him."
"She lied," Jarrod said. "Nick was young and in love and trying to cope with Father's death and his new responsibilities running this ranch. He had no way of knowing she was lying."
"You weren't much older," Victoria said.
"But I'd been around a lot of liars, and I had come to know what one was like," Jarrod said, and running through his mind was his own experience during the war with a woman who said she loved him but wanted something else. He let it go. "Between the army and the district attorney's office, I had learned to have a pretty good idea of when I was being lied to."
They suddenly heard Nick's spurs jingling, coming in from the library. The women looked up at him. Jarrod gave him a glance but then shut his right eye against the inability to see out of his left eye. It had swollen completely shut, very fast, and he was beginning to be miserable.
"Do you mind if I have a word with Jarrod in private?" Nick asked quietly.
Victoria and Audra got up and went off to the library, where they knew Heath was. They both knew something Heath had said had calmed Nick down. They thought maybe they could find out more about this mess if they talked to Heath.
Nick hesitated, knowing what he wanted to say but not knowing how to say it. "How's the face?" he asked.
Jarrod took the ice away and showed him the swollen black eye and the split lip.
"I'm sorry," Nick said. "I shouldn't have hit you."
"Forget it, Nick," Jarrod said, putting the ice back onto his face. "We managed to put it off for six years, at least."
"You should have told me back then," Nick said, quietly. "You should have told me what you did and why you did it."
Jarrod shook his head. "Nick, you were 22 years old and responsible for an empire. How could I tell you what she was doing to you when you were trying to cope with all that and when you were in love with her?"
Nick thought it out. "She'd have married me and then divorced me for a big settlement, wouldn't she?"
Jarrod nodded. "That's what she had in mind, but when she knew I'd fight her and it would be hard and ugly, and when I gave her easy money to give the idea up – "
"I get it, Jarrod, I get it," Nick said. "I was a lot more naïve than you were then – I get that too."
"We had different lives, Nick," Jarrod said. "I had been trained to spot a liar. And I wasn't in love with her."
"I really was, you know."
"I know," Jarrod said. "And if I had to do it again, I'd talk to you about it and let you make your own decision about her instead of paying her off. But I was feeling my way after Father's death just as much as you were. I wasn't any good at being Pappy. I just needed to get rid of her, fast. I didn't want to see you hurt any more than you had to be."
"She was the first girl I was really, truly in love with."
Jarrod remembered his first real, true love, too, and how badly it had ended up. He almost told Nick about it, but he decided not to. It wouldn't make him feel any better. "I know, Nick," he ended up saying. Then he started to get up.
He was sore all over now, from tensing up when Nick hit him as well as from the damage from Nick's fist. Nick took hold of him and steadied him. "You owe Heath a thank you," Nick said.
"Heath?" Jarrod asked. "Why?"
"He talked sense into me. He's getting good at that."
Jarrod smiled a little. "With you, he's getting a lot of practice."
Nick shrugged.
Jarrod started for the stairs. "I'm gonna clean up and lie down for a while. You still hit harder than an army mule kicks."
XXXXXXXX
Jarrod could only look at himself in the mirror through one eye, but he still didn't like what he saw. He'd had black eyes before, swollen shut before. He never liked them, especially when Nick gave them to him. This wasn't the first. And he still felt like dirt about all this.
A knock on the door made him think Nick had come to check on him again. "Come in," he said, and was surprised when his mother came in the door.
She took one look at him and said, "Oh, that's beautiful."
"Isn't it, though?" he said. "My lip has gone down, at least. This is going to take a while longer."
"I'm glad you just let him hit you, though," Victoria said. "I think it took some of the sting out of everything for him."
"And I earned it," Jarrod said. Then he kissed her on the forehead. "Don't worry, Mother. This too shall pass."
"Will it?" she asked. She looked firmly at him. "I am left with the distinct impression that you still haven't told the whole story."
His heart sank. He should have known that she would read him more completely than anyone else. He wondered what to say and just said, "What more do you want to know?"
"Whatever it is you're holding back," Victoria said. "All of it. You wouldn't have paid Carol off six years ago just because you suspected she was lying to Nick about her feelings. There had to be more. What is it?"
Jarrod sighed. "You're right. There was more I never told Nick and I never intend to, and I have to be sure you really want to know."
"It's bad."
"Yes, it's bad."
"What is it?"
Jarrod took a deep breath. "I found out she was prostituting herself. Even while she was seeing Nick, she was selling herself to make a living."
Victoria swallowed. "When did you find that out?"
"Right after he told me he was thinking of asking her to marry him. I had always felt uneasy about her. I asked some of the right people in Stockton, people I knew would know about her and would tell me the truth. People I had something on. Being an assistant district attorney gave me a lot of contacts and a lot of ammunition to use when I needed it."
"And that's why you really gave her money to leave," Victoria said.
Jarrod nodded. "But how do you tell your 22-year-old brother that the girl he loves and wants to marry is a prostitute? I couldn't do it. I just paid her off and kept my mouth shut."
Victoria hung her head. She didn't know what to say.
"Maybe it wasn't the best thing I could have done, but I was still trying to figure out how to be more of a father to this bunch," Jarrod said. "I wasn't even sure I was good at being a big brother. I did what I thought was best at the time."
Victoria put her arms around him. "And you've carried this with you for six years."
"It wasn't a heavy burden until she showed up here," Jarrod said. "I really thought we'd never see her again."
"Why are you representing her, Jarrod? Really?"
"Because she's innocent - and because if I didn't, she might tell you and Nick that I paid her off six years ago. We had each other in a bind. If you tell on me, I'll tell on you – like children, only the stakes and the lies were bigger. I'm sorry, Mother. I just didn't want to see Nick get hurt."
"Well, I thank you for that, but I think it's time you tell Nick the whole truth. Even that she was a prostitute."
"He doesn't have to," Nick's voice came from the open door. He stepped into the room. "I heard you."