Third Wheel

2. Jessica

Chapter 2

Jessica

Praying the transferred call was for a sale, I put on my headset and forced a smile while clicking on the insurance quote shortcut on my work computer’s screen.

“This is Jessica Lindy,” I said, my voice brightened only by choice. “How can I help you today?”

“Sorry to bother you at work, Jessie—”

I heaved an exhale, my lips flatlining at the voice of my daughter’s daycare owner.

“—but Cassie is running a high fever, and someone needs to come pick her up.”

My stomach tightened, worry overshadowing my disappointment in not having the opportunity to earn a little extra cash that week for signing up a new customer.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I disconnected the call and pulled off my headset. “This is when having a family close by would be a huge help,” I mumbled to myself, swiveling around in my chair to face the cubicle behind me.

Christine, Gemberling Insurance’s future owner and my immediate boss, sat against the building’s back wall where she could oversee the main room. Her father, the business owner, had offered her one of the glass-enclosed offices to my right, but Christine liked to keep an eye on her “flock” as she called the four agents working for them.

I knew the truth about my friend though. She loved being in the thick of the action, able to hear whatever gossip made its round on a daily basis.

I caught her attention over the counter hiding her desk from view and waited for her call to end.

While she discussed a claim with one of the adjusters, I considered the pickle I found myself in. As a single mom who didn’t have much family to speak of let alone get along with, I once more faced having to leave work without pay to care for my child.

I would never regret Cassie, but I sure as hell wished I could take back the choice of getting tangled up with her father.

“What’s up, Jessie?” Christine asked, pulling her headset off her hair. Strands of flaming red entangled in the earpiece, but she yanked it free with a scowl. “f*****g piece of s**t. We seriously need new ones.”

I didn’t argue, seeing as how my own straw-colored hair often got caught in my headset. “Cassie is running a fever again.”

“Damnit.” Christine tossed down her pen, but I knew her annoyance wasn’t over my words. She was well aware of my predicament—my financial and family status. “You don’t have any sick or personal days left.”

“I know.” I bit the inside of my lip.

“If Dad had retired last year like he was supposed to, I would be the boss and could help you out.”

My heart sank at the prospect to a cut, much-needed paycheck like I’d expected, but at least Christine would keep him from firing me. “I understand.”

She glanced up at the clock over the front door. “It’s close enough to your lunch break. I’ll make sure you get a half day’s pay at least.”

Tears stung my eyelids, and I swallowed hard. “Thanks.”

Compassion softened her green-eyed gaze. “Go get your little bossy-boo and give her some snuggles. Hopefully, she’s feeling better by Monday so you won’t have to miss any more work.”

Still choked up, I nodded.

“And even if she isn’t, I don’t want you worrying yourself sick. You do enough of that already. Just take care of her. Take care of yourself. Your job will be here and waiting when you’re able to get back, okay?”

I relayed a shuddered exhale, my wobbly smile real for a change. “I will.”

“You’re our most hard working employee and one hell of a mom, Jessie,” she told me. “Cassie is lucky to have you.”

Her words tightened my throat even more—especially since I knew how much the loss of her own mom had affected her.

“Thanks,” I whispered and spun around in my chair to shut down my computer and gather my things before I burst into tears.

The earlier Massachusetts’s cold spring morning had required a heavy coat when the office had opened at eight, but I draped it over my arm when stepping out into the bright sunshine. The glowing orb heating the air celebrated in opposition to the status of my life. The sky should have hung overcast. Threatening rain. Thunder rumbling and grumbling in dissatisfaction of withholding a shower of rain—tears.

Biting them back had become a daily occurrence, but once I burrowed beneath my covers at night where I could finally let my guard down, I allowed them to flow.

My stinging eyes threatened nonstop even after I slouched in my car. My twelve-year-old Camry hesitated when I turned the key, the engine spitting and sputtering.

“Come on, you piece of s**t,” I whispered through my clogged throat. “Be good to me. Please.”

Another try and the damn thing came to life.

Heaving a huge exhale, I shifted and left my saving grace of a job behind in the rearview mirror. My stomach refused to unclench from worry over Cassie and my finances as I pulled onto the highway and headed north on Route 1.

Unsure of what sat in the medicine cabinet in my apartment beyond a little children’s pain reliever, I decided I had better stop for more in case Cassie ended up being sick for a few days like she usually did when running a random fever. The drugstore came into view ahead, and I pulled over, hating how I had to count and keep a tight rein on every penny I earned.

Generic grape chewables in hand, I headed toward the front. The local newspaper on a rack by the cashier caught my eye, and I halted, scanning the headline.

Attempted Prison Break.

I shifted my gaze to the pictures of the two convicts, their black and white mugs taking up most of the front page. Heart thudding in my chest, I grabbed a copy to make sure my eyes didn’t deceive me.

Devon.

Tremors ripped through me, and I dragged my focus off dark eyes that still haunted my nightmares to the article above his picture.

An attempted escape foiled by a fellow inmate, it read.

“Thank God.” The ragged whisper tore from my throat as other curses flitted through my head. I put the paper back on the rack and turned from the visual reminder of my past to set the medicine on the counter.

My fingers shook as I handed over p*****t, my mind a buzz of flitting thoughts, my emotions tumbling over one another.

Devon, my ex-husband, had been found guilty of bank robbery three years earlier and had gotten locked behind bars—thanks to me.

We’d been together for two rocky years prior to that, the last of which I’d spent trying to help him break his newly-found addiction to drugs. I’d stayed with him in the hopes of healing the only man who had ever claimed to love me.

Broke and needing a fix, he and his buddy had robbed a bank and would have gotten away with it if I hadn’t recognized his face on the fuzzy security picture the local news had showed a day later when asking for help in locating the two men.

By that time, I had been trapped in a prison of my own making, and I didn’t know how to escape. I’d felt enough of Devon’s barbed words and the occasional fists that I’d decided turning him in would help my husband get clean and possibly save my life.

A couple weeks after Devon’s arrest, I’d found out I was pregnant and decided to write him with the news regardless of his hatred of me for betraying him.

He’d scrawled a reply, a few half-illegible words about my being a w***e and that he wasn’t the father of the bastard in my belly. The final line about getting back at me for what I’d done to him had choked the air from my lungs, prompting me to uproot and move out of town the day after his trial ended with him getting locked up.

Cassie had become my reason for living. My mini-me filled my life with joy even if I had ended up like I said I never would...just like my mom. Single and trying to raise a kid on my own. Throw in a jaded heart, and I reminded myself of her too much for comfort. Barely scraping by on a small paycheck and having to cut my hours short...

Pull up your big girl panties.

Swallowing yet another threat of tears, I gritted my teeth and attempted to start my car. The damn thing gave me its usual hesitation and complaints of tiredness, muttering with choked exhaust coughs about how much it wanted to end up as a pile of scrap metal in a junkyard somewhere.

“Start already!” I barked, my eyes hazed over.

Maybe some day I would catch a break. Maybe win the lottery. Maybe even find a way to replenish my energy since I struggled like hell on my own to provide for my child even though I was determined to do so.

Devon had created a wreck in his wake, and like my car, I struggled to move through life without difficulty.

Fears of failure enticed me to hit the snooze on my alarm every morning.

Expecting the worst to happen promised a daily throb between my ears.

Worries kept me up at night.

And trust the memory of him and his threats to slink along into my dreams while I slept.

He had called me weak enough times while we’d been together that I’d realized the truth of my sorry existence. He’d claimed I’d been lucky to have him, how I couldn’t possibly ever make it on my own. But goddamnit, I had a child to provide for, and I would do so even if it took me to an early grave.

Choking on a sob, I rested my forehead on my steering wheel. “Please start,” I whispered, needing to escape the clouds settling over my shoulders regardless of the sun warming my face through the windshield. “Please.”

The engine turned over, and I sat back, blinking away tears.

I would make it on my own. I had to.

Cassie deserved so much more than I’d missed out on in life. One day, I hoped she would find someone to love her as much as I did, but they would have to come in the form of her own partner.

I wouldn’t ever be able to trust another man enough to invite him into our lives.