The Trouble With Apples and Trees

Lead the Way

Still ignoring Lily and Clive chasing after him, Jesse hops into the truck. He slams the door hard and sits there for a little while trying to inhale some calm. When that fails to do anything for him, he slams his already injured hand repeatedly over the steering wheel then grips it hard and lets out a grunt of pure, unadulterated rage and pain.

How could she do it? After everything that’s already happened to him. How could Tullisa add to his pain. How could she insert herself into the list of people that he distrusts?

Just as Lily and Clive reach the driver’s side window of his truck, he turns the engine over and skids out of the gravel driveway.

Lily might think that it’s just anger or shock talking, but he really is going to strangle Tullisa.

For the better part of a week, Jesse had hounded her for the truth. At first, she’d pretended as if everything had been normal between them. Then, without any explanation, she’d just cut him off completely. Maybe she thinks that he hadn’t noticed her sneaking out of her house and back in at all hours of the night -- probably after being with Reed.

Although it had been ridiculous to feel that way, the thought of her replacing him with Shoemaker had been gutting. Her sudden lack of interest in him had filled him with a sense of puzzlement that he’d never felt before. So much so, he’d been unable to focus. Today is the first day in almost two weeks that he’d finally been able to rally the requisite will to actually get stuff done.

Then came Lily with the baby bomb she'd landed and now all his plans to clear up his schedule are shot to hell.

Jesse’s gut clenches.

Tullisa pregnant. A baby? His baby!

He has no idea how to feel about that. Other than the sense of betrayal and the rush of anger still surging inside him, he’s numb.

At least, now he has a better understanding of why she’d severed all ties with him. From her behaviour, Jesse had simply assumed that Reed probably had something to do with it. The only way that he could have improved his mood had been by imagining that Reed has the same sort of personality that his wife had -- controlling and insecure.

Jesse had told himself that Reed had most likely felt threatened by his closeness with Tullisa -- that the man had her break all contact with him based on irrational jealousy. The way the two of them have been cavorting around town together makes his assumption entirely possible. Plus, his wife had done the same thing to him, after all -- ordering him to stay away from his young neighbor and promising the wrath of God if he didn’t. The idea that it could be the other way around is not so farfetched.

He’d thought the little prick had convinced Tullisa to pay him back with the same kind of treatment. Never in his wildest dreams would Jesse think that Tullisa had kept herself away from him to hide her pregnancy.

This week he'd been on a mission to make himself feel better. He'd counted himself lucky that Reed is courting her -- or whatever is going on between the two of them. 

Had seeing her with another man make him want to commit murder? Most definitely, it had. But he has no right to feel that way. He has no claim on Tullisa. And so, he’d used this notion of Reed being her new beau to keep himself from doing something really stupid, like dragging her back to his bedroom and acting out those fantasies that haunt him every damn night.

Because he hadn’t wanted to create trouble for her, because he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t be the type of man who stepped into someone’s relationship, he’d respected the distance Tullisa had put between them over the past few days. Doing so had killed him. It had cost him hours of sleep, hours working and peace of mind but he’d done it.

For her sake, he’d done it.

What does he have to offer a girl like Tullisa? 

The answer to that question pops into Jesse's mind without a moment's hesitation. 

Nothing. 

Other than a tumble between the sheets, he has nothing more to offer her. She deserves better than that. Home bred girls like Tullisa imagine a life of love and walking down the isle in their beautiful white gowns. He's played that role already and he has no more love to give. His wife had wrung it all out of him -- every last drop. 

He’d completely misinterpreted the distance Tullisa had erected between them. Maybe her aloofness should have told him everything that he should have known. He’d slept with her. He’d deflowered her and it had probably bruised her that he hadn’t brought it up when he saw her the next day.

The possibility that he’d been responsible for that kind of distress causes a wave of nausea to roll in Jesse’s stomach but he pushes it down. Before he feels any sort of sympathy for Tullisa, he will learn if she is really pregnant. If she is and had deliberately kept it a secret, so help him, she will face his wrath.

If anyone had asked him to pinpoint a deceptive person, she would never have crossed his mind because he’s never known her to have a malicious bone in her body. Maybe he’d been fooled. His mind must have been warped from that day she’d helped him during his hangover.

As it turns out, deception runs in her veins. Maybe it’s the same for all women and he truly is better off on his own.

The thought of kicking her out of his life permanently gives him the sensation of a nest of ants crawling around in his stomach. It’s sickening. Knowing that she is carrying his child, he’d never be able to simply ignore her. If her intention had been to keep his baby from him, then she will have the fight of her life on her hands.

A part of Jesse still won’t accept that Tullisa could be so conniving. He simply cannot associate this new picture of her with who he’s known her to be. They’ve been a part of each other's life for twenty-three years.

He may not remember it, but there are pictures of the day she’d been brought home from the hospital. It was the first time, he’d held her. And for the first time, Jesse realizes that all the restrictions he’d placed on himself where Tullisa is concerned, he’d been a child himself. At five years old, he'd kissed her cheek for the first time. At ten, he'd held her hand for the first time. At twenty, was the first time he'd carried her in his arms. He knows her better than anyone the same way that she knows him. These are the reasons that he cannot understand how she could do something so callous. 

Give her a chance to explain, his mind warns.

Jesse’s truck swallows up the few miles of road between his house and Doc Schumacher’s office. He swings into the space just outside the door, parking haphazardly before leaping out. He takes the steps two at time with long strides and pushes the door open. Immediately, his eyes scan the waiting area for Tullisa in her usual spot behind the reception desk.

Instead he finds Shelly-Ann. 

Striding forward, he asks, “where is she?”

The girl snickers at Jesse, reminding him that this is not the first time he’s had this passionate reaction when it comes to Tullisa.

“What did she do now?” Shelly replies.

Seeing on his face that it’s no laughing matter, she points to one of the rooms. “With a patient. Sit. Wait. It shouldn’t be long now.”

By the time Tullisa walks out of the examination room, pulling her mask off her face and gloves off her hands, a little of Jesse’s steam has already rolled out of him.

Since Shelly ordered him to take a seat, he’s had the time to think about it from Tullisa’s point of view. He’s come to the conclusion that he can’t saddle her with all the blame. That night is still mostly a mystery. He still has no idea how they’d ended up in bed together, but he knows that most of the responsibility is on his shoulder.

But to keep the knowledge of his baby growing inside her from him, knowing what he’s been through?

That’s low and he’s not sure that he can forgive her for it.

She freezes and her eyes widen when they land on him.

“Jesse,” she breathes.

“Don’t ask me what I’m doing here because you already know,” he says while walking up to her.

For some reason, Jesse has an image of not talking at all. Rather than giving her the thrashing that she deserves, he pictures himself hauling Tullisa against his chest and kissing her in front of everyone in the waiting room. 

That would definitely cause a stir in their small town. 

Considering that not too long ago, he'd wanted to wrap his hands around her neck, the sudden shift in his desires leaves him a little confused.

The air around them seems to thicken and crackle while he walks towards with this new temptation swimming through his bloodstream. Jesse stops in front of her, silently studying her pretty features. A light blush creeps up her neck and he notices the little pulse hammering just beneath her jaw. He wants to lean down and run his tongue against it before leaving his mark right there.

He clears his throat and shakes those images from his mind.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” he asks.

“I’m kinda busy,” she states and tries to go around him. “Maybe later? I have a date with Reed so...”

How dare she?”

Jesse reaches out a hand to snatch her by the upper arm.

“Not later. Now, Tullisa,” he commands. “And you might as well let Schumacher know that whatever it is between the two of you is done.”

The stunned look on Tullisa’s face mirrors exactly how Jesse feels about the words that just came out of his mouth. It feels to him like he'd just staked his claim on her which is the last thing he wants to do.

He half expects her to hit him for it. 

"You have some nerve," she says. 

Based on her soft, breathy tone, and the pitiful way that she’s looking at him, Jesse can tell that she has no confidence in her own defiance.

Taking advantage of her rare moment of weakness and unable to stop himself, he leans in closer and repeats softly, “now, Tullisa.”

Of their own volition, his eyes slip down to her tender, pink lips. He can’t remember if he’d kissed her and if he had, what those kisses -- those lips -- had felt like. Without warning, the need to remember assails Jesse.

Tullisa takes a deep breath, her eyes widening when he drops his head. Somewhere, somebody clears their throat and that’s the only thing that stops Jesse from solving that mystery right there in the waiting him at the vet’s office.

"Will you try to bolt if I let you go?" he asks. 

She shakes her head. 

He releases his hold on her and backs up a step.

“Lead the way,” Jesse says.