Country Lovin': Chapter Eleven

Jessie didn't know what had urged him to grab a ride with Nadine, telling Laremy he could take himself back home and that tomorrow, he'd take him out to lunch.

He was now sitting on Kitty's couch, sitting by Nadine, waiting for Valene to come home. They had passed her, but he had resisted the urge to look at her. If he did, he'd get that feeling back in his stomach. That feeling that he needed to protect her.

It had shocked the hell out of him when he saw her on Molly. That had been the last thing he had ever pictured. Yes, she was stubborn and had a comeback for everything, but fighting? No, he didn't think that the city woman had had it in her.

To help calm down Nadine, he got her to talk to him. She talked to him about the accident in the eleventh grade, which had gotten her suspended from school for a week. Nadine had seen the whole thing from the table across from Valene's. She had told him that at that time, Valene had been going with one of the most cutest boys in her grade. It was during lunch when it had happened. Valene and her boyfriend, Brandon, had just been sitting there, talking and laughing, when Mary Anne had come up and began to call her ugly, saying things that weren't true, then having the nerve to tell Brandon things, like she's slept around, and Brandon actually beginning to believe them. He had even stood up, in the midst of all this, and told her that maybe they shouldn't be together. He had left her there, and Valene had relieved her anger on poor Mary Anne's nose. Breaking it to the point that when it had healed it was very crooked.

Jessie had been here going on three hours, and Valene had yet to appear. "Are you sure you said she was all right?" Kitty said holding a cup of brewed coffee in her hands.

"Yes. She said she was going to walk home." Nadine assured.

"She better come through that door within the next five minutes, if not, the two of you have some explaining." Kitty walked past the two, who were standing, and had been for almost forty-five minutes. She sat down in her chair and sipped her coffee.

"I'm going to go look for her. It doesn't take three hours to walk from the diner to this house. Maybe from the Bar and Diner, buy not from the Rosary Diner." Jessie declared.

He grabbed his hat from the top of the couch and placed it on his head. "You comin' Nadine?" He asked as he opened the screen door, his sunglasses in one hand.

Nadine took a few seconds, then shook her head. She wanted to stay with her Aunt Kitty. "No, you go on ahead." Nadine also figured that it would be nice for the two of them to spend some quality time together.

Jessie shrugged, placed on his sunglasses and strolled out to go to his truck, when he saw it wasn't there. Sighing deeply, he walked back to the door, meeting Nadine there, she handed him her keys. "Bring her back, I don't want to have to face my Aunt Kitty alone." She instructed.

Jessie nodded and walked to Nadine's car, which, since he was used to his truck, made him feel as though he was sitting on the floor.

º º º º º º º

Valene fluttered her good eye open. She had hoped that the fight, that everything that had happened, was over. She had hoped that she was still in her room in New York City, all warm, all safe, that her life wasn't an empty abyss.

The sun was beating down upon her. Her shade had disappeared. She groaned because her eye was killing her. Obviously, the sand which had blown into her eye, hadn't moved. She turned towards the tree, and tried to help herself up.

She was having second thoughts about going to the doctor. He could help clean out her eye without her practically dying in the process. She leaned against the tree and tried to take deep, long breaths. She was finding it hard to breathe through her nose as well. Figures, I try to stand up for my sister, and I break my nose and I have a shiner. Of course, this happens in front of Jessie. Just...figures.

She wiped her hands on her shirt, and decided she might want to head back into town. Her mind wasn't concentrating on her Aunt Kitty, her sister, Nadine, or Jessie, but on getting her eye cleaned. She was finding quicker than anything, that if she moved her eye, even in the slightest, it stung, and a shot of pain would shoot through her entire body.

The sun wasn't helping. It was hot as the devil, and there was nothing she could do about it. She was embarrassed beyond total disbelief. Her eye was puffy, swollen, and filled with sand, her nose was probably swollen, bruised, and she couldn't breathe through it, plus her clothes and hair didn't help either. Plus, with what she had done in front of everyone, she should've just...No. She wasn't going to let that bimbo talk about her sister like that. No one talked about her sister. That was a very very large no no.

She reached into her purse and yanked out a ciggarette. Valene was having an urge the size of the moon, for a ciggarette. She pulled out her lighter, and lit herself one. She found herself calming down, thinking clearly. Yes, she couldn't breathe out her nose, and yes, her eye was still filled with sand and it was closed, but she felt better inside, and that was what counted.

Molly was right. You do look like a sixteen wheeler crashed into your face. Maybe this will chase off Jessie. She grinned at this thought. She didn't know why, but maybe because it was ironic on how things turned out. Molly told Valene that she was ugly, yet Molly must've been ugly enough to go get herself done all over. She shook her head and took a final drag from her ciggarette and tossed it to the ground.

There was a honk of a horn and she ignored it. If it was someone coming to pick her up, too bad. She didn't want help. She didn't want sympathy. And damn it, she didn't want pity. She could do this on her own. She did it before, why the hell not now?

"Valene, will ya get the hell in this car?" It was Jessie. Of course.

"Jess, go home." Valene's voice proved that she was less then thrilled to see him. Either he didn't hear it, or he just didn't care, he persisted.

"Stop being so damn pig headed, woman! Get in this damn car!" Jessie demanded.

Valene turned to Jessie. "I'm not being pig headed, Jessie. First of all, I'm going to the doctor, and no, you cannot take me. I'm going on my own. I did this to myself, so I'm planning to do this, on my own. You understand? Just...let me do this. Okay?"

She heard Jessie let out a sigh. She turned and kept walking. "I don't have time for this, don't hurt my pride thing. Okay? I told your sister, I was going to bring you home."

She paused, not from Jessie's words, but from another shot of pain from her eye. She bit her bottom lip, then continued.

"Are you hurtin'?" He asked, his voice soft.

A woman she wished she could be, was the one who could give in easy. Especially, to a man like Jessie. She shook her head at the stupid thoughts.

"No? Yeah? What?" He asked, his voice a little rough around the edges.

"What the hell do you--" Unable to finish, a pain racked through her face, down her neck, and across her back.

When she felt Jessie by her, she shrugged him off. "Just...go...away, Jessie." She began to walk away, trying not to move her eye.

"All right. Enough is enough. C'mon, woman." Jessie lifted Valene into his arms.

"Jessie! Get...let me go!"

"No. I'm takin' you to the doctor, then I'm going to call your Aunt Kitty and tell 'em that your all right." Jessie planted Valene in the passenger side seat. "You sit there, understand?"

Giving up, with nothing else to do, she nodded. She pushed her hair out of her face and sat there. She put on her seat belt and stared ahead.

º º º º º º º

"That hurts!" Valene cried as Doctor Louis McCabbler tried to clean out Valene's eye.

"I'm sorry, Miss. Zimmerman. I truly am."

"Ow! Can you give me some morphine? Do I have to go through--Ow!"

"There, all done. Better?" As Dr. McCabbler finished cleaning it, he placed an eye patch then taped around the edges.

"God. Be more gentle next time. Ouch. It's tender." She carefully touched the patch and then slid from the table. She sighed and held out her hand. "Thank you Dr. McCabble. I'm sorry I was being a bitch." She smiled and shook hands with the doctor.

"It's understandable, there was some sand inside your eye. Now, I want you to be careful and your eye should lose some of that swelling by tomorrow evening."

Valene turned and pulled a twenty out of her purse. "Should I give this to you or to the lady out front?" She asked.

Dr. McCabble just smiled and shook his head. "Don't worry about it Miss. Zimmerman. Let me just say that it is a bit of helping human society."

"Are you sure? I don't want to feel like a heel." She laughed as Dr. McCabble led her to the door and opened it.

"I'm positive. Now, you go on home and you rest some."

She smiled. "Thank you Mr.McCabble. You're a sweet man." She turned and walked out of the office.

Jessie looked up from the Sports Illustrated magazine and grinned. "Did ya have fun?" He teased.

She just stuck out her tongue and stopped at the main desk. "This is for Dr. McCabble." She smiled and handed the lady behind the desk the twenty. Valene then turned and walked past Jessie and out of the building.

"Didn't sound too painful, did it?" Jessie asked as he followed Valene outside.

"Well, you get wacked in the eye, get sand in it, then you go in there and you have it cleaned out, and you tell me if it doesn't hurt." When he didn't respond, she smiled and said, "That's what I thought." She climbed into the passenger side of the truck and buckled her seatbelt.

Jessie licked his lips and glanced over at Valene, who was looking out the passenger side window, her purse in her lap.

He had heard her scream in the doctor's office and it had made his stomach knot and churn. He didn't know why, except for the fact that he was starting to get these feelings that he didn't understand or have ever had before.

It was either the heat or it was these new feelings that was making his throat dry and and unable to let him ask her a question which he'd been wanting to ask her for the past day and a half.

Valene could feel Jessie staring at her, and it was making her stomach feel all fluttery, like a million butterflies were flying around inside of her stomach. She crossed her legs and tried to keep her concentration on the large plains and tall trees that they were passing.

After failing that attempt, she turned around and faced him. "What are you looking at?" She demanded.

"Tryin' to find that our for myself." He smirked. Then he lost the smirk and looked straight ahead. "I'm sorry 'bout that."

She raised her eye brow and smirked. "Are you? You seem to pop out a little retort whenever you can." She replied coolly.

"No, I am. I...I have a question I'd like to ask you." He told her.

"Oh, do you?" A smile spread across her face.

"Yes, if fact I do. Will ya listen a lil' bit?" He asked.

"I might, if you ask me now instead of when I'm lying in my grave." She laughed at her own little corny joke and adjusted herself into the seat.

"Will ya go ta dinner with me?" He asked, looking over in her direction.

Gasping, she looked over at him. "Excuse me?"

He smiled at her uneasiness. "Would ya like ta go ta dinner with me?" He repeated, knowing full well that she had heard him the first time.

She smiled and placed a hand on her forehead. This was not something she had expected, least of all from him. "Why?" She asked plainly.

"Because, I want ta. And...maybe 'cause I like ya." He added.

She raised an eye brow and laughed. "You serious? This isn't some kind of joke to make me feel like an ass?" She asked.

He shook his head and laughed. "No. I'm genuinely askin' ya if ya want ta come with me." He licked his bottom lip, keeping his gaze on the road.

Not knowing what else to think, or what else to say, she nodded her head. "Okay. I'll go to dinner with you. Just don't pull anything stupid, okay?"

He laughed and glanced over at her. "I'll try my best."

"Country Lovin': Chapter Twelve"