Looking for Trouble (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 1)

This crazy old woman was never going to leave Sophie alone.

Maybe she should move back in with her dad. And maybe dye her hair. Sophie’s resemblance to her mom was just too much for Rose Bishop to deal with. It probably didn’t help that she actually was sleeping with the woman’s son.

At least she hadn’t been named. Sure, people might be able to figure out that Alex was the prodigal son described in the letter, but no one knew he was hooking up with anyone, much less that it was Sophie. So this was more of a private jab than a public taunt. All right, it was both.

Out of curiosity, Sophie read the answer, and it made her want to whoop with triumph.

Dear Strumpet on My Street,

First of all, men are fully capable of resisting free sex, no matter how it’s disguised, so please don’t excuse your son for his actions. Now, as far as I can tell, the transgression here is sex between two willing participants, so my advice to you is to get over it. People like sex. In fact, our bodies are designed to like it very much indeed, so if this so-called floozy has a merry sex life, then more power to her. Your slut shaming is far more embarrassing than anything she could ever do in the privacy of her home.

If your son is actually in danger of throwing his life away for the sake of free sex with a stranger, then maybe you should’ve raised him to be a better man. Yet I somehow suspect you’re overreacting and he will emerge from this trap with nothing more than a few scratches for his trouble.

If you want any chance of making this reconciliation with your son work, keep your mouth shut, look the other way and stop shaming women and coddling men.

Well. That wrapped Rose up in a nutshell. But somehow Sophie didn’t think the woman would take the advice to heart.

The outrage Rose was going to feel as she read that actually cheered Sophie up. She wasn’t the malicious one here. She didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

Okay, she had some things to be ashamed of, but not nearly as much as the woman wanted to pin on her. Sophie couldn’t spend her days hiding from every little rumor. If she were that much of a coward, she’d never have seen sunlight.

She’d go to work and volunteer to deal with all of the kids’ programs today. She’d interact with the parents and sign people up for future programs and she’d look everyone straight in the eyes as she did it. This scandal wasn’t going to defeat her. Not that she’d let anyone know, at least.

But first, she’d have one more cinnamon roll.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE SIGN SAID Providence—2 miles, but Alex wasn’t exactly hopeful that he’d find good fortune there. They were meeting to walk through the final plans for tomorrow’s dedication, and Alex couldn’t help but think it was an appropriate site for the ceremony. Dead buildings, dead town, all to commemorate their dead family.

His dad’s disappearance had been the original injury, but it hadn’t been definitively fatal. They could have recovered. They could have survived.

His mom had always been difficult. She’d always been dramatic. She’d been fond of declaring people her enemies and making sure they knew it. She’d collected friends easily and just as easily turned on them. Life had been chaotic, but it had been life.

Their dad had been the calmer one. The steady one. But the less stable their mom had gotten, the more likely he’d been to walk away. To calm things down, maybe, but he hadn’t taken his sons with him. He’d just say, “I’ll be back,” and he’d leave them behind with a crying, raging mother. But he had always come back. An hour later. A day. He’d always come back until he hadn’t.

But dads walked out all the time. In small towns and big towns, in Wyoming or anywhere else in the world. People lost parents to death or divorce or abandonment. Alex could’ve dealt with that as well as anyone else did. A little damage, a few dings, but he could’ve gotten up and ridden on.

But he hadn’t lost his dad, he’d lost his entire family. First his father, and then, within days, his mother

had lost whatever balance she’d had. There was no way her husband would’ve left, and anyone who said otherwise was the enemy. They were evil, cruel, idiotic. Maybe they were even in on his disappearance. At first, she’d said he must have been hurt or killed, but that idea had quickly become too awful to tolerate. If he was dead, he was gone forever, and Rose Bishop knew he was coming back.

He had to come back.

For Alex, the worst loss of all had been his older brother. After all, his mother had always been unstable, and his dad had always been working. But Shane... He’d always been there. The smart, strong brother who was only one year older but had seemed so much bigger.

Shane had been his friend, his brother, his protector, his hero. And then he’d been lost, too, sucked into their mother’s delusions. He’s coming back, Alex. Mom thinks she found him in New Mexico. He’s been living on an Indian reservation. We’re all driving down tomorrow.

I don’t want him back, Alex had started thinking. Who wanted a dad who didn’t want you?

It hadn’t taken him long to start saying exactly that out loud. And then worse things. That he hated his mom. That he hated Shane. That he hoped Dad was dead because that was what he deserved.

His anger had only grown as he’d gotten older. As their mom had lost job after job. As they’d moved from house to duplex to cabin to apartment.

Shane had been perpetually sympathetic, echoing things he’d heard from their mom. We have to help her. She can’t do it on her own. We have to be the men of the house.

By fifteen, Alex had been determined not to be anything to anyone. At eighteen, he’d made sure of it by disappearing just like his dad had. It had felt cruel and empowering. It had felt right.

He didn’t know if it had been right anymore. On one hand, their mom hadn’t gotten any better. He’d avoided years of dealing with whatever was wrong with her, be it mental illness or self-absorption.