“Ugh.” She sighed loudly, as if she were the most persecuted teenager on earth.
Oh, save me, Jenna thought, but stood and said, “You’ve got five minutes.” She slid quickly out of the room and hurried down the stairs before her daughter could utter another syllable of protest. She wasn’t as angry as she’d been last night, but still wanted to shake some sense into Cassie. What had the kid been thinking? She wasn’t, Jenna. That’s the problem. Cassie’s just a kid. She was just out joyriding and raising a little hell with her friends. Something you did more than once.
Still, Cassie was on a course set straight for big trouble—life-altering, if not life-threatening, trouble—and it scared Jenna to death.
She was wiping up spilled coffee grounds when she heard her daughter’s muffled footsteps on the stairs.
“Okay, so I’m awake,” Cassie groused as she stepped barefoot onto the hardwood floor of the kitchen. She was wearing pajama bottoms that exposed her navel, a cropped-off flannel top, and a major pout. “Couldn’t this wait?”
“It’s waited too long already.”
“Great.” Yawning, she padded to the coffeepot, poured herself a cup, and plopped down at the table. “So talk.”
“Can the attitude, Cass. I’m sick to the back teeth of it. Today I want you to clean your room, and I mean top to bottom, then I want you to call your dad and tell him everything about last night. I already tried to reach him, but he was ‘out.’ Maybe you’ll have better luck. Besides, I think you should be the one to tell him what you’ve been doing. Then, once all that’s accomplished, we’ll discuss your social life.”
“Meaning Josh.”
“Right now, I’m not too crazy about him.”
“You’ve never liked him,” Cassie charged, sipping from her cup.
“It’s not him—I’ve told you that—I don’t like what’s happening with you. What in the world were you doing sneaking out and going up to the Point?”
“It was no big deal.”
“Tell that to Sheriff Carter.”
Cassie leaned back in her chair. “He likes you, too, doesn’t he?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Mom, you’re not stupid. The guy is turned on by you. Isn’t it weird? All the male attention you get? Mr. Brennan. Mr. Settler. Now the cop. Geez, do you know how many of these local yokels are cruising the Internet, checking out your Web site and all the other ones dedicated to you? I bet even Hans rents your movies and…oh, shit…” She blinked quickly and swiped at her eyes, then sniffed loudly. “It was just so much easier in L.A.”
“Maybe it was,” Jenna allowed, “but you don’t need to use foul language, and we’re not talking about me or my Web site or the move. We’re talking about you, your attitude, and your lies to me. You’re going down the wrong path, Cassie, and I’m scared for you. Really scared. You could be making choices that will change your life forever.”
“I’m okay,” Cassie said, her eyes dry again, her chin jutted, lips folded over her teeth.
“Are you?” Jenna demanded, angry and worried and knowing she wasn’t getting through to her daughter.
“You know, Mom, maybe this isn’t all about me. You’ve been really uptight lately. But then you always are around Christmas.”
That much was true. Ever since the tragedy surrounding White Out, filmed during the holidays, Jenna had developed an aversion to anything remotely connected with Christmas.
Cassie leaned low in her chair, cradling her cup on her bare midriff. “Most families have fun around the holidays, you know? They have parties and Christmas trees, and go caroling and shopping and sledding.”
“Is that what you want to do? Carol and shop and sled?” Jenna asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee and noticing that her hands were trembling slightly. Get a grip. You can’t bring Jill back. It was just an accident, remember? But the niggling thought that what had happened in Colorado was more than a freak accident had always stayed with her, lingering at the edges of her mind, tinged with guilt that she’d survived while her baby sister had been killed.
“Maybe,” Cassie said indifferently.
Jenna couldn’t imagine her eldest daughter wearing a wool coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck as sh
e walked down the frozen streets of Falls Crossing and happily caroled the neighborhood with Silent Night or The First Noel. No—it just didn’t fit.
Cassie set her cup on the table. “Geez, I just want to have some fun. Is that so bad?”
Jenna stirred cream into her cup. “And sneaking out and going up to the site of a murder to get high is fun.”
“Yeah!” Cassie leaned back in her chair and folded her arms under her breasts, stretching the skin of her abdomen. Her belly-button ring winked in the kitchen lights. “It beats hanging out here and doing nothing.” She glanced longingly at the windows. “I’m so sick of this weather. I am gonna call Dad. He’ll let me come home for Christmas.”