Chapter 28 Questions
Questions
Jenny
So long as you’re with me, I’m home.
His words rolled over and over in my mind, keeping me warm, fighting the fear, reminding me I wasn’t in this alone as we packed up my apartment the following weekend.
The furniture was staying, along with basic kitchen essentials, but my good bakeware and cooking supplies were coming with me along with most of my clothes.
Including the new lingerie I had yet to work up the courage to wear. Every time I looked at it, it seemed to get racier.
I should have started smaller, but Maxine and Maggie were persuasive.
Smaller?
If it was any smaller, it may as well be dental floss.
Seeing everything I wanted to keep fit into one large suitcase, I decided then and there to hit the mall with Maxine and Maggie to buy more clothes. My old clothes became less appealing with every day that passed.
Maybe Vera and Julie could come, too.
Maybe.
Using the interior stairs, we piled the boxes in front of the window at the entrance to Buns and Biscuits. This way we could bring all the boxes down at once and Deacon could pull his truck right up to the curb to make things easier.
Outside, the birds celebrated the arrival of spring, while I celebrated Deacon’s short sleeves and the flex of his biceps as he carted box after box down the stairs.
On his final pass, I latched onto his arm and bit his biceps.
He laughed out loud. “Feeling feral, baby?”
“A little,” I admitted. I scrunched my nose and tipped my head back to meet his eyes. “Kind of want to lick you right now.”
He grinned, that long dimple in his cheek the barometer for his happiness. “Hold that thought until I get you home.” His eyebrows rose, a teasing light in his eyes. “Unless you’re into public displays?”
I leaned closer. “Everybody’s at church. You want to take me in front of the window?”
He made a grab for me, but I laughed and danced out of his grasp.
I propped the door open, walked out into the sunshine, and stretched my hands up to the sky.
“It’s a perfect day,” I exclaimed softly as he popped open the liftgate.
He effortlessly hefted the largest box and pushed it into the back of the cargo area.
One box after another, he fit them in until there was no room left.
“Is there anything left upstairs?”
“Just my suitcase and toiletries.”
“Excellent. We can fit those in the back seat.” He jerked his chin up at me. “Are you ready for this?”
I waved a hand toward the truck with a laugh. “You’re asking me now?”
“I didn’t say we were going to do anything about it,” he retorted with a chuckle as he closed the distance between us.
A prickle of awareness crept up the back of my neck.
I met Deacon’s eyes and watched the smile on his face fade away at whatever he saw on my face.
His brow furrowed as his gaze sharpened on my face. “What is it?”
I turned my head slowly, the primal part of my brain taking over in the face of a sudden threat.
But that’s all the warning I got.
In her signature high heels, wearing a short wool jacket over an A-line dress with a nipped in waist, she had dressed for a dinner party rather than a walk down Moose Lake’s Main Street.
Her hair, glossy and thick, fell in soft waves around her pretty face.
Playing lady of the manor but choosing one red flag after another, she never met her objective.
Perhaps if she’d focussed on single men rather than those who were married, she might have had more luck.
Even then, the single men she chose were of the calibre who enjoyed raising their voices as well as their fists.
They never lasted long, usually ousted five minutes after the first time their hand landed on the doorknob leading to my bedroom.
For that I’d be forever grateful.
She carried herself like a lady, but the closer she got, the more cracks appeared in the illusion.
I stood frozen in the middle of the sidewalk though some latent instinct screamed at me to get out of her way.
Her gaze turned calculating as she took in Deacon’s truck packed to the gills before returning to me with a glint in her eyes.
Deacon frowned, his big body sending out icy waves of warning as she approached.
Reaching for my hand, he acknowledged my mother with a barely polite nod while doing his utmost to usher me toward the truck without causing a scene.
Focussing in on our clasped hands, the corner of her mouth lifted in a parody of a smile.
“Well, well, isn’t this something.”
“Mom,” I warned sharply.
She laughed and opened her clutch.
“Let’s go,” Deacon ordered, pressing his palm to the small of my back.
“Oh no,” my mother answered while pulling a cigarette from her purse. “You’re going to want to hear this.”
“Stop it, Mom. What you’re doing isn’t right and you know it.”
“What is she doing, Jenny?” Deacon asked, his voice a low warning.
I stood frozen, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
My pounding heart hit my stomach, setting off the clamouring of my internal alarm.
Pursing her thinning lips around her cigarette pronounced the lipstick bleed in the cracks around her mouth as she tilted her head and flicked her lighter.
Her hard eyes weighed Deacon as she sucked in and blew a circle of smoke above his head.
I locked my knees, my eyes darting between hers, silently begging her not to do it.
She dipped her chin and narrowed her eyes.
I swallowed, a sliver of hope rising from the pit of my stomach.
But then Deacon’s heavy arm rounded my shoulders, and he tucked me into his side.
Oh, God.
He was protecting me.
But I wasn’t the one in her line of fire.
Not directly.
Her lip curled. “Tell me,” she purred. “How’s your daddy?”
“Mom,” I clipped. “That’s enough.”
Deacon’s body tensed.
She cackled. “It’s been a minute since I last saw him.” She wagged her finger back and forth in the space between us. “We should have gone on a double date, but you know, your Daddy liked for us to stay at my place when he visited.”
“You’re out of control,” I snapped. “You’re so bitter and angry, you can’t stand for anyone to have a modicum of happiness.”
“Not anyone,” she hissed, eyes narrowing on my face. “Just you.”
She glanced up at him, her face turning gleeful as she took in his shocked expression. “Aw, she didn’t tell you?”
She tilted her head to the side, a grotesque mask of mock sympathy on her face for a split second before she dropped it and took her parting shot. “I wonder what else she’s hiding from you.”
Deacon straightened to his full height. “Stay away from her,” he growled. “You talk to her again, I’ll make sure you never work here again. You hear me?”
Her eyes widened and her face paled.
The farming community up here was small. One word and she’d be out.
Stepping back, she gathered herself together and lifted her chin. Before leaving, she dropped her cigarette on the path outside my door and crushed it under her foot.
One final insult before sashaying away.
Deacon near yanked the door off its hinges as he pulled me inside.
His hand shook as he pushed his hair back from his face. “Is there anything left? Anything else standing between us?”
I shook my head, my knees quaking.
“Are you sure?” he barked, his eyes hard and narrow. “I’m not feeling too forgiving right now. If there’s anything else, you need to tell me now. No more secrets. No more keeping me in the dark.”
I nodded quickly. “I didn’t tell you about Adam because I wasn’t sure you’d believe me,” I answered, my voice shaking.
Tears welled in my eyes. “I wasn’t ready to talk about the baby because it still hurts too much.”
He barely softened.
I swallowed and whispered the last, “And your father wasn’t my secret to tell.”
He scrubbed his hand over his hair, turning and walking away from me before spinning back around on his heel and barking, “Fuck!”
I began to shake.
His dark, angry eyes ran over me from head to toe. “Jenny,” he growled. “I don’t have time for this right now. You’re safe. I’d never hurt you. But my whole fucking worldview just blew apart.”
I nodded, my own anger tightly under wraps. I’d deal with my mother’s final betrayal later.
He blew out a harsh breath. “I need to think.”
I sucked in a breath.
He grimaced. “Not about you, never about you. I’m pissed you didn’t tell me,” he warned, dark eyes flashing with anger. “I would have much rather heard it from you than like this.”
“I know,” I replied quietly.
His eyebrows rose. “Does my father know you know? Does my mother know?”
I chewed my bottom lip and ducked my head. This was perhaps the worst part of all; the three of us holding a secret meant to tear him and me apart.
He stalked toward me and grasped my upper arms. Staring down into my face, he snarled, “No more secrets.”
I swallowed. “She knows. And he warned me not to tell you.”
“When?” he barked, gently moving his big hands up and down my arms as if to warm me.
Only then did I realize how hard I was shaking.
“Back when I found out…” I trailed off.
I didn’t want to be the wedge between him and his family.
“And?” he prodded, dipping his knees to search my eyes.
“And when we went there for dinner, in the kitchen, he asked me not to tell you,” I admitted.
His grip tightened and his lip curled back. “Everything makes fucking sense now.”
Yanking me forward, he stared down into my face and snarled, “He had no right to put you in that position. You are mine, Jenny. You’re not his or anyone else’s to fuck over. Is there anything else? Anything else I don’t know? Any-fucking-body else keeping us apart?”
I shook my head, tears welling in my eyes. “That’s it. That’s everything.”
He held my eyes, his wary. After a moment, he pulled me into his chest and cupped the back of my head. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to carry that for him.”
My body softened against his.
It was all out in the open, and it was going to be okay.
My breath shuddered out of me in rough pants.
I closed my eyes, pressed close, and drew on his strength as I tried not to cling to him.
But he only held me for a moment more before gently pushing me away and stepping back.