Chapter 8 #2
She held up a hand and glared at him. “No. You’ve said your piece.
You’ve been very vocal about where you think the blame lies.
And, for the most part, I agree with you.
I could have been more emotionally available.
I should have shared my crippling, excruciating pain at the loss of our baby with you.
” He made a quiet, distressed sound at the back of his throat at her words.
“All the nights I cried myself to sleep, I should have called for you. Allowed you to hold me and held you in return. We should have mourned together. I made those mistakes. I can’t undo them. But I also can’t change who I am.”
“I didn’t want you to change, goddamnit.” His voice was low, frustrated. He raked an irate hand through his hair, leaving it a shaggy mess. “I just wanted to know you.”
The silence between them teemed with sad regret. An ocean of unspoken conversations between them. Decisions not made and roads not taken.
“I understand that now. But you’re hurting me, Smith.”
His face went slack and his pupils dilated.
“And maybe…” Her vision went wavy with hot tears. “Maybe I deserve it, but I find I’m not as thick-skinned as I believed I was. I’m not strong enough to take this punishment any longer.”
“Kenna.” She barely heard his quiet, hoarse exhalation.
Tears were seeping down her cheeks, the first she’d let him see since her miscarriage, and now that they’d started she found that she was quite incapable of stopping.
He moved toward her, arms outstretched, and she flinched away from his touch.
“No. Please. If you touch me right now, I’ll fall apart and I need…” Her voice was nasally and choked with tears. “I need to keep it together because I’m not done.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re hurting me, but you’re also pissing me off. As you’ve repeatedly pointed out, I made a lot of mistakes during our marriage but so did you. And while it’s easy to blame me for everything, it also isn’t fair.”
“What mistakes?”
“Moving out of our bedroom.”
“You were sick.”
“And your solution was to leave me alone?” Her outraged question was followed by a long, stunned silence. “When I was feeling vulnerable and terrible and bloated and unattractive, you thought the best course of action would be to leave me to it?”
“I asked if you wanted me to stay.” Now he sounded defensive and surly.
“You were clearly uncomfortable. And we’ve now established that I’m not great at asking for help. So, of course, I told you it was okay. That I would be fine. Newsflash, Smith. It wasn’t okay. And I wasn’t fine.”
“You should have said something.”
“You shouldn’t have put me in the position of needing to.
” God, it was becoming glaringly obvious that they were better off apart.
Why was she bothering to rehash all of this now?
“And afterwards, you never came back. And that reinforced my belief that you’d only ever wanted this marriage because of the baby.
And that you were biding your time before leaving.
If I’m terrible at communicating, Smith, you’re not much better, so maybe get off your high horse and accept some responsibility for this disaster.
I’ve admitted to making mistakes. I know that I’m not…
easy. But maybe you’re not quite the great guy you think you are, either!
Now, if you don’t mind, I need to call an Uber or something.
I refuse to stay here another night. I’ve had enough of being treated like some kind of pariah who destroys everything she touches. ”
“You can’t leave.,” he said weakly. “There’s nowhere to go.”
“Don’t worry about it, Smith, it’s not your problem. I’ll figure it out. And you know what? I’ve decided that you don’t own exclusive rights to this town. I’m on leave. I’ve been injured and Riversend seems like a lovely spot to rest and recuperate. So I’ll be staying.”
“McKenna, f’fuck’s sake, you’re being unreasonable,” he grumbled. “And irrational. It’s four p.m. on a Sunday. There are no places available to rent.”
“Unreasonable and irrational?” she repeated mockingly. “Well then, it looks like this town is already changing me for the better, right? Bringing out all those messy emotions you wanted to see.”
She limped to the front door.
“I’ll send the driver in for my bag as soon as he arrives,” she threw over her shoulder.
“Christ, I can carry your fucking bag for you.”
“No, thank you,” she replied breezily as she walked out. “I don’t want a damned thing more from you.”
Kenny had never slammed a door before that moment, and after it shut with a satisfying bang behind her, she wondered why on earth she’d never done it before.
She also wondered why she didn’t lose her temper more often, because quite honestly, this rage surging through her veins felt awesome.
But once she found herself outside on the empty porch with the adrenaline starting to wear off, she began to feel a little foolish.
Those brave words felt good but she didn’t have a clue what to do next. She didn’t know where to go or who to talk to. Still, one thing was certain. She damned well refused to set foot back in that house tonight. She would sleep out on the porch if need be.
She hobbled to the swing and sat down heavily, giving herself a moment to absorb everything that had happened. Her head dropped on a deep and despondent sigh.
She allowed herself the luxury of a few angry tears before sniffling and scrubbing them away with the heel of one hand. Time to gut up and be strong.
She lifted her phone and began searching for a place to stay.
She only became aware of Smith’s presence when a warm blanket was draped over her shoulders. The unexpected contact startled her and the seat swung wildly.
“Easy, Kenna, it’s just me,” he murmured, the words soft and unthreatening. “You’ve been out here for hours and it’s getting chilly.”
“There’s nowhere for me to go,” she admitted in a small, defeated voice.
He sank heavily down next to her, leaving a few inches of space between them.
“I spoke with Tina and… Well, she knows of a place,” he said after a few long moments. “She’s not sure it’s available but because it’s not in great condition, it’s more likely to be vacant. She’ll find out about it tomorrow.”
“Why did you do that?”
“What? Talk to Tina?”
“Yes.” Her voice was thick with tears. She was such a mess right now. Her emotions weren’t usually so…present.
“Because you need to rest and recuperate.” She heard a smidgeon of warmth in his voice as he repeated her words back to her. “And this is a great town to do that.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“You do your thing. I do mine. We’ll be unlikely to ever see each other.”
“I don’t know what my thing is,” she mused, suddenly daunted. “I don’t think I’ve ever had real free time before.”
That seemed to trip him up and he stared at her in bemusement.
“What? Like…never?”
“When I was a child, maybe? But as soon as we were old enough, our dad wanted us to learn the business from a grassroots level and that meant hard hats and boots, out on construction sites, doing physical labor.”
He looked horrified.
“You’re shitting me, c’mon.”
“Not at all.”
“That’s literal child labor.”
“We weren’t getting paid.”
“Child slavery, then.”
She actually laughed in genuine amusement at that. Something she hadn’t thought she’d do for a while yet. He just sounded so comically aghast.
“Dad thought it built character. The boys loved it for the most part. For the first few years we were pretty much go-fers for the work crews and site foremen. We were all so eager and competitive for our father’s approval and attention that we soaked the experience up like thirsty sponges.
“We were encouraged to ask questions, but absolutely not allowed to touch or operate any equipment or heavy machinery. Not until we were eighteen. We got the grunt work. Lifting, carrying, fetching, that kind of stuff. I was stuck in the on-site offices most of the time, which really grated. My brothers were out in the thick of things while I was treated like a glorified assistant for a secretary.”
“How long before you had them pulling equal office duty?”
She gaped at him, expression nothing less than astonished.
“You’re too ambitious and stubborn to allow yourself to be pigeonholed,” he said a little self-consciously in response to that look.
“Uh…” She gathered her thoughts, a little flustered by his accurate read of her personality.
And unsure if he thought it those were admirable traits or not.
“A year, at most. By the time I was fifteen, I was so adept at problem-solving and ironing out snags that the site managers were singing my praises to dad. The boys, meanwhile, could wield hammers and nail guns efficiently—and Cade was old enough by then to start learning how to operate heavy machinery—but none of them had any knowledge of how to manage a job site. So Dad decided it was important for them to get some office experience too. And that meant rotating duties.”
“And eventually, I assume, you got to operate some heavy machinery too?” he asked with absolute certainty.
“I’m a licensed and accredited tower crane operator,” she divulged with a shy shrug and a small, proud smile. She might be a surgeon, but that license still felt like one of her greatest achievements.
His clear fascination upon hearing her abashed confession gratified her.
“What? How? You’re such a nervous driver.”
She laughed self-consciously.
“You operate a crane, Smith. You don’t drive it. A completely different skill set.”
He still looked utterly bemused and captivated by the information.
It had been so long since Kenny had seen anything remotely flattering in his gaze when he looked at her that she wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the warmth flooding her system. The dopamine rush was making her a little giddy.
“Wow, Kenna, that’s a fucking amazing accomplishment. When did you find the time to get licensed?” The praise made her blush and she fought the urge to preen a little.
She was still angry with him. Still hurt by all that had been said before. It would take more than a little praise to coax her out of that hurt. But, after all the negativity of the last few days, his words were like a soothing balm on her tattered ego.
“I got my license when I was twenty-one. At that point I was already in medical school, but it was important to me to get it. Up until I was nineteen I honestly believed I was going into the family business. I wanted to be on-site and in the thick of things. Nothing corporate like Cade or Nox.”
“What changed?”
She swallowed, knowing they were venturing into painful territory. She didn’t want any more pain tonight.
“Sorry. I got a little distracted…” she murmured self-consciously, skirting over his question.
“I was saying I don’t know what I’d do with my free time.
I went straight from school holidays on construction sites to university and medical school.
I’ve always been so busy. I won’t know what to do with myself for the next few months. ”
He didn’t respond for a moment, seeming lost in thought as he stared at her. She was just starting to feel uncomfortable when he blinked and shrugged.
“Maybe you shouldn’t do anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve never simply stopped, Kenna, and allowed yourself to rest. Maybe that’s what you should be doing on this vacation.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek as she contemplated his words, not really sure what to say in response to them.
She’d never really been one to rest. She wasn’t sure how to do that.
But she’d felt a little pathetic after admitting it to Smith, who’d always been so relaxed in his own skin and around others.
“How long are you staying?” she asked. It was a question that he’d avoided answering before, but she was desperate for a change in subject and happy that they were at least able to have a civil conversation for now.
It hadn’t seemed remotely possible just two hours ago.
“A couple of months. I needed a break after everything.”
“After me, you mean?” Shit. That question—a clumsy misfire into an uneasy truce—could renew hostilities if he decided to take it the wrong way.
“Not just you.” His tone was flat, revealing nothing. He got up abruptly. “Come on, I’m hungry. You must be too. I’ll reheat the leftover lasagna.”
“Do I have time to change?” she asked, peering down at her black leggings and gray tank top. She’d been in these since six this morning and it was now nearly seven.
“Shower too if you’d like.”
He got up and offered an arm for support. With the cumbersome boot, she had no choice but to take the assistance and she gripped the proffered arm tentatively.
She tried hard to ignore the heat, hardness, and strength of that arm, but failed miserably as her hand curled around his forearm.
If this were another time, when they’d been different versions of themselves, she would have wound her arm through his and leaned against him. But it wasn’t and Kenny was honest enough with herself to admit that she’d never been comfortable enough in her own skin to be that carefree or fearless.
She wished that there was some way of unlocking that McKenna, but she’d been ruthlessly suppressed and imprisoned in an airless, dark box, buried too deep to ever find her way back to the light.