25. Maggie #2
I took a few steps forward and leaned down to kiss her forehead. My hands were still occupied with the grain scoops, so I couldn’t play with the strands of her hair like I wanted to. “You are breathtaking, Maggie Hennicke.”
It was true. Her light-wash jeans and gray polo sweater—which I was pretty sure was mine—trumped any other woman I had ever seen. Maggie was the only woman I would ever see for the rest of my life. I could only pray she felt the same about me.
“Thank you.” Her voice was a bare whisper as her eyes gazed at me through thick lashes.
I finished feeding the horses, then filled their water buckets while they ate. Maggie insisted on helping me turn out the horses to the paddock, claiming it was the least she could do after I won my game today and “did her job.”
We walked the short distance back to the house together, hand-in-hand, as we took in the sunset.
I didn’t think I had been anywhere as gorgeous as Wyoming.
Reds and oranges and purples filled the sky like an explosion where the sun met the horizon.
The bursts of color reflected on the rest of the sky, with small clouds peppering the giant dome above us.
“It’s so beautiful,” my almost-wife breathed as she gazed upward.
Except, I could only look at her. The way her chocolate hair framed her face and tiny brown freckles dusted over her nose.
The way her soft lips revealed her white teeth, parting at the view above us.
The way she was so appreciative of the little things.
I was utterly and irrevocably captivated by this woman.
If this moment could have lasted longer, I would have sold my soul for it, because what we walked into was the polar opposite of the peaceful serendipity outside.
Loud music played in the kitchen as the sound of glass breaking drew my attention to the angry drunk beside the kitchen island.
And what did you fucking know, he found the overpriced bottle of whiskey that was hidden in the dining cabinet.
My blood was past boiling. I was fucking steaming.
“Dad, what the hell?!” Maggie shouted over the loud music. It looked like Richard was pouring whiskey into glasses, finishing them, then dropping them onto the floor. He seethed in an angry rage when he caught my eye. He stomped toward me, and instinctively, I stood in front of my girl.
I knew the punch was coming before I saw it.
My left arm grabbed Richard’s wrist and held it above his head.
He stabbed me with the pointer finger on his other hand.
“You! You knocked up my daughter. You fucked up her life. I am her father, and I am going to make you pay for every damn wrong thing you’ve done in your life.
” His words were slurred, but his message was extremely clear:
You’re not good enough for my daughter.
But really, who wasn’t good enough for whom here?
“Richard, I’m sorry for not telling you what happened sooner, and I’m sorry things didn’t turn out how you wanted them to, but this is what happened.
” It was damn hard taking the high road, but I wasn’t about to let loose and let Maggie see how much I truly hated her father for doing this to her.
“I’ve taken care of your daughter for the last-”
“Fuck off! Taken care of? I would hardly call slumming it with your employee ‘taking care of her.’ You took advantage of my daughter!” He tried to throw a punch with his other hand. I caught it the same way I did before, holding both of his wrists in front of my face.
“Dad, stop it right now!” Maggie cried. She was beside me now. Her crumpled face made me want to rip Richard a new one and pummel him until he begged for mercy.
“You stay out of this!” Richard pointed at his daughter. His arms were still held hostage by mine. “You think this boy loves you, Maggie? You think you’re going to have a good life with a playboy slut like him?”
Her lip quivered. My grip tightened. If he didn’t stop, I wasn’t sure how much more I could restrain myself.
What if she believed him?
“Get the fuck off of me.” He ripped his hands from my grip, giving me a shove before grasping the bottle of whiskey off the counter and chugging it.
I stormed at him, attempting to rip the bottle from his hands.
He tugged back. Fuck this. My poor wife should never, ever have to see her father act like this, and I wasn’t going to stand for it for a moment longer.
“Let go of the bottle, Richard. This isn’t going to get you anywhere.
” My voice was stern. Never in my life did I think I would have to parent a parent.
The man continued wrestling the bottle from me, and I glanced back at Maggie.
The hurt in her eyes broke me. I hated seeing her like this.
Had she suffered through the same episodes before?
Did her father show his daughter this side of him and feel no guilt? No shame for himself?
It was inexcusable.
Distracted by the pain Richard was causing Maggie, I lost the battle for the bottle, and the next time I saw it, it was broken in half and flying at my face, breaking the first few layers of skin against my cheek. Maggie screamed.
Tiny shards splintered my skin as the cold sting of blood rushed to my face. It hurt like a bitch, but not as bad as I knew it hurt my wife behind me.
“You will never hurt my daughter. Do you understand me?” he screeched, then turned to Maggie.
“Don’t you let him fool you, baby girl. He’s going to ruin your life just like I ruined your mother’s.
All those away trips are going to get to him.
The late-night calls he gets because of an emergency—they’ll all add up to one big lie of a marriage. I’m not letting you go through that.”
Clutching the broken skin on my cheek, I saw a glimmer of hurt and hesitation in her eyes before she caught mine. Her emerald greens turned to a dark forest. Her lips pursed and her brows lowered as she faced her father and walked straight up to him.
“Don’t ever speak about my husband like that again.
The day he found out we were pregnant, he took charge.
He took care of every single thing that needed to be dealt with.
He promised to be there throughout this entire pregnancy.
He promised to take care of me. And you know what?
He followed through with all of it. We have been through hell and back dealing with all of this shit on our own, and no one else would have had the decency to do it the way Jack did.
He is not the player from next door that you knew him as.
He’s not the playboy polo player who’s going to break my heart.
He’s not you , Dad. This is Jack, the man making himself better every day in preparation for this baby.
This is the dedicated father of our unborn child.
This is my husband. This is the man I love. ”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach, and it took everything in me not to heave a massive breath to prevent a heart attack.
I knew it was spur of the moment, but…Maggie just said that she fucking loved me .
It had been months since I’d first wanted to hear those words.
And now, she was saying them to her father to defend me , the man that she knew was dangerous for her precious heart.
Words that had been told by her father to her mother after he cheated on her with God knew how many women.
Words that meant she was giving her heart over to me. Words that meant she was mine .
That was when she looked at me—the way she always did—but this time, it was consuming. This time, she looked at me with complete freedom. Complete submission to the love between us.
It was true. It was real. Her eyes brimmed with tears as I gave her a knowing glance. I wanted to say the same words back to her, but now was not the time. Not yet.
Richard backed off at Maggie’s brave monologue.
He was still heaving and seething with an anger only a drunk could have.
But he wasn’t mad because I was the father of his grandchild.
He wasn’t mad because I knocked up his only daughter.
He was mad because I was working on myself, I was making an effort, and at fifty-something years old, he still couldn’t.
“We’re going to bed. You’ll clean up this mess in the morning, and as for dinner, you can eat your self-pity and regret.
” Maggie’s voice was more stern than I’d ever heard it.
I had never seen so much disappointment from a child toward a parent.
Richard was facing away from me, so I couldn’t see his expression, but I could only hope that it looked as regretful and hurt as he deserved.
No one should ever make their child feel the way Richard Rynne just did. He deserved whatever was coming to him.
Maggie held her head high and walked toward me, grabbing my arm and pulling me along with her. She dragged me up the stairs and into my bathroom. I couldn’t make out how she was feeling. She just offered a solemn look and whispered, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Whatever cut the glass left me with wasn’t deep—just a long slice against my cheek.
I leaned against the counter as she reached beneath the cabinet to retrieve a first aid kit. Her eyes refused to meet mine. She pulled out gauze pads and alcohol wipes first. Gently, she rubbed them across the broken skin on my left cheek and a small part of my nose on which the glass had broken.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get any glass in your eye,” her soft voice whispered.
“Mhm.”
I held back a wince as she dotted the little wipe along what I hoped wouldn’t be a scar.
Her delicate fingers used tweezers to remove any shards of glass from my cut.
Her green irises were still dark, like the forest at night, focused intently on her task.
I was in awe of this woman. She was such a caretaker.
When she finished, I sported a few white bandages taping the skin of my cheek together. It felt symbolic. I was so broken, so helpless before Maggie. I had no idea what I wanted or how to figure it out. And yet, there she was, offering me two pink lines and a chance to start over.
Maybe we felt it was a mistake at first.
But those two pink lines saved my life.
I faced the mirror. My cheekbone was red and swollen, and a slice of red beneath it was beginning to rise from the sharp cut of the glass.
Tomorrow, it would definitely have a purple hue to it.
I looked roughed up, but now every time Maggie looked at me, she would just have another reminder of her father.
Her head drooped, and her breath came in heavy spurts. I cupped her chin and tilted her head up to me. Pain enveloped her eyes, but it was becoming overpowered by something else. Something stronger. Everything that happened downstairs was setting in.
“I’m so sorry this happened, baby,” I whispered.
“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have assumed he was okay to be alone.” Her eyes closed, blocking tears. “Was I too hard on him? I was just so mad.”
“Maggie, if anything, you weren’t hard enough on him. It was a terrible thing to do, and he should apologize for tonight for the rest of his life. That’s no way to speak to your daughter.”
“It’s no way to speak to you, either.” She shook her head and sniffled. “I didn’t mean for it to come out when it did.” Her broken voice nearly sent me crumpling to my feet.
“Mean for what to come out?” I brushed a stray hair out of her face and behind her ear, keeping my voice soft. My chest pounded at the thought of what she might say next. Could I possibly be lucky enough to hear those words again?
“The words I said to my dad. The ones I should have said to you first.” My breathing stopped. She stepped closer. The floor could have fallen from beneath us, and I wouldn’t have noticed. Her voice dropped to a whisper—so low that I wasn’t even sure I was supposed to hear. “I love you, Jack.”
I stood silent for a moment. Was this real?
There were no words to describe what I was feeling right now.
I had never felt more exhilarated in my life.
The woman I knew I didn’t deserve, knew that I was terrified of loving, but loved anyway, had just given me the only words that could stop me from drowning.
The only words that could save me from everything the world threw at me.
The little girl I had grown up two doors away from, the teenaged girl I hooked up with without the knowledge of what it meant, the beautiful woman who started as my employee, the mother of my child, my fucking wife… loved me.
And she said it out loud, too.
If I died tonight from that bottle hitting me in the face, I would die a happy man.