Chapter 6 Atomic Bomb
Atomic Bomb
Jenny
I closed the door and braced my palms against it. Keeping my back to Deacon, I struggled with my idiocy and toyed with the idea of walking out into the snow in my socks and leaving him here.
Deacon Raine, my first and only love, the one who shattered my heart, was in my safe space.
And I was the fool who opened the door.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
How could I do this to myself?
Without turning around, I leaned forward and dropped my forehead to the door. Forcing my voice through the tightness in my throat, I murmured, “I think you should le—”
His large hands curled around my shoulders.
I gasped, holding my breath at the sudden shock of his touch.
The weight of his hands grounded me to the terrifying present.
“I can’t.” He stroked the nape of my neck with his thumbs before tipping his forehead down to meet the back of my head. “Maybe I should leave you in peace,” he murmured, “but I can’t, Jenny. I’ve never been able to get you out of my head. Knowing what I know now, I don’t want to.”
Don’t go back there, I chanted in my head as I forced myself to breathe slowly, don’t go back there.
His breath shuddered. “If I had known--”
“It was a long time ago,” I countered, trembling beneath his touch, afraid to move a millimeter in case he lifted his hands.
Equally afraid he wouldn’t.
His hold on me tightened. “I loved you,” he breathed, nuzzling my hair.
I squeezed my stinging eyes shut, my face scrunching with the effort to remain quiet.
Loved.
Past tense.
“I thought you betrayed me,” he continued, his voice gruff. “I never would have left you otherwise.”
Eventually, you would have.
Holding that truth like a shield, I pushed off the door and spun on my heel to confront the bigger issue.
While our situation was extreme, it didn’t take much for people to think the worst of me.
“Except I didn’t betray you,” I snapped as he stepped back to give me some room.
“I know that now,” he said, his dark brown eyes steady on mine as he hitched his hands on his hips. His hair was slowly growing out, and thick stubble lined his cheeks.
He was beginning to look like mine.
I fisted my hands at my sides as my breath quickened, my eyes darting down to his hands, jerking back when he moved to tuck them into his front pockets.
Deacon was in my safe space.
Moving slowly, he raised his hands, unzipped his coat, and dropped it onto the floor.
I should have offered to take it.
A lady looks after her man.
Except, he wasn’t my man.
I raised a shaky hand to my forehead, unsure how to get out of my current predicament.
Deacon pushed the sleeves of his Henley up to his elbows. The muscles and tendons flexing beneath his olive-toned skin stroked my memories.
Those arms had once held me like I meant something.
Years apart had dulled the edges of my memory but having him here brought everything back into sharp resolution.
I lifted my chin to take him in.
His black hair, large frame, and hard, unrelenting gaze framed by my blush pink and cream painted walls looked wrong.
And felt worse.
Remembering hurt.
Him being in my safe place brought the hurt roaring to life.
Here, I could be soft. Here, I didn’t need to fight for or defend myself. I didn’t have to fight for my voice to be heard.
And still the words trembled off my tongue. “Do you know what it was like for me when you wouldn’t answer my calls?”
I had sat by the phone for hours, staring at the blank display and willing him to call me back. At first, I thought he didn’t get the message. Then, I drowned in disbelief even as some part of me always knew it would end with him leaving. Finally, I accepted he was gone.
Learning he had enlisted ended all hope.
And now, Deacon Raine, the man who haunted my dreams, stood larger than life in front of me, his handsome face stoic while his narrowed eyes searched mine. “Why didn’t you ask someone to talk to me?”
I threw my hands out to my sides. “Who? Baxter wouldn’t talk to me, Maggie was gone, and Miller and the rest of them weren’t sure what to believe. Was I supposed to send my mother?” I laughed and the bitterness of it shamed me.
This was not who I wanted to be.
Nor did I want to spend my life convincing others of my worth.
“What about Ansel?” he challenged.
“I wasn’t functioning, Deacon!” I cried. “Who do you think was looking after me? And by the time Ansel offered to go talk to you, you’d already left!”
He stared back at me, the muscle in his jaw the only sign he was feeling anything at all. He still wouldn’t talk about it.
And I no longer wanted to.
If I let him in, how long would it take before the never-ending whispers in town got to him?
Before his father interfered?
Before the truth came out?
The idea left me light-headed.
I shook my head sharply to clear it. “I can’t do this. You need to leave.”
He held his ground, his dark eyes hard. “I can’t not do this.”
Everything about him was hard. His body, his face, his eyes, even his voice was authoritative and forceful.
And I was a woman who required softness.
“We can’t go back, Deacon,” I replied quietly. Thinking of everything that lay in wait to trip us up between yesterday and tomorrow, I declared, “I don’t want to.”
He winced, a crack in the mask.
Finally.
He dipped his chin and lowered his voice. “I need you to give us a chance.”
Grief ripped through my chest. What I wouldn’t have given to hear those words when everything turned to dust?
Back then, I hoped we could get through anything. Now, I knew better. Panic quickened my breath at the thought of everything that could go wrong.
“I can’t dredge up the past and all the pain that goes with it,” I stated firmly, yet my foolish, romantic heart flew at the bars of the prison I caged it in, desperate to fall into this man’s hands, and fully willing to batter herself in the process.
But I was not.
“I don’t want you to hurt anymore,” he murmured, holding out his large hand for mine.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, my fingers tingling with the desire to nestle into his large palm.
But I barely survived him leaving.
If he gave up on us again, he would break me beyond repair.
My heart ached because Baxter’s monster of a father had hurt Deacon, too.
Back then, my pain numbed me to his. It was only after I’d begun to heal that I thought about what Deacon went through, believing I could do that to him.
Seeing me with Baxter, my clothes on the floor.
It pierced my heart like so many knives.
It still did.
And I no longer had the luxury of that numbness. Looking up into his starkly handsome face, I grieved what had been stolen from us.
Seeing his outstretched hand patiently waiting for mine killed me.
The boy I used to love was the most beautiful thing to ever happen to me. What we had was real.
Even if it wasn’t meant to be forever.
I clasped my hands together at my waist. “You’re offering me everything I always wanted,” I confessed softly, my heart thudding in my throat at my dangerous admission.
“I loved you with everything I had. It wasn’t much, but it was yours and only yours.
I need you to know that I loved you, wholly and completely, but we’re different people now. ”
“Maybe not so different,” he murmured.
I shook my head.
Half of me screamed for him to leave, the other half threatened to wrap around his leg like a child and refuse to let go.
The sane half won. “I can’t take that risk.”
“Life is a risk,” he countered, his gaze softening.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
He nodded and let the hand he offered drop along with his eyes.
An involuntary mewl of distress broke through my lips at the terrible finality of us.
Before I could turn away, his hands rose to cup my face.
He tipped it up and coaxed, “Look at me, Jenny.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
He sighed, his breath washing over me like a welcome breeze, and pressed his lips to my forehead.
Oh, God.
“We’ll go slow,” he promised, pushing me just as he had the first time.
I tried to shake my head, but he held me immobile.
I wrapped my hands around his wrists to pull his hands away.
Instead, my fingers flexed into his heat, the tendons and muscles giving under my fingers as I gripped tight, reveling in the strength of his body, the touch of his hands, the soft press of his firm lips on my forehead.
My womb stirred in response to a flesh and blood man for the first time in over a decade. “Oh, no,” I breathed.
Desire, hot and wild, rolled through me like a forest fire, burning down every obstacle I threw in its path.
“Deacon,” I pleaded.
“Anything,” he breathed roughly, his hold tightening. “I’ll give you anything.”
I stood on the high diving board.
My toes creeped over the edge, the weight of my body poised to pull me over into a pool drained of water.
With a violent shudder, I reined myself in and stepped back.
“I need you to go,” I rasped.
His hands drifted down to my neck, across my shoulders, and down my arms, destroying any further ability to push him away.
My head fell back. “Please don’t do this to me,” I begged.
He tugged my hands sharply. “Look at me, Jenny,” he demanded fiercely.
I forced my eyes to meet his.
He stared at me intently. “You are going to be okay. You hear me? Everything is going to be okay.”
I swallowed and turned my face away because he was in no position to promise me anything.
I bit my tongue to stop myself from crying out in protest as he released my hands and dipped down to grab his coat.
He shrugged it on, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flipped it open, pausing to look inside before shaking his head and snapping it shut. He rubbed his thumb over the worn leather and tucked it away.
It was the wallet I’d given him so many years ago.
He kept it. All these years, he kept it.
I couldn’t process it. Moving to the side, I dipped my head and opened the door.
He stood in the doorway, unmoving for a long moment, then cupped his hand around the back of my neck and pressed his mouth to my temple.