Chapter 12
Let Them Talk
Deacon
All morning, I waited, hoping she’d reach out.
By late afternoon, I realized she couldn’t.
Not yet.
And though I was getting tired of showing up uninvited, it was necessary.
Buns and Biscuits closed at three. By six, I was in the truck, heading to her place. Driving around to the lot in the back, I texted.
Deacon: I’m here. We can go out for coffee, or you can invite me in and make it for both of us.
Her dots bounced, then stopped momentarily, before beginning again.
Deacon: When I say ‘invite,’ I mean I’m going to be at your door in thirty seconds.
Jenny: Wait! I’ll come down. Give me two minutes.
Deacon: Take your time. I’ll wait.
I watched her door and waited for the light to come on. Instead, the door opened and she stepped out, a faint blush shadow obscured by the black of the late winter afternoon.
Looking around the parking lot pissed me off. There wasn’t nearly enough light. And while Moose Lake was the sleepiest of small towns, it wasn’t immune to bullshit.
A fact Jenny knew far better than I did.
I stepped out of the truck and walked around to meet her halfway.
The night was crisp and clear; the indigo sky freckled with a million dots of light. Without a whisp of wind, the cold cast a quiet over her little corner of the world.
I couldn’t enjoy the peace, not knowing if Jenny was still with me.
“There’s not enough light back here.”
Her soft blue eyes flashed up to mine. “It burnt out. I’ll get a replacement tomorrow.”
I grunted and wrapped my hand around her arm. “Parking lot needs more salt.”
She laughed softly. “What is it with you and salt?”
I opened the passenger side door and retorted, “What is it with you and not returning my calls?”
She sighed and slid into the truck. “We need to talk.”
“Damn right we do,” I slammed her door and stomped around to the driver’s side, taking a deep breath to calm my temper.
Temper?
No.
It was full out panic that she was calling us quits before we even got started.
I slid into the truck and turned the heat up on her side. “Are you warm enough?”
She nodded.
I drummed my thumb on the steering wheel as I pulled out onto the main road and drove toward Peppergrove.
“Where are we going? I’m not really dressed to go out—"
“If you need time, I’ll back off,” I blurted. “But I swear to God, Jenny, I’m staying here in Moose Lake. With you. Unless you convince me it’s never going to happen.”
“I don’t think it can,” she replied evenly.
Her hands clasped together tightly in her lap.
That’s not a no. She’s wavering. What else is going on?
“You and me, we’re inevitable,” I murmured. “You know it and so do I.”
“There are things you don’t know,” she blurted.
Ah, now we get to it.
“So, tell me!” I retorted, my patience running thin.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
I huffed in exasperation. “Why not?” I yelled.
Her voice rose to meet mine as Moose Lake fell behind us. “Because they’re not my secrets to tell!”
“Do they have anything to do with what happened with Baxter and his father?”
“No,” she said, but her voice hitched.
When I glanced over, her eyes skittered away.
“Jenny,” I growled, clear warning in my voice. “There will be honesty between us.”
She closed her eyes. “Not everything needs to be rehashed. I can’t, Deacon. Some things are better left unsaid.”
I pulled up to a stop sign and stared at her intently.
How could I go forward with secrets between us?
At this point, how could I not?
I was going against every single one of my instincts telling me to uncover the lies.
And asking her for the impossible.
While I’d moved on with other women, going so far as to get married, she’d remained alone. While I’d gone off to see the world and live out a dream, she stuck to Moose Lake, surrounded by people who assumed the worst of her.
And no matter how convincing the evidence was, I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt.
Which made me as good as any one of them.
Worse.
Because she’d given me her heart.
All the times over the years I’d berated myself for my disbelief made sense.
Now.
I inhaled and calmed my heart rate. “They’re not your secrets?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I never cheated on you. I never wanted to. Everything that came between us had to do with other people.”
It didn’t escape my notice that she didn’t answer my question. “Do I need to ask again?”
“I won’t answer,” she whispered.
“Why?” I coaxed. “Do you think it will change my mind about you?”
A tear rolled down her cheek. “Yes.”
I jolted at the admission. “Is your secret the one that will make me change my mind about us?”
She shook her head.
I sighed. “I don’t like working in the dark, baby.”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
When we reached the old coffee shop just outside Peppergrove, I pulled into the lot and threw the truck into park before turning to face her. “Do you want this?”
She stared out the windshield, her chin trembling. “Your family will never accept me.”
I didn’t refute the possibility. If I wanted honesty from her, I needed to give it back. But the fact they might reject her infuriated me.
After leaving her on her own, it made some kind of cosmic justice that I might be the one to end up with no family.
“I don’t care,” I asserted fiercely. “You are my first priority. If my family won’t get on board, you’ll be my only priority.”
“You can’t walk away from your family,” she scoffed.
“I can and I will,” I promised. No need to tell her I’d already had it out with my parents. Twice.
My brothers trusted my judgement, but if push came to shove, they’d side with my parents. Their livelihood was tied up with the farm, and they’d never allow their children to miss out on their grandparents.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “I finally got to a place where I could breathe.”
“Baby, I’ve been watching,” I countered quietly. “You barely have a pulse.”
She glared at me. “I have Ansel. Maggie and Maxine visit on Saturdays. And, and,” she sputtered. “I have my own business!”
“Where’s your joy?” I challenged. “Where’s your passion? What makes you come alive?”
“I came alive once!” she screamed, her face turning brick red. “And you left me!”
“I’m. Not. Leaving,” I gritted out. “Take a fucking chance, Jenny.”
She dropped her head back on the head rest and shook her head back and forth.
Right in front of me, she crumpled. “You’re going to leave me,” she cried. “You will, Deacon.”
“I’m not,” I declared, my stomach pitching as I reached for her seatbelt buckle.
“You will,” she sobbed. “You promised the same thing back then and look what happened.”
Hauling her across the seat, I settled her on my lap and tucked her head under my chin. My hands shook because she wasn’t wrong.
How could I make her understand I’d changed? That I wanted her above all else?
She curled into me and fisted her hand in my coat. Her breath shuddered in and out of her like the half-tanked motor of an old car.
My heart rampaged in my chest, but I took a deep breath and pressed my mouth to her forehead. “I’m not going to leave you. You let me in, you’ll never get rid of me again. I swear to God.”
She scoffed then sputtered, “How can you say that?”
“Eleven years, Jenny,” I gritted out, “and I’m no closer to moving on. One look at you and I was right back where we left off. Finding out the truth?” I shook my head. I was not a man of pretty words but of action. I’d have to find a way to show her. “I want you. I want us.”
Her grip loosened and she smoothed her palm over my chest. “Even if there are things I don’t want to talk about?”
I needed to be careful here for both of us. “If I have this straight, there’s a secret that has nothing to do with us, but you feel might come between us?”
She nodded.
“And there are things in your past that you don’t want to talk about?”
Her nod that time was jerky and short.
I tightened my arms around her and sighed. “I can live with that, but I look forward to the day you trust me enough to tell me everything. You think that day might come?”
She stilled then slowly nodded once more. “I think so.”
I pressed my mouth to the top of her silky head. “I can’t ask for more than that right now.”
She shivered in my arms.
“I’ll take you home. Think you can invite me in to watch one of those sappy movies you love?”
She pushed off my chest and covered her face with her hands. Sucking in a deep breath, she seemed to settle. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she mumbled, “Yeah. I can do that.”
I stopped her with a hand cupped around the back of her neck as she shifted to move back to her side.
Soft blue eyes rose slowly to meet mine. She stared at me for a moment. “You’re not the same as you were.”
I searched her gaze, traced her pretty face with my eyes, and murmured, “I’m not.”
“You’re hard.”
My lips twitched though I knew what she meant.
She rolled her eyes and offered a broken laugh. “Okay, maybe not that different.”
I chuckled and pulled her face to mine. “All the important things are the same.”
She smiled up at me. It was tentative, but it was there.
I dipped my head and brushed my lips over hers. What was meant to be a brief meeting of mouths, a simple ‘sealed with a kiss,’ quickly spun out of control at the sweet sound of surrender coming from her throat.
Slanting my head, I took the kiss deeper, delving into her mouth to taste what I’d missed.
She opened for me so sweetly, and I simply took and took and took some more.
When a deep shudder shook her frame, I lifted my head. “Cold?”
“No,” she denied, pulling me back down.
Just as I moved in, her teeth began to chatter.
I chuckled against her pretty lips. “I’m taking you home.”
Inside her cozy apartment, sprawled across her couch with her curled up at my side, I was home for the first time in eleven years.
She watched the movie while I watched her.
Watched her tear up when the girl hit rock bottom.
Watched her frown when the shit hit the fan.
And I watched her eyes light up when the boy finally got the girl.
Jenny was going to have that for herself again, and she was having it with me.
“I’m staying,” I stated as the credits rolled.
Her eyes widened as she sat up and faced me. “Here?” She squeaked.
I frowned. “Every time I leave here thinking we’re making progress, I wake up having to chase you down a-fucking-gain.”
“Too much work for you?” she challenged, eyes narrowing.
“No,” I shook my head vehemently. “Too much heartache for you.”
She studied my face, her eyes skittering away before returning to rest steady on mine. “You can’t stay here. Not yet. But I’ll still be here tomorrow.” She swallowed and nodded; her fearful eyes locked on mine. “No more backpedaling.”
I picked up her hand and pressed it to my heart. “Can I take you out?”
Dismay flickered over her face.
“What is it?”
“People are going to talk.”
I shrugged. “Let them talk.”
She scoffed. “Easy for you to say.”
“No, Jenny, it’s not easy at all. But you’re not on your own anymore.”
My mind flickered to Miller and Maxine. Baxter and Maggie were back in her life. Ansel had always been there, and of all people, my grandmother adored her.
She didn’t see, but I did.
“I’m not sure you ever were.”