Chapter Fifteen
Jase
“Jase.”
And what the fuck?
Elizabeth?
Touching the knot on the back of my head, I eased out from under the tractor and turned. Elizabeth stood, barefoot in the mud, jeans rolled up above her ankles. Her BMW waited on the other side of the gate, a good five hundred yards away.
What the . . .?
Unease crawled through my chest. Scowling, I planted my hands at my belt. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.” Desperation carving lines into her face, she stepped toward me, feet squelching in the thick, wet clay. Black mascara smudged a dark circle beneath both eyes, and she licked her upper lip in a back and forth motion.
I knew that nervous gesture. She was anything but put together, standing in the middle of this field, twisting the hem of her loose silk blouse.
How had she even found me? Unless she’d driven around the county looking for my service truck.
Air Defense Warning Red screamed through my brain, and I stiffened.
“We got nothing to talk about.” I half-turned, leaning for the wrench I’d dropped in the red clay goo.
“I’m pregnant.” Her harsh voice, roughened by desperation, broke over me. “You’re the father.”
I jolted, the wrench hitting the ground again. Fury fired through me – we were done and she was here fucking with me in the middle of John Yager’s field. Like it was my turn or something after Hannah, whose entire life had altered because of Elizabeth’s behavior.
“It’s been months.” I bit off the words, turning to glare. “You were on the shot.”
“I stopped because I was gaining weight.”
“What?”
“I didn’t want to be heavier for the wedding.”
Her and her fucking bullshit.
“It’s been months.” The memory of Thomasville rose, her and some other guy, him buying her shit while she promised she was worth it. “You’ve been seeing someone else.”
“I thought it was his.” Raw emotion scratched the words like she was swallowing glass. Humiliation gave her eyes an agonized look to them. I clenched my jaw. “The sonogram . . . the timing was off. And the DNA test . . . it’s not him.”
I stilled. The acidic smell of wet clay filled my nose, and behind me, the humming rumble of another John Deere in the adjacent field tried to soothe the alarm running electricity through my body.
No.
“And there’s not anybody else.”
Fuck.
“I’m glad it’s not him.” She stepped forward, beseeching eyes wide, a hand outstretched. Her left hand, the one that used to wear my ring. An image flashed through my brain, Tyler’s pretty hand, Noonie’s diamond nestled next to the gold band I’d picked out for Tyler. “I’m glad it’s you–”
Tyler. God. Tyler was going to . . .
This wasn’t happening. This was not happening, me standing in the mud with Elizabeth telling me she was having a baby I didn’t want to have with her.
God help me.
“I love you, Jase. I do. It’ll be all right.” The words spilled from her, a wild, reckless rush, as disjointed and impulsive as I’d discovered her to be. “We can get married and–”
“No.” The harsh laugh burned my throat raw, like I’d swallowed gasoline and chased it with a match. I yanked off my glove and held up my left hand. Under the thin cloudcover, the dull glint of my gold ring stood between us. Tyler’s ring. “I’m already married.”
Her rough inhale scraped my nerves. I planted my feet and firmed my jaw. At least I looked steady, even if the world was falling out from under me.
“And even if I weren’t, me and you . . . that’s a nonstarter.”
Lips parted, she stared, Agony flitted through her eyes before her face contorted into a familiar mask of anger and disgust. “You married someone else.”
I lifted both hands. “Yep.”
“Who is she?” Fury narrowed her eyes to sparking slits. “Not that slut from Thomasville. You don’t know who she is, what she’s like, and you married that bitch?”
Fury slammed through me, a hot tide. If I shut her up the way I wanted to . . . Daddy and Grandaddy would have my hide.
“My life is not your business.” I shoved my hand back in my glove and pointed at her car. “You can go. I want a DNA test, then we’ll talk.”
“You don’t believe me.” Her voice rose to a screech I knew all too well. I didn’t have to do this anymore, though. “And you married another woman. I’ll find out who she is, Jase, the bitch, and I’ll make sure–”
“Get.” Rage shook my voice. I flung a hand toward her car. “Gone.”
“You can’t just ignore me, Jase–”
“Swear to God, I’ll call the cops, Elizabeth.” Darkness blurred the edges of my vision. I was going to have a stroke if she didn’t get the fuck away from me. I stabbed a finger at the gate. “Posted property, and you’ve been told to leave.”
Every muscle tensed because wrath had me trembling all over, I stared her down.
Tension stretched between us, humming like a transformer before it exploded.
“I’ll make you sorry for this.” She lifted a shaking finger. Tremors ran over her whole body, despite the rigid set of her shoulders. “You’ll be sorry.”
I stared after her clomping through the mud, stumbling a couple of times, my heart thudding so I felt it at my temples. My lungs seized, cramping my chest and belly.
Elizabeth, walking through the damn mud to tell me she was pregnant, that it was mine.
I had to tell Tyler.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I spiraled while finishing up the hydraulics on that job. I could not get fired – not that I was in danger of that, but being a Hatcher meant being reliable.
And I needed to think.
Not that I could.
Tyler filled my head, the way she smiled at me, the way she fit in my arms, the way we fit together, the way I loved her. The way she wanted us to be easy.
We didn’t have any miles on us. Enough weeks to make up a few months. That was all.
Shit, that was not good. She had no reason to walk this out with me. Walking away would be easier.
I went home early and showered. I needed to be clean, to have all the mud off me, so I could have this conversation. I’d considered meeting her at work, getting to her as fast as I could, but that was wrong.
We needed to talk here, in the privacy of our home.
My brain choked while I dried off and tugged on gray sweats and a black t-shirt, trying to think ahead of Elizabeth and that you’ll be sorry. Everything she’d done to Hannah, lying about her, villainizing her, weaponizing her channel against her own sister.
How did I get out in front of that when I no longer understood how her mind worked? Maybe I never had. Maybe the parts I despised had been there from the beginning, and I’d just been dumb.
Maybe I’d already fucked up by waiting until end of day, but Daddy and Grandaddy, not to mention the Air Force, were pretty plain about panic – it wasn’t my friend.
Tyler’s car purred in the drive, and I closed my eyes, breathing in this last moment of our old life before I smashed it.
Maybe the last moments of our marriage. Bile flooded my throat with acid.
I gripped the edge of the counter, the worn Formica biting into my palms while I concentrated on not vomiting.
She hustled in the back door, dark hair swinging about her shoulders. A bright smile lit her face.
“Hey.” Dumping her purse on the kitchen table, she tiptoed up to kiss me. “You’re early.”
A hand at the small of her back, I kept her close to me a moment, breathing in the clean scent of her shampoo.
I was about to blow up everything.
There was nothing easy about this.
“Need to talk to you.” I swallowed, my mouth and throat coated with agony. “And it’s not good.”
She stilled. Her face closed up, and she stepped back, lost to me already. “Did you cheat?”
“What?” I wanted to be mad and chase that rabbit, buy myself a few more seconds with her. Even that – fighting, defending myself – would be better than what I had to do. “No.”
A pause hung while she stared at me, waiting.
“I’m not that guy,” I rasped. “You know that.”
After a moment, her shoulders relaxed.
“No.” Her voice was soft, guarded. “You’re not. I’m sorry.”
“Elizabeth tracked me down today.” Might as well get right into it, tell it like it was. I watched her go on that same Air Defense Warning Red I’d experienced in the field, body on alert, stiff and still. “She says she’s pregnant.”
Her face froze, smoothing over like a death mask, so I felt us and all we could be slip away.
“Paternity test rules out the last guy she was with.” Desperation scratched down my throat to grab my heart in the center of my chest and squeeze. “Told her I want a test.”
She stared at me, no emotion flickering in her eyes, over her face. Nothing. Like she felt absolutely nothing and was closed off to me, shuttered away. Her throat moved with a swallow before that nothingness hardened to resolve.
My stomach dropped.
Without a word, she turned and picked up her purse before walking out the door.
Panic exploded in my chest. My gut cramping, I scrambled after her, tripping over the back threshold, barely catching myself from going face-first onto the concrete. “Tyler.”
She was already climbing in her car when I cleared the steps, the cool concrete rough on my bare feet.
She was just going to walk out on me.
Like what we were building didn’t matter.
Like we didn’t matter.
She backed up, turning around in the yard fast enough her wheels dug ruts in the grass, and I watched her go because what was I supposed to do? Tear after her, confront her, make everything worse? I forced air into my aching lungs. What if she didn’t come back?
Fear twined about my anger, the pulsing fury that had coiled about each nerve ending all afternoon. This wasn’t my fault. I needed her, and she bailed on me the first time things got hard? She left me.
“Calm the fuck down.” Pressing a fist over my heart, I muttered the words to myself. I wasn’t going to come apart like Tate and do something stupid. “Get your shit together.”
She needed to process. I got that. I’d had the afternoon, and right now, she felt like I had standing in that field.
She’d go to Maggie. She’d calm down, cuss about me to Maggie, and get it straight in her head.
Maybe leave me anyway.
I dragged a hand down my face, wedding band cool on my burning skin.
She’d never said she loved me.
I’d dropped the hardest fucking thing in her lap, another woman maybe having my child.
And she’d left me.
I stared at the empty driveway, one thought reverberating in my head.
She’d never said she loved me.
I was fucked.