Chapter 8 Battered and Broken #2
Instead, I answered with one sharp shake of my head.
“None?” he clarified, his voice incredulous.
None?
Such surprise.
You mean Jenny Davis isn’t sleeping with half the town?
A soft beep came from the car behind us.
I jerked my chin up. “The light is green.”
My stomach churned with jealousy, and my eyes burned with the same defenseless tears I shed back then.
He began to speak, but I held up a palm and rasped, “Please. Not now.”
Not ever.
It was a mistake to flirt with dreams for the future. “I don’t want to talk about this,” I added evenly.
I don’t want to know.
It was a mistake to think we could work through the pain of the past.
A long pause preceded his agreement, and we traveled the rest of the way in silence.
My lungs ached with the need to scream and cry and weep. I could barely breathe. Because while I’d stayed here in Moose Lake and mourned him, he moved on. Over and over again, he’d moved on without me.
I didn’t want to know what I’d missed.
Didn’t want to think about what was.
Or dream about what could never be.
I didn’t want to think, period.
He pulled into St. Michael’s parking lot, and my feet hit the ground before he slammed the truck gear into park.
“Jenny,” he ordered. “Wait.”
I shook my head and grabbed the box of cookies. Slamming the door, I pushed my wind-whipped hair away from my face and stomped across the parking lot. I faced off against the bitterness of the wind and braced myself to perform the best acting job of my life.
I just had to get through the next hour.
I was almost at the door when his big hand wrapped around my elbow and jerked me to a stop.
He turned me to face him and frowned down at me. “With all my being, I regret all of them.”
I winced and rubbed my palm over my chest.
“Fuck,” he rumbled. “Jenny, look at me."
I couldn’t.
Looking up at his starkly handsome face only reminded me of the boy I loved, the way his face tightened when he emptied inside me, how he tucked his face into my neck and groaned when he came, a memory I now shared with countless other women.
They knew him in a way only I should.
I covered my mouth with my palm and squeezed my eyes shut. My body shook as the cold outside made its way inside my bones.
“They didn’t mean anything—"
My head snapped up, and I gave him my eyes, letting him in the way he swore he wanted, letting him see what he’d done to me. “Shall I tell you what they mean to me?” I asked softly.
He stared back at me, his face stricken.
Disgusted with both of us, I turned my face away. “I didn’t sign up for any of this.”
“Of course not,” he murmured. “We can get past this.”
A silent scream; the one I refused to voice, erupted so violently in my head it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it.
You left me!
I covered my eyes with my mittened hand as if I could block out what stemmed from within.
I trusted you, and you left!
They hurt me, and you left!
I lost everything, and you left!
I let myself need you, and you left.
Disbelief and accusation. Shock and disillusion. Abandonment and grief.
And over all of it, the sour stench of bitterness.
I couldn’t blame him for leaving, not with what happened, but I refused to excuse him.
He wasn’t the villain, but he wasn’t a hero either.
No amount of logic could mend what was broken. The heart wasn’t made to be logical.
But I could be.
I dropped my hand, took a breath, and denied him as I turned to walk away. “There’s too much hurt between us. Let’s just get through this visit and then I think it’s best we go our separate ways.”
“You can’t mean that,” he growled.
I looked back over my shoulder. “I do.” I nodded. “I mean it very much. I fought hard for my peace and I’m not about to hand it over because you suddenly had a crisis of conscience for walking out on your girlfriend after she was attacked.”
“You have every right to be angry,” he cajoled.
Spinning around on my heel, I faced him with my fist clenched tight at my side and screamed, “I don’t want to be angry!”
Between one breath and the next, my foot slid out from under me on the icy pathway.
The cookies went flying for the second time in thirty minutes. They’d be nothing but crumbs if I ever got them to Ansel and his ladies.
Arms flailing, weight pitching backwards, and tired of fighting for every scrap of sweetness, I surrendered to gravity.
I never hit the ground.
Deacon swept me up in his arms and held me against his wide chest. My feet dangled above the ground as his hand flew up to cup the back of my head and turn my face to his.
Dark eyes, flashing with desire and fractured by fear and pain and so much loss stared intently into mine.
Panting with adrenaline, I grasped onto his shoulders and allowed myself, for just a moment, to feel him wrapped around me. Even through the layers of our winter coats, there was no denying the perfection of his body pressed against mine.
There was no denying his strength. What would it be like to trust in him? To be able to lean on him?
I bit back the sob threatening to escape.
Being in his arms again brought back every dream fate ground to dust.
Once upon a time, we’d been 99% perfect.
But that 1% killed us.
There are girls they marry and girls they fuck.
“Jenny,” he rasped, his arms tight bands of steel around me.
“I don’t want to be angry, Deacon,” I whispered.
Clinging to his shoulders, I pressed my forehead hard to his, as if I could fuse our bodies together for all time and keep him.
His big hand holding my head tightened.
“I don’t want to fight to prove myself or change anybody’s mind. I just want to live in peace and run my bakery.”
He fisted my hair and tugged my head back just far enough to meet my eyes. “You’re not going to fight anymore. I’ll fight for you,” he replied, his deep voice gruff.
His words sucked the marrow from my bones, and I sagged in his arms.
My head fell to rest on his shoulder as my hands slipped to his biceps.
His chest rose and fell as his hands splayed over my back and pressed me closer.
“Baby,” he whispered, his mouth dropping to my temple.
It was tempting, so tempting, to stay there in his arms.
But he didn’t fight for me when I needed him most.
He wouldn’t listen, and I could barely speak up for myself.
Those facts, cold and stark and indisputable, gave me the strength to gently push him away.
He allowed me to slide down his long body and held me until my feet found the ground.
I imprinted the feel of his body in my mind, one last memory to hold onto when the nights drew long and the past refused to stay buried.
A bittersweet tenderness I shared with the man who captured my heart and never gave it back.
He was a good man.
Grief sank her claws into my throat.
Voice breaking, I tipped my chin up to meet his eyes and stabbed the bruise that used to be my heart. “You’re ten years too late.”
My hands dropped from his biceps, and I stepped back until only the tips of his fingers clung to my hips.
Now that I’d made my decision, that familiar, blessed numbness enfolded me.
His eyes shuttered, locking his emotions behind the stony facade I was beginning to recognize as a well-earned mask almost as perfectly hewn as my smile.
I stared up at him, the loss of warmth in his eyes freezing me in place.
And solidifying the wisdom of my decision.
Better now than 1 year from now when he grows tired of me or another rumour crops up.
I gently brushed his hands from my hips and stepped back.
Frowning deeply, his eyes ran up and down my quaking frame. “You need a fucking proper winter coat.”
That wasn’t his concern.
I shook my head and retrieved the box of cookies.
Battered and broken, but still good.
Ansel was waiting for me, and Ansel had never let me down.