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Pulling me onto the couch, he tightens me in his arms as he nuzzles his face in the nook of my neck, bawling his eyes like a baby. I have cried relentless tears for our child over these last seven years, and mourning that loss with Colton brings me closure.
But seeing him with Kylee Jo, knowing that he has a daughter who isn’t mine, is a slap to the face. That thought cracks my heart a little harder, and I truly don’t know how I will ever recover from all the lies, secrets, and heartache that Colton Weston has consumed me with.
I rub my sleepy eyes, my face still tender from the emotional meltdown Colton and I shared tonight.Breaking free from his embrace, I go to the kitchen for a bottled water. My body drained itself tonight from any and all liquid it was storing in the form of my tears. My god, I had no clue one could cry so much. I see the mess I created with the fifth of liquor and busy myself cleaning it up. Cleaning always steadies my thoughts. I grab a box from the garage and sift through the broken glass, careful not to cut myself. The stench of alcohol takes my breath and causes my stomach to churn. I clean the mess up quickly, trying to be ever so quiet.
Just as I turn to toss the last Lysol and Jack-laced paper towel into the trash, I see Colton leaning lazily against the counter, rubbing heavy eyes.
“Oh shit, you scared me!”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to fall asleep on ya,” Colton says, scrubbing his face roughly with his hands.
“I think we both dozed off; it’s no worries.” I hoped that sharing our secrets tonight would clear the tension between us, but honestly, it feels more severe. Maybe we were wrong uncovering the truth.
“Well, I guess I’ll get goin’. Gotta get home to get ready for work. I’ll see ya around at the mines.” Colton pulls on his boots and walks out the door, not even taking the chance to look back at me.I watch out the window as Colton beats the steering wheel in a fit of rage. Our eyes connect, and he drops his head in sobering defeat. He roars the engine to life and backs out of the driveway.
I lock the door behind him, then crawl up on the couch, enveloping the scent that Colton has left behind. My heart, heavy with loss, decides to release another round of tears. Curling my knees to my chest, I cry myself to sleep.
Chapter 11
Carly
Bitter. Hurt. Depressed. I could give you the entire damn emotional dictionary right now, and I’d probably be feeling every bit of it in some way. I would kill to numb the pain, to erase the heartache. But it’s a plague I must live with, something that will follow me around the rest of my life, haunting my dreams, waking me in terrors each night.
How the hell do I move on? The day after Colton and I spilled ten kinds of hell onto each other, depression set in. I slept the day away, waking up the next evening at five o’clock still on the couch, exactly where I was when he left me. My stomach rolled in pain from unsettled nerves and the lack of food, but I simply didn’t care. I left the couch, made a pit stop in the bathroom, then I found my way to my bedroom where I have spent the last seven days in a dark depression. I’ve cried every damn last tear I can cry.
I’m mad that Colton cheated on me. I’m hurt that Colton left me. I’m devastated that Colton has a daughter, a daughter that we will never share. She is so beautiful, her springy brown curls bouncing as she runs to jump into Colton’s arms.
Damn it! Why couldn’t that have been my baby? Why did I have to lose her? My heart will never be empty of tears for that angel. Never.
Sleep this last week has been very elusive. It seems telling Colton about the rape has reawakened the nightmares, and I can’t relive that horror every night. Then, as I lay awake, all I can think about is the what-ifs. What if I could have pleased Colton and kept him happy? What if I’d never ran off to Myrtle Beach? What if I’d had our baby? Would we be living our happily ever after? Is there such a thing? Ugh, the constant yammering in my head. When I sleep, I dream. When I’m awake, I think. I don’t want to do either.
Finally, I can’t suffer any more. So I take two Tylenol PM and chase it with Jack, praying that I can rest a peaceful world of dream. No horrific nightmares. Just rest. No thinking involved. Just rest. Sleep captures me and carries me away to a blissful land of solitude. I don’t know how long I’m out for, but when I wake I feel revived.
Rubbing my heavy eyes, I roll over in my soft plush bed and see the sunlight glisten against the ceiling as morning greets me. Tossing the heavy comforter away, I climb out of the bed and pad to the bathroom.
Turning the shower on, I let the steam fill the room before stepping in. The hot liquid runs down my back, easing the achy knots, courtesy of lying in bed sulking over the last week. Damn crybaby. God, how pathetic am I?!
Colton broke me once, but I was just a girl then. It took a while to get over it all, but I did, eventually. Now I’m letting him break me down again? Hell no. I won’t stand for it. I’m a tough bitch, and I refuse to let him unravel my heart strings once again. It’s time to move on and find the happiness I lost the moment I stepped foot in this podunk town. I wash away the stink, depression, and heartache, then step out of the shower feeling somewhat refreshed.
Pulling on some comfy sweats and tossing my hair into a wet, messy ponytail, I decide to clean house. The kitchen still wreaks of alcohol, so I start there armed with gloves and bleach. After thoroughly cleaning the downstairs, I head upstairs. I strip the linens from my bed and throw them down the stairs, followed by a pile of laundry. I dust every nook and cranny of my bedroom, followed by vacuuming and refreshing the curtains with a delightful clean linen scented fabric spray.
Every turn I make, I keep eyeing the oak chest, and I’m drawn to pillage through it to unveil the contents. Stricken with worry of what secrets it may contain, I decide to keep cleaning the house. After all, I do have to return to work tomorrow and won’t have time to keep the house up. The house is sparkling clean and in a record time of five hours, which isn’t too bad for such a big house. Falling back onto the soft microfiber couch, I exhale a deep breath of exhaustion from my hard day of labor.
I glance over to the end table and see that the notification light on my phone is blinking, so I decide that now is as good a time as any to check all the missed calls and texts messages that I’ve accumulated over the last seven days. Several calls from the mines, several calls and text messages from Savannah, and a couple of text messages from Colton. Damn it. Deciding not to fall back into the slump, I toss my phone into the recliner across the room and jump up to remove the laundry from the dryer.
The soft warm bed linens smell like fresh spring flowers as I fluff the sheet into the air, spreading it across the wide queen bed. I make up the bed which adds the perfect finishing touch to a clean house. As I turn to leave my bedroom, I catch a glimpse of the oak chest out of the corner of my eye. Oh hell. I flop down onto the floor in front of the chest and wring my hands together. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and lift the lid. I rise to my knees and peek inside at the contents of this mystery box before me.
I pull a stack of documents from the chest and place them in my lap to sift through them. The first stack is life insurance documents, so I quickly toss them aside. Grabbing a second pile from the chest, I stumble across some newspaper clippings and pictures. I flip through the pictures quickly, before spreading them out on the floor to take a closer look. The pictures stem in time over the years, so I rearrange them and create a timeline of sorts. At first glance it's easy to assume these are family portraits. But I only recognize Daddy, not the young boy or the beautiful woman with a solemn expression.
Moving on to the newspaper clippings, I skim over each one quickly, trying to hit the important facts, then stack them neatly among my makeshift timeline. Names, births, accidents, deaths, graduation, accomplishments are all the facts that I find in the clippings.
After digging to the bottom of the chest, I have removed all the contents and placed them on the floor. What the hell am I looking at? None of this makes sense to me. I stand and stretch, then pad downstairs for a bottle of water, before stopping in Daddy’s office to grab my laptop, a notepad, and pen. Time to put my detective skills to use.
One by one, I read through each and every newspaper clipping and take notes of the key facts, separating the clippings by their person of interest. So far, I have narrowed these persons of interest down to two: Matthew Varney and his son Drew Varney.
I learn that Matthew Varney was a coal miner who worked for Simon Energy when he came to his demise during the strike of 1988. Shot down as he crossed the picket line for a meeting with the bosses, Matthew Varney left behind his widow, Emma Varney and a three-year-old son, Drew. Every man on site at the mines was questioned and searched. As well as their personal lockers and vehicles. No gun was found.
Turning my investigation from Matthew to his son, I open the laptop and search Drew Varney. Thousands of references to Drew Varney load on the screen, so I start at the top. After sifting through his personal Facebook and other online sources, I learn that Drew was raised by his mother, Emma, in Lexington, Kentucky, where he graduated from Lexington Catholic with honors, and went on to study Business at the University of Kentucky. Once he graduated, he purchased a small coal mines and began his operations as sole proprietor of American Heritage Coal Company.
