“Remember what I said about Bert?” His eyes roam my face, while I remember who the heck Bert was.
“Your donkey?”
“Yeah. That’s Bert.” He locks eyes with me, his gaze level. “Who do I need to kick? Give me a name.”
I don’t answer.
He puts the car in drive and drives a couple more miles, glaring out at the road before easing the truck off the road again. “Here’s what we’re doing. We’re going back to my place. You’re staying with me tonight. Maybe forever, if we can’t rectify this situation.”
“We can’t rectify it.”
“Fine. You’ll stay with me forever. Meanwhile, between now and forever, I’ll ask Bear to come by, take a look at your wrist and ankle, and—” He glances over at my hand cradling my stomach. “And you need to tell him you’re pregnant, Wren.”
My gut plummets to the floor mats. “Is that why you’ve been doing all this? You feel sorry for me because I’m pregnant?”
He turns to me and levels me with another gaze. “Last week, Larry Galahad, who works at another ranch down the road, broke his leg. I felt bad for him. The guy has a family to feed, and he needs two good legs to do his job. But I didn’t show up at his house, bring him wildflowers and pizza, and I didn’t buy him a cowboy hat in a fancy hatbox because I thought that he’d look cute in it. And I sure as shit didn’t ask him to stay with me so I could take care of him.” He frowns at me.
I can feel my lips quivering into a laugh, so I bite them, and his frown deepens. That frown is becoming so darn endearing that I have to force myself not to lean over and kiss it.
“Are you making fun of me?” he asks.
“No. I was just thinking about kissing that frown off you.”
“I might let you do that after you tell me what the hell is going on. Because if we start kissing now, we might not get to anything else.” His gaze sweeps over my face slowly, like a caress.
“Okay. No kissing.”
14
FOX
I drive while she talks.Maybe it’s easier on her for me not to be looking at her because the words fall out of her. “I lost my husband and daughter in an accident a few years ago. But I’m going to fast forward through the couple awful years after that.” She runs a hand over her eyes. “About a year ago, I went to a spa. My sister, Cat, and I were going to go together. But then she got COVID. She encouraged me to go without her—or actually pushed me. I was in a pretty good place then. I thought. I had finally come to the realization that I wasn’t shriveling away and dying, even if some days it still felt like I was. I was alive, and I just needed to learn how to live again, in a different way. I was actually starting to crave life.” She wraps her arms around her chest then exhales deep and long. “I met this man there, and … his attention feltsogood.” She turns to me, tucking a leg under her and leaning against the seatback. “There’s this thing my sister has always told me ever since forever. ‘Find small, good things.’ And when my husband and daughter died, she told me, ‘If you don’t have a big, good thing in your life right now, keep finding small, good things to get you through until you have that big, good thing again, to anchor everything.’”
She stares out the window, and I wait for her to turn back to me. When she does, her expression is desolate. “That attention he gave me felt like a small, good thing. I wasn’t looking for love. Even after I met him, I wasn’t looking for lovefrom him. I knew we weren’t a match that way. I just wanted someone to be with once in a while. A small, good thing. Someone who would look at me that certain way. Someone I could think about and look forward to seeing. Someone to share a nice meal with or curl up on the couch once in a while and watch a movie with.” She looks over at me, her full lips curving up slightly. “Someone to kiss.”
“I understand that. My lips get lonely too.”
She stares at me, surprised. Then nods. “So, when I noticed some things that didn’t seem right, like his cruel streak, I second-guessed myself. I told myself that I was misinterpreting things. Or making a big deal out of nothing, and I should just focus on the small, good things.” She rubs a hand over her eyes. “Until they were less and less. And he became violent.”
My jaw clenches so hard that pain shoots through my face. I force myself to keep my words low, controlled. “Do you have a restraining order against him?”
“No.” She droops in her seat.
“Have you gone to the police?”
“It would have gotten out and…” She shakes her head and stares out at the wet, grassy stretch of Billie’s Marsh. “I stopped doing things with him. Told him I was busy. Made excuses. I thought he would just slip out of my life and go on to the next woman. I had found out by then that he’d had a long string of women before me. Some of them had even approached me by then and told me I should run far and fast from him. But then I did something stupid. I did a lot of stupid things, but this one…” She shakes her head. “He called me and said he wanted to apologize. That’s it. He said he had gone to therapy and was getting treatment and just wanted to drive over and apologize.Just for a few minutes. I told him he couldn’t come in my house, but we could meet somewhere neutral. I told him it would be quick. Afinalgoodbye.” I cover my face with my hands. “I had plans to meet up with a friend an hour away. A good excuse to make it quick. We met at a scenic pull-off I stopped at sometimes. It’s the type of view that reminds you that life isn’t as small as you think it is. I thought it would be a good place for that reason and because there were always tourists there, taking photos, and he would be on his best behavior. We sat on a bench, away from everyone but close enough that I felt safe. And he seemed… he seemedsonormal, like the first couple months we were together. I didn’t want to resume a relationship with him, God forbid. I just wanted to end things civilly. And I wanted him not to be as horrible as he had become. Even if it wasn’t true.” She looks down at her lap. “Because if he wasn’t as horrible as he was, then I wouldn’t be that woman who had begun to make herself smaller, someone who had made such a careless mistake getting duped by a man she should have seen coming miles away. And maybe I wouldn’t be that woman who lived in fear because a certain man would knock on her door, and she would let him in.” She’s silent for a few moments, fiddling with the hem of her shorts, her hands shaking. “And I wanted to erase that woman.”
I drive down the path toward her cottage, park as close as I can get, then turn toward her and gently take her hand in mine. “I’m not saying this is a mistake you could have seen coming, Wren, but even if it was, everyone on God’s green earth makes mistakes. Stupid ones. Small ones. Huge ones. So, you got to let that go.” I tip her chin up. “I could talk for the next hour about mine; I’ve got so damn many. Should we do that next?”
She smiles shakily. “Sounds good.”
“You’d be surprised to know that you’re not the first person to call me an ass.”
The corners of her lips quirk up then slide back down.
“Tell me what happened after that,” I whisper.
She nods, squeezing her eyes shut for a second. “We talked for a few minutes. He apologized. Even if it wasn’t exactly what he should have been sorry for. But that didn’t matter to me. It was all a formality to get him out of my life. Then he insisted that I sit in his new car before we both left. He’d been talking nonstop about it for the last year. It was ridiculously, stupidly expensive, and he’d flown it in from somewhere in Europe. There were only five or so in the United States. He wassoexcited about it finally arriving. I told him, ‘Just for a second. I’ve got to go then.’ I sat in the passenger seat and oohed and aahed. He started the engine and said, ‘Listen to that. Nothing, right?’” She takes a deep breath, clutching her hands in her lap. “And then he locked the doors and said I needed to take a ride with him to see how fast it would go. I said no… but it was too late.”
