Page 39 of Promise

And every time I look at Mirabelle, that little pink bundle of joy, I struggle, knowing she belongs to Trin and someone who isn’t me. She slept with someone else. Possibly even multiple men.

I’m not only jealous, I’m devastated. And I’m disappointed that I lost her so completely. She’s built a life without me. Hell, she even has new friends, minus Vale Sylver.

When I pull up beside the chunk of land just east of downtown Rogue River, there is a tremor in my hands as I set the truck in park. I make a fist and tap the side of it against the steering wheel, trying to calm my nerves.

But the second I reach the field, I explode. “You’re all assholes.”

I haven’t seen any of them since I went to The Ferryman’s Rest more than a week ago, but there have been dribbles of chat in our group text. Hutch invited me to join their team, the One-Eyed Snakes, which is a thirty-five-and-over, men’s baseball league. Their logo looks like a braided penis, with a split tongue coming out the tip.

“Yeah, and fuck you, too,” Tate grumbles at my outburst.

“I’m serious.” I glance at Hutch, Marshall, and Petty, ignoring Tate. “Not one of you guys told me Trinity had another man.”

“Uhm . . .” Marshall glances at Tate.

“What the fuck, man?” Tate stands taller, squaring off at me, although it’s difficult to take him seriously with a giant dick on his shirt.

“Don’t what the fuck me, man,” I snap. “I know I hurt your sister, and you’re fucking pissed at me, but someone could have told me she moved on. Had another man. Or many.”

Tate charges me faster than I expected and only narrowly misses clocking me in the face before Hutch catches him around the waist, and Petty yanks the back of my shirt to get me away from the punch.

“Easy,” Petty warns, his tone sharp near my ear.

I know. I know I’m in the wrong, and my accusation is unfair, but my chest feels like it’s been cracked open. Like someone took a bat to my already damaged ribs and slammed straight into my heart.

“She fucking slept around.” My voice cracks with thick emotion.

My wife, my beautiful wife, had a baby with another man, and no one told me.

And she’s had multiple lovers.

The kicker is, the guy is gone, abandoning her, leaving her a single mom and that precious baby without a father. A position I’d never want for Trinity. To be alone. To parent on her own. Without a partner. Without me.

My own guilt socks me in the gut. Maybe Tate should punch me.

“I’m going to kill you,” Tate vows, struggling to rush toward me again.

Hutch wrestles him back.

“Enough,” Marshall hollers, holding out his hands to separate Tate and me. “Don’t talk about Trinity like she’s trash.”

Someone might as well have taken another bat to my gut, because that is not what I intended.

“She’s my wife,” I counter, devastation causing my voice to crack.

She thought we were divorced. And whose fault was that?

She had the right to do what she wanted with whomever she wanted, but it still fucking hurts to consider there’s not only been one man touching her soft skin and tasting her sweetness, but enough men that she can’t remember who the father of her child is.

I shrug Petty off me and bend at the waist. I’ve been worked up for days, but my thoughts spew like poison out of me, which pitches me forward. I’m going to be sick.

“Funny way of showing it,” Tate hisses. “And not like you didn’t sleep around with all those pit lizards.”

I stand so abruptly that Tate flinches, although he’s more than a foot away from me. “I didn’t.” The words squeak, emphasizing the truth.

I haven’t slept with anyone other than my wife.

Hutch and I meet eye-to-eye. He knows the truth. Marshall’s head swings in my direction, meeting my eyes next, before Petty claps my back so I will look at him.