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“Do you know how you ruined my marriage?” she continues. “Brant started comparing me to you after I got rid of you. How pretty and young you were. I had to go and get plastic surgery, but it was never good enough. After you, he was blatant with his affairs. He’d take them to our country club and I was a laughingstock. Did you know that? Some backwoods trash like you, ruined my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Sorry doesn’t mean anything.”

“It was Brantley, he fooled me too. I was taken for a ride just like you were. Coming back home with an illegitimate child. Do you know how hard it was for me?”

“I don’t care about your sob story. It was nothing like what I had to put up with.”

“Did he hit you? He hit me,” I commiserate.

“Twice.”

“No man, who’s really a man, should ever hit a woman. He was a pig.” I say.

“He gave me a black eye. I couldn’t go out in public for two weeks. I had to miss a charity luncheon.”

“How about your son? How was he to Kevin?”

“He was awful. He only cared about his two older boys. He treated Kevin like garbage. Never talked to him. He didn’t care that he got all A’s in school. He never complimented him.”

“He is lucky he has you.”

“He was, but you ruined it all!” she screeches. “Now we have nothing!”

She shoots the gun again. Her aim is off, and she hits the couch again.

“I meant to do that,” she says. “I’m going to make you kneel in front of me, just like in those mafia movies.”

Fat chance that’s ever happening.

“I’m going to shoot you right between the eyes. Now march to your backyard.”

This I like. It gives me more room to move. Hopefully, it gives the guys a better shot. I look at the clock over the stove. It’s one thirty-five. I had looked at my phone when I picked it up after I dropped it when Evie told me she was pregnant. It wasn’t quite one-fifteen. Shouldn’t the guys be here by now?

“Open the door. Do it slowly.”

I do.

As soon as I’m out of the door, Simon yanks my arm, and I’m out of the doorway. Carla screams as she starts shooting at the empty yard straight in front of her. Simon hits her in the jaw with his right fist as he yanks the gun out of her hand with his left hand. Carla crumples to the ground. Unconscious.

He turns to me.

“Baby, are you all right?”

“No injuries, just scared.”

He hauls me into his arms and kisses me.

“You are never allowed to leave me. You got that?” He says.

“I promise. Never ever.”

Then I reach up and kiss him. He tastes like a warrior, like a man, like my man.

Epilogue

I don’t check the P.O. box I’ve set up in Jasper Creek all that often. When I finally do, I see a letter from Dora Mathews of Minneapolis that’s about four months old and has been forwarded from the Department of the Navy. I drive my GTO back to my cabin, even though I had planned to go Trenda’s.