Page 23 of His Wounded Heart

“And I’m not going to start now. As far as I’m concerned that door is closed and double locked. It’s in the past. I like to live in the present with an eye on the future. That includes Evie O’Malley wanting to have children in the near future.”

“Aiden really wants me to wait until he retires. He wants to make sure that he’s home for the entire process. He’s not thinking straight. The opportunities that he’s been offered aren’t exactly desk jobs. I figure he’d be away just as much then as he is now,” Evie laughs.

“I can’t imagine that.”

“What, having your guy being gone so long?”

“No, just having a guy.” I shudder.

“Trenda, are you sure you don’t want to talk about Bella’s father? I know that’s always been a forbidden area, but, Sister, it sounds like you were really hurt, and you’re painting all men with the same brush.”

I laugh. “You’re funny. You’ve got it all wrong. I know there are good men out there, Evie. I see you with Aiden, and Chloe with Zarek. Then Drake, despite his Neanderthal tendencies is one of the most caring and supportive men I’ve ever seen. I adore our big brother.”

I fight back tears. God, when I think of everything Drake went through, the shit that his life had been like, and he came out on the side of angels? It is a miracle.

Evie reaches out and covers my hands with both of hers. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Honey. You can’t close off. You have to look. Someone is out there for you.”

I turn my hand over so we are palm to palm. “Evie, you don’t understand. It’s not the men that I don’t trust, it’s me. Growing up having Norville as a father, and being surrounded by such filth like his friends and our uncles, my barometer is beyond screwed up.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“I know it now, but I didn’t know it when I went to Nashville. Back then I was sure I knew what I was doing.”

“But—”

I cut her off. “I’d been certain. Evie, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I knew the man who fathered Bella. Sure, I knew him inside and out. He was perfect for me, in my eyes. Not a perfect man; I knew his bad points, but I knew he loved me unconditionally. I knew we were destined to be together, just like you knew Aiden and you were.”

This time I can’t stop a tear from escaping.

“Oh, Honey, everybody makes mistakes.”

“Not like mine. You’ll never know, Evie. But no mistake, no man, could have been worse than mine.”

“Did he hurt you? Physically I mean.”

“It needs to stay dead and buried, Evie. It’s for the best.”

I get up from the kitchen table, picking up our empty plates and taking them to the sink. I grab the edge of the counter for all it’s worth, trying to put that moment back into the box deep in my mind where it normally stays. A place that I never look at. Never think about.

I didn’t notice Evie coming up behind me, so I jump when she wraps her arms around me and rests her head against my shoulder.

“Do you know how much I love you?” she asks.

I nod. It is all I can do. Words are beyond me.

“You were what, nineteen?”

“Nineteen and a half.”

“You were a baby, Trenda.”

“Not really. Not living in our hellhole of a house. Not after watching Wanda and Norville. We all were decades older than we should have been. Nobody had a childhood in that house.”

“You’re wrong. Maddie, Chloe, Zoe, Piper, and me all had childhoods. That was because of you and Drake.”

I grasp her hands that had snuck around my waist. I turn around to look into her eyes. “And you. It was the three of us, remember? Then when Drake left for the Navy, it was you and me, we were like the two musketeers, then I left you in the lurch for those six months I was in Nashville.”

This time I can’t stop the tears.