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"Enough."
"Glen—"
"You do whatever you have to do, Catherine. I ain't your husband."
She kept her hurt feelings in check while she daubed the blood from around Glen's mouth. She wasn't going to let him get to her. She already knew who she was. He was right to be upset, but he didn't know the whole story, and when he did…
Would it matter?
"No, you're not," she agreed. She kept the hurt and the anger out of her voice as best she could.
"So since you and Rod was so close and all, he figured he might as well let me go."
"We weren't close." She hadn't wanted the edge in her voice. She'd wanted to be calm, collected. Sound cool. But she didn't. She sounded angry, because she was angry. "You say you're not my husband, and you aren't."
Catherine looked at the twins. They didn't need to be hearing this, but she needed to say it. "Billy Howell was the worst no-good scoundrel this side of the Mississippi. He was the worst gambler, too, and when he finally ran out of my mon
ey to play around with he figured out another way he could pay off his debts. Or—a way his wife could, at least."
The anger in her voice seeped out more with every word until she couldn't hide the bitterness any more.
Glen looked at her, that inscrutable expression back on his face. The face he used at the table, she knew, and the face that he used most of the time when he was with her.
"So fine. You feel free to think what you want to think, but Rodney Dawson is a creep, and cattle rustler or not I wouldn't have a thing to do with him."
"Did you—"
"I did what I had to do, for a man who didn't deserve one tenth of what I did to support him."
Glen was still watching her. His hand came up, traced a line on her face.
"I'm sorry."
Twenty Six
Glen wasn't sure what the hell to think. She was defiant, that much he knew. As if she was daring him to doubt what she was saying. As if it were a serious concern.
"Have there been others?"
"What do you mean?"
"Since… you know."
"Since he left?"
Glen nodded. He didn't like asking these questions, and she clearly didn't like being asked them, but he had to know. It was pulling at him, taunting him.
"Not before…" She looked over her shoulder again at the children. "Go on, kids. Go to your room."
"Why?" Cole asked.
Glen wanted to tell him to listen to his mother. He didn't, because that would have been something that the boy's father should have said to him. Not only did he not have a father, but the father he might have had might not have cared too much about that sort of thing.
After all, the man seemed to have skewed morals in every other regard. Why not let a boy talk back to his mother? Catherine didn't seem to give his lack of support a second thought.
"Go on, now, I said. Get!"
They picked up the toys they'd spread out on the floor and headed for their room. Grace went first, and then Cole shut the door after.
