The studio is clean but cluttered, minimalist in décor because the items that make the biggest statement are her work.
I move to the clipped pictures. There are images of a hand on a coiled rodeo rope, some of the thumb and forefinger pinching the top of a cowboy hat, and still more of the nostrils of a horse with what looks like a smiling mouth.
Details.
That’s the first word that comes to mind. She picks the tiniest detail, focuses on it, and lets the background become the canvas somehow. I’m sure there’s a term for it, but fuck if I know it.
I run my fingers over them. I feel stupid doing it, but they call to me, and I can’t help but feel as if I am meeting a whole different side of Tatum Knox while looking at these photos.
It’s as if the hardened woman with a defiant temper and determined streak a mile long is also this introspective observer. She’s someone who watches and waits and only clicks that button at the most perfect of opportunities.
The last image against the wall startles me. It’s nothing like the others. Not animal or landscape or part of life. It’s of a letter, and the words on it call to me to read it, to step deeper into this world of this woman I don’t quite understand but want to. The sloppy handwriting reminds me of the last letter I received that pushed me to take some time to find myself again.
I know she’s standing behind me. I can sense her—can smell the scent of her skin—but I don’t turn to face her. I can’t seem to take my eyes off the photographed letter in front of me.
So, I give her a minute to come to terms with the fact that I just invaded what I can only assume is her private sanctum.
“I was right. You need to start taking pictures again. Your work is incredible.”
The floorboards creak as she moves closer, but I keep reading the words of a desperate man telling his wife he’s sorry. The wishes for a happier future. The blessing for her to have a next time. His final goodbye.
I read the words with contempt. I see a selfish man who can’t face the deeds he’s done. I see a coward.
I stare at the scrawled writing reflected on glossy paper a few more seconds and finally understand the conflict of emotions Tatum Knox has lived with. How she could love her husband and hate him at the same time. How she heard the words and believed them, only to find out all the lies behind them.
When I turn to face her, I’m knocked astride momentarily.
Sure her cheeks are flushed and her hair is wild from the sex we just had, but there is an intensely raw honesty in her eyes that tells me she knows I know.
That tells her that her secret is out.
That tells me she trusts me when trust isn’t something she gives freely.
Fucking everything.
“Did you love him?” I ask without hesitation, hating the wince she gives me but needing the answer all the same.
“What kind of question is that?” She sputters over her response, spine stiffening, and eyes narrowing.
“A simple one,” I say, knowing a part of me is asking for selfish reasons considering I just had sex with her against the wall and hate the thought of her loving someone who didn’t deserve her. “Did you love him?”
She opens her mouth and then closes it, her thoughts having to catch up with her mouth. “Of course, I loved him. Why would you even ask me that?”
“Not everyone loves their partner.”
She twists her lips but keeps her eyes on me, not shying away from my directness that makes most squirm. “He was my everything . . . and then he wasn’t.” Her voice is a whisper that is tempting me to ask so many questions.
And then he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say. All I can think to say because I hate the fucker. Call me an asshole, call me judgmental, but the more I learn about him, the more I’m glad I didn’t get the chance to know him.
Anyone who puts that look of love edged with regret, devotion laced with deception, in to someone else’s eyes isn’t worth my time.
“He wrote me a letter,” she says, her voice scratchy and uncertain.
“So I see.” I glance back at it, wishing I could shred it and add it to the pile of ruined photos in the bags. “And you took a photo of it.”
“I only take pictures of things that move me.”
I nod and hate that his words moved her. Fuck it. Let’s face it, I hate everything about him that has to do with her from her last name to the photo of the hands on the reins that I sure as shit know are his, to her bed, which I want to lay her down in but that I know he shared with her.
“He left you a letter,” I say.
“I took a picture of it because I was afraid the police were going to take it from me.”
Her comment surprises me, but I take a few steps to my left and lean my hips against the workstation and wait for her to explain.
I’ve already connected the dots and pieced together what happened.
“How’d he die?”
“Car accident.” She waits a beat, looking down at her fingers twisting together before looking back at me. “They said he was distracted with texting and hit a tree.”
“Do you think it was an accident, Tate?” I ask what she’s afraid to say.
“I don’t know.” Her voice is barely a whisper when she speaks.
“That looks like a suicide note to me.”
The woman in front of me nods ever so slightly, her shoulders shuddering with her next breath.
And what the fuck do I say to that? How do I soothe her when I’m fucking torn over it myself?
A man so desperate to avoid facing his dire financial situation that he ended his life. I wonder how bad it has to be to get to that.
“Did the sheriff see this?”
“Fletcher didn’t have any bags with him in the truck. If he was leaving—if that was a Dear John letter—then he would have had bags with him.” She hiccups over the words and ignores my question.
“I don’t understand,” I say as I move toward her and hunch down so I can look her in the eyes. Why does it matter so much how he died? Why is she so upset by it other than the obvious?
“It isn’t your fault.” My hands are on her shoulders and move up to frame her face, my thumbs wiping away the tears that fall. “Regardless of what happened, it is not your fault.” I could be speaking to myself but choose not to hear the words. “He’s the one who did this. He’s the one who left you to clean up this mess.”
“I just . . . it all happened so fast. I didn’t show Rusty. I didn’t tell him about it. They ruled it an accident. They—”
“Why are you beating yourself up?”
Her lip quivers beneath my fingers. “Because the insurance company sent me money.”
“For the car? For what?” I ask, trying to comprehend.
“His life insurance. I sent them his death certificate and they sent it to me.” Another hiccup. “What was I supposed to do? I didn’t even know he’d taken a policy out the year before.”
I don’t mean for the laugh to fall from my lips, but it does. “This is what you’re upset about? You accepted life insurance money after he died and you’re worried because the medical examiner listed his cause of death as one thing when you think it might be something else?”