My eyes close as his fingers pause. He’s leaning into me. The heat of his body radiates near mine. The desire to give in to him rises again.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid,” I bite as I lie, and my eyes snap open. I’m deathly afraid of Jedd and the way he makes me feel physically—all twisted up and yearning. Yearning when I don’t feel the right to yearn.
Seventeen years.
“Then quit fighting me. Or better yet, let’s fight. Let’s knock down and drag this out, and wrestle until we’re so wrapped up in each other we can’t draw another breath.”
Sweet butter on biscuits.
“I got out of control.” My voice lowers as my thumb stretches for the button on his flannel shirt.
“That was nothing, honey. Out of control is how I feel about you, the things I want to do to you, but there’s no rush. I want to understand, and I don’t want you running off.”
Jedd’s eyes drift down to my fidgeting fingers, and he brushes aside my sweater, slipping it off my shoulder. My attention focuses on his face as his finger traces the line of my collarbone. His face lowers, and his nose rubs along my neck. My eyes close again, and for a moment, I forget all my reasons for denying him. My fingers spread and grip his shirt. My legs open wider over his thigh.
“Jedd.” I intend to hiss, but his name comes out as a plea, and he wraps his hand around my neck. I know what’s next. He’ll pull me to him, kiss me again, and I’ll want it when I shouldn’t.
“I like the feel of your skin against mine.”
Melting margerine. My core pulses. My heart gallops.
“Jedd, I can’t do this,” I mutter, tightening my hold on his shirt, fisting my fingers.
“Yes, you can, honey. Nothing’s stopping you but your head,” he whispers, only the ruggedness in his voice croaks.
I should tell him the truth, but I swallow against the thickness in my throat. The lump is like a wedge of bread, choking me with honesty.
“Want me to marry you?”
My breath hitches as my knuckles turn white with fistfuls of flannel. “Because of what I said earlier, that I thought I’d only ever be with my husband?”
“Is that what you want?” His voice rings with questioning candor. “I’ll make you an honest woman. I’ll marry you, Bee.”
I inhale him, desperate for sincerity in those words, yet knowing marriage isn’t really the reason I’m refusing him. At least, not marriage to him.
His fingers at my nape massage and rub in soothing strokes like calming a scared cat.
“Marry me, Beverly.” The full use of my name breaks the spell.
“I can’t,” I choke on the refusal. My heart breaks at rejecting him.
“Why not?” he teases, thinking this is a game, and I’m just pretending to be coy.
“Because I’m already married,” I blurt, and everything stills. Jedd doesn’t breathe. His fingers on my neck pause. His chest heaves once and freezes. His eyes search mine in disbelief, at first questioning me as though I’m teasing him and then scowling when he sees I’m not joking. I only wish it were a joke.
“I’m still married to Howard.”
Chapter Nineteen
[Jedd]
Is she serious?
This has to go down as the most awful rejection in the history of rejections. How is she still married? Howard has been gone for twenty years. And how did I not know this about her?
“Wha…?” I can’t even form the complete word. What in the ever-loving fuck?
Instead of asking myself the more pertinent question, where did that marriage proposal come from, I’m stumbling to comprehend the fact she’s still married to that asshat. Slowly, I pull back from her, releasing her hair and disentangling my leg from hers. I press my palm flat on the wall, extending my arm, still caging her in, but no longer touching her…and it hurts. It hurts to think she might still be married, still be loving him, after all this fucking time.
“He disappeared. Left without a word.” Her fingers weakly spread and swirl like a magician. The sound of her voice is weak as she tries to jest. But my heart plummets to my stomach and my gut turns over, and I want to wrap her in my arms and kiss the pained expression right off her downturned mouth.
But is it the pain of still wanting a missing man or the discomfort of a failed marriage?
“You aren’t divorced.” The words choke my airway, and I swallow back the internal struggle of wanting to hitch her over my shoulder and run off to Nashville with her—fuck Howard—or just run far away from this situation.
“He couldn’t be found. People came to the house looking for him. Debt collectors. A motorcycle man. Someone else’s husband. But Howard wasn’t in Green Valley, and I had no idea where he’d gone. I only knew he went off with some floozy from the Pink Pony.”
The Pink Pony? The place her daughter works? That fucking bastard.
“You never filed divorce for yourself?” I question. Why hasn’t she let him go? There are ways around his desertion. Get a fucking lawyer. Did I say that out loud?
“A lawyer is expensive, and I didn’t know where I’d send papers. We didn’t have the funds. Every penny we made, we needed. I didn’t want to waste the effort on Howard.”
My thoughts buck and jolt, ricocheting in all directions. At some point, she did take the effort to find him, though. “What about the night of the accident? You went after him then.”
Beverly exhales, her shoulders sagging. “Vernon told me he’d seen Howard at The Watershed. I didn’t think I could face Howard without additional courage and—” I raise a hand to stop her. She’s already told me this part. She drank too much and drove.
“Did you intend to ask him for a divorce then?”
Beverly pauses, licking at her lips and my brows pinch, the twinge of a headache beginning.
Did she still want him? What about now?
“You would have taken him back,” I mutter, answering my own question.
“I…” She swallows again, her eyes lowering for the hem of her sweater where she clenches at the fabric. “I don’t know what I would have done.”
It doesn’t fit. The strength I know in this woman? She would have kicked his ass to the curb. My eyes roam over her thin frame. Her tongue alone could have cut him to pieces. There’s something I’m missing here.
“Are you still in love with him?” My voice rises, the volume enough to make her flinch.
“He was my husband,” she hisses.
“He still is,” I remind her. My anger growing, I press off the wall, putting more space between us. I’m not mad that she’s married. I’m not even mad that she didn’t tell me. But how the fuck could she still be in love with him? “Being your husband on paper…as he’s clearly not here in presence…means nothing. If he isn’t here, hasn’t been for twenty years, why else would you hold onto him? Unless you still love him.”
I’m flabbergasted at the thought. Why do good women love bad men? My sister loved a person who was rotten to her. Beverly has done the same thing. My mama and Hasting. Maybe this is why I’ve had so many one-night stands myself. I don’t trust women. Women are the ones who can’t be trusted as they love the wrong person unconditionally.