“You’ve changed,” she said in the tense silence.
“You haven’t.”
He wasn’t really seeing her then, if he thought she hadn’t changed. Jenna doubted there was another person in Catcher Creek who had undergone such a radical overhaul as she had since finding out she was pregnant.
That was what made the past so hard to reconcile. She’d relive that night with Carson on the sleeping bag in the bed of his truck a thousand times over if it meant she ended up with Tommy. It felt shameful to wish things had gone down differently with Carson when Tommy’s conception was inextricably woven into everything that had gone wrong in the weeks that had followed.
Carson’s steps faltered with a crunch of gravel and weeds. Huffing, he whirled to face her, gripping the fence behind him. “I thought I knew what I’d say when I saw you again. Hell, I had six years to think about it. But now, looking at you, being here . . .” He shook his head.
She felt the same way. Having spent so much time figuring out how to avoid this very confrontation, she’d never given much thought to what might actually happen if it came to pass.
“Is there any chance you and I can agree to let the past go? We could call each other friends and be on our way.”
He rapped his knuckle against his forehead. “You think that’s why I’m here? To grant you a pardon? God, hearing you talk like that, I hate you all over again.”
His hatred didn’t surprise her in the least. Two weeks after Tommy’s conception, when he’d demanded she meet him at an abandoned barn, she’d shown up and seen it in his eyes that he was furious with her. At the time, she’d had no idea why her best friend hadn’t returned her phone calls or answered his door for two long weeks after she’d shared her body with him and he’d shared his secret with her. She hadn’t understood the wild hurt in his eyes when it was she who’d felt neglected and used.
Yet at the first sight of his broken, beaten body, she’d set aside her hurt feelings and rushed to him, only to have him shove her away and accuse her of unspeakable betrayals. The argument that followed had been the worst she’d ever experienced—unmatched in its vitriol and volume.
Tonight, she knew intuitively that there was nothing she could say to convince Carson he was wrong to accuse her. “I know you’re not going to believe me any more now than you did then, but I kept your secret. I’ve kept it to this day.”
In her mind’s eye, Jenna could see the two of them in the bed of his truck, gazing at the stars. I’ll tell you something about me I’ve never told anyone, but it can’t get out. Not even to my family.
She remembered holding her breath, her body tingling. Even as a teenager, she’d loved being privy to people’s private business. You’re my best friend. You can tell me anything, she’d said.
She’d taken his hand. The attraction she’d come to feel toward him because he was a good-looking guy had gotten jumbled up inside her with the platonic love of being longtime friends who shared a bond. Maybe daddy issues were to blame. She’d grown up so lonely and neglected that of course she craved attention. She’d slept with nearly every other guy in her class, yet Carson never acted like he wanted her, and men who ignored her drew her in like magnets. It was embarrassing, how naïve and needy she’d been. How starved for love. She hugged herself more tightly as the memory flooded through her.
“Enough with the lies, Jenna. You were the only person in the world who knew. I trusted you, and only you, then not more than two days later, I was ambushed behind my parents’ store. They waited for me to lock up and head for my car. I really think their intention was to kill me.” He smashed his lips together. “I think they thought they had killed me.”
“Who?”
“Stop pretending you don’t know. How do you live with yourself, lying like that?”
“You were my best friend. I loved you.” What more could she say?
He released a bitter laugh. “That’s the bitch of this whole thing. All these people swore they loved me—you, my parents, my brothers and sisters—right up until they found out who I really was. No more lies, Jenna. Tell me why you betrayed me. Tell me how you live with yourself or I’m going to take my vengeance out on you the same way I’m going to take it out on everyone else who tried to destroy me.”
Whatever kind of vengeance he had in mind, she had no doubt he planned to take it out on her, no matter what her response. But she had to try to make him see the truth. “I didn’t tell anybody. Not a soul, whether you believe me or not.” Desperation rose inside her, constricting her throat. “Tell me the names of the men who did that to you. Don’t make me face another day in Catcher Creek wondering which of the people I’ve known my entire life have the hearts of murderers.”
“You’re going to stick to your story, then? Fine. Bucky Schultz, Kyle Kopec, and Lance Davies. Go ahead and act surprised.”
It was the first time she’d heard the names of the boys who assaulted Carson. Punks, every last one of them. Punks a few years older than she and Carson, and whom they’d partied with and considered friends. Lance brought the pot, Bucky the booze, and Kyle the ideas that never failed to land them in trouble with the law. Her sister, Amy, had even dated Bucky briefly. All three had joined the rodeo circuit by the time Carson and Jenna had graduated high school, but they still called Catcher Creek home. She had distinct memories of partying with them that fateful summer.
Jenna had no idea if they were presently in town or not, but their families were. “What are you going to do to them?”
That garnered a hard smile. “I’m going to hurt them like they hurt me. And then I’m going to tell everyone the truth—about my parents’ cover-up, about you and your betrayal, about how the hate in this place has been allowed to fester. No more secrets. I’m proud of who I am. I fought for this country and now I’m ready to fight for myself. Nobody’s pushing me around anymore.”
Jenna pulled at her hair. “Can you hear yourself? You’ve got as much hate in your soul as they do. What happened to you?” She heard her tone rising to a shout, but couldn’t stop it. “Where’s the boy I knew? The boy who saved me from bullies and from myself too many times to count? I want him back.”
Her voice broke on that last word. They could’ve been parents together. They could’ve grown up into better people together. But their connection had arrested the day he first confronted her and she couldn’t see a way out of the hurt.
Carson stabbed a finger in the air between them. “Whoever I was, you destroyed him.”
“I would never betray you like that. Why are you so sure they beat you up over your secret? Maybe it wasn’t about that. It could’ve been a dare or robbery gone wrong, some kind of misunderstanding.”
His nostrils flared. He stood legs apart, hands clenched, red in his eyes. “You don’t get it, do you? There was only one reason Bucky, Kyle, and Lance tried to kill me. One reason my parents refused me medical help so their friends and customers wouldn’t find out. One reason I was left for dead, then shipped out of my home. Shunned by my own parents.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“They carved it into me, Jenna.” He ripped his shirt off over his head and spun away from her. “They fucking carved it into me.”
There, scrawled across his flesh in ragged lines of scar tissue were the letters FAG. His whole body moved with the force of his labored breaths. The word rippled with the flex of his muscles. She gasped and swayed, a hand to her mouth, aching for what he’d been through. No wonder he was so full of hate.
With his back to her still, he braced his hands on the fence and sunk into his arms. “What do you think it was like for me, coming out to my parents like that? What do you think it was like for me in the Marines, denying who I really was so I wouldn’t get kicked out of the service, defending myself against every bigoted prick who wanted to take a shot at me anyway?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. It must have been horrible. Pain piled onto pain. It must have felt to him like the world was ending over
and over. How had he borne it?
“My dad found me half dead behind their store. He took one look at my back and he . . .” He hung his head. “I wished I’d have stayed unconscious instead of having to listen to my parents debate the pros and cons of taking me to the hospital. Eventually, they decided it’d be bad for business if the truth came out. My mom called her sister, who’s a nurse. She did what she could and as soon as I was healed enough to travel, they shipped me out.”
Jenna didn’t think she could stand to hear any more. She reached out, walking forward, needing to touch his pain, to let him know he wasn’t alone if he didn’t want to be. He hated her, but she’d never stopped loving him as a friend and brother. As the father of her child.
He must not have sensed her approach because at the first touch of her fingertips on his back, he flinched and pulled away. Spinning to face her, he clamped a hand over her wrist. “Don’t you dare touch me. Don’t you dare pretend sympathy for me after what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything. You left me all alone and I couldn’t find you. I had no idea who’d hurt you because you hadn’t told me. All I knew was people in this town were capable of such unspeakable violence that no one was safe. I’ve lived in fear since the day you told me you were almost killed. I was afraid they’d come after me, too.” Afraid they’d come after our son if they realized who his father was.
She stopped fighting his grip on her arm. The tears that came were hot and angry. “I trusted you. I trusted you with me, but you left.”
Until the words were out, she hadn’t realized how betrayed by him she felt. Not only by his accusation, but his abandonment. It flooded through her now as fresh as if it’d happened yesterday. All that hurt and fear she’d endured back then. The shock that he could so easily and fervently believe her capable of betrayal. That day had scarred her as deeply as her parents’ deaths, as brutally as her childhood of neglect. Maybe he hadn’t ever really cared about her, for him to think the worst of her on the turn of a dime.
Sneering, he released her and fumbled back. “I trusted you, too, and look what it got me.” He prowled to the far edge of the picket fence. “But the joke’s on you and this town because I’m not that weak-ass wimp I was back then. That boy I was, the Carson you knew, I think Bucky and his friends really did manage to kill him like they wanted to.”
He sounded like a victim. This hulking Marine sounded like a weakling. Weaker than the Carson she’d known. Maybe he was right, and Bucky and his friends had killed that boy. “They might have hurt your body, but you’re the one who let them mangle your spirit.”
He spun around in slow motion, rolling his head on his neck. “Well, fuck you, too, Jenna.” He enunciated every word like a bullet. “You’re the one who allowed that to happen to me. Who did you tell—Bucky? Your sisters? One of the girls in school? You never could resist a juicy bit of gossip.”
No, she couldn’t. Especially back then.
I think I might be gay, he’d told her the night of Tommy’s conception in the back of his truck. It hadn’t been much of a surprise. She’d found gay porn under his bed one day when she’d been looking for his stash of pot. She doubted she would have had much of a reaction even if she hadn’t found evidence, because she’d been so high that night. Pot and pills and tequila. She’d been buzzed, lying there next to Carson. Would’ve vibrated right into the atmosphere if she hadn’t been holding his hand.
You’re not sure? she remembered asking him.
Not really, okay? It’s all so fucked up. I mean, how do you know for sure?
And then she’d said the fateful words. I can think of a way. With that, she’d taken his hand and cupped it over her breast. His touch had made her higher than the drugs. It was the ultimate rebellion—screwing her best friend. Screwing the boy who’d ignored her every flirtation. He wouldn’t reject her this time if she helped him figure things out about himself.
If she’d only known.
She shook herself back to the present. “I never told anyone you might be gay.”
“There was no might about it. I was. I am. And of course you told someone, you lying bitch.”
Carson stepped toward her and she responded with a step back. A new awareness tingled over her spine. He could hurt her tonight. His eyes radiated violent potential. She couldn’t afford to argue with him anymore, not even to defend herself. Time to be smart and let self-preservation win out over taking a stand for the truth about what had really happened.
Around the corner, propped against the house, she kept a rake. She took another step back, then another, until she could see the rake in her periphery. Three feet away.
Carson inched toward her, spitting hate and fury. “Six years I’ve been working up to this, training, getting strong. I’m a fucking soldier, and there ain’t nobody going to mess with me anymore. I’m going to weed the poison out of this small-minded Hicksville. It’s time for me to get biblical. You all are going to pay the price of your sins.”
All that mattered now was Tommy. His safety, his future. She ruminated on her son, gathering strength. If she’d ever doubted her resolve to keep the truth about Tommy from Carson, she didn’t any longer. The bitter, vicious man before her was beyond reason, beyond humanity. What would he do to her, to Tommy, if he learned the truth she’d hidden from him?
Holding her breath, she lunged for the side of the house, grabbing a firm hold on the rake. She jabbed the tines in Carson’s direction.
He appeared around the corner, fingers outstretched, nostrils flared. When he saw the rake, his eyes narrowed on it and he gave a snorting laugh. “A rake? Real nice, Jenna. You think I’m going to hurt you?”
Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Yes.”
Grinning malevolently, he smoothed a hand over the hard ridges of his abdominal muscles. “I’m going to hurt you, all right, just not like you’re assuming. But let me just tell you that it feels damn good to be on the right side of fear for a change. Tell me, how does it feel, knowing someone who’s bigger and stronger than you could do anything he wanted to you and you’d be powerless to stop him?” He took another step nearer. “You feel pretty helpless right now, don’t you?”
His words sent a fresh chill through her bones. She brandished the rake in front of her.
“Yeah. You’re terrified of me. I can see it in your eyes.” His smile turned to a sneer. “That’s how I felt when Bucky, Kyle, and Lance surrounded me. Now you know.” With stone-cold eyes, he pulled his shirt on and fished truck keys from his pocket. “Brace yourself, Jenna. It’s almost time for Judgment Day in Catcher Creek.”
When Jenna opened her front door in response to Matt’s knock, she was winded, her cheeks flushed. Dressed in the same clothes she’d worn that day, she shook her disheveled hair away from her face and gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Hi.” She said it with a bit too much exuberance, like she was forcing cheeriness because she was hiding something.
Matt’s defenses were instantly on alert. Steady, man. You already laid your heart on the line for her, so you might as well stay the course. He offered her his best smile. “Hi. You told me not to come, but I couldn’t help it. I need one more kiss from you to last me the week.”
“Oh. That’s sweet.”
He’d heard corporate litigation attorneys speak with more convincing sincerity. “Am I interrupting your Sunday night study group?”
“No. Not at all. I didn’t join the group tonight. I’m too worn out from the wedding to study.”
Awkward silence descended over them. Rather than invite him in, she maintained a hand on the doorknob and another on the frame. A full-body block of the entrance. Hard not to take that personally since just that morning he’d been in her bed and his skin still carried her scent.
She blinked and looked past him, her eyes shifting, scanning the darkness. He cocked his chin over his shoulder and followed her line of sight, seeing nothing but rolling hills and scrub grass.
On
his way to her house, he’d passed a truck leaving their property. It hadn’t looked like Vaughn behind the wheel, but it was hard to tell in the glare of the headlights. It could’ve been one of the farm workers pulling a late night or one of Vaughn and Rachel’s friends. Other than that, the night had been quiet, the roads empty. “Expecting someone else?”
She swallowed, her expression blanking. “No. I thought I saw something move, like a coyote.”
Right. Something was definitely going on. Clearly, she didn’t want him here. It’d been a mistake to push her like this. But here he was, so there wasn’t anything left for him to do than kiss her like he’d been determined to and hit the road. “Is Tommy asleep?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her upper arms.
He held his hand out. “Do you have time to join me outside for a minute, so we don’t take a chance of waking him?”
After an inhale, she placed her hand in his, gripping it tight, and allowed him to coax her out past the concrete slab in front of her door, into the sultry summer night.
It hit him that this might well be his last opportunity to fight for Jenna’s love. She may have already made up her mind about him, but rather than sinking into offended self-pity about the emotional wall she’d erected, he owed it to his renewed sense of optimism and hope to do his best to remind her how great they were together.
He pulled her up against him and wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back and kissing her hair until the stiffness in her spine yielded and she melted into him. Her cheek and palm rested on his chest. He tightened his hold on her, rocking them a little.
She sighed deeply and melted into him even more. “How did you know I needed this?”
Relief swept through him. It was possible he’d read her body language wrong. Maybe she’d had a tough night with Tommy or was worried about her midterms or something. Maybe he was a big, fat narcissist for thinking her emotional world revolved around him. “I needed it, too. I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”
How to Rope a Real Man Page 17
