I stayed silent. Drank my beer. Enjoyed the August heat. Bided my time. Because asshole that I was, a small part of me was hoping she wasn’t completely happy with Adrian. Fucked up as I was, I still believed I could make her happier than any man out there. A weight settled into my gut because the fact was I was too much of a coward to even try.
“You don’t have to look so depressed about it.”
“I’m not. Just don’t understand how you guys got a divorce. A fucking divorce Abigail. What about Thayer?”
“What about him, Thatcher? It’s none of your concern because you left us. Or did you forget that?”
I glared at her. Suddenly restless, I sprang out of my chair and started to pace across the patio.
“I didn’t forget it. I told you not to play games with me. You’re tip-toeing around. Spit it out. From the beginning.”
“I’m not playing games with you. What do you want to know? Have I been unhappy? No. Not really. Adrian and I just aren’t meant to be.”
“What do you mean, not really?”
She gave me this look that made me feel like an idiot for asking. So sue me for wanting to know exactly why their marriage didn’t work out. I thought Adrian and I had sealed that deal a long time ago. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought anything would change from that.
“Well, what I mean, is we got along. As friends, Thatcher. Just as friends.”
“When did that start?”
She jerked her head back, looking up at me as if I’d lost my mind, “when did what start?”
“The whole “friends” thing.”
“Thatcher, you’ve lost me. That’s all Adrian and I have ever been to one another is friends. Since the beginning.”
I stopped pacing. Did I just hear her correctly? I stepped toward her. “Stand up,” I demanded.
“What?”
“Stand up,” I growled.
“What is your problem?”
“Look me in the eyes and repeat what you just said.”
“Adrian and I are just friends. That’s all we’ve ever been, Thatcher. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?”
“Since the beginning?” My mind reeled at what she was revealing to me. They’ve been friends from the beginning. So...no kissing? No sexual contact whatsoever? Fuck, no. Not possible.
“Yes! May I sit back down now?”
“No. Jesus fucking Christ, Abigail. Are you telling me you and Adrian have never kissed? Never had-”
“We’ve kissed.” She looked away from me. I didn’t much care for the way my heart flipped at the image my mind conjured up of her and Adrian kissing.
“But that’s it,” she mumbled.
Okay. I wasn’t expecting that admission. It was worse than I thought. Five years with each other and they never even did the deed? Not that I wanted them to. But I was a guy. I didn’t expect Adrian wasn’t unlike me on that end. We had needs. She had needs, too. Right? Even though I hadn’t had mine fulfilled in a while, I assumed he had. Or she would need to…
“Why, Abigail?”
“Quit being a butthead, Thatcher! Adrian and I don’t have those kinds of feelings for each other. We never have. We tried the whole…kissing thing and it didn’t work, okay? Nothing. No spark. No nothing. For either one of us. Nothing like what I experienced with-”
She stopped abruptly and I stepped an inch closer to her. The smell of my laundry soap tickled my nose and I took perverse delight in the fact that she kept my clothes on even after hers were done in the wash. The bright flame from the candles highlighted every striation of her olive eyes. I wanted to hear it. I wanted confirmation that I was the only man she’d ever slept with. That kissing Adrian was nothing like what she experienced when she kissed me.
“Tell me,” I tried demanding but my breath came out more as a guttural plea than a firm demand.
She closed her mouth. Her lips thinned, “No.”
“No? Tell me, Abigail. There was no spark when you kissed Adrian? Not like when you kissed me? So you’ve never slept with Adrian?”
Something passed over her wide eyes but she stayed silent. She held her chin up and said nothing.
“I’m going to take your silence as a no to my question. No, you’ve never fucked Adrian.” How could this be? I assumed all this time that they did those things, expected it even. But now, knowing they hadn’t, pure elation beat through my blood like a banjo.
She rocked back and forth, our eyes never losing contact with each other. “Fine. No! No, Thatcher, I’ve never fucked Adrian.”
Her stubborn chin moved up another inch as she looked up at me, steely determination on her face. I couldn’t believe this. After all this time, I was the only guy she’d ever been with? The realization hung between us, heavy branches full of snow threatening to snap. My gaze darted toward her mouth, her heaving chest as if she’d just climbed a set of stairs. I wasn’t surprised my dick was so fucking hard. This woman had me in knots. From the beginning and after all this time, she still managed to get me wound up. Why did I think it was going to be easy dealing with her?
“Have you only slept with me, Abigail?” I was an asshole; I couldn’t help it. I fisted my hands at my sides. I was a greedy asshole. I wanted to hear her say it.
She licked her lips and my body willed her to say yes. I was strung tight, my life hanging onto her next words. “I think you know the answer to that.”
Her hair tickled my cheek as she turned to walk away and before I could think about it, my arm was wrapped around her middle and my head was bent forward, my lips against her ear. She stilled in my embrace but didn’t move away and I took that as a good thing. Because holy hell. This was a good thing. Having her slender body pressed against me, the slight swell of her hips and the familiar smell of my shower products, it took my dick from hard to fucking steel with the way I was pressed into the curve of her butt. I hadn’t touched her like this for so long…too damn long.
“I want to hear you say it, Abigail. I need to.”
“Why, Thatcher? It’s not going to change anything. Adrian is still going to be in love with Rachel and Thayer and I are still going to be alone.”
I dropped my arm. “Rachel? Adrian is in love with Rachel?”
She turned around, “He moved in with her, Thatcher. What was I going to do? Deny him his one true love? That’s not me. I couldn’t go on and keep pretending. Not when I knew where his heart really was.”
“He was having an affair?” Once again my hands clenched into fists at my sides, “I’m going to pound his face in, Abby. Why the fuck didn’t you say anything before?”
“You didn’t give me a chance! Stop being a butthead, Thatcher. This is my life. This isn’t all about you. It’s about me and that little boy in there. I have to do what I think is best. I have to make the best decisions I can regarding the both of us. Living with Adrian while his heart longed to be somewhere else, was not something I wanted to keep doing, even if that meant being alone. Don’t you get it? I’ve been alone my whole life. I’ve never had a man genuinely want me and I’m tired of all the nonsense. Tired of pretending. Tired of wishing things were different. Tired of…” she sighed and let her shoulders fall. “I’m just tired of it all. Which is why Thayer and I can’t stay here beyond tomorrow.”
She quietly opened the screen door and slipped inside, leaving me and my now-shitty attitude alone outside with the smell of jasmine still heavy in the air.
That went well. I sat back in my chair and opened my cooler. Not like I haven’t sat out here alone a million times before in the August heat and drank beer. First time I’ve ever had my child sleeping inside though. Along with his stubborn mother. Definitely not the first time I considered what it would be like to be a father to him.
“Jesus, Grandpa. What in the hell are you trying to prove?”
I never did get the answers I wanted. Not exactly. And she never got a word in edge-wise to ask me anything. There was so much more I wanted to ask and understand regarding Abby.
Five years’ worth of stuff. We had a lot of catching up to do. Come hell or high water, I was not letting her and Thayer leave tomorrow. I could be just as stubborn as her when I needed to be and I was not going to let her run away that easily.
Especially since I knew I had one thing going for me. That I was Abigail Layne Murphy’s one and only. That counted for something, didn’t it? A person didn’t just forget that shit, did they? Uh-uh. Not if the look in her eyes meant anything. Somewhere, deep down, and I was going to take my time to peel them back, were layers upon layers of Abby that I had to win over. Given the time, I could do it. I could prove that I was worthy of Thayer. Which is why she couldn’t leave tomorrow. I needed time. Time to make us right again. So long as it was in time with the terms of the will.
The screen slid open behind me and I angled my head to the side in order to see her. She still wore my sweatpants and one of my flannel shirts but she’d pulled her hair up. For a second, neither of us said a word. Ball was in her court. If there was something that was so important she was willing to come back out here for, then I was going to wait until she said it.
She stood in the doorway for so long, my neck started to kink. She gnawed on her bottom lip, one hand on her hip and the other bracing the door frame.
“I want to know one thing, Thatcher. Why did you leave us? Why weren’t we important enough for you to stay?”
Hurt and betrayal flickered in those lovely green eyes and just for a second that pointed chin of hers relaxed into her chest. She cocked her head and I knew my quiet, albeit lonely, night on the patio was kaput.
Chapter Eight
Abigail
I was downright stupid! Why had I gone back out there? I should have left the sleeping dog lie but no…it was the beer. I’d had how many drinks? Three? Or was it four? It was truly never a good idea to drink around Thatcher. I had too many emotions. Too many unanswered questions. Too many naughty thoughts.
And like a fool, I made it halfway up the stairs and my curiosity got the better of me. It was high time I got answers. If anything, to put the past squarely in the past. To keep it there. Not on the outskirts of my mind where they always hovered like an early morning fog. I needed this. I deserved this. Once I could figure Thatcher out and why our relationship went from good to great to non-existent, I would finally be able to move on. In my mind, of course because I had moved on.
Absolutely moved on. I hardly even noticed the nicely-sized erection pressed into my butt and lower back when he grabbed ahold of me. I hardly noticed the rock-hard flex in his forearm as it snaked around my waist pulling me into that nicely-sized erection. Hardly. Even. Noticed.
Shoving away from the patio door, I made my way toward him. Quick as my question was out, he looked away. He’d avoided me for long enough. I was a crazy woman on a mission. I had nothing left to lose. Literally. With my divorce and house up in smoke, there was a strange sense of power in me. I was a single woman on a mission. A tigress. And Thatcher Patterson, that man, was my prey.
“You gonna ignore me now?”
“Thought you were going to bed.”
“I changed my mind.” I bent over his cooler, pulled the top off and helped myself to another beer. “See. You and I, we have a lot to talk about and I decided it was time for answers.”
“What if I don’t give you the answers you’re looking for, Abigail?”
“You’re going to Thatcher. I’ve waited long enough. I’ve been a good woman to my husband and now that that is over, I’m looking for answers. I deserve them, don’t you think?”
Instead of sitting in the other chair opposite Thatcher, I pushed the turtle bin over and sat down next to his legs so my feet sat flush on the grass and my bottom rested on the patio. Before I could ask, he reached over and popped the top off my beer. The sound was a satisfying whiz in this tension-filled heat.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
We sat silent for another few moments. Me trying to gather my thoughts and hoping he would start this long overdue conversation. He never did. Finally, after I’d drunk half my beer I opened my mouth.
“Why did you leave us?”
“Why do you care now?”
“Is this what you’re going to do, Thatcher? Answer my questions with questions of your own? This is my turn. The least you could do is give me that.”
“Answer me the one question first. Why do you care now?”
I plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between my fingers as I considered his answer. My instinct was to play games with him, not be forthcoming but one thing I knew about Thatcher Patterson was that in order to get what I wanted, I had to be honest. In return, he would be, too.
I relaxed my shoulders and began, “I care now because I wanted you to care about us. I wanted you to be Thayer’s dad. I planned on that. And not being able to understand why you didn’t want anything to do with me, with us, has made me resent you. Has made me question why you aren’t the man I know you are?” I forced a laugh, “At least the man I thought you were back then. You’re honorable to everyone else, except us. I care now because hearing the answers will help me put that final nail in the coffin that was once us.”
Even though it was hot out, shivers raced along my spine as I let those long overdue words hang between us. He didn’t say anything and I kicked myself for being naïve enough to believe he actually would. It was time. Our past, the past in which I was desperately in love with him, day-dreaming like a dummy of what kind of wonderful life we would have together, be put to an end. I knew by the rustle of his clothes that he’d shifted forward in his chair. I wasn’t prepared for the wickedly handsome voice in my ear though.
“What if I don’t want that final nail in the coffin that was once us?”
If I leaned back, I would be nestled into his muscular legs, my head would be cocooned into his chest and I knew, I hated that I knew this, but I knew that for once in the past five years if I did that, I would feel safe at home. I knew it would be easy to forget the way he hurt my heart.
But no.
No. No.
“There you go again, answering my questions with questions.”
“I’m sorry, Abigail. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s a fucked-up story, okay? It made sense when I was young and stupid.”
“But it doesn’t now?”
“Now? Fuck, Abigail. You’re all I think about. Thayer is all I think about. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been for five years in a row to watch another man raise my son? To watch him attend parties and go to church, even grocery shopping with the woman that belongs to me?”
That had happened, hadn’t it? When Thayer was first born, I can’t remember his exact age but he was a tiny newborn, still so young that he was that crying baby inside the grocery store that you couldn’t help. I turned the corner, Thayer screaming his head off and there was Thatcher.
I turned back to look at him, because I had to look. I had to see the anguish I heard in his voice, on his face. “I don’t belong to you, Thatcher.”
“That’s bullshit,” he whispered. “You and I both know that isn’t true. Why’d you come back out here?”
His voice was low and cocky and I hated how he sounded so sure of himself when I felt like a mess.
“To get answers and that’s all.”
“Liar. It’s not all. You don’t think I can see the desire in your eyes when you look at me with Thayer? You think I’m blind to the way your pulse flutters in your neck when I’m this close to you? Or the way those big green eyes of yours go from a shade of jade to pure olive when you’re turned on? I can read you like a book, Abigail Layne. You came back out here because you’re still attracted to me. Because deep in your heart, you know you belong to me. And if what you’re telling me is the truth about you and Adrian, then I’m gunning for you, Abby. I’m gunning for you hard. You and Thayer. This time, no stupid thoughts and ideas are going to creep into my head and change my mind. I’m going to do whatever I ha
ve to, to get you to trust me again. To make you see that we belong together.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I stood up. Unable to take this Thatcher so up close and personal. He sucked all the air up around us making it hard for me to breathe.
“I realize maybe you’re not ready to jump into another man’s bed quite yet and that’s fine, Baby. I got all the time in the world.”
He was so smug sitting there. That half-turned grin ticking up enough that his dimples showed and his sun-kissed skin that was alight from the flames and the way his eyes never wavered from mine, made me want to scream. Because he was right. A part of me that I’ve kept buried for so long, still believed that Thatcher and I belonged together. That we deserved a real chance. Try as I might, jumping into bed with another man didn’t seem that bad of an idea. Not if that man was Thatcher anyway. I could only imagine that time had been good to him. That time took all his bedtime moves and turned them into something extraordinarily good.
I just wished I could trust him. Sleeping with him, I knew would involve my heart. If I gave him my heart and that of my son’s, how could I be so sure he wouldn’t break them all over again? I wouldn’t dare put Thayer through that. Which is why, God help me, I couldn’t give him another chance. No matter what my heart believed.
Or what my body wanted.
“Time doesn’t change the past. And you just keep skirting around the entire issue. Why did you leave me, Thatcher?” Even asking the words, in the darkness of night between the two of us, it still hurt. I hated the raw sensation that squeezed my chest.
He broke eye contact with me and I immediately assumed he wasn’t going to answer which got my blood boiling again. Damn him! I stood up and walked past the candles, out into the grass.
“Listen, before you get your panties in a bunch, I-” his eyes darted back to mine and his mouth curved into a wildly handsome grin. “Wait. I bet you aren’t even wearing panties underneath my sweatpants, are you, Abigail?”
I swear it was like his words made the fabric of his sweatpants between my legs that much more sensitive and I could suddenly feel the inside ridges of the seam rubbing against my lady parts.
Wild: A Small Town Romance (Love in Lone Star Book 2) Page 7
