Cory beamed. “Of course I do. She’s just the darlingest little thing.” Cory held up her phone, and I smiled at the sweet little face. Colleen Maeve Evans had come into the world about ten days before, after a peaceful labor and delivery. Cory reported that the small family was blissfully happy.
“Just as you and Trent will be. Oh, yes, I’m going to miss you, but I’m thrilled for you two. What an adventure you’ll have. And promise you’ll come back and visit us.”
“Oh, we will. After all, Burton is still our hometown.” I smiled.
“So tell me about your plans. Any bites on the practice? And were you able to get out of your lease at the apartment?
“Maybe and yes. I talked to a lawyer from a firm in Savannah. They’re looking to franchise their practice, and so they may be interested in acquiring our space and client roster. We’ll see.”
“And what does Gladys say?” Cory raised one eyebrow.
I wrinkled my nose. “Gladys still doesn’t say anything to me. But she left a letter on my desk yesterday, informing me that she has no desire to be part of any sale. She intimated that Clark Morgan making her employment part of any agreement was the same as indentured servitude. So . . . seems that’s a problem solved.”
“Excellent. And the apartment?”
“Rented the same day the landlady put up the ad. As a matter of fact, I’m just on my way to the hardware store to pick up a replacement for the closet rod Trent’s mother broke. We want to make sure we get my security deposit back.”
Cory came around the desk to give me a hug. “I’ll see you before you go?”
“Oh, yes. Kiki’s leaving for her trip with Troy right around the same time we head to Nashville, so we thought we’d have one big party, probably out at the Road Block. I’ll let you know when we’ve set up the details.”
“Sounds good. Let me know if you need help with anything, sweetie.”
I swung out of the library, humming to myself. It was amazing, really, how easily everything was falling into place. And although I’d had a little twinge of regret over leaving Burton, I was so excited now by our plans for the future—plans Trent and I were making together—that it felt right. Moving to Nashville would be the new start we both needed.
The hardware store was just down the street from the library, and since all of my errands that afternoon were in those few blocks, I’d left my car at home and walked. It was a beautiful afternoon, with a soft breeze that promised warmer days coming soon. The sun was shining, flowers were blooming, and the birds were singing. Living in Florida, I’d forgotten how much I loved spring.
The bell over the door rang as I stepped into the hardware store. I’d never been here since moving to Burton, but I’d passed it several times. It was small but neat, with wide aisles and filled shelves. I hunted for the closet rod I needed—I’d measured the space before I’d left the apartment—but I couldn’t find the exact one I needed.
“Can I help you?” The man who came up alongside me was about my age, I figured. Maybe a little older. He smiled at me and pointed to the bins of rods.
“I hope so. I need a replacement rod, and I don’t see the size I need.”
He nodded. “That’s all right. We can cut a larger one down for you. What’s the length?”
I handed him the paper with the numbers on it. “Thanks so much. We’re getting ready to move, and we wanted to replace this before we leave our apartment.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll cut it and be right back.” He disappeared around the corner to the rear area, where I assumed they had their saws.
An older man wandered up to the front counter, near where I stood. He was carrying a pricing gun.
“Good morning. I’m Larry Wexler. I don’t think we’ve met.” He smiled. “Are you new in town?”
“Kind of. I’ve lived here a few months, and actually, my husband and I are getting ready to move now. I’m Elizabeth Hudson. Oh, sorry, Elizabeth Wagoner.” I grinned, holding up my left hand, where my wedding ring glinted, once again in its rightful place. “Sometimes I forget to use my married name.”
The man who’d first helped me was just coming back to the front as I spoke. He stopped suddenly, his friendly face darkening.
“Wagoner? Is that what you said your married name is? Is your husband Trent Wagoner?”
A twinge of uneasy rippled through me. “Yes. Do you know him?”
The man’s mouth twisted. “Unfortunately, I do.”
“Nick.” Larry spoke in a quiet, warning tone.
“Did you know that your husband is a rapist, Mrs. Wagoner?”
All of my blood drained from my head, and my heart began to pound. “Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Nick—stop this. You’re saying things—”
“Oh, so he didn’t tell you? He didn’t tell you how he met an innocent girl—Jenna Sutton—at the Road Block last year, and he took her home and stole her virginity? Got her drunk and God knows what else he gave her, and then forced her to have sex with him?”
I shook my head. “No—Trent would never do that. Why’re you saying this?”
“And then afterward, Jenna was so devastated by what happened, she tried to kill herself. Did he tell you that? Did he tell you how he destroyed a girl’s life?”
In the back of my mind, I heard Trent’s voice from last Thanksgiving, the first day we really talked. I’d asked him why he was avoiding sex.
I slept with a girl who took things between us to be more serious than they were. It wasn’t the first time it happened, but this time . . . it went further. She was really hurt when I told her I didn’t feel the same way she did.
No matter what this Nick was saying, I didn’t believe for one minute that Trent had raped anyone. He would never have done that. But clearly he hadn’t told me the whole story. He hadn’t included Jenna’s attempted suicide. Not back then, not when we got married, and not when we were both living in Burton, in the same town where all this had happened. I remembered now a dozen or more snide comments, glances I didn’t understand or arch remarks that hadn’t made sense. Now I knew what everyone had been thinking, while I went on in blissful ignorance.
I pushed away from the counter and began walking toward the door, my hands shaking. I heard Larry calling after me, but I didn’t stop until I was outside the hardware store, where he caught my arm.
“Don’t listen to Nick. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s got a hard spot where Trent’s concerned and—” He sighed. “It’s not like he said. Listen to me, please. Jenna’s my niece. I think I know a little more about it than Nick does. He wasn’t here the year before last, when Jenna and Trent were both working for me. He didn’t see Jenna throwing herself at Trent day after day, flirting, making it clear how she felt—and Trent was real nice, without encouraging her. Jenna went after Trent. And she didn’t stop until the night she turned twenty-one and convinced him that she was ready for a—” The man’s face turned red. “Trent was who Trent was. Any girl who chose to go home with him knew what she was in for. He didn’t do girlfriends. But Jenna thought she was different, and when he wouldn’t play along, she took a bunch of pills. Tried to end it all.”
“But she’s okay?” I needed to know this girl was still alive.
“She is.” Larry nodded. “And she’ll tell you—or she would, if you saw her—that she doesn’t blame Trent.” He paused. “Look, Trent’s a good guy. He worked for me for several years, and I liked him. I’ve heard he’s turned his life around now, and I’m sure you’re part of that. Don’t let Nick’s lies ruin what you have.”
I shook my head. “I need to—he lied to me. He never told me about Jenna. How could he not?”
“Give him a chance to explain.” Larry laid a hand on my shoulder. “Please. Give him that much.”
I nodded and turned to walk home. I was numb, and all I could hear was Nick’s voice, the hate in it as he told me the story. I climbed the steps to our apartment and walked inside.
>
“Hey, there you are.” Trent came out of our bedroom, toweling off his hair. “I just did Mrs. Price’s lawn, so I grabbed a shower. Did you . . .” He caught sight of my face, and his voice trailed off. “What’s wrong?”
I licked my lips and tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. “Tell me about Jenna Sutton.” The words came out as a rasp.
Trent’s face lost all its color. He closed his eyes. “Shit. I’m sorry, babe. I know I didn’t give you all the details—”
“All the details? You never told me anything at all. Back at Thanksgiving you said there was a girl who took sex a little seriously. That was it. That was all. You call a girl trying to end her own life over you ‘taking sex a little too seriously’?” My voice rose to a near-shriek. “Why didn’t you tell me, Trent? Why did I have to hear it from some jerk at the hardware store who’s calling you a rapist?”
“He’s an asshole, Elizabeth.” Trent crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, it’s true. I slept with Jenna, she wanted more, I didn’t, I blew her off, like I did every other girl after I slept with her. But Jenna took it hard, and she . . . she tried to kill herself. Yes.” He ran one hand over his face. “God, I was . . . I felt so guilty. I wanted to do something. But I’d already done the damage. I’d treated her like a throw-away girl, and so she tried to throw away her life.”
“And that’s why you were on a sex fast when we met.” I rubbed my temples. A wicked headache was brewing between them. “Maybe you didn’t lie outright, Trent, but by not telling me, ever, that’s a lie of omission. You let me marry you without knowing the whole story. God, how could you do that?”
His face was stony. “I didn’t think it would matter. I thought about telling you several times, but it never seemed right. And then I figured someone would tell you here in Burton, but no one did.”
“Until today.” Suddenly everything that had felt so shiny and new in my life was ugly and tarnished. “God, Trent, if you could hear what this guy was saying . . .”
“And who did you believe, Elizabeth? Did you jump to your husband’s defense, or did you buy what that jerk Nick said and come running home to scream at me for who I was a year ago? What good is trying to change if you’re always going to assume the worst of me? Why are we even starting over if that’s the way it’s going to be?”
I stared at his face, filled with hurt and anger. “I need to—I need to get away. I want to be by myself.” Tears filled my eyes and made it hard for me to see. I turned and groped blindly for the door.
“Elizabeth—wait. Come on, let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing else to talk about.” I stopped, my hand on the doorknob. “You’ll leave. You’ll go to Nashville, and you’ll just—you’ll leave. It was what you were going to do eventually anyway, right? You leave. That’s the way it works. So go ahead. You might as well go now and get it over with.” I choked back a sob. “Just leave me. Let me go.”
I wrenched open the door and ran down the steps to the sidewalk, then up the block, going as fast as I could without running into anyone. I kept moving in a half-walk, half-run until I reached my destination. My safe place. My sanctuary.
And I hid.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. I was frozen in shock, in guilt and in regret. Everything that had haunted me since the day Jenna attempted suicide—all of it came roaring back in its ugly truth.
Your fault. Guilty. Good for nothing. Not worth anything.
And then something snapped. I was staring down at the sofa where I’d slept for months so that my mother had a shot at health and life, and so that Elizabeth had her own space. I remembered that what Jenna had chosen to try wasn’t my fault. I’d been irresponsible, yes. But I hadn’t made the choice that day. Jenna had. I wasn’t the Trent I’d been two years ago. I was a new man, a better man.
A man who wasn’t going to just let his wife walk away. A man who sure as hell wasn’t going to lose the most important person in his life.
I took off then, running down the steps and scanning the block for Elizabeth. I didn’t know if she’d gone right or left, and after a frantic few moments of trying to figure out which way to go, I finally ran to the left, down the street, shouting her name.
People stared, and some even pointed. I didn’t give a damn. I wanted my wife.
I went past the house where her law office was, thinking she might’ve gone there to hide, but something told me she wouldn’t risk going in with Gladys still there. I kept running while my brain repeated a steady refrain. Find her. Find her.
I was just passing the library and about to head for Kiki’s when I heard my name. Cory Evans stood in front of the building, her face etched with worry and her arms hugging her middle.
“Trent.” She met me at the edge of the sidewalk. “She’s here. She’s inside.”
I made as if to go around Cory, but she caught my arm. “Wait a minute. She’s upset, Trent. She thinks you lied to her.” She looked up at me, no judgment or condemnation in her eyes. “Listen. You need to go in there and make sure she knows the truth, about everything. Don’t hold back.” Cory gripped my arm. “I believe in you. I’ve always known you’re a good boy, Trent. I know you can be a good man. Don’t make me regret believing that.”
I shook my head. “No, ma’am. I just want to see my wife.”
She nodded. “Go ahead. She’s in my office. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”
I went into the cool silence of the library, my heart beating so loud, I was sure Elizabeth could hear it. It felt odd to walk around the counter and into the inner sanctum of the librarians, but I opened the swinging door anyway.
My wife was curled up in a wing chair, her blonde hair forming a curtain that blocked her face from my view. Two long steps brought me to her side, and I sank to my knees.
“Elizabeth. Baby.” Brushing her hair out of my way, I cupped her face in my hand. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I never meant— I was wrong. I should’ve told you everything about Jenna from the beginning. I guess . . .I thought I could leave it behind. You were always so perfect to me, so beautiful and good, and I didn’t want to tell you about what I’d been. What I’d done.”
She met my eyes, and my heart broke. Those gorgeous blue eyes were swollen, filled with unshed tears, and her face was wet. “You didn’t trust me.”
“No, baby. I was an idiot. I’m sorry. I—I blamed myself for what happened with Jenna, and I ran to Michigan to get away from my guilt. I was still punishing myself when I met you, and I knew I didn’t deserve you. I couldn’t have someone as wonderful as you, not when I’d fucked up so many other lives.” I swept my thumb under her eye to clear away a tear. “But I told you, Elizabeth. I’m not leaving you. Never. I won’t. I’m here, baby.”
She shook her head. “You will. You always do. You did before.”
“I was stupid before. I told you that. I’m not so dumb anymore. I know who my heart wants. You’re my home. You’re my peace and you’re my life. Nothing works without you, and nothing makes sense if you’re not by my side. I love you, baby. I love you, and I’m never going to stop.”
I repeated the words, over and over, a litany of promise and vows of fidelity. “If you don’t believe me today, I’ll keep telling you. I’ll keep saying the same thing, every day, for the rest of our lives, until you finally believe me. I love you, Elizabeth Hudson Wagoner. I love you.”
At last, when my voice was hoarse, she reached out, laying one cool hand against my cheek. She swallowed, her eyes begging me for more reassurance.
“You’ll never leave me?”
My throat tightened. “Never.”
She sighed. “I’ll never leave you. You’ll never lie to me? Even to protect me?”
I pressed a kiss to her palm. “Never. You don’t need my protection. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
She managed a tremulous smile. “You love me? For always?”
I pulled her down from the chair, into my lap. “For always. For a
ll the always there are. And then some.”
She linked her hands behind my neck. “I’m sorry I let Nick upset me. I’m sorry I freaked out. I’m still scared. Trusting is hard.”
“I know it is. It doesn’t happen in a day. We’ll build our trust. Together.”
Elizabeth leaned her forehead against mine. “Trent Wagoner, you’re my home and my heart. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you. You’re mine. For always.”
I covered her lips with mine, pouring into the kiss every promise and vow we’d made and all the hope for days to come.
Always.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE LEAVING town after we just got to be friends.” Maureen sighed and took a swig of beer.
I laughed. “Sorry. But you and Smith can come visit us in Nashville. And if Crissy plays anywhere near Burton, we could always meet.”
“True. And you’ll come back for my wedding, right?” An antique diamond ring sparkled on her left hand. “I mean, it’s not going to be a big deal. I’m totally not a lace and flowers girl, no matter what my mother wants. But still. We want all our friends there.”
I glanced across the restaurant to where Trent was standing behind the bar, talking with Darcy and Rocky. The Road Block was closed today for the big going-away party Trent and I were sharing with Kiki and Troy Beck, but the place was still filled to capacity. Mason was leaning against the other end of the bar, his infant son Noah tucked into the crock of one arm. Rilla was riding herd on their daughter Piper while chatting with Cory.
“Of course we’ll be back for that. I wouldn’t miss it. And your mom made me pinky swear I’d be there.” It was going to be hard to leave this little town that had been briefly my home, but more even more, I’d miss the people who’d come to be my friends.
“You’re going to have such a blast, being on the road. You’re going to be a total groupie.” Maureen turned around to look up to the stage, where Crissy Darwin was having an impromptu jam session with Troy. “Look at that. They’re just like regular people. I saw Troy’s picture in People magazine last week, and tonight he’s here in Burton, at the Road Block. I feel like I’m hanging out with famous people now.”
Always My Own (Always Love Trilogy #2) Page 21
