by M. Allen
“Listen here, bud—”
Before Eric started a fight he couldn’t win, Magnolia interrupted him. “Dax, why don’t you take Hayden in for some cookies.”
“All right.” He took two steps and paused next to Eric, leaning in. “If you even saw who she really was, you would know by now. No one forces Magnolia Reed to do anything.”
In the moment, Magnolia knew Dax saw her for exactly for who she was, and he relished her inner strength. He glanced over his shoulder and winked at her.
Eric didn’t miss a beat. “When you’re an adult, you learn to compromise. Magnolia understands she can’t just go do what she wants all the time. This is about us, not just her.”
Dax placed Hayden on his feet. “Run on inside. I’ll be there in a moment.” Hayden charged around the side of the house and out of sight.
“Dax, don’t.” Magnolia stepped forward, ready to stop him from hitting Eric.
He waved her away. “Don’t worry.” He stepped up to Eric. “You know what your problem is, pal?”
“Why don’t y’all tell me what my problem is?” Eric said in a mocking phony southern accent.
Dax chuckled. “Maggie is a shining star, and because you don’t understand how to grab hold of it, you try to force her into a something you can grab and control. And that is your first mistake.”
Utterly stunned, Magnolia crossed her arms over her chest and turned on Eric. “Was it about us when you slept with your skanky receptionist? Was that a compromise I’m supposed to make?”
Dax laughed as he walked back toward the house. “That, my friend, is Magnolia Reed. You might’ve put a dent in her, but she’s all better now, and I pity what’s about to happen.” He spun and pointed at her. “Oh, and honey, if you go after his bony ass, I won’t pull you off him.”
A slow smile spread across her face as he walked out of view. Eric rounded on her. “What in the hell was that, Mag? Are you sleeping with that guy?”
“You lost the privilege of having that information when you stuck your puny pecker in someone else.”
“Ugh, you are so stubborn and difficult. Can’t you see I am the only one who will be with you for exactly who you are?” He pressed his hand to his chest.
Magnolia tilted her head to the side looking up at her beautiful husband. In the short time she’d been away from him, his hair had grown disheveled; even his normally pressed white button down was rumpled. “Some people like my stubborn side.”
“Oh, come on. No man likes an immobile woman. Except me—you know I am the only one who will love you the way you want. Just let me love you, Magnolia.” He stepped forward and put his hands on her crossed arms.
Let him love me? Was this how he’d gotten her to stay all those years ago? Telling her he was the only one who would love her for the way she was? Putting her down, just to make himself look better? She stepped out of his grasp. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“What?” He threw up his arms.
“Is this how you’ve always spoken to me?” She wrapped her arms around herself. Thinking back over the years at all the times they’d argued, had he told her she was stubborn, convinced her she wasn’t worthy of anyone else? Standing in front of him, listening to his words, she questioned how she’d spent the last few years with him. Had her fake, plastered-on smile been a result of him always low key hurting her?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He spun in a circle, looking around the farm. “Is this really the life you want? We can have it all, Mag. The beautiful house, the family, we can even have another kid if you want. I’ll do all that for you. Just come home.”
Do it all for me? How could she have fallen for this line of bullshit for so many years? Dax and Eric were polar opposites in more than just looks. Where Eric saw a person he needed to conquer, Dax saw a partner in crime. Where Dax wanted to let her run free and support her while doing it, Eric wanted her to step back into his shadow and play the role of the good little wife. Buying a new family car every five years and saving up for that one family vacation to Florida each year. What in the hell had she been thinking, staying with him all this time? She took another small step back. “I want a divorce.”
“Oh, no. You don’t get to just leave me. We are going to work this out.” He dropped his jacket to the ground and shoved his hands in his hair. “You are the only one I can picture my life with, Mag.”
She ground her teeth and hardened against him. “Then you should’ve thought of that before you cheated.”
“I have been thinking about it, and I am so sorry. You are everything to me.” He fell to his knees, coating his pants in mud.
Magnolia’s eyebrows shot up. “Eric, get up. What are you doin’?”
He cupped his hands together. “Please, Magnolia, I can’t be without you. I know I messed up, but there has to be a way we could work it out. What can I do to change your mind?”
How the hell did he go from telling her how much she sucked and how great he was, to how could he fix this? She was getting emotional whiplash trying to keep up with his changing moods. “For the love of Pete, get up.”
“I’m not getting up until you tell me you’ll at least think about it before asking me for a divorce. I know we can be happy if you just let me take care of everything like I want to.”
Magnolia felt the weight of him pushing her in her chest. The longer he stayed kneeling in front of her, the more she wanted to walk away. This man had kept her pinned down for years, cheated on her and was now refusing to move unless she agreed to think about walking back into a toxic situation. “I think you should leave. Now.”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving until you agree to just think about it.”
“I don’t want to think about it. I want this to be done.” She again crossed her arms over her chest.
“I know I’ve made mistakes, but you have too.”
She frowned at him. “How have I messed up?”
He leaned forward and whispered, “I know you slept with him, it’s written all over him. But I forgive you, Mag. Now you should forgive me.”
“Eric, just go.”
“No! Not until you agree to think about going to counseling with me.” He held his fists at his sides and remained unmoving.
What more could she say? She wanted him to leave but he refused. For the first time, Magnolia did exactly what he’d done to her for years… she lied. “I’ll think about it.”
When a smile of relief spread across his face, she almost felt guilty. Almost.
Chapter 17
Magnolia made sure Eric got into his car and left before she turned for the house. In life, there is a difference between physical exhaustion and emotional. In this moment, she knew what it was to be emotionally drained. Slugging her feet up the steps to the porch, she let her shoulders hunch like they weighed a ton. An unsettling feeling hung in her stomach. This thing between her and Eric was going to get ugly, she just knew it. As soon as she was on the porch, the front door swung open and Dax strolled out with two cookies in his hand. Without a word, he handed one to her and took a bite of the other.
He locked eyes with her, seeming to wait for her to say something. When she didn’t, he walked over to the post next to the top step and leaned against it. “That husband of yours is a character.”
Leaning against the opposite rail, she took a bite of the cookie. The sugary sweetness melted in her mouth before she spoke. “Tell me about it. What a pain in the ass. I don’t even know how to handle this. It’s going to be ugly.”
Dax sighed. “How’d he take it when you told him you wanted a divorce?”
Magnolia shrugged and took another bite. “He didn’t.”
“Didn’t take the news, or you didn’t tell him?” Dax narrowed his eyes at her and that ticking in his jaw was back again.
“I tried to tell him.” Magnolia turned toward him and crossed her arms over her chest. How many arguments was she going to have with men today?
“You t
ried?” He stood up straight and took a step toward her. “There is no try when it comes to telling someone you want a divorce. You either tell them or you don’t.”
She pushed away from the post and took a step closer to him. “It’s not that easy.” It really hadn’t been. She’d tried to tell Eric it was over, but he wasn’t accepting her answer. How else could she handle it? This was their first interaction since the pancake mistress incident. Did she think her marriage was over? Hell, yes. But conversations needed to be had, and it couldn’t just be a ‘We’re getting divorced. Goodbye.’
Dax slowly shook his head back and forth, then sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “I can’t do this.”
“Wait, what? Can’t do what?” Panic forced her pulse to speed in her veins. What was he saying? He didn’t want to be around her anymore?
“This, Magnolia.” He motioned between the two of them. “He cheated on you for fuck’s sake, and you’re considerin’ stayin’ with that jackass.” He leaned in and hissed, “Even after in the loft yesterday.”
“I never said that.” She wanted to shove him off the porch and kick his ass for even suggesting what happened between them had meant nothing to her. She looked him dead in the eye. “Yesterday meant everything to me.”
“Well, you’ve got a damn funny way of showin’ it.” He turned away from her and marched down the steps.
“Where are you going? We are not done here.” She stomped her foot. The floor board creaked beneath her boot.
He spun around, throwing his hands out to the side with a shrug. “I think we are more than done here. Either you’re getting a divorce or you’re not. You can’t be all over me in lofts of barns one day and agree to stay married the next.”
Magnolia waved her hands. “Shhhh! Do you want everyone to hear us?”
“I don’t give a shit who hears us.” He turned away from her once more.
She called after him, “I’m getting a divorce. I’m not staying with him.”
Dax didn’t stop, didn’t turn, he just… walked away.
Utterly stunned, Magnolia sucked in a breath and took a step forward to go after him. He needed to know she wasn’t playing games with him, she wanted him, always had, and now he was leaving. A ball formed in her throat, the kind of ball she got each time she knew she was going to go have a good cry. Tears stung the backs of her eyes.
When she started to take another step forward, her father spoke from behind her. “Let him go.”
Magnolia spun around, about to yell at him for eavesdropping, but he was still in the house behind the screen door, and the barrier between them cooled her ire just enough for her to speak without yelling. “I have to go after him.”
The screen door creaked open and her father stepped through. He held a kitchen towel between his hands and rubbed them back and forth. “You have to give him some space. Damn it, Maggie, I told you to stay away from him.”
She threw up her hands, now in complete frustration. “Why? Why the hell do I have to stay away from a man who’s so far beneath my skin I can’t dig him out?”
Her father crossed his arms over his chest. “You say that now because you’ve had a rough couple weeks. You’re rebounding.” He pointed in the direction Dax had walked off. “And that man doesn’t deserve to just be a rebound. You cannot ride two bulls with one ass, darlin’.”
“Ugh, he would never be a rebound. I admit I messed up by leaving the way I did and choosin’ a man like Eric, who kept me down so he could put himself up. But I see it all so clearly now. I was young and naïve, but I’m not anymore, and Dax is the man I’m meant for.”
“Maggie, you say that now—”
“No! I don’t care what you or anyone else says about me. I know my marriage only just ended and this is crazy. But read my lips when I say I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, and I will have Dax because he and I are inevitable.”
The screech of tires made her whip her head around just in time to see Dax peeling out of the driveway in one of the Triple R pickup trucks. Small pebbles shot up and a cloud of dirt covered the drive. The back end of the truck fishtailed as the tires spun until they found traction. The truck lurched forward, the engine revving with effort until he took off down the dirt path. It was like a dark blue streak of metal speeding away from her. Magnolia turned back to her father. “Give me the keys.”
She held out her hand, waiting for him to hand her over a set of keys to the other truck. He hesitated and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m not having you two racing my trucks all over the green earth. He’ll come back when he’s cooled down some.”
“Damn it.” She stormed past him into the house. “That just proves you don’t know him at all.”
Dax was not the type of man to just blow off steam and come back. Magnolia knew the fire in him would consume him if she didn’t stop him. Whatever was happening between them wasn’t just a fling, could never be. They were each other’s better half. She walked down the hallway and turned into her father’s office. The dark oak room was lined with shelves on both sides, and a large bay window was behind her father’s desk. She rounded the desk, coming to stand behind it.
When all she saw were papers lying about, she opened each drawer, shoving in her hands, feeling for the extra set of keys she knew her father always kept. Her hands shook each time she came up empty. There was no way she was letting Dax leave her like this. If he made up his mind not to have anything to do with her then she’d be screwed.
“Magnolia, what are you doing?” Her father leaned up against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest.
Her finger slipped inside a key ring, and a smile spread over her face. She pulled them from the drawer, held them up and shook them. “Victory! I’m going after him.” The keys jingled in her hands as she tried to walk by.
Her father shot his arm across the doorway, blocking her. “Why can’t you just let him go?”
“Because I’ve let him go long enough.” She shoved his arm out of the way and marched down the hall and out the door to find the man she was always meant to be with… Dax.
Chapter 18
After driving around to all the places Dax might’ve gone, two hours later, she found him in the one place she least suspected. Her hair was an utter mess, her hands were still shaking, and she was pretty sure the nervous sweat running down her body did not smell like the cucumber deodorant she’d put on earlier. Even so, Magnolia parked her Triple R truck next to the one Dax had taken. It seemed like weeks ago since she’d had her fight with Zinnia at The Hole, yet it had only been days. Standing outside the gray nondescript building, she didn’t know what she’d find. It was only four in the afternoon, and the night time crowd wouldn’t be around for a few more hours. So, what was he doing here?
Magnolia sucked in a deep breath and walked in. When she’d been there days ago, the bar was loud and filled with people. In the emptiness, she could see just how shabby The Hole was—the hardwood dance floor was scuffed, and even the chairs were still stacked up on the tables. At the bar, which ran the length of the back wall, Dax sat with his back to her. He had his elbows on the bar, and he rested his head in his hands. Magnolia shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and walked up to him. He didn’t look up at her as she slid into the seat next to him.
A single shot sat in front of him, completely untouched. Magnolia motioned to the drink. “Are you going to drink it or stare at it?”
Dax tilted back his head and closed his eyes. The muscle in his jaw ticked. “I’m thinking on it.”
“Is there something wrong with it?” She struggled with what to say to him. It was the first time she was at a loss for words around him. How could she fix this?
Just then, the bartender walked up. “Hey, Maggie, can I get you something?”
For as long as she could remember, Pete worked the bar at The Hole. He was an older man with a balding head and a hard exterior. After years of breaking up fights, he’d grown curt with the customers
but not with Maggie.
She shook her head. “Nothing for now, thanks.”
With a single nod, he walked away, calling over his shoulder, “No fist fights tonight, girl.”
She chuckled. “No promises.” Then she turned back to Dax. “We need to talk.”
He folded his hands and pressed them to his forehead. “I haven’t had a drink in four years, Magnolia.” He turned and looked at her with grave, sad eyes. “So, I’m sittin’ here, tryin’ to decide if four years of hard work is worth throwin’ away now.”
Flabbergasted, Magnolia froze and leaned back in the chair. “You mean you’ve been sober for four years?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. After my old man died of liver failure, I thought it was time I cleaned up my ass or end up like him—a laughing stock and six feet under before he turned forty.”
Magnolia reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “You could never be like him.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Magnolia, do you know when my dad started drinkin’?”
“I know it was a long time ago.” She shrugged. “When we were kids, maybe?”
Dax gave a humorless chuckle. “He started drinkin’ the week after my mom left us. The man couldn’t take it. She left him, and it broke him.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “The same way I broke when you left me.”
Sitting on the edge of the seat, she leaned in and wrapped her arm around his back while pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I’ve made mistakes, I know that. But, Dax, I will not leave you again. And you are not your father. He let his grief break him. But you are not broken.”
“Magnolia, why do you want to be with me?” He dropped his head, resting it on top of hers.
“Because,” she sucked in a breath and whispered with her heart in her throat, “I love you. We are written in the stars, you and I.”
“I love you, too, Maggie.” He looked down at her. “But maybe we aren’t written in the stars at all. Maybe we’re written in the sand, and the next wave of problems will destroy us.”
