Page 34 of Elsie's Strong Shelter

“She’s here awfully early in the morning.” The tight clip of Gina’s words snapped him back to reality.

“What concern of yours is that? You threw me out, left me for someone else, remember?” Squeezing the back of his neck, he stormed into the kitchen, leaving her in the foyer. He didn’t care if it was rude, he needed to move. He couldn’t just stand there like an idiot in front of the woman who’d broken his heart.

Timid footsteps followed after him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. You’re right. It’s not my business who you have in your home at any time of day. I just wasn’t expecting to find anyone here with you.”

Needing to do something with his hands, he opened the refrigerator door then shut it when he couldn’t find anything of interest. He faced her, hating the way she could send him into a tailspin after all this time. “What did you expect?”

She shrugged, her confidence never wavering. “I told you. I wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“Us.” Rounding the island, she took a step toward him.

“There is no us. Hasn’t been since you slept with another man while we were married then divorced me.” He scrubbed a palm over his face.

“I made a mistake.” Her smile finally fell. Tears hovered over her dark lashes, making the blue of her eyes the color of the sea. “I was lonely and stupid. I thought your job was the problem and if you would have just quit—would have just chosen me—then everything would be okay. But I didn’t understand I was part of the problem.”

He snorted. “Did you think screwing someone else might have been another part of that problem?”

She winced, red clashing against her tanned cheeks. “I deserve that.”

He tilted his head to the side, studying her. She’d wanted out of this town more than she’d wanted her next breath, never returning with him on visits home. He’d been her ticket out of Tennessee, and once she’d escaped, she’d moved on to someone else.

Someone who could give her what he couldn’t.

“Where’s Andy?” The other man’s name on his tongue churned his stomach.

She straightened and looked him dead in the eye. “It didn’t work out. I made a mistake.”

His body tensed. He’d wanted to hear those words for so damn long, but now that Gina had finally said them, they meant nothing. “That’s not my problem anymore.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and took another step. “Listen, I know we can work past what happened. We both made rash decisions, made choices that pushed the other away.”

“Are you kidding me?” He couldn’t stand there and listen to more of her bullshit. “You think me not wanting to quit my job is the same as you cheating on me? Leaving me? Kicking me out of the home we made? You have some gall coming back here and making such a ridiculous claim.”

“Well, if you didn’t leave me waiting up all night, praying for you to come home safely, maybe I wouldn’t have had to look outside our marriage.”

The familiar argument came back to him in a flash. He laughed a humorless laugh. How had he ended up right back in this place with Gina? Fighting over the same shit after so much time, after so much had happened.

“Listen, I’m sorry that things aren’t working out the way you’d hoped. I want you to be happy, I really do. But you won’t find that happiness with me. Not anymore. We’ve been over for a long time. There’s no going back to what we once were.”

Her bottom lip trembled, and she sniffled back tears. She moved quickly across the kitchen tiles, as if panic pushed her forward. “Please. Dean, you know what we had was real. That you once loved me with your whole being. If you really try, I know we can get that back. Iwantthat back. More than anything.”

Before he could respond, she fisted the neck of his t-shirt and yanked him toward her, capturing his mouth with hers. Shemoved closer, wrapping her free arm around the back of his neck.

He broke away from Gina seconds before a throat cleared behind him.

Elsie stood in the doorway, the crisp morning breeze filtering inside. Her mouth was pressed in a pissed-off pinch and her eyes narrowed. “Sorry to interrupt, but Calvin called. He found Malcom Miller’s house and thought we’d want to know.”

She turned her back on him and slammed the door closed behind her.

Gina’s dark brow arched high. “Is that something you need to handle now, or we can we keep talking?”

“I told you. We have nothing left to discuss. Now please leave.”

Gina flicked her glance outside where Elsie’s back was visible as she stood staring out at the mountains, a phone pressed to her ear. “Fine. I’ll go, but I’m not leaving town. I won’t give up on us.”

“There is no us. Not anymore.”

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