Page 37 of Back in the Saddle

She rubbed my arm. “That must have hurt.”

“She apologised last night. I wanted to believe she was truly sorry. But I don’t know. It’s hard to believe after everything else.”

“I don’t think Taylor would apologise if she didn’t mean it.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I suppose.”

“Do you want to save your marriage?”

I stared out into the distance. Did I? I’d tried for so long I didn’t know if it was possible anymore. But I’d felt hope last night. So that must mean something. Either that or I was a fool for believing in love.

“Yes. But I don’t know how. I don’t know what else I can do.”

“You can start by trusting her. You can trust how genuine she is.”

That was true. Her feelings were generally open. What had she said last night about why she’d accused me of cheating? It was because she was scared. Feelings I needed to take into consideration. Fear could make us irrational. Just as irrational as love.

Lorraine rested her hand on my arm. “You’re not blame free here, Ciaron. I want you to think about that.”

I closed my eyes. If I wanted this to work, I needed to change too. But I had no idea in what way. Whatever it was, I needed to figure it out.

12

Taylor

Mum, Ciaron and I were in the kitchen doing the dishes after dinner. The kids had taken themselves off to their rooms. A deliberate act to avoid work? Perhaps. Maybe it was a good idea. Dinner hadn’t been full of fun reminiscing, like it had been the night before. Ciaron had gone from being light and happy to sullen and back again. He’d been hard to read, and I couldn’t put a finger on why.

“Fran tells me that Sophia filled her forms in,” Mum said. “So, crisis averted.”

Ciaron stiffened.

I shoved the tea towel into the glass. “How did you know about that?”

“Ciaron was upset when he got down to the crush. He told me about what happened.”

I yanked the tea towel out and thrust the glass at Mum, ignoring Ciaron, who was washing dishes beside me. I couldn’t believe he went to Mum like he was a child tattling on a sibling.I’d done nothing wrong. It’s not my fault he gotupsetwhen I pointed out his error.

I raised my eyebrows at Mum. “And why was he so upset? Because he made a mistake?”

Mum opened her mouth, but she was cut off by Ciaron’s angry voice. “Because you’ve never made a mistake?”

I wrung the tea towel in my hands. Time to turn it around on Taylor, is it? Fuck that. I wasn’t always to blame. “It’s not that hard a concept. They fill in the forms before they move in.”

“So what, now you’re going to have a fucking go at me in front of Mum? Because doing it in front of Fran wasn’t enough?”

I rounded on him. “I’m not the one who told Mum all about it.”

Ciaron’s face was flushed. “She saw that I was upset and had the decency to ask me about it. Unlike you.”

“You were upset because you didn’t follow the process.”

Mum stepped forward. “Ciaron, you should have told Taylor you were upset by her actions.”

Ciaron’s narrowed eyes didn’t waver as he stared at me. “I’ve told her before, but she didn’t listen. She never fucking listens.”

That was bullshit. He never told me that. I was so sick of being cast as the villain. He was always the good guy. The kids thought he was. Mum thought he was. He hadn’t told me anything of the sort. It’s not like we’d spoken since the argument. The argument…oh wait…the day he decided to leave me and the kids, he’d mentioned it then. I’d been too busy thinking about theI’ve had enoughpart.

“Taylor, has Ciaron spoken to you about this before?”

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