Page 47 of Deacon

“Goodnight,” he says firmly.

Kasey veers off, touching his hat, and disappears. Aiden’s pale stare swings and fixes on me.

“And you can go on to bed,” he says.

I nod, setting the rag aside and wiping my hands on my skirt. His lip curls.

“You’re just like her,” he says hoarsely. “Just sitting there, eating all that attention up. Makes me sick.”

Here it comes. I drop my head, picking my thumbnail. I’m raw from being on edge all night. A tear is already sliding down my cheek and hanging on my chin. I can’t look up, or he’ll see it.

He clears his throat. “Just go to bed.”

Relieved, I duck past him and run up the stairs. I got off easy tonight. I didn’t have to sit there while he called me a whore like my mother—the whole damn speech. Pushing the lock down, I sag against the door.

I made it through another day.

After I’m in my nightgown and on my side, staring at the moon, it starts to fall into place.

The realization that Deacon is the same type as the rest of them is disturbing. After Braxton, I told myself never again. I swore I wouldn’t end up with a man like that…a man like Aiden, who burned through his wives like they were nothing.

He ruined them both. Lady Hatfield was Aiden’s first wife by common law, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant before she was fifteen. My mother, Laurel Rose, was his next victim, pulled into his life after Lady fled. She was young too, on the run from her father with a toddler in tow. I’m sure it was easy to manipulate her into thinking Aiden was a safe place to land.

Those two women are strangers to me, despite me living in their shadow, but I know their pain, know what they went through. Bittern told me a lot of it.

And yet…I think maybe Deacon is different underneath.

My eyes are tired. I’m ready to fall asleep, but they snap open when I realize there was a lump in Deacon’s pocket on the drivehome. I remember glancing down when he was adjusting himself and seeing it.

That son of a gun took my panties.

CHAPTER TEN

FREYA

I’m so disappointed and conflicted.

During the day, I’m disgusted that I couldn’t keep my legs closed. At night, I toss and turn, my body hot like I have a fever. In the morning, I wonder if this is what got Lady Hatfield into her horrible marriage or made my mother think Aiden was safe. He probably seemed so charming, just the way Deacon is, at first.

I know all these things in my head.

But my body is a traitor.

I go into work, and it feels like somebody’s watching me all over again. People pass by on the street, in their flannels and cowboy hats. Customers come and go. Tracy arrives during the afternoon and asks me to go to the farmer’s market to get pumpkin for the pastries.

I go, but I can’t keep from looking over my shoulder every step of the way.

When I return, Tracy takes the pumpkins to boil them down at her house, leaving me to close up. It’s late in the afternoon by that time. Everything is soaked, but the rain has let up. I clean up and drag the trash out the back.

I’m putting it in the bin when I freeze.

Something squeaks. No, it’s more of a whine.

Turning, I run my eyes over the narrow alley. There’s a furry black puppy tied to the air conditioning unit with a string. Horrified, I drop the bin lid and run to it, holding out my hand. It yaps, rolling its head in a circle at me.

It looks well fed. I frown, staring down at it. It licks my hand and yaps twice.

Who would just dump their puppy like that?

---