Page 15 of The Auction
A woman, who’d given it to me straight.
If I filed for divorce without cause, given that everything had been left directly to Creed in the will, it would be less likely that a judge would award me my fair share of the value of the property.
Which, in my opinion, was all of it, minus Creed’s fifty thousand dollars.
However, if Creed filed for divorce, a judge’s sympathiesmight lie with the former owner’s daughter being suddenly turned off the land she’d been born to.
“Can’t you consider just giving this a chance? Let’s just see if we can make this work together.”
“Um, let me consider that? No, thanks.”
“I’m not divorcing you,” Creed said, predictably. The man was a stubborn son of a gun.
But if I had cause when I filed for divorce, that would also help my case.
“Fine. Whatever,” I said, with a shrug. “Listen, if you’re really set on sticking this marriage out, though, I’d appreciate you finding…company elsewhere.”
“Company?”
“I’ve made it clear I’m not having sex with you. So you are free to fuck whoever you would like. You probably won’t find any action in town, it’s too small. But you can go to Jefferson, Billings, Missoula. Wherever.”
He pulled up to the house and parked the truck on a gravel area just beyond the house. We didn’t have a garage. It was just the house, and the barn where all the other farming equipment was stored. Because on a farm, sheltering the tractor from the elements was way more important than protecting a bunch of trucks.
“You think if we don’t fuck, you can get an annulment. Is that your play?” he asked.
I shook my head. Annulment. Divorce. It didn’t matter to the court.
I only had to show cause. Physical abuse was an option, but I didn’t see that coming from him. He was too controlled. All that bullshit about killing too many people, I didn’t buy it.
Creed was a coldhearted asshole, not a psycho killer.
If he wasn’t going to rape me, then he wasn’t going to beat me, either.
Which left adultery.
If I made it clear that he was free to sleep with whomever he liked, I could collect enough evidence of his infidelities. Then I could show it to a judge with crocodile tears pouring out of my eyes.
My poor, poor broken heart! How ever will I recover from his betrayal?
“Why is it so hard for you to grasp that I don’t want to get into bed with a stranger who showed up one day and stole my farm and home out from under me?”
He leaned into me then, crowding me to one side of the truck. “I didn’t steal anything, sweetheart. Your father promised me a wife, and a wife I’ll have,” his eyes did that thing again. Like he could see through my clothes and knew what I looked like naked. “I can make it good for you. I can make it…so you like it.”
His words reverberated through my body and I could feel a strange heat suffuse my cheeks.
I’d told him it was none of his damn business. And it wasn’t. But of course, I was a virgin. Herb had kept too close a watch on me. My one day of freedom after I’d turned eighteen, I had a choice to get laid or get birth control, and I’d gone with the obvious one.
My coffee date with Kevin, was the only one I’d ever had.
I had no concept of good or not good sex, but it didn’t matter.
I didn’t want it. Any of it. Him. Sex. This godforsaken farm.
“Give me the fifty thousand and I’ll leave,” I said, quickly.It was nothing in comparison to what I was owed. The land itself was worth a least a million dollars. But fifty thousand would at least give me a chance to start a new life. “Put the money in an account under my name and I’ll file for divorce. You get all of this. The house, the farm and me gone.”
“What do you get?” he asked me, still pushing into my space. Making it so I could smell him.
“Freedom.”
