Page 139 of The Promise Of Rain
I barked out a half-hysterical laugh.It wasn’t even my wrongdoing.
“You want to get it out in the open?”he snapped.“Fine.Is it about sleeping with other men?Is that your big secret?”He snorted and hitched his hands on his hips.“I don’t care.”
My mouth dropped open.
He didn’t believe me.
“That’s what you think this is about?”I hissed, my anger igniting.“Let me reiterate what I already told you.Zero.Nada.Zilch.”
I fumed as tears came to my eyes.They never believed me.
I scoffed and walked away from him.I stared out the window into the dark.Without the snow, the whole world was dark.“You’re just like everybody else.”
“Not true.”He huffed.“I just don’t understand how no man has managed to scoop you up.I don’t get it.”
“You left me,” I replied quietly.
“I know, but—”
Yesterday, I’d been all about him, but it stirred every bit of agony I’d buried.
Standing with my hands fisted at my sides, I fought to stem the tide.
My breath panted out of me; I breathed fire.
My lips twitched with the effort to hold back as I turned around and walked toward him.
I fought it, I did, but an ugliness I couldn’t control exploded out of me in a harsh, guttural, scream, each word punctuated by the agony of my loss.
“You.Left.Me!”
His lips parted in surprise.
“You think I wanted anybody else?”I stepped right into his space.Going up on my toes, I yelled in his face.“Of course you did!That’s all any of you thought!”
Slamming both of my palms on his chest, I tried to push him back.
He didn’t move an inch.
Disgusted with both of us, I backed away and spun on my heel.
He grasped my elbow.“Jenny—”
I snatched my arm away and glared at him, every ounce of volcanic fury I’d buried bursting from me in a geezer made of fire.
Panic welled up inside me as the anger took form.
And took hold.
Oh, God!
I didn’t want to know.
God, please, I don’t want to know.
“Tell me, Deacon,” I began, anguish rising like a tidal wave to douse the flames of my rage.“How long did it take?”I sobbed and pointed at him.“Whose thighs were you between when I was lying on the bathroom floor with our baby bleeding out of me?”
A rough cry threw my head back, and I screamed, “Who?”
