Page 4 of Protective Cowboy

The tiptoeing part was stupid because she was alone in the house. She knew Phillip wasn’t supposed to return until Thanksgiving morning.

But she simply couldn’t shake the guilty feeling that he’d suddenly pop up out of nowhere to confront her for breaking the rules.

With shaking hands, she unlocked the filing cabinet and opened the drawer labeled with the current year.

She sat in Phillip’s leather office chair and began working her way through the neat bundles of bank statements, cellphone bills, and credit card bills. She was lucky that her husband still preferred paper statements to email.

Horror and anger rose steadily inside her at each new revelation. Hundreds of texts sent to and received from an unknown number. Receipts from Tiffany’s for jewelry. Receipts for designer clothing, shoes, and purses from expensive Manhattan boutiques. Bills from restaurants with names she recognized from the FoodieTV shows she loved.

And worst of all, several bills from a women’s health clinic in Princeton detailing various services… including a pregnancy test.

Autumn slumped in the chair. Bitter fury churned in her gut.

Here I am, always pinching pennies! And it’s all because he’s treating some other woman to the high life?

She felt as incredibly stupid as Phillip always told she was. She’d brushed aside a veritable parade of red flags, too blinded by her desire to believe in the illusion of their happy marriage to read the glaring signs.

Shouldn’t I be sad? Crying? Utterly devastated? she asked herself. Or at least angry?

Instead, she felt utterly cold and numb.

How could I not have seen this coming? All those “business trips.” His insistence on being the family’s sole money manager. His insistence on handling our family cellphone bills?

And now here she sat, all alone in the perfectly decorated—but not too expensive—home he’d chosen for them. And the only emotion breaking through her numb shell was relief.

Relief that it was over… and it wasn’t her fault. She’d spent the last nine years trying to live up to Phillip’s impossible standards, and now she knew he was nothing but a fraud and a cheat.

She had zero interest in confronting him with her discovery. Let that other woman have him. And good riddance.

She was done with his lies, his bullying, his control-freak behavior.

She was going to take Jayden and leave before Phillip returned.

But where will I go?

The answer was easy. She’d go home to Snowberry Springs. Her parents would take her and Jayden in, no questions asked.

Home. The word used to fill Autumn with dread. She had been so desperate to escape her small-town roots and build a glamorous life for herself.

Now, home was the only place that made sense.

She carefully gathered all the bank statements with their paycheck deposit records. A divorce lawyer would want to see how much money Phillip really earned, so that they could work out alimony and child support.

Afterwards, she trudged back to the primary bedroom, feeling like she was wading through a chest-high pool of freezing water.

She began pulling her clothes and shoes from her side of the closet, throwing everything haphazardly onto the bed. Then she went into the bathroom to gather up her makeup and toiletries.

As she worked, she put together mental To-Do lists. This afternoon, she’d go to the bank and retrieve Jayden’s birth certificate, their passports, social security cards, and other important papers from the safe deposit box.

Then she needed to find and hire a divorce lawyer. And call her parents and ask if she and Jayden could come early for the holidays. She dreaded confessing that her marriage was over. Maybe that part could wait until they were all face to face.

But before all of that, she needed to tell her son that they were moving to Grandma and Grandpa’s ranch.

∞∞∞

Parking in front of the school a few hours later, Autumn took a deep breath and braced herself for the difficult conversation ahead.

Jayden waved goodbye at a couple of boys, then opened the car door and hopped in.

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