Page 89 of This Time Around
Twenty-Eight
Rebecca
“Are you going to be okay here alone?”Brooke asked, pulling to a stop near my front porch.“You went really quiet tonight.”
“I’ll be fine.”My voice was monotone.I felt nothing but that pain and anger I’d clung to for so long.
After that photo, the memories of the last night with Joseph rushed through me with the force of a tornado.I had pushed aside my wine and spent most of the night listening to Brooke and Kelly while they didn’t bother hiding their concerned glances in my direction.But I was lost in a sea of horrific memories.
When Jordan had stopped by, he’d been obvious with his concern, but I still didn’t tell anyone.
Everyone in town loved Joseph.I loved him.I had loved him with my entire being and in one night—one text and one voicemail that came through on his phone when I was using it to check the weather—everything changed.
I’d never told a soul.I didn’t see the point in maligning his name.Would we have stayed married?Would I have kicked him out anyway?There was an ellipses on our life together, not a period, and all because one night, one damn night three weeks before he died he hadn’t kept his dick in his pants.
My hands curled into fists at that familiar ache.
“Thanks for tonight,” I mumbled and opened the door to Brooke’s car.
“You know we’re here, right?Always?For anything.”
She leaned forward, almost to the steering wheel and I bent down through the open door.“I know.I’m sorry I wasn’t better company.”
“You know that photo means nothing too, right?”Kelly asked.Her hands curled around the passenger headrest to lean forward from her seat in the back.“We even saw the announcement he made after.”
It hadn’t even been an hour after that photo of Cooper popped up on Brooke’s phone when another alert came through, this one of him outside the restaurant, waving a folder in the air with the announcement saying the Hawke-Rinaldi marriage was officially over.
Then there’d been a mention of me.My ranch.The fact I was a widow along with speculation of what our relationship was.Which meant someone was already searching for information on me, and how ridiculous.
I just wanted to take care of my cattle and goats and be left alone.But that didn’t mean someone in town wouldn’t talk if the opportunity presented itself.
Jenni Akers would do that, that conniving, selfish, home-wrecking bitch would absolutely talk to a reporter if given the chance.
Hell, I half-suspected she was the one who took the photo of us in the first place even though I didn’t remember seeing her at Down Home that night.
But she’d spill.She’d spill everything, and then I wouldn’t be hiding the fact that my husband had slept with the biggest bitch in town.
“I’ll talk to you guys later.”I closed the door to Brooke’s car and hurried up the steps to the porch, pulling my keys from my small handbag on the way.
Once inside, I locked the doors and waited until Brooke’s taillights vanished from the long driveway.
“God.What a disaster.”
I kicked off my shoes, not bothering to put them away or fix the rug I kicked up in the process and headed upstairs.It was eleven o’clock, late for me on a good night and I should have come home as soon as I knew my night was ruined.But, I was so hell-bent on trying to move on, even with being in a crappy mood, assaulted with memories of Joseph I tried so damn hard not to relive but couldn’t be helped, I had let Brooke and Kelly convince me to stay longer.
They were only trying to help, but without knowing why that simple stupid photo turned me into such a wreck, they couldn’t shake me out of it.
Thank the Lord for good friends who would try anyway.
“Whatever,” I grumbled, flipping on the bathroom faucet.I scrubbed off my makeup and prepared for bed, crawling into sheets that still hinted at the memory of Cooper.
I couldn’t escape either of them tonight, and the harder I tried to sleep, the more I tossed and turned.
Eventually, I gave up, and grabbed my phone from my purse.A mindless scroll through social media apps I never bothered to update would put me to sleep.
I slid back under my covers and tapped the home button on my phone, only to see my screen taken over by missed calls and texts from Cooper.The last text came only thirty minutes ago.
If you’re still awake, call me.We need to talk.
