Riverbend Reunion(71)

“Look at me, darlin’.” He let one lonely tear roll slowly down his unshaven cheek. “I’m begging. I’ll get down on my knees if you want me to. I love you. I always have and always will. I want you to come home.”

“I am home,” she said. “Where are you living?”

“I was evicted from our apartment, and I’m just staying with one friend after another. I need you to ground me, Mary Nell. Please come home.” He was almost whining. “Give me one more chance. I promise this time will be better.”

Her knight-in-shining-armor syndrome came out, and it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she would consider it when she thought about her friends and how happy she’d been in Riverbend. Then she got mad at herself for even considering giving him a second chance—or talking to him, for that matter.

“No!” she said with such force that it scared a sparrow sitting on the porch railing.

Kevin’s bleary eyes narrowed, and his jaw began to work like it did when he’d told her to get out of his apartment and his life. “I won’t take no for an answer,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll get in my truck and drive to that miserable little Podunk town and make you see that your place is with me, Mary Nell. We are soul mates.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you. You’d be making the trip for nothing,” she told him.

His bloodshot eyes glared at her now. “You are a selfish bitch,” he ground out. “I took you away from that lifestyle and gave you something exciting. I gave you almost twenty years of my life, and you can’t even give me a second chance?”

“That’s right, but if we’re honest, I worked and gave you all those years to accomplish your dream. That’s long enough, Kevin. Don’t come to Texas or—”

“Or what?” He cut her off. “Or your daddy will shoot me?”

“No, Daddy won’t shoot you, but I will. I don’t need anyone to do my dirty work for me. I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself. I’m hanging up now, and I don’t ever want to hear from you again.” Mary Nell reached up to end the call.

“This is your last chance for happiness.” He was still talking when she made his face disappear.

“Who were you talking to?” Oscar asked as he came around the corner of the house.

“Kevin, but don’t worry, Daddy, it’s over,” she answered as she scrolled down her contact list and called Haley.

“That’s a good thing. I’d hate to have to go to prison right here at a time when we’re all getting a bar ready to open up for business,” he said.

“You wouldn’t have to.” She smiled up at him as she listened to Haley’s voice mail message. “If he shows up here, I’ll take care of him, and they’ll never find his body.”

“That’s my girl,” Oscar said with a grin.



Haley was on the phone when the call came from Mary Nell. She sent a quick text: On the phone. Will call ASAP.

She got one back that said: Meet me at the bar.

“I’m sorry,” Haley said. “That was a friend. What were you saying?”

The woman on the other end had begun to sob. “I shouldn’t”—she stopped and blew her nose loudly—“bother you with . . .” Another bout of weeping.

“It’s okay, just tell me what is going on,” Haley said.

“It’s just that you were the counselor, and you helped me pick out my wedding cake, and I need to talk to someone, and”—she stopped long enough to take in a breath—“and my life is in the toilet, and I’m mad, and if I don’t talk to someone, I’m going to go to jail for homicide.”

“Sweet Jesus!” Haley muttered when she figured out that this was the very woman whose fiancé Haley had had a fling with—the father of the child she was carrying.

“I’ve been married a month, and I’m filing for divorce tomorrow,” the woman said.

“Amanda?” Haley asked just to be sure.

“Yes, I got your number from the faculty list. Can you meet me somewhere for a drink? We need to talk,” Amanda said.

“I’ve moved to Texas and am no longer affiliated with the school. I turned in my resignation a few days ago. I guess they haven’t gotten around to taking my name off the faculty list,” Haley said, “but I’m so sorry things didn’t work out for you.” Hopefully that fool hadn’t told her about his little premarital affair with Haley.

“I should have listened to my mama.” Amanda had gotten a bit of control and was talking in complete sentences. “I’m glad Daddy insisted on a prenup, or Mark would have taken me to the cleaners.”

“Did you catch him cheating?” Haley held her breath for a moment for fear that he had told Amanda about the fling he’d had with her.

“No, he just came in an hour ago and admitted that he’d been seeing another woman since the night before our wedding. It’s my . . .” Here came the sobs again.

“It’s who?” Haley asked.

“She was my maid of honor.” Amanda’s voice went all high and squeaky. “He said he has found his soul mate, and as soon as the divorce is final, they are getting married.”