The Bride (The Bride #1)(25)

“Ellie, this isn’t about you.” The truth was I had been procrastinating the whole time with Janet for this reason. I never saw her as the one. I wasn’t so romantic that I thought magic was waiting out there somewhere for me, so yes, I had considered marrying her and building a life regardless. Except I never pulled the trigger, which I always suspected was my gut telling me to walk away.

“It is,” she insisted. “You don’t know what might have happened if I had gone to the foster home. You wouldn’t have had all this pressure on the relationship. It could have been different. Which is why I’m saying give her a break. She loved you.”

Did she? Did Janet love me? Or did she love the idea of being married to me?

We came out to the front porch and I shut the door behind me. Ellie would be following, so no point in locking up.

Except when Janet saw Ellie it only egged her on.

“Oh goodie! The wife. Hi Ellie! What’s it feel like knowing you stole my future? My life. My children’s lives!”

The closer I got to her I realized what rough shape she was in. Her face was blotched, her eyes swollen. Worse was the anger she wore all over her face. It transformed her from pretty to ugly.

“Not great,” Ellie answered her question. “Sorry.”

“Sorry! Now you’re sorry, you little shit. Why couldn’t you have just fucking gone away?”

“Enough Janet,” I barked. She wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going blame Ellie for us breaking up. As much as Ellie wanted to take the blame, I knew better.

She glared at me and turned her scowl in Ellie’s direction. “Tell me, little girl, is he teaching you how to give him blow jobs? Because apparently if you don’t do them right you’re not enough of a woman for him.”

“I said enough!” I shouted. I wasn’t much of a shouter, mostly because I didn’t lose my temper very often. But Janet was currently pushing me to the edge. The point being since I didn’t use that tone very often, when I did it was effective.

She shut up.

“Move over, Janet. I’m driving you home.”

Ellie was already making her way to the truck, which was parked under a portico near the side of the house.

Janet obeyed, thankfully, and as soon as I got in the driver seat I could smell how bad it reeked of tequila. She’d dropped the bottle between her feet and bent over her knees.

“Are you going to be sick? Because if you are I would appreciate you not doing that in the car.”

“No,” she mumbled.

I started the engine and pulled down the driveway, checking to see Ellie was behind me, although she knew where the Carter farm was. A horse farm not five miles outside of Riverbend. Janet had lived there all her life.

We were about ten minutes into the drive when she started sobbing. I had to force myself to ignore it.

“You were everything to me,” she cried.

“What’s my favorite thing?” I asked her before I could think better of it.

“What?”

“My most favorite possession. The one thing that brings me joy.”

Her jaw dropped and maybe it wasn’t fair. She was tanked out of her mind. Then I could see her sneering again. “Your savings, Jake. Your fucking money so you can buy your fucking land back.”

I had no response, because really there was nothing to say. I drove her out to her folks’ place and she shot out of the car without saying anything. I swiped the bottle of tequila from the floor of the car as payment.

Ellie pulled in behind me and rather than move to the driver side, which I would normally do, I got inside as a passenger.

“You’re letting me drive?”

“Go.”

“Wait. You are letting me drive you? Are you going to tell me how to drive the whole way home, because I need to prepare myself for the mansplaining if that’s going to be the case.”

I took the cap off the bottle and took a swig. Tequila wasn’t my favorite, but a few shots would guarantee I could pass out when we got back to the house.

“Go now.”

“Yes, sir.”

I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe it was the two shots of tequila. Maybe I was rubbed raw from the experience with Janet. The tears, the accusations. Maybe a little guilt, but I decided that was bullshit. I didn’t ruin her fucking life.

“Ellie, what’s my favorite thing? My favorite possession?”

She looked over at me and I could tell she was freaked out by the question. Still, she didn’t hesitate. “Duh. Wyatt. You love that horse. Not going to lie, maybe just a little too much, Jake.”

I did love that horse too much. Riding him across the land was absolutely the thing that brought me the most joy in this world.





Ten





Ellie

September





At the end of summer Jake and I took the our herd to market and made a profit. Except with a more health-conscious America, beef prices were down overall, so it wasn’t what we had cleared in years past, which was disappointing.

Still, I wanted to give Jake a raise in salary because of all the extra work he’d done, but he refused to accept it. The twenty thousand dollars my dad bequeathed to him, which I would pay out after our divorce, was going to be a strain on cash flow next year and we had to plan accordingly for that.