How will I be able to look at him without feeling betrayed? How will I be able to let him touch me without feeling dirty? How will I be able to spend time with him without feeling devastated?
I can’t. I can’t stop the way I feel. My only option is to try and control the way I express it. I can feel all the awful things; I just can’t show them.
For the first time in my life, I have found a use for the cool, emotionless way in which I was raised to comport myself. I’ll be involved because I have to be. I’ll be detached because I need to be. For self-preservation. That’s the best that I can hope for.
Tag appears in the doorway, a grin on his face and our luggage in his hands. All of our luggage. I look down at his long fingers, fingers that have teased and thrilled me more times than I can count in the last weeks.
A near-crippling wave of sadness floods me. I try not to let it show on my face, but I’m not quick enough. I wasn’t expecting him to show up before I was ready to face him.
I know he knows something’s wrong. His expression turns to one of concern and he drops all our bags on the floor and ambles in to me. “What’s wrong?” he asks when he kneels down to put himself at eye level.
Fighting back tears, I shake my head and point to the phone. I see his lips thin in anger. That’s fine if he thinks my father has said something to bother me. Whatever he thinks, whomever he blames will be a perfect and convenient red herring that I can use until this gets resolved.
“I’ll just talk to you later, Dad, okay?” I say into the phone.
There’s a moment of silence during which my perceptive father is no doubt deducing that my abrupt ending is a result of unwanted company.
“We’ll talk soon,” he says in his clipped way. All business. That’s my dad. But after his pause, he adds something else. Something long overdue and as rare as a night-blooming orchid. “Love you, Weathervane.”
Tears flood my eyes. I’m already emotional, but to hear my father say that, something that he hasn’t said to me in years, is my undoing.
“Love you, too,” I respond brokenly.
I hear the click of the line just before I let my phone fall from my ear into my lap so that I can cover my face. I wish Tag would just leave me alone in my grief, but he doesn’t. Instead, he scoops me up with a gentleness that burns my poor heart like hot wax to new skin, and carries me silently up the stairs. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t pry. Obviously, he’s drawing his own conclusions about my distress. He just takes me to our room—what used to be only my room and has ceased to feel like that since the first time we made love in it—and lays me on the bed. He pushes the hair back from my face and kisses my forehead. And my eyelids. And my nose.
“Whatever he said, I’m sorry. I never wanted our marriage to bring you pain,” he says kindly.
Liar! I want to shout. But I don’t. I let my eyes tear and my chin tremble and I just nod at him, keeping my mouth shut until I can say the word aloud. However long that might be.
With a sigh, I turn onto my side, away from Tag, until I hear him creep quietly out the door and pull it shut behind him.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tag
“Is she okay?” my mother asks when my foot hits the bottom step.
“I don’t know.”
Mom’s brow furrows into a frown. “Do you think she knows?”
“No, there’s no way she could. I think her asshole of a father said something to upset her.” I run my fingers through my hair, getting angrier. “I just wish I could do something about it.”
I feel protective of my wife. Men like William O’Neal don’t deserve the love of women like Weatherly. He doesn’t deserve to be able to hurt her, to be able to affect her the way he does. He shouldn’t be allowed to dictate her life, to manipulate her the way he does. And yet he does. As wrong as it feels that he gets some part of her heart, he does. He has it. And he obviously doesn’t give a damn how he treats it. Seething, I grit my teeth. I could happily wrap my hands around his throat and throttle the shit out of him for whatever he said to upset her.
But then that would be hypocritical. I’m hurting her, too. Maybe even worse than he is. She may not know it yet, but I do. I know I’m keeping things from her, things that would possibly change the way she feels about me. Even though I’m doing it for the right reasons, it still churns like acid in my gut that I have to. This is not who I am. I don’t hurt people and not give a damn about it later. Even the women I’ve been with, I’ve always treated with respect. That’s who I am. That’s who I was raised to be. That’s who I want to be. The type of man who deserves the love of a woman like Weatherly, not the kind who breaks her heart and then walks away with some of the pieces stuck to his shoe.