How to Rope a Real Man by Melissa Cutler

Author:Melissa Cutler [Cutler, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Western, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781420130096
Google: nxQfAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The last time Jenna had seen Carson, his face had been swollen and damaged, his body and spirit broken. Since that day, Carson had transformed into a taller, broader version of the lanky farm boy he’d been. Shorter hair, clearer eyes, fighting strong. Clearly, his time in the Marine Corps had hardened more than his body.

Under the yellow glow of Jenna’s porch light, they each staked a territory outside. Jenna stood in front of her kitchen window, jumpy with nerves, while Carson paced with measured steps along the white picket fence at the edge of the mangy-grass front yard, his face a web of shadows.

“You’ve changed,” she said in the tense silence.

“You haven’t.”

He wasn’t really seeing her then, if he thought she hadn’t changed. Jenna doubted there was another person in Catcher Creek who had undergone such a radical overhaul as she had since finding out she was pregnant.

That was what made the past so hard to reconcile. She’d relive that night with Carson on the sleeping bag in the bed of his truck a thousand times over if it meant she ended up with Tommy. It felt shameful to wish things had gone down differently with Carson when Tommy’s conception was inextricably woven into everything that had gone wrong in the weeks that had followed.

Carson’s steps faltered with a crunch of gravel and weeds. Huffing, he whirled to face her, gripping the fence behind him. “I thought I knew what I’d say when I saw you again. Hell, I had six years to think about it. But now, looking at you, being here . . .” He shook his head.

She felt the same way. Having spent so much time figuring out how to avoid this very confrontation, she’d never given much thought to what might actually happen if it came to pass.

“Is there any chance you and I can agree to let the past go? We could call each other friends and be on our way.”

He rapped his knuckle against his forehead. “You think that’s why I’m here? To grant you a pardon? God, hearing you talk like that, I hate you all over again.”

His hatred didn’t surprise her in the least. Two weeks after Tommy’s conception, when he’d demanded she meet him at an abandoned barn, she’d shown up and seen it in his eyes that he was furious with her. At the time, she’d had no idea why her best friend hadn’t returned her phone calls or answered his door for two long weeks after she’d shared her body with him and he’d shared his secret with her. She hadn’t understood the wild hurt in his eyes when it was she who’d felt neglected and used.

Yet at the first sight of his broken, beaten body, she’d set aside her hurt feelings and rushed to him, only to have him shove her away and accuse her of unspeakable betrayals. The argument that followed had been the worst she’d ever experienced—unmatched in its vitriol and volume.

Tonight, she knew intuitively that there was nothing she could say to convince Carson he was wrong to accuse her.

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