Love in Deed by Smarty Pants Romance L. B. Dunbar

Author:Smarty Pants Romance L. B. Dunbar [L. B. Dunbar, Smarty Pants Romance]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Smartypants Romance
Published: 2020-05-11T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

[Jedd]

Is she serious?

This has to go down as the most awful rejection in the history of rejections. How is she still married? Howard has been gone for twenty years. And how did I not know this about her?

“Wha…?” I can’t even form the complete word. What in the ever-loving fuck?

Instead of asking myself the more pertinent question, where did that marriage proposal come from, I’m stumbling to comprehend the fact she’s still married to that asshat. Slowly, I pull back from her, releasing her hair and disentangling my leg from hers. I press my palm flat on the wall, extending my arm, still caging her in, but no longer touching her…and it hurts. It hurts to think she might still be married, still be loving him, after all this fucking time.

“He disappeared. Left without a word.” Her fingers weakly spread and swirl like a magician. The sound of her voice is weak as she tries to jest. But my heart plummets to my stomach and my gut turns over, and I want to wrap her in my arms and kiss the pained expression right off her downturned mouth.

But is it the pain of still wanting a missing man or the discomfort of a failed marriage?

“You aren’t divorced.” The words choke my airway, and I swallow back the internal struggle of wanting to hitch her over my shoulder and run off to Nashville with her—fuck Howard—or just run far away from this situation.

“He couldn’t be found. People came to the house looking for him. Debt collectors. A motorcycle man. Someone else’s husband. But Howard wasn’t in Green Valley, and I had no idea where he’d gone. I only knew he went off with some floozy from the Pink Pony.”

The Pink Pony? The place her daughter works? That fucking bastard.

“You never filed divorce for yourself?” I question. Why hasn’t she let him go? There are ways around his desertion. Get a fucking lawyer. Did I say that out loud?

“A lawyer is expensive, and I didn’t know where I’d send papers. We didn’t have the funds. Every penny we made, we needed. I didn’t want to waste the effort on Howard.”

My thoughts buck and jolt, ricocheting in all directions. At some point, she did take the effort to find him, though. “What about the night of the accident? You went after him then.”

Beverly exhales, her shoulders sagging. “Vernon told me he’d seen Howard at The Watershed. I didn’t think I could face Howard without additional courage and—” I raise a hand to stop her. She’s already told me this part. She drank too much and drove.

“Did you intend to ask him for a divorce then?”

Beverly pauses, licking at her lips and my brows pinch, the twinge of a headache beginning.

Did she still want him? What about now?

“You would have taken him back,” I mutter, answering my own question.

“I…” She swallows again, her eyes lowering for the hem of her sweater where she clenches at the fabric. “I don’t know what I would have done.

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