by M. Allen
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I can’t promise it’ll be easy. But I see you for exactly who you are, and all I know is you are my match. I feel it in my bones.”
Dax reached across the bar and pushed away the glass. “Then I guess we should figure this out?”
Magnolia rose to her feet and stood eye to eye with him. A slow smile spread across her face. “Yes, we should.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to his. The cookie he’d eaten earlier stuck to his lips and the sweetest taste hit her tongue. He turned, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in closer. Magnolia threw her arms around his neck and deepened their kiss. His dark woodsy scent surrounded her, and the flavor of his tongue forced heat to spread through her body and pool low in her belly.
“You are sleeping with him!”
Startled, Magnolia jumped back an inch but didn’t let go of Dax. “Eric? Are you following me?”
He stormed forward, his face contorted in fury. “Take your hands off my wife.”
Dax stiffened in her arms. “You got a funny way of treatin’ your wife.”
When he began to stand, Magnolia tightened her grip on him. “I’ll handle this.”
She dropped her arms from around Dax’s neck and stepped in front of him, facing off against Eric. “You have no right to be here.”
“I have every right. I am your husband. And I don’t know what the hell you think we are doing, but we are going home now.” He reached forward and grabbed her elbow, yanking her toward him.
Magnolia stumbled forward, bumping into Eric’s chest. “What the hell?” She placed both her hands against his chest and shoved him back. Eric stumbled away, bumping into a table and knocking the chairs to the ground.
When Dax leapt forward, Magnolia reached out and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back. But it was like trying to stop a freight train. “Dax, don’t! Just let it be.”
“Let it be? This asshole grabbed you.” His chest heaved, and his eyes narrowed to laser points focusing on Eric. “Swear to God, Magnolia, if he ever hit you or Hayden, you better tell me now because I will kill him.”
Eric straightened his jacket, though he was still rumpled and the mud stains remained on his dress pants. He lifted his chin and held up his fists. “Let’s go, you hillbilly motherfucker.”
“Hey! No fightin’! It’s too damn early for this shit,” Pete called from behind the bar.
Magnolia tugged on Dax’s arm. “Let’s just go.” He took a step with her. “Be the bigger man here and walk away. You’ve won. You got me.”
Dax shook his head, like a bull about to charge. His chest puffed up and he held his fists at his sides. The corded muscles in his arms seemed to expand with each breath he took. The muscle in his jaw ticked as he stood like that for minutes. Finally, he leaned toward her. “Just this once.”
Magnolia sighed and wrapped her hand in his, pulling him toward the door. “Don’t follow us, Eric.”
“I’ll do what ever I want.” Eric took a step forward.
Magnolia already had Dax halfway out the door, when Eric shoved him from behind. They stumbled into the parking lot. Dax rounded on Eric. “You want to go, fuck boy? Let’s go.” He spit on the ground and held his hands loosely at his sides. He stood to his fullest height, squaring his broad shoulders. Planting his legs like tree trunks, he waved Eric forward.
Magnolia stepped between them, holding out her hands. “Don’t do this. It’s madness!”
“Get out of the way, Mag. You want this redneck, then he’s gonna have to fight for you.” Eric pulled the suit coat from his shoulders and tossed it to her. “Hold that, my wife. It’s Armani. Wouldn’t want to see it get ruined.”
Instinctively, Magnolia caught the jacket flying at her. She rolled her eyes. “Really?” She took a step back. “Y’all want to go at it like a bunch of idiots?” She waved them forward. “Then be my guest.”
Eric ran forward, fist raised high. Dax stood motionless. When Eric swung his fist at Dax’s temple, Dax ducked under the swing and popped Eric in the ribs. The air rushed from Eric’s lungs and he hunched over, laboring to breath. Behind him, Dax smiled and patted him on the head. “Now, why don’t you go home and leave the adults alone? I got something I need to do with Maggie.”
Dax turned to her and winked, giving her half a cocky smile.
Eric lurched to his feet with his hands wrapped around his rib cage. He tilted his head back breathlessly. “Have fun with my sloppy seconds.”
“Eric!” Magnolia stood up straight, about to walk over and slap him. How dare he? The bastard was showing his true colors. Her body shook from head to toe with the need to attack. She was a good southern girl; her momma raised her up right. And right now, she wanted to drag his ass out to the pig pen and leave him rolling in shit where he belonged.
Dax shook his head and leaned over, meeting Eric’s eye. “Actually, I’m the one who took Maggie’s V-card. So, in reality, you’re more like a speed bump for her getting back to the original.”
Eric growled through his teeth. He dove forward, swinging wildly for Dax. Dipping back, Dax dodged the swing and chuckled. “They don’t teach city boys how to fight at prep school?”
When Eric turned to face him, he glared back at Dax. “I guess as much as they teach farm boys to read and write.”
The smile dropped from Dax’s face and he stood at his full height. “I was smart enough to see what I had in front of me. I’d take my education in the fields over yours in a classroom any day of the week.”
“Nice way of saying you’re a weak idiot.” Eric held up his fist.
“Really, guys, isn’t this enough?” Magnolia hated sitting on the sidelines, watching two men duke it out over a woman. She felt like she was back in the ’50s when this was how things were settled.
“Stay out of it, Maggie. Me and this asshole got some history. First, he steals my girl, then he expects me to give her back when I’ve just gotten her. No, ma’am.” Dax held up his hand and pointed to his chin. “You wanna hit me, pretty boy? Come on, hit me.”
Eric didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward and swung a right hook directly at Dax’s jaw. He connected with Dax’s mouth, forcing Dax’s head to snap to the side. Yet that was the only part of him that moved. A slow trickle of blood ran down the corner of his lip. Then, as though it never happened, he looked Eric in the eye and gave him a bloody smile. “My turn.”
Oh, shit. He was going to kill Eric. Magnolia fought the urge to jump in. “Dax, don’t!”
But her words were too late. He hauled back his fist and shot it forward like a snake striking. He shoved his fists into Eric’s stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs. Then, with his other hand, he uppercut him in the chin, sending him flying back onto his ass. Dax leapt on top of him and grabbed a wad of Eric’s shirt.
Magnolia surged forward, jumping onto Dax’s back and wrapping her legs around his waist. With one arm wrapped around the fist he had held high, and the other clinging to his shoulder, holding herself up, she tried to pry him away. Her pulse pounded in her veins, and a nervous ball formed in her throat. “Enough, you’ll kill him!”
Dax held strong as though he didn’t have her weighing him down. He jerked Eric forward and met his gaze. “You’re not worth it.” He shoved him away and stepped back.
Ever so slowly, Magnolia let her legs drop to the ground then she let him go. Eric had yet to move. He lay in a heap on the dirty ground. Magnolia rushed over to him, crouching at his side. Gently, she touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“You’re checking on him? After he grabbed you? After he took a swing at me?” Dax threw up his hands. “Seriously, Magnolia?”
“For fuck’s sake, he’s lying in a parking lot, bleeding, Dax. I’m not just gonna leave him here.” Blood trickled from Eric’s mouth onto the ground; his breath rattled in his chest and the side of his face began to puff up.
“Fine then. You handle this bullshit. I’ll be at the ranch.”
What
could she expect? Him to help her get her lying, cheating husband in the bed of her truck so she could take him to the hotel? She looped one of Eric’s arms around her shoulder and tried to stand him up. Even though he was much more slender than Dax’s stacked build, he weighed more than she expected. Magnolia toppled back under his dead weight. Eric groaned. “I’m gonna die.”
“You’re not gonna die.” Dax stood over them both and sighed as he grabbed Eric’s arm and hauled him up like he weighed nothing more than a sack of wheat.
Eric’s head lolled on his shoulders as Magnolia wrapped his arm around her shoulder to help. She smiled over at Dax. “Thank you.”
He rolled his eyes and helped drag Eric over to the truck. It took all of Maggie’s strength to get him to lie down in the bed of the truck. Eric pressed his hand to the side of his face and winced. “Maggggiiieee, I need to go to the hospital.”
“Ugh, no you don’t. A bag of ice, and you’ll be fine.” Maggie pulled his hand away and examined the bruise forming over the left side of his face. It ran from just under his eye, across to his nose and down to his chin, which was approximately the size of Dax’s fist. The man had done this with one hit. Part of her was impressed, part of her was turned on, and a very small part of her felt bad for Eric. The man had gotten his ass handed to him in a matter of seconds.
“Mag, please, take me.” Eric grabbed her hand and locked his gaze with hers.
She rolled her eyes, hopped down from the bed of the truck, and closed the tailgate. “I’ll take you, but it’s a waste of time.”
“Thank you, Mag,” he called to her in a groaning voice.
She turned toward Dax and reached up her hand to touch the corner of his lip. He didn’t even flinch back from her; instead, he leaned into it. She fought against the smile that played on her lips. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing some chapstick won’t fix. I’ve had worse split lips in winter.” He shrugged and took a step back.
That one step back felt like a step away from her. She closed the distance between them. “Don’t move away from me.”
He inclined his head toward her truck. “Better deal with that.”
Oh, I’ll deal with it in more ways than one. She went up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Dax’s cheek. “I’ll handle Eric. Don’t you worry.”
He wrapped his hands around her waist, leaning down to whisper in her ear, “Because you think we are destined to be together?”
A giggle escaped her lips. “As cheesy as that sounds, yeah, I do.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Then go handle this and come home to me.”
With his deep, rumbling voice in her ear, her heart flip-flopped in her chest, and she promised, “I will come home to you.”
Chapter 19
The sterile smell of bleach burned her nose, and the constant beeping of alarms echoed around her. Magnolia sat straight-backed in a hard plastic chair next to Eric’s bed. Even though it was cool outside, the A/C whirled in the hospital. Beside her, Eric looked as though he’d been hit by a car. From the way he lay groaning, she would’ve thought he had been run over twice. She sighed and rested her elbow on the arm of the chair and pressed her hand to her forehead. “We really don’t need to be here. He only hit you twice.”
“Three times, Mag. He hit me three times.” Eric lifted the ice away from the side of his face to meet her eye. “I can’t believe you were with that animal.”
Magnolia sat back in the chair, glaring at him. Dax was anything but an animal. The man was warm, kind, and generous to a fault. A possessive protectiveness heated her chest as anger burned hot and heavy. She turned on Eric. “He’s the animal? You’re the one who took a whore, you’re the one who started the fight, and you’re the reason we are in this mess now.”
He sat up slowly, the dressing gown gapping around his shoulders, exposing his long, lean body. Eric, her beautiful husband, was nothing compared to Dax, either physically or emotionally. His lips dipped into a frown and his chest bowed. “Mag, I know I messed up, but we can make it better and work this out. Maybe counseling is a good option for us, you know?”
She pressed her hand to her forehead once again and closed her eyes. “Ugh, and who’s going to attend counseling? You, me and your new baby momma? Eric, it’s no—”
“She lost the baby,” he blurted out, then gazed at her with sad, grave eyes. “I’ll admit I didn’t want it, but I didn’t want something to happen.”
Magnolia reached out and patted his hand. Did she feel bad for him? Not particularly, but she would never wish that kind of loss on anyone, not even her cheating creep of an ex. “I’m sorry.”
He pressed his hand over hers, holding it there. “Please, Magnolia, I need you.”
For a long moment, she stared into his sapphire eyes. The bruising across his face made them appear even darker. His blond hair had fallen forward in a messy tangle of knots. In all the years that she’d known him, she’d never seen him look like a walking disaster. And maybe it was the way his arm was draped across his ribs, or how his shoulders hunched in on himself that made Maggie have pity for him. Or maybe it was the years they’d shared together. In that moment, she wanted to be gentle with him. When she opened her mouth to speak, the doctor walked into the room carrying large x-rays.
Eric immediately straightened. His brows furrowed as he winced and rubbed at his ribs. “What’s the diagnosis, Doc?”
The doctor, a very plain man standing just a few inches taller than Magnolia with dark hair and glasses, placed the x-ray on the light box on the wall. “Mr. Conor, here we have the x-rays of your ribs.” He sighed. “While they’re not broken—they’re only bruised—you should heal in a week or two.”
“What about my face? I feel like something is broken.” He twined his fingers with Magnolia’s as though he was waiting for terminal news.
The doctor pushed his glasses back up his nose, sighed, and in his deep southern drawl, said, “Ya got a nice shiner. Nothing a cold steak won’t fix.”
Eric’s jaw dropped. “Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?”
“Nope, in my professional opinion, whatever big son of a bitch you pissed off, I wouldn’t do it again.” He pulled the x-ray from the light board and tucked it under his arm. “If you’ll excuse me, the nurse will be in shortly to discharge you.”
Before Eric could say another word, the doctor left them alone together once more. Magnolia pulled her fingers from his grasp and stood up to pull on her coat. Eric looked her up and down. “Where are you going?”
“You heard what the doctor said. You’re fine. And we’re leaving soon.” Once she had on her denim jacket, she pulled her hair from the collar and let it fall down her back. “I’ll drop you off at the hotel.”
He shifted on the bed. “But, Mag, I want to stay with you.”
Magnolia sighed and took a step back from the bed. “I just don’t trust you anymore, and when you don’t have trust, you don’t have anything.”
He pressed his lips in to a hard, thin line. The fluorescent lights above his head made his normally flawless skin look pale and gaunt. “This is because you want that farm boy.”
“His name is Dax. He definitely isn’t a farm boy, he’s a rancher, and it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with us.” She took a step in closer to him. “This is because you cheated on me. And whatever reasons you had for it don’t matter anymore. You decided our relationship was over the moment you were with someone else.”
Eric reached out and took her hand, pulling her closer. Unshed tears stained his blue eyes. “She meant absolutely nothing to me. It was a mistake. I love you! I want to be with you and only you. What can I do to make it better?”
In the middle of the ER, surrounded by machines, groaning patients and the smell of disinfectant, Magnolia finally knew exactly what she had to say and do. She met his gaze directly. “Eric, I want a divorce.”
Shaking his head back and forth, he said, “No.” A tear ran down his c
heek and his breath hitched. “I-I don’t know how I can live without you.”
Should’ve thought of that before you took someone else. But she didn’t utter those words out loud. Being snarky wouldn’t help the situation. “Honestly, what did you think would happen if I found out? I just…” She sighed. “I just can’t live like that. Wondering not if you would cheat again but when you would.”
“I swear I would never do that again.” He pulled her hand to his chest, tucking it in between his steepled fingers. He shook as though pleading.
She pulled her hand from his. “It’s too late. I don’t trust you, and I know I can’t do this. I think it’s best if we divorce amicably. I spoke to a lawyer and he—”
“You spoke to a lawyer?” His voice began to rise. “We haven’t even been separated a month!”
“Shhh, stop yelling. I wanted to get all the information I possibly could.” She glanced around at the nurses station outside their room.
“How could you do this so fast, without even a hesitation? Did the last eight years mean nothing to you?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Or were you just waiting for your chance to come back to him?”
Magnolia paused. Had she always wanted to come back to Dax? Through the years, was she secretly devoted to the memory of him, even though she was with Eric? The idea seemed crazy to her, yet a part of her had always loved Dax. No, she’d tried to make a life with Eric, and it hadn’t worked out. But, secretly, was it relief she was now feeling? The pressure of the last eight years slowly lifted as she turned away from a life she was never happy in. “I was not waitin’ to go back to him. Were you waitin’ to cheat on me?”
“No.”
“Then, no, I never planned for this to happen. But, Eric, we have the chance here to end things well. We don’t need to battle things out in court like those crazy people on TV.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
He waved away her words. “I can’t think about this right now. Tomorrow yo—”
“Tomorrow, I’ll say the same thing. I want a divorce, Eric. I won’t change my mind, and I won’t back down from this.” It was the utter truth. There was no going back now. She loved Dax, and the moment she found out about Eric cheating on her, any love she felt for him died along with their relationship.