by L. B. Dunbar
Suddenly, I hear a buzzing noise, like a vibration. I turn my head, breaking the kiss, and James’s mouth travels to my jaw, nipping at my skin. His lips suck at my neck until he tugs the collar of my sweater, exposing the juncture of my shoulder to my neck. His teeth scrape the pleasure point, and I hiss. The sting is like a live wire to a part of me eager for more.
The vibrating starts again, and I realize it’s coming from my bag on the desk chair.
My phone.
Dalton.
“Shit. I need to get that.” I press at James’s shoulders, willing him to stop while not wanting this to end. We need to get this out of our system. I need to sleep with him.
“James,” I hiss. “The phone.”
“Don’t answer it,” he mutters into my skin, retracing his path up my neck and breathing into my ear.
“I have to. It might be Dalton.” The moment I say his name, the air around us turns to ice. The flames of desire between us are doused, and James stills. I continue to breathe heavily.
“Dalton?” he questions, pulling back enough to examine my face, but I can’t look at him. He grips my chin, turning my head so I face him. His eyes search mine. Hurt. Stung. Steeled.
James presses off me and jumps off the bed.
“Wouldn’t want you to miss a call from Dalton,” he growls before stalking out of the room.
The phone buzzes once more, but I’m too wound up to move. I don’t know if it’s that I’m turned on by the anger in our kiss, the prospect of sleeping with my husband, or the confusion over both items colliding.
I slowly roll to my side, press off the bed, and reach for the desk chair. Pulling it out, I dig in my bag for my phone. The call has gone to voicemail. I typically don’t listen to messages when I recognize a number. Dalton just called me, so I should immediately call him back.
Instead, I press on the voicemail number.
“Hey honey, just checking in with you this morning. It was late when I got back last night. I’m about to head into court, so I’ll call you again this afternoon. I miss you.”
He’s so sweet.
I look up to find James’s dog sitting just outside Michael’s bedroom, watching me, assessing me.
“I know, I’m a terrible person,” I say to the pup who barks once in agreement before running off.
I stand from where I’d been sitting on the edge of Michael’s bed and hike my tote over my shoulder. Making my way down the hall to the stairs, I take a second glance at the pictures hanging in the stairwell. The Harrington men for three generations. The Harrington cousins at a young age. More photographs. More memories. Faded rectangles mark the wall from the pictures I took with me. Nails remain intact, empty of replacement frames.
When I enter the kitchen, James leans against the kitchen counter. His arms are spread, hands clutching the countertop. His head is hung again as he faces the window with his back to my entrance.
His body language reeks of sadness.
And guilt. So much guilt.
“I’ll . . .” I pause, waiting for him to turn and acknowledge me. “I’ll see myself out.”
James spins. “How’s Dalton?” His exaggeration of Dalton’s name along with the visceral tone does not settle well with me.
“I’ll speak with him later.”
“And tell him you’re still married?”
My head shakes. The anger that I try to suppress boils inside me. While I didn’t have the energy to argue with him moments ago, perhaps the denotation of my libido did the trick because I explode.
“This isn’t a marriage.”
James’s brow lifts.
“Marriage is a partnership. It’s comfort. It’s support. It’s . . .”
“Don’t stop now. Tell me more,” he mocks, crossing his arms as his backside leans against the sink.
“It’s vows, not promises. Sacred vows to uphold love and honor and faithfulness.”
“Who’s been unfaithful to who?” James mocks.
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss, pointing a finger at him as I round the kitchen island between us. “I saw that woman sitting on your lap, nibbling at your skin like you were corn on the cob dipped in butter.”
James huffs, but I’m not trying to be funny. “I’d like to lay you out on this counter and eat you like corn on the cob, Peach. Remind you who nibbles you best.”
“Jesus,” I hiss, a clash of turned on and pissed off. “You don’t have to be so crass.”
James steps closer to me. “That’s the thing about you, Peach. One minute, you’re proper, and the next, you’re dirty, and I happen to know you like it nasty. Reckless. Wild.”
He clears another step and reaches for my face, but this time, willpower strengthens me. I lean away before he touches me.
“Don’t pull away from me,” he snaps, blue eyes firing like the start of a burner.
“Because that’s your job?” I bark at him.
“Evelyn,” he warns, but there’s nothing left to warn me about. He broke my heart. He cast me out.
“A marriage is love, James. I loved you.” I jab a finger at my chest. “No matter what happened, I loved you, but you told me to leave. You told me to get out. You said you couldn’t look at me.” I choke on the sob I’d been fighting since entering this house. “Do you have any idea how much that hurt? He had my eyes, and because of that, you tossed me aside. I didn’t leave you. You left me, so don’t preach to me about faithfulness.”
You said we’d get through anything as long as we were together.
James stares at me. His arms slowly crossing over his firm chest. His hand lifts for his mouth while his finger swipes at the patch of hair thicker on his chin. His eyes are blue steel, hard and cold. He’s so distant from me despite the twelve inches between us.
“You didn’t call, Evie,” he states as if that explains or answers anything.
“Forget the call. You could have called me. For years, I’ve been waiting on your call, Ranger.” The reference to his nickname startles him, and both brows arch.
“It’s been six years,” he clarifies.
“That’s right, and a year ago, I’d finally had enough. I had to let you go.” My voice cracks, and James stares at me. I’m such a fool. It took me years to release him. It took him days to cut me out.
I can’t believe I almost considered sleeping with him.
For half a minute, on our son’s bed, I thought I could do it. I thought I could have sex with him.
“So, you can divorce me and fuck him,” James says without a second of thought.
“Fuck you!” I scream at him. Then I hitch my bag higher on my shoulder and stalk out of the house—our house—just as I did six years ago.
7
Woman Are Pillars
[Evie]
To my surprise, my car leads me right where James told me I wasn’t allowed to go.
I’m paying an impromptu visit to his parents.
When I told James I was pregnant, the first thing he did after getting over the shock was asked if he could introduce me to his family.
“They’re going to love you.” The sentiment was nice enough, but I wanted him to love me, which seemed like the craziest notion because we’d only been together less than twenty-four hours. We’d been apart for three months, during which I found out I was having his baby.
Back then, he followed me to Conrad Lodge, which wasn’t as nice then as it is now, and I rode with him to his parents’ house. James was nervous when we finally pulled in front of the antebellum home, reminiscent of history long passed in this country. The house was beautiful, with a grand porch on two floors and stately columns accenting each level.
As we sat a minute in the gravel driveway, James reached for my hand, kissed my knuckles, and I turned to him, never forgetting the look in his eyes.
Fear.
I softly chuckled at his tenderness. “Maybe I need to be the rock?” I questioned of him.
“There’s something you need to know about me before w
e walk in there. I’m sort of the black sheep of the family. I don’t match the rest of them. The military hero of my eldest brother. The do-good of my youngest brother. Even Billy, who can be a fuckup in his own right, hasn’t done the shit I’ve done. You’re going to be the best thing to ever happen to me in their eyes, and that’s a lot of pressure.” His concern for me made my heart patter double time, but he had nothing to worry about. I had my own black sheep moment, which he’d learn about soon enough.
“We have so much to learn about each other,” I told him, hoping this conveyed I understood his concern. His thumb rubbed over my knuckles while his attention concentrated on the motion.
“We already know we have one thing in common,” he teased, and my brows creased in question. “Fantastic sex.”
I swallowed against the anxious chuckle in my throat. “You’ve had a lot of that, haven’t you?”
“Fantastic sex?” he continued to tease, and I nodded while licking my lips as I awaited his answer. “Only with you.”
“You promised you’d never lie to me,” I reminded him, releasing the nervous laugh.
“I’m not lying.” He twisted my hand so he could scrape his teeth against the pulse point of my wrist, and it was a shot right to another pulsing place on my body. I wanted fantastic sex with him again, but first, we needed to meet his parents.
The memory comes back to me as I park in the drive of Elaina and George’s stately estate. It’s just as breathtaking as it was nineteen years ago, and I’m just as nervous.
I exit the Jeep and take a deep breath of the autumn air around me. When I shut the driver’s door, my heart races faster. As I walk up the drive, a woman with bright blond-white hair steps onto the lower porch and holds a hand up to her brow to shadow her eyes as she watches me approach.
“Evelyn Sue,” she calls out to me as I near the steps. My smile grows, and something inside me wants to run to this woman, hoping she’ll circle me in her arms. She did that once, letting me know I’d always be part of this family when my own rejected me. However, something stops me from rushing to her. My feet feel sluggish and heavy as I climb the stairs and meet her face-to-face for the first time in years.
“My, aren’t you a sight?” she says, forcing a smile, and I’m not certain if her question is an insult, compliment, or merely an expression of her confusion. After a second of eyeing me, she flaps her hands and opens her arms. “Well, give me a hug, sugar.”
I exhale with relief and lean into her, allowing her to pull me against her. She smells like gardenias, which have a distinct floral-spice scent. Every time I get a whiff, I think of her, and my chest aches for her compassion. She presses me back too quickly, holding my shoulders as her gaze roams my body.
“You’re too thin, honey.” I have lost some of my curviness over the years, taking up a healthier lifestyle after living a few years with self-doubt and deep sorrow.
“It’s so great to see you,” I whisper, feeling the too familiar prickle in my eyes. I don’t want to keep crying at every turn in this town.
“Where’ve you been, child?” There’s a hint of curiosity with her admonishment. When I left, I left the family, because it was what James wanted.
“I went back to Savannah.”
Elaina sucks in a breath, knowing my history with my hometown. Her hands slip off my shoulders, and one arm loops through mine.
“Let’s go inside, and you can tell me everything.”
For the next hour, I explain to Elaina how I returned to Savannah but not my parents’ home. I wasn’t welcome there. I threw myself into my business, which had been more of a hobby before everything fell apart.
“Silver Dragonfly specializes in silver spoon jewelry. I mainly make bracelets and rings.” Although Elaina already knows I dabble with the medium, I hold out my own arm to show her my work. “I’m even sold locally at Pearl’s.” Pearl’s is a local artisan shop filled with Georgia favorites and kitschy touristy stuff. Presley Granger had been one of my closest friends when I lived in Blue Ridge. She was one of the few who knew what happened with James on a deeper level.
“You sell your line at Pearl’s?” Elaina questions as if she doesn’t understand something. “Have you been in town?”
“I arrived a few days ago.” I realize Billy did not end up telling his mother about my return.
“Oh,” Elaina states, affronted. Her simple interjection implies the unsaid. It’s taken me so many days to pay her a visit. “How about other than this trip?”
Sheepishly, I look away. “I haven’t.” I couldn’t bring myself to return even as my jewelry line expanded, and Presley demanded more inventory. We communicate mainly online and when she visits Savannah.
“Have you seen . . .” Elaina pauses, swallowing around her own son’s name. “James?”
“I have,” I state, trying to hold her eyes, but she looks away. Her fingertips press at her lips. Her head slowly nods.
“How was he?” To be surprised James doesn’t speak to his family would be an injustice. He’s told me himself he stepped away from them. He didn’t deserve to be a Harrington, he said. I didn’t understand his statement. His family loved him, past experiences and all. Pregnant woman and all. He gave his family the long-awaited grandson as Giant had two girls, and Mati had twin boys, but they were Rathburns. Billy never had a child with his wife, and Charlie was a single father with another girl.
However, I am surprised that Elaina doesn’t know how her own son is. She makes it her business to know everything about everyone in town, and she must know her second son hangs with a motorcycle club outside of town.
“He’s . . .” Distant. Cold. Unforgiving. I allow her to fill in the blank.
“He was so hurt when you left him,” Elaina adds to my drifting statement.
“Pardon me?” I blurt, taking a moment to calm my tone. “Hurt?” I’m shocked by the word. I was hurt. James was unaffected. We both had another loss on our minds, and his rejection was like a second blow.
“I’ve tried to be compassionate to your leaving. It was the darkest hour for both of you, but still . . . it’s been difficult on him as you left him.”
Something isn’t settling right with me in what Elaina isn’t saying. “Since I left him?” I repeat for her.
“I realize you’d suffered the greatest of losses—the unimaginable—but James was hurting, too. I dare say the guilt drove him to do all he did. The decisions he made to pull away from the family and join that club, but it didn’t help that you left him. It crushed his already shattered heart.”
I turn my head, staring out the window facing the backyard where I once attended family dinners and barbecues. We’re in the kitchen, and this is where the family gathers.
I return my gaze to her across the kitchen table. “Elaina, what do you think happened when I left?”
Elaina holds her head up and swallows hard. “You walked out on your husband.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded. “And that’s what you think? I left him-left him.”
Elaine blinks once. “I’m not following you, dear.”
I roll my lips, struggling with what information to give my mother-in-law. Do I expose the truth that James asked me to leave? He practically kicked me out of the house. He told me he couldn’t look at me.
I stare at his mother, finding her eyes to be strangely similar to his when his weren’t so cold and hardened. A soft blue like rippling water. A concerned gaze like a sun-filled day. James’s eyes match his mother’s. My son’s matched mine.
“I don’t think I’m the right person to explain this to you,” I say, defending myself, snippy with Elaina for the first time ever. The implication is clear. James needs to explain it to her, and then maybe he can explain it to me.
“But let me say, I’d never want to leave this family,” I add.
“I see I’m not understanding something.” Elaina smiles with a confused grin and pinched brows but quickly dismisses her puzzlement. She shifts and reaches for my hand.
“Evelyn, women like us need to be pillars for our men. Columns of strength supporting them.”
She clenches a fist and raises her arm a bit. Staring at her, I’m baffled by her statement.
“Men want to be rocks, symbols of solidity and strength, but it’s the woman in a relationship, in a family, who holds things together. Your pillar slipped out from under the roof, so to speak, dear.” Her tone softens, but her intended lecture is clear. I walked away.
However, James was supposed to be my rock. If we’re comparing polished granite to rugged boulders, where was his strength? Where was his support? I had to fight through my grief alone. I had to struggle with our separation. Where was he when I needed him?
I bite my tongue. Elaina held a different set of values and standards for her daughter, and thus women, than she did for her boys. She was tougher on Matilda as her only girl child and a bit disappointed in her lack of femininity. Mati never fully embraced being a Southern debutante. I’m the closest Elaina ever got to a daughter who might have fit the mold, like she was raised as a young girl. However, I hadn’t conformed either. That’s how I ended up with James in the first place.
I reach for my bag next to me and force the strap over my shoulder. Standing abruptly, I hold out a hand to Elaina, a gesture of goodwill I suddenly don’t feel toward a woman I loved more than my own mother.
Her fingers curl into mine, and I squeeze once. “I need to be going, but it was great to see you again,” I lie with the sting of her believing I’d ever volunteer to leave this family.
“But you’re back now, right, honey?” Elaina presses herself off her chair, standing once more to match my height. Her eyes meet mine with compassion and hope. “You’re the only one who can bring him home.”
Her voice softens as our eyes hold. I hate to disappoint her, but she’s wrong. I can’t make James do anything. He’ll have to make the decision on his own. Seeing the defeat in my eyes, she shifts gears again.