Page 53 of Easy On Me

She was just going to walk out on me.

Like what we were building didn’t matter.

Like we didn’t matter.

She backed up, turning around in the yard fast enough her wheels dug ruts in the grass, and I watched her go because what was I supposed to do? Tear after her, confront her, make everything worse? I forced air into my aching lungs. What if she didn’t come back?

Fear twined about my anger, the pulsing fury that had coiled about each nerve ending all afternoon. This wasn’t my fault. I needed her, and she bailed on me the first time things got hard? She left me.

“Calm the fuck down.” Pressing a fist over my heart, I muttered the words to myself. I wasn’t going to come apart like Tate and do something stupid. “Get your shit together.”

She needed to process. I got that. I’d had the afternoon, and right now, she felt like I had standing in that field.

She’d go to Maggie. She’d calm down, cuss about me to Maggie, and get it straight in her head.

Maybe leave me anyway.

I dragged a hand down my face, wedding band cool on my burning skin.

She’d never said she loved me.

I’d dropped the hardest fucking thing in her lap, another woman maybe having my child.

And she’d left me.

I stared at the empty driveway, one thought reverberating in my head.

She’d never said she loved me.

I was fucked.

Chapter Sixteen

Tyler

Pregnant.

She was pregnant.

And that look on his face? He thought it was his.

Oh, screw that noise. I knew her – he’d obviously been slow on the uptake when it came to her real nature – and she wasn’t getting anywhere near my baby.

I stabbed the communication screen with a shaking finger, launching the voice text option. “Text Maggie.”

“What do you want to say?” The robotic voice was too damned pleasant, not realizing my world had just imploded in our kitchen.

“Where are you? I need you.” I clenched the wheel, braking hard for the traffic light at 19. No. No, my world had not imploded because my world was the baby nestled inside me. My world was Mama Nancy and Marilyn and Maggie. My world was not him. Not now.

I’d gotten along just fine without Jase Hatcher before. I could do so again. A few short months of fooling myself into thinking life worked out for me? Didn’t change a damn thing.

Damn Elizabeth Hall.

Maggie’s reply flared on the communication screen. Leaving the office. Meet me at Old Mexico

A popular local restaurant? I set my jaw. No problem. I had lots of practice at pushing seething emotions way deep down inside so they never saw the light of day again. I could do that. Push down everything I’d felt for Jase, all the hopes I’d had, and bury all that useless shit. I wrapped the familiar coldness around myself like a cloak.

Like meeting an old friend.