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He stopped thinking about that as he heard a bit of a scuffle. Forgetting completely about Shanna, he turned toward the source of the voices.
“Let go!” It was Ellen’s voice again.
“We’re gonna get this straight right now,” the man’s voice said, and far from the indulgent tones of earlier, he sounded angry, threatening.
That made Travis walk faster, and their shapes came into sight.
There was a pole light as a backdrop, so there was a good bit of shadow, but there was no doubt it was Ellen, and while he knew that this was not a place for her to bring her dog, he was slightly surprised that Chewy wasn’t there. This wouldn’t be happening if Chewy had been around. Chewy was not an aggressive dog, but she would absolutely not allow a strange man to take hold of her mistress like that. Except, maybe Chewy didn’t regard him as a strange man. Maybe Chewy knew exactly who this man was. If it was the way it sounded, and he was Ellen’s...husband.
How could she do this to him? How could she get married without even saying anything? His heart squeezed as he thought about all the dreams he’d dreamed about the two of them together.
He thought that he’d been clear about what his intentions were, but it had been ten years ago, and he hadn’t even seen her for five. She didn’t know that he had come home a year and half ago to see her.
He must have misunderstood when she told him, because he thought the trials were in Sweet Water, and he hadn’t realized she was traveling for them. He didn’t have the time to follow her and had left without ever telling her he’d shown up for them and to see her. They had coincided with a week that he had to be in the states, but unfortunately, he had business he had to take care of too and couldn’t stay around.
Sometimes those things happened, but he’d been bitterly disappointed. So disappointed that he ended up never even mentioning it to Ellen. He felt like an idiot, knowing he must have misheard, and he also didn’t want to admit how much he wanted to see her.
Now that he was listening to her and thinking that he’d missed his opportunity, he wished he would have said something, even if it felt like too big of a risk to take or not the right time. At least this pain in his heart wouldn’t be so debilitating.
But, husband or no, that man had no right to treat her like that. Travis stepped closer.
“Listen here, you might think you’re all high and mighty, but you’re mine, fair and square, and it’s about time you started acting like it.” The man yanked on Ellen’s arm, eliciting a gasp of pain from her.
“She said no.”
Travis stepped into the circle of light, knowing that it shone directly on his face, while theirs were still in shadow, as the man’s head jerked to look toward him.
“Get out of here. This is not your business.”
“She said no,” he said again, firmly. Letting the man know that he wasn’t backing down.
“Travis?” Ellen said, a question at first, but then a smile spread over her face. And Travis almost forgot that she was standing beside her husband, who was insisting that she was his, and that she needed to act the part, or whatever he was doing.
It was enough to see her smile, to see the happiness that seeing him brought her. To feel his own happiness bubbling in his soul, although it was tempered and then almost extinguished when he remembered that she was married. He was the one who had insisted that they had to be friends. This was all his fault.
“Travis!” Shanna’s voice came from behind him, sharp and annoyed. “You were supposed to follow me over to the picnic table. The kids are playing on the swing set. Get over here.”
He ignored her. The man still had not let go of Ellen’s arm. Irritation made Travis’s fingers itchy.
“Oh my goodness! I thought you weren’t going to make it!” Ellen said, and there was nothing but joy in her voice. No concern for the man holding her, no irritation, nothing except perfect happiness that he was standing in front of her. It was exactly what he would have expected from her, except what about the man?
“He didn’t buy you, I did. You’re staying beside me.” The man spat onto the blacktop and did not let go of Ellen as she pulled, like she was going to walk toward Travis.
He bought her?
Had Ellen gotten into some kind of financial difficulty? That was so weird. Surely if she had been, he would be the first person that she’d have talked to. Her uncle could have helped, too; she wouldn’t have needed to sell herself... That was so...centuries outdated. Or maybe he was just confused.
“You don’t own me. That’s not what that meant.”
“It meant what I say it does. You obey me.”
Travis’s brows went up. A lot of women talked about taking the obey out of the marriage vows, and he always thought that that was un-biblical. After all, the biblical command was to obey. It was there in black and white. It wasn’t that he was trying to lord it over anyone, and it actually made him feel a little uncomfortable to think that his wife was supposed to obey him, like there was something special about him that made him worth obeying. But he wasn’t the Creator, he was just the creature, and to question that would be to effectively say that he knew better than God. Which he absolutely did not.
Regardless, it wasn’t really his concern, and with the pain in his heart, he was almost tempted to walk away. But he could not allow a man to treat a woman like that, whether they were married or not. Although what Ellen was doing with this person, Travis did not understand. How could she have thought it was a good idea to get married to someone like that?
Maybe he had just been a very good actor while they were dating.
“It meant no such thing,” Ellen said, and she sounded angrier than he’d ever heard her, even though her voice had not been raised. “Let go of my arm. Or I will walk right back in that building and make this null and void.”
