I turned to her, reaching out to clasp her hand.
She looked to me.
“I’m glad, honey,” I whispered.
“He gives you that,” she stated.
He did.
And him doing it gave me glee.
“Yes,” I replied.
Her lips tipped up. “I’m glad, Cassidy.”
I let her go but only to wrap my arms around her to give her a hug.
She gave it back to me.
When we were done, we didn’t let each other go. Not completely. We kept an arm around each other and turned to the scene by the river, Deacon handing the pole to Gerardo while Esteban and Araceli gathered close. He was bent to the boy and I knew giving instruction.
He was going to be a great daddy.
Yes.
Deacon gave me glee.
And he did it in a way I never thought he’d take it from me. I just believed he’d always give it, freely.
I guess I was stupid that way.
Chapter Sixteen
Say Something
I was upstairs in the bedroom.
Deacon was downstairs in the foyer with Bossy. They were training. She’d mastered the commands of “sit” and “down,” but she wasn’t real hip on “stay.”
Deacon was determined to make her that way.
It was hilarious. It was also cute.
Badass versus Boss Lady Puppy.
I couldn’t predict a winner so I didn’t try.
After his last awesome stay, Deacon had taken a job and come back. It was three days before my family was going to descend and there was a lot to do.
The house needed to be cleaned and we needed to go to the grocery store. This was because we were having a big spread the night they arrived. At Deacon’s request, my loaded potato casserole (and because Dad liked it too) would be served and Deacon was going to grill steaks (another talent I discovered, my badass could man a grill).
The next night, we were having a big shindig. More barbequing, hotdogs, hamburgers, brats, chicken breasts. Milagros, Manuel, and the kids were coming, as well as few of my friends from town.
Deacon had not hesitated to approve his meeting of my friends. He did this over the phone while he was on his job.
“Whatever you want, Cassie.”
Whatever I wanted.
I so loved Deacon Deacon.
And the last thing to do before my family descended, according to my man, was teach our dog to stay.
So I was giving them time and was up in the bedroom, determined to unpack Deacon’s bag. He’d said this stay would be a month. He’d also said, “Gonna start cuttin’ ties, Cassidy.”
He didn’t explain this fully.
He didn’t have to.
I got it.
He was preparing to be with me.
Always.
And I was preparing to have him, doing this by making a point by unpacking his bag. I’d already cleared a drawer and space in the closet. I did this as a statement but I also did it because I was sick of tripping over his crap when I was in the closet.
A win-win for me.
I was also going to corral Lacey into going shopping with me. Deacon looked good in his tees, shirts, jeans, and definitely his belts. He had kickass belts.
But he didn’t have many clothes.
I was going to rectify that. If he didn’t want to take them on the road, that was okay. They could stay home.
Home.
With me.
I grinned.
He’d tossed his dirty stuff in the laundry so I dragged the bag out of the closet and put it on the bed. Tees, socks, and boxer briefs in the drawer. Belts (two of them, he had three, one he was wearing) on the hooks on the wall in the closet. Extra pair of boots on the floor. Jeans (three pairs, all faded; as hot as they were, definitely needed new) and shirts on hangers. Dopp kit in the bathroom, unpacked and put in a drawer. Then there were the three thick rolls of bills, the outside bills in denominations ranging from twenty to one hundred held tight by rubber bands that I found, ignored (but didn’t, since I had to touch them), and put in with his socks and briefs.
And then it happened.
I was down to the bottom, feeling the loose change, forgotten receipts, and lint brushing my fingers in the bag, and I hit what felt like paper. Slick paper.
I closed my fingers around it and pulled it out.
It was a white piece of photograph paper and it was in a bad state. A corner ripped, the paper crumpled and wrinkled like it took a battering but was consistently smoothed out.
My brows drew together. I flipped it.
And stopped breathing.
The image on the paper burned into my eyes, the pain immense, searing into my brain.
Deacon in a tux, a pretty blonde woman in the curve his arm.
She was holding a bouquet of flowers and wearing a wedding gown.
Both of them were smiling.
Smiling and happy.
Younger, much younger, the rugged had not yet settled in Deacon’s face.
But it sure as fuck was Deacon.
Deacon married.
Married.
My lungs caught fire and I forced myself to breathe.
I stared at the picture, unable to tear my eyes away, thoughts crashing into my brain.
He worked jobs.
Jobs away from me.
The phone he used when he was around me was a burner. I knew it, though never asked to confirm. A flip phone. No one had flip phones anymore. It was cheap and had no features. Only voicemail and text.
He had another phone. He had to. A smartphone.
He’d said back when we had the situation with those punks that he’d taken pictures and there was no way he went to his cabin to go get a camera.
He took them on his phone.
A phone his wife had the number to, not me. If I did, she might see me call. If I did, she might know about me.
And he didn’t take my calls. He didn’t take them unless he was in a place to take them or call me back, which was infrequently.
I stared at her in the picture and it gave me no comfort to see she was pretty. Very. But I knew with the exotic features my parents gave me, I had that on her.
He said he never smiled before me.
And there he was, smiling.
Happy.
Married.
Unable to stand anymore, I shoved the bag out of my way, tossed the picture on the bed, and sat on it, like sitting on it would make it not be real.
I knew nothing of him.
Not one fucking thing.
Nothing I could trace him by. Nothing that would lead me to the life he led when he was away from me with another woman. The woman who could legally claim him. The woman who was really his.
Not me.
God, he’d made me a cheater.
God! Did he have children?
“Woman!”
My eyes shot to the door and my throat closed.
Did he call her “woman?”
Did he call her “baby?”
“Cassidy!”
He was coming closer.
I didn’t move. I had to use all my energy not to throw up on the floor and I did this stupidly, because I did it wondering what he told her when he came to me, and that made me feel even sicker.
Deacon, so smart, why would he carry their picture with him?
It was like he wanted me to find out.
And maybe he did. Maybe that guilt at wanting me that ate at him all those years until he couldn’t control the urge anymore made him carry that picture. Take her with him when he was with me. Bring her into my house.
My fucking house.
But he’d said he was cutting ties. Did that mean he was leaving her? Leaving her and coming to me? Making me not only a cheater but a home-wrecker?
“Cassie.”
He was in the door.
“What’s your last name?” I asked, surprised my voice was so strong.
And so void.
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I watched his body tense but his eyes moved to the bag then cut back to mine.
He took a step in and I lifted my hand.
He stopped and his face closed down. Totally. I watched that mask snap into place and it had been so long since I’d had it, I forgot how much it hurt when he gave it to me.
“What’s your first name?” I went on.
He didn’t move and didn’t speak, eyes locked to mine. He didn’t even launch in, giving me crap about invading his privacy by unpacking his bag.
“What’s your birthday?” I kept at him.
Not a muscle moved.
“Where did you grow up? What are your parents’ names? Are they alive? Did you play sports in high school? Did you even go to high school?” I fired at him.
He said nothing.
I stared into his tawny eyes, feeling just what he wanted me to feel. Closed out and in the cold.
And that cold was cold. So cold it was a wonder my teeth weren’t chattering.
“Do you love me?” I asked suddenly.
He moved then, but only to speak.
“Yes,” he clipped.
He loved me.
Bullshit.
I reached to the mattress, found the edge of the photo, yanked it out, and showed it to him.
His eyes went to it.
No reaction.
Not. One. Thing.
Seriously?
“Do you love her?”
He looked to me but said nothing.
“Do you have children?”
“No,” he bit out.
At least there was that. Daddy wasn’t a philanderer.
“Can she give them to you?”
His jaw clenched.
She couldn’t.
He wanted kids.
Enter me.
“Do you have a dog?”
He said nothing.
“A cat?”
Nothing.
“A gerbil?”
He gave me not one thing.
I stopped speaking.
Deacon didn’t move.
Neither did I.
We stared at each other across the room, her picture between us.
This lasted a lifetime.
“Say something,” I begged on a whisper.
He said nothing.
“Say something,” I repeated, my eyes burning now for a different reason, tears fighting to be unleashed.
Deacon just stared at me. His gaze dropped to the picture I held his way in my lap. Then it came back to me.
And still nothing.
“You need to say something, Deacon. You need to give me something, anything.”
He didn’t speak.
“You said you’d give me anything,” I accused.
A muscle ticked in his jaw and he finally spoke. “Told you I’d give it if I had it in me to give. You don’t get that.”
That didn’t make any sense.
“You’re married,” I hissed.
“Trust me.”
Was he crazy?
“How?” I cried, tossing an arm out and throwing the picture across the room to make my point. It fluttered a few feet and fell, face down.
“You don’t get her.”
I didn’t get her?
What the hell did that mean?
I stood from the bed. “That doesn’t make any sense, Deacon.”
“You don’t get her,” he repeated.
I leaned toward him and shrieked, “That doesn’t make any sense!”
He again said nothing.
“Explain it to me,” I demanded.
He stood there, body wired and alert, the room filled with something vicious, and…he…said…nothing.
“Explain it to me!” I screamed.
Deacon didn’t explain it to me.
“Say something,” I snapped. “You have to. You don’t get that, Deacon.” I jabbed a finger to the picture on the floor. “You don’t get that from me. You don’t bring that in my house. To my cabins. To my bed.” I sucked in breath and screeched, “Say something!”
“Cassidy, you gotta believe in me.”
“Fuck that,” I hissed. “Fuck you. Fuck not knowing your name or your birthday or anything about your life before me and when you’re away from me. Fuck that!”
“You got it all from me.”
He could not be believed.
“I have nothing from you except what you give to me when you take from me, and you know precisely what I mean,” I shot back maliciously.
“You know that’s bullshit,” he clipped.
“I…know…” I leaned deep, “nothing.” I shook my head, straightening. “I can’t do this. I thought I could because I felt so fucking much for you. I felt everything for you. From the first moment you stood at my door when Grant and I were fighting, I felt it. I didn’t get it, but I felt it. But I can’t. I can’t do it. I tried and I can’t. And you know what? You shouldn’t ask me to.”
He was silent.
“You have to give me something,” I demanded.
“You got everything you need,” he returned. “Dig deep, you know it, woman.”
Dig deep.
He was. He was insane.
“You can’t be believed,” I snapped.
“Dig deep.”
“Fuck that, too,” I bit off.
He leaned toward me and roared, “Fuckin’ dig deep, Cassidy!”
“Fuck that!” I shouted back, so done with this, I couldn’t be more done. “I unpacked your shit. Middle drawer. Closet. Pack it and get out.”
I stomped to the door and he moved in a way I knew he was going to stop me so I jerked to a halt and gave him slitted eyes.
“You touch me, I’ll fight you until I die,” I hissed, watched his chin jerk into his neck but that was all I saw.
I stormed out.
I went directly to my computer. I did what I needed to do there, one last chance.
One…last…fucking…chance.
I yanked the flash drive out.
Then I stomped back up the stairs.
Deacon was not in the room but I knew he was there. His bag was on the bed, mostly packed.
He was in the bathroom getting his crap.
The picture was no longer on the floor.
He was leaving me.
He was shoving her back in his bag and leaving me.
I didn’t let that penetrate. Couldn’t. If I did, I’d come flying apart.
I stood in the doorway and tossed the flash drive across the room. It landed on the bed.
“You’ve got an hour. Flash drive on the bed. Listen, Deacon, make your decision. Then let me know by being gone or being here and knowing what you have to give me,” I called into the room. “I’m leaving. I’ll be back in an hour.”
I didn’t wait for him to come out of the bathroom.
I stomped out of the room but went to the kitchen where Deacon closed in my fucking dog and I brought her with me when I took off.
If he was going to leave, he was not going to get the idea to take my dog.
We drove around for an hour, Bossy having a whale of a time, nose sniffing at the crack in the window she couldn’t reach, my eyes burning from forcing them wide open, my head hurting from concentrating so hard on what I was doing, and not on anything else, so we wouldn’t crash.
After an hour, we came home.
The house was empty.
I wasn’t surprised.
But I was destroyed.
Completely.
Utterly.
In a way I knew I’d never be right again.
Not ever again.
Until the day I died.
I collapsed on the floor of my foyer.
And I learned something.
Puppies licked tears away.
And Boss Lady had her work cut out for her.
In the end, I found she was good at it.
It didn’t make me feel better.
Not at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Let Her Go
Deacon
Deacon Gates lay on his back in the bed in the hotel room, his laptop open beside him, the flash drive Cassie gave him stuck in the side, iTunes up, the sounds of the piano coming from the speakers.
A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera singing “Say Something.”
The words started.
They cut deep.
He no longer felt it. He’d listened to the song fifty times. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t lacerated.
The song ended and he started again.
Halfway through, his phone rang.
He paused the song, took the call, and listened to the asshole, piece of shit, dregs of humanity on the other end of the line asking for his help.
When the fucker was done speaking, Deacon said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
He flipped the phone closed and slid his finger on the mouse pad, starting the song at the beginning.
He listened.
And again.
And repeat.
He didn’t sleep.
He didn’t eat.
And early the next morning, he checked out and drove three states to help some asshole, piece of shit, dregs of humanity take care of his shit.
* * * * *
It was raining when Deacon slid his Suburban up to the little, tidy house on the street filled with little, tidy houses in Iowa.
The steps up to the house were near to covered with pots filled with flowers, only a narrow clearing was available to make your way to the house.
That was his mother. She liked her flowers.
Like Cassie.
He looked to the windows and saw his dad in a lounger, TV on, game playing.
He’d given up the farm.
He’d had no choice. He got old and his son had no interest in it. Never did. Always went his own way.
Until he just went away.
Deacon watched through the rain into the window until he saw his mother come in, two glasses in her hands, an iced tea for her, Deacon knew, an Arnold Palmer for his dad.
His dad took the drink. His mom bent to kiss his cheek.
She sat in the lounger next to her husband.
Deacon kept watching as he put the truck into drive.
Then he looked to the street as he pulled away from the curb.
* * * * *
It was still raining the next day when Deacon stood by the grave, eyes on the headstone.
Jeanine Ann Gates. Beloved wife and daughter. Always remembered.
Her parents put that shit on about beloved wife.