“But—”
“You don’t get a say in this, Janel. You left, and if you want to see Frankie, then it’s gonna be on my terms. Or else you can walk right back out that door.” I pointed at it, hoping she’d take it as an invitation.
She gulped, nodding for me to continue. “Okay. I told you I’d do anything.”
“She’s going to be confused, so you need to be respectful of that. Let her get used to you. And you’re going to have to prove to me that you actually want to be here. That you’ve changed before I can trust you with her.”
Her blue eyes widened in sincerity, her blonde ponytail swishing as she took a surging step forward. “I will. I’ll do whatever it takes. Maybe . . . maybe I can go to work for you in the office. Do something with my hands. Show you I’m responsible. I’ve changed, Rex. I’ve changed.”
Mine widened in disbelief. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, don’t you?”
“I just want to make things right. What . . . what about us?”
“There’s no us, Janel.”
She stumbled over a whimper. “Because of Rynna?”
Pain pierced me, a straight shot right through the center of my heart. I tried to hide it, but I knew Janel saw it. “It’s none of your business what I’ve got going on with Rynna.”
“You’re my husband, Rex.”
I stalked passed her and into the kitchen. I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, doing everything I could to keep myself in check. “Who you left.”
“And now I’m back. I came back to you because I missed you so much. Every single day,” she begged.
I cringed. Didn’t want to hear it. It didn’t matter what she had to say. “It’s too late.”
Her voice was a plea behind me. “It’s never too late.”
35
Rynna
I’d thought I’d timed it right. I’d mastered peeking out the window to make sure the coast was clear before I raced from my door to my car. Making sure our paths didn’t cross.
But there they were, Rex stepping outside and turning around to lock his door, Frankie bounding down the steps, calling my name. “Rynna, Rynna! What’s you doing? We’s goin’ to the lake. You wants to come?”
Janel was between them, at the top of the steps. Arms crossed over her chest. A sneer on her face when she met my eyes.
I gulped around the agony. Fumbling, I tried to hurry and unlock my SUV. I had to get away. Escape. Instead, my hands were shaking so badly I dropped my keys. They clattered to the ground. The only thing I managed was to draw more attention to myself.
I snatched the key ring up, trying to steady myself, my heart and my hands and my voice. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Frankie.”
“Ah, man. But I misses you.”
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.
The world spun around me. A circuit of torment. I inhaled, blinked, my words barely a whisper. “I miss you, too.”
So much.
“Does Milo wants to come and play?”
Behind Janel, Rex slowly turned around. His entire being flinched when he saw me, and instantly, he cast his eyes to the floorboards of his porch. As if I’d broken him every bit as much as he’d broken me.
The hate in Janel’s expression shifted, and she looked up at him, beaming, before she set her hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “Come on, sweetheart. We’d better go before it gets too late.”
I floundered to get into the driver’s seat before slamming the door shut. I choked back tears as I pulled out of my drive, refusing to let her see me fall apart, my teeth clenched as I took the three quick turns to get out onto the main road.
I lost it just down the street, my eyes blurring over. I pulled into a convenience store parking lot, whipped into a parking spot, gripped the steering wheel in both hands. Head dropped. Gasping.
He lied to me.
Maybe this was the way it was supposed to end, anyway.
Maybe Janel had changed. What if she was exactly what they needed? The one who would make them whole again? Who would chase away the darkness that lingered in the depths of Rex’s eyes?
Every part of me rejected it. The fact she was Rex’s wife. That he belonged to her. Not when my heart screamed he was mine.
I jerked when the diner door swung open. But I wasn’t struck with the presence I’d been aching for over the last five days. Instead, I was slammed with a stark, radiating anger.
I’d been sweeping up some of the mess left behind by the resanding of the long countertop, again looking for something to keep my idle hands busy.
Knowing if I kept still for too long I might go insane.
My mouth dropped open when a woman stormed into my restaurant. All bristling fire and animosity.
She wore jeans, boots, and a flowy, whimsical blouse. Her blonde hair had been darkened underneath and curled into long waves, the woman beautiful in an earthy, natural way, aged by the faint traces of smile wrinkles at the edges of her mouth.
But her eyes.
Her eyes were warm and sincere, even though they were raging mad.
Sage.
My heart clutched.
This was Rex’s mother.
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked me up and down. “Well, you must be Rynna Dayne.”
I set the broom and pan aside. I tried to straighten myself out, to keep myself from falling apart, my voice shaking when I finally spoke. “I am. You must be Jenny Gunner.”
Still, her name tripped on my tongue.
Standing there, she seemed to war with something, and she blew out a strained breath from her nose and lifted her chin when she came to whatever conclusion she’d been looking for. Some of that anger slipped away. “I wish we were meetin’ under different circumstances,” she said. “Honestly, I came over here thinking I was gonna knock a little sense into you for breaking my boy’s heart, but from where I’m standing, looks to me like you’re suffering from that breaking, too.”
I choked out a laugh. Wow. She was . . . something. Confident and brazen and sweet. Country to the bone. So much like the women I’d been surrounded with all my years growing up.
I forced myself to smile, though it came out weak. “Yeah . . . I think I’m dealing with a bit of a heart breaking.”
A bit.
My stomach tumbled with the shards of jagged, broken glass that coated my insides, gouging into my flesh. Deeper and deeper with each breath.
It was a constant, excruciating pain.
She cocked her head. “So, what’s the problem then?”
That choked laugh turned into a cry. “What’s the problem?” My head shook, and I blinked at her through the motes that floated through the haze of light streaming in through the windows. “Rex is married. His wife is at his house right now. What kind of person would I be if I stood in the way of that?”
I went back to the same justification I’d been trying to feed myself, the rationale that they might be better with Janel. All week, I’d been trying to persuade myself maybe it was meant to be. That it was best if I walked away.
But I was beginning to wonder if I wasn’t trying to cover the hurt, the fear of finding her there, and what that would mean for Rex and me. If I could ever rid her face from my mind if I ever allowed him to touch me again. Or maybe I was just afraid of facing that same kind of rejection that had chased me away in the first place.
Jenny Gunner didn’t even hesitate. “Just the fact you’d even consider it proves to me that you are the exact kind of person he deserves.”
For a beat, I turned away, gathering myself, before I turned back to her. “She’s Frankie’s mother, Jenny. I—”
“You love them.” It wasn’t a question. It was a solution.
My hands pressed against my chest. “So much. Which is why I’m willing to let them go.”
She turned away from me and began to wander around my restaurant, her fingers tracing across the new tables that had been installed this week. Her voice dropped into a slow musing, “You know, I raised my son to be good. To respect whoever crossed his path. To honor his promises. Maybe it was because his father up and left me the second I told him Rex was on his way, but I drilled that loyalty into him so deep. And I won’t ever regret that. The man he became.”