“As much as his betrayal stings,”he remembered her saying one night after they’d kicked off the clock and gone to the local pub to share a drink. Or, rather, Grace had ordered a beer. Being a firm believer in the science that said alcoholism was hereditary, he stayed away from the stuff.“It’s my family’s disappointment that really bothers me.”
“Your family is disappointed in you because your husband cheated?”He’d tried to keep his tone neutral, but he’d known his expression had been incredulous.
“No. They’re disappointedforme. All of them have sparkling marriages. None of them will say it to my face, but I know they think I failed in my choice of husband. That I let a handsome face and a slick tongue blind me to Tim’s—that’s my ex—less desirable qualities.”
“Sounds like one of those less desirable qualities is an outsized ego that’s easily bruised,”he’d observed.“Not to mention a lack of honor.”
Cheating was SOP—standard operating procedure—in the military. A lot of guys and gals excused their infidelity with the “it’s the long-distance thing” or “when death lurks around every corner, a person needs to be reminded they’re still alive.” Hunter had heard it all over the years. But none of it had ever held any water with him.
He could forgive many human weaknesses.
He couldn’t forgive infidelity.
In his opinion, if a person was unhappy in a relationship, they should leave it. Cheating was the coward’s way out. Plain and simple.
“I can’t argue with you there.”She’d taken a long pull on her beer before continuing,“And really, what does that say about me? That I chose him?”She’d shaken her head and he’d noticed how it caused her soft bob to brush against her cheeks.
Before he’d been able to respond, she’d added,“The truth of it is, I think I picked Tim less for him and more for me. Because, with him by my side, I felt beautiful.”
She’d scrunched up her nose.“I was always the wallflower at the school dances. The bridesmaid who was never the bride. When the handsomest, most charismatic guy at the academy wanted me?Me? I was charmed. Or maybe grateful is a better description.”She’d leaned down and pressed her forehead against the bar, and he’d tried to imagine her as a wallflower and failed.
Grace wasn’t the Best Supporting Actress type. She was a leading lady.
“Lord, I’m a cliché. Gloria Steinem would be so disappointed,”she’d finished miserably.
He’d wanted to drag her off that barstool and show her just how beautiful he thought she was. He’d wanted to kiss her wide mouth and caress her decadent body until she’d understood just howsexyshe was. But most of all, he’d wanted to wipe the look of defeat off her face and replace it with a gasp of passion.
Hestillwanted that.
Maybe more than ever.
When he finally turned around, he made sure to focus on screwing in the gas cap…just in case he hadn’t managed to wrangle the hunger in his gaze.
“Didn’t you tell me you were raised somewhere around here?” She handed him a bottle of water and blinked at the long stretch of lonely road unfurling to the north. He’d been keeping them off the major highways, hoping to avoid as many traffic cams as possible. It was going to be nothing but country lanes all the way to Traverse City. “Benton Heights, was it?” she asked.
He shook his head and twisted the cap off the cold water. He took a long pull, hoping it would help cool his ardor. “BentonHarbor. We passed the exit about thirty minutes ago. But believe me, we didn’t miss anything by not stopping.”
She frowned. “I just realized I don’t know anything about you. Do you still have family there? Parents? Brothers and sisters?”
Okay, and now he needed no help cooling his ardor. Talk of Bert and Susan was like a bucket of ice water dumped on his libido.
“I’m an only child. And my DNA suppliers have been gone for years now. Cirrhosis of the liver took Bert when I was seventeen. Three years later, Susan followed him to the grave. I’d already split town by then, but her neighbors told me she passed out in the snow while stumbling home from the bar. She wasn’t discovered until the next morning and by then it was too late.”
“Dear god,” Grace rasped, her dark eyes huge.
“God never wanted anything to do with Bert and Susan Jackson. I can guarantee you that.”
“I’m so sorry, Hunter. I can’t…” She stopped and shook her head. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must’ve been for you.”
That was always the way people reacted. But to him, Bert’s and Susan’s deaths made sense. They’d been grim and grisly endings to two grim and grisly lives.
“My entire childhood I was nothing but a passing thought to them.” He twisted his lips. “A nuisance, a mouth to feed when they would’ve rather blown their dough on booze. I wasremoved from the home”—he made air quotes—“when I was fourteen. I never looked back. So save your condolences. I don’t need them.”
He realized he’d sounded harsh and was quick to add, “Not that I don’t appreciate your sympathy. It’s just that it’s misplaced. The people who created me weren’t parents. Not in any sense of the word other than, after a night of a few too many, they forgot to use a condom. So I don’t mourn them the way most people would.”
Even though he wanted to avoid her eyes—Grace always saw too much—he made himself hold her stare when she searched his face. “Hunter, I—”
The instant he saw pity enter her expression, he stopped her with a raised hand.
