“Jesus Christ, Shaun— do you have to argue about everything?” he asked in exasperation as he stepped closer to the bed, reaching a hand out to her.
“I’m not arguing. I’mtellingyou I’m not marrying you, Kasey. This isn’t the 1950’s. Women can and do raise babies all by themselves.”
Kasey pointed to her stomach and snarled, “If you think I’m walking away from you and this baby you’re out of your damn mind. And if you think I’m going to leave you here alone while you recover from a concussion and broken ribs after being assaulted by some creepagain, you’re straight up delusional. You’re mine, Shaun.”
“Stop saying that!” she shouted, thumping her fists on the mattress next to her. “I’m not yours! Goddammit, Kasey! I don’t need you to swoop in and be some knight in shining armor, caped hero! I don’t need you to save me!”
“You’re carrying my baby, Shaun,” he answered darkly.
“And I keep telling you that this changes nothing!” she shouted. Her head was pounding.
“Why not? Huh?Why goddammit? I love you, Shaun! I fucking love you so much I’m going crazy with it! Why can’t this changeeverything? Why can’t I be your Superman?Why can’tyou let me in?” he shouted, holding her hands tight. Tears still tracked down her cheeks.
“You don’t get to come in here and justtellme we’re getting married,” she argued, though her heart was racing at what he’d just admitted. “That’s not how that works. I’m not marrying you, Kasey.”
“But you would have married Tommy?” he asked dully, staring at her.
Shaun rolled her eyes, and she heard him growl in annoyance. “That’s neither here nor there at this point, and you know why I ended things with Tommy; because I couldn’t trust him not to try to manhandle my life. Which means you know why there is no way in hell that I’m going to marry you afterdemandingit. Don’t act like this is a surprise.”
“I have never been anything but honest with you, Shaun!” he exclaimed heatedly and finally let her hands go. She pulled them into her lap as he continued, “Not once have I ever lied to you, or tried to deceive you, or lead you on in the slightest. From the moment we fucking met, I was brutally honest about my intentions, how I felt about you. I’ve told you over and over again I want you to be you, no matter what. You wanna fight with me every goddamn day? Fine. I’ll go toe-to-toe with you, darlin, and enjoy every second of it. I want all of that fire you keep inside, Shaun. So don’t you dare try to tell me you can’t trust me. You don’t get to shove all that bullshit Tommy did onto me. I didn’t lie to you. He did.”
Leaning forward to cup the side of her face in his hand, she was powerless to turn away as he whispered, “I told you from the first time we danced together what it would be like with us, if you would just let it happen, and I fucking meant it. You knew it then, just like you’ve known it all along, just like I have.You belong to me.So does that baby. And even though you say it over and over again, that you’re not mine, I refuse to accept that.I love you, and I think if you would just get out of your own fucking way, you’d see that you love me, too! Otherwise, what the fuck have we been doing for the last month, Shaun? For the lastyear?”
Fear clogged her throat, made her heart hammer inside her chest. It was all too much. It was terrifying. Yes, she loved him, but letting him in was too great of a risk. He would want too much of her.
“You were a distraction, Kasey,” she whispered, aiming for the jugular. Anything to get him to go away, to leave her alone to wallow in her own anxiety and self-loathing. She swallowed around the lump in her throat, nearly choking on the outrageous lie.
She watched as his head tipped back like he’d been hit on the chin, and shealmosttook it back.She didn’t mean it. She just couldn’t let down the walls enough to let him in, just like he’d accused her of. He’d already burrowed into her body and heart and soul more than she’d wanted him to. More than any other man ever had. And that was terrifying.
But then his face hardened, and his jaw tightened like steel, his eyes meeting hers again. “You’re a real heartless bitch, you know that, Shaun?”
Kasey’s words cut her like a knife, eerily close to the words that Tommy had thrown at her once upon a time, and pain ricocheted through her for the briefest moment before she steeled her facial expression.
She deserved it, this anger, this loathing she could sense emanating off of him in waves. She hurt the people she loved. It seemed to be all she knew how to do.
So, she hitched her chin up, willing the tears not to fall and her lip not to tremble.
He swiped up his hat that he’d tossed onto the foot of the bed and clamped it on his head, each of his movements jerkyand filled with rage, and so much hurt. He turned and stepped toward the door, but before he walked through it, he stopped and looked back at her, his expression frigid.
“This conversation isn’t over,” he murmured with a freezing calmness that made her shiver, those storm cloud eyes deadly.
“Go to hell,” she whispered, her voice breaking.Dammit!“Get out of my house.”
He slapped the door jamb with his palm and scoffed bitterly, “Thanks for the loving send off, darlin’.”
FORTY-THREE
Jodi arrived an hour later, not to Shaun’s surprise.
Lowering her small frame onto the bed next to Shaun, she tucked a stray strand of hair behind Shaun’s ear. She knew her face was tear-streaked and blotchy, her nose running, box of tissues sitting on the comforter next to her. One look into Jodi’s eyes and she started crying all over again, sobs wracking her already battered and bruised body.
When she had finally cried herself out, she swiped her hands over her face pathetically, then stacked her hands beneath her cheek as she lay facing her sister, who had let her cry without interruption.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly, rubbing her hand over Shaun’s shoulder and down her arm. Of course Kasey would have told Freeman already, who couldn’t keep a single damn secret from his new wife. Meddlers, all of them.
Shaun shrugged, swallowing hard. “I don’t know. I was struggling with the news; I didn’t want anyone to know. I don’t want Mom and Dad to be disappointed in me.” She blinked rapidly to clear the fresh wave of tears that burned her eyes. “I got knocked up by a groomsman in my sister's destination wedding.”
“Umm, excuse you, he was the best man,” Jodi teased, and Shaun laughed sadly, wincing when pain shot through her. Jodi peered at her despondently, running her fingers over Shaun’s hair again. “They’re not going to be upset with you. They’re more progressive than you might think.”
