It’s quite a change from a wife who was ignored in the bedroom and expected to act like a maid or mother outside of it.
That’s what’s changed.Not me.I’m still the same.
I still clock in.Still review invoices.Still argue about shipping delays and supply costs.
But when I walk across the yard now, there’s this awareness humming beneath my skin.
I’m not alone anymore.And maybe that’s what unsettles people.
For years, I was Mike’s wife.
Then I was the poor divorced woman whose husband ran off with a younger woman and stole half her life on the way out.
Now?Now I’m J.T.Lawrence’s woman.
And surprisingly, I don’t hate that it sounds like I belong to someone.Because maybe I do.And I refuse to pretend it doesn’t feel different to have a man like him choose me.
Out loud.In public.Without shame.Or apology.
The truth is, part of me straightens my spine a little taller when someone whispers.
Not because I need his protection.But because I know if the world tries to take another swing at me—well, there’s a six-foot-four multimillionaire contractor with a filthy mouth and a terrifying temper who will step in front of it.
And that doesn’t feel so bad.But even better?Even stranger than that truth?
J.T.sees me.He sees all of me and he still wants me.
He doesn’t make me smaller.He doesn’t dim me.He amplifies me.He backs me up.And he takes me exactly as I come.
And that’s the part I’m still getting used to.
Because for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like a woman scrambling to hold her life together.I feel wanted.Claimed.Chosen.And powerful in my own right.
Now, that might scare the sawmill guys.But it doesn’t scare me.
So, yeah, J.T.is one of a kind.And Mom and Dad are happy for me, and I don’t blame them.
I spared them the steamier details, of course.They know enough about what Mike did.
The money.The cheating.The second mortgage I didn’t know about.The way he left.
We’re not the kind of family who gets all up in each other’s business, but we’re pretty close knit.And part of me is glad—deeply glad—that J.T.insisted on a real wedding.
Mike and I had a courthouse ceremony.Quick.Cheap.Followed by breakfast.
We didn’t have much then.Everything we earned came after that.And really, Mike wasn’t big on earning.He always had some problem or other that forced him to quit jobs or be out of work for months on end.
Always another health issue.Or he wasn’t getting along with people.Too much was expected of him.
That kind of thing.Yeah, Mike really wasn’t big on hard work at all.
I was always the breadwinner.
The sawmill was left to me and Thatcher after our dad retired, but Thatcher built it up, really.He made sure I had my fair share and profits.
I still work there, but my income mostly comes from my ownership stake.
For a fleeting second, I wonder if that will change.If J.T.expects me to stop working.
