He snorted. “I had a lot of reasons for not coming back.”
She nodded slowly. “Sorry about that.”
“And yet you wanted me to come for the wedding. Why is that again?” he asked, hating what lay ahead.
“Because it’s holding you back,” she said immediately.
“Like hell,” he snapped.
“Yep. The minute you find something that you don’t want to do,” she said, “you know you have to face it.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“You do. You love your brother.”
“Which is why I told him to run when he hooked up with her.”
She stared at him in shock. “Did you really?”
“Of course I did,” he said. “As you said, I love my brother. That woman’s a viper.”
“I have to admit she does seem a little different now from when she was married to you. Not that I knew her enough to really tell. Once you married her, I didn’t want to be around you two.”
That twisted in his gut too. “So maybe I was the wrong man for her,” he said shortly. “But that doesn’t mean the treatment I got from her was deserved either.”
“Nope, it wasn’t,” Laysha said. “But it is what it is.”
“Yep, I’m with you there.”
“Besides,” she said, tossing him a sidelong look as they dashed across the road, heading for a parking lot farther out, “it’s been four years since the divorce. Surely you’re over her by now?”
“I am,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been divorced longer than I was married.”
“Yeah, a time measurement that makes it easier, doesn’t it?”
“What about you? You were married for a couple years in there too?”
“Yep, I sure was,” she said, as she scrunched up her face. “And I’m glad that’s over too.”
“So what the hell is wrong with us that we get married, think it’s the best thing ever, and then, a few years later, we can’t wait to get out of it?”
“Because it wasn’t right to begin with.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever believe in that whole getting-married-again scenario,” he said. “I really didn’t think marrying Sarah would be a bad deal.”
“And I didn’t think marrying Paul would be a bad deal,” she said, “but I’m not sure either of us married for the right reasons.”
“Well, I married fast because I was going back out on missions,” he said, “so I’ll give you that.”
“Exactly,” she said, “so you didn’t give the relationship a long enough time to figure out if that’s who she really was.”
“Maybe, but I also thought she was pregnant with my baby.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” she said with a nod. She pointed across the parking lot. “I’m over there at the far end.” They turned in that direction. “Apparently she lost it soon after you got married?”
“I wasn’t in town,” he said, “but yes.”
“And then you found out it wasn’t even yours?”
“True. And, of course, after that, there’s … well it’s pretty hard to get the relationship back on track.”
“Did you ever think that maybe she was terrified and was just looking for somebody to help out?”
“Then she should have said that,” he snapped.
She nodded. “I definitely agree with that.”
“Besides,” he said, “I tried hard, but, to know that she already tried to pass off my … somebody else’s baby as mine, well …”
“But you didn’t know that right away, did you?”
“No. Not right away. Not until we had a couple fights, and she threw it in my face.”
“Did she ever tell you whose baby it was?”
“No,” he said. “I asked her, but she never did tell me.”
“But you didn’t know originally it wasn’t yours?”
“Nope, I didn’t,” he said. “I’m just a fool. I wanted to believe …”
“That just makes you a good man,” she said, patting his arm.
“I don’t know,” he said. “After I found out what she’d done, I wasn’t a very good guy about it at all.”
“But that’s a human response to betrayal though, right?”
“I know,” he said, “and it wasn’t very much fun to live through.”
“Still, it’s past time now to deal with it.”
“Yeah.” He stopped. They had reached her truck. He looked at her and said, “Did you ever hear anything about it?”
“Not a whole lot, mostly the little bit you told me,” she said.
“Yeah, and that was a while ago.”
“I did hear a few more rumors since then,” she said.
Something in her tone had him looking at her in surprise. “Like what?”
She sighed. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Tell me,” he said in a hard voice. “Nothing about this is easy.”
“She mentioned that the baby she lost when she was married to you was actually your brother’s.”
Laysha Arkansas looked over at the man she had always loved to see his reaction to that news. He just stared at her in shock. She winced. She pulled her keys from her pocket, quickly unlocked the truck, and said, “Come on. Get in.” She watched and yet tried to ignore his stricken expression on his face as he moved to the passenger side and slowly got in her truck. She turned on the engine and pivoted to face him. “I thought you should know.”
He looked at her, still wordless.
“I know,” she said. “I know. All kinds of ramifications come from this.” She sat here, hoping he would talk about it.
“You’re not kidding,” he said, his voice harsh. “Was I cuckolded from the entire get-go?”
“You already know the answer to that,” she said. “It wasn’t your baby anyway. Now you know who the father was.”
“And my brother? Did they carry this on the whole time I was married to her?”
“I hope not,” Laysha said. “I would hope that you and your brother have a better relationship than that.”
“Well, I thought so,” he said, “but you’re making me wonder.” He turned, looked out the passenger window.
“Then ask him about it, while you’re here, and clear the air,” she said, “because nothing is worse than worrying in the background about it all.”
“It sucks,” he said, then finally focused on her. “And I had no idea. Or is she just saying that to throw a wrench in the works?”
“And that’s possible too. Your brother was out of town for quite a few years. Remember that?”
“So maybe they split up, and then she latched on to me?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” she said, “and I get that you probably hate her for everything that went on, but don’t let her destroy you.”
He lifted one eyebrow and cocked his head at her.