"Tenleigh?" I heard Marlo's voice and saw her in my peripheral vision. I put my hand up, letting her know I was okay. My eyes stayed on Kyland.
"I do what I want, when I want," I said. What was I even doing? I wasn't totally clear. I just knew I was angry and out of control. And I knew it still hurt down to my soul that Kyland had betrayed me after I'd given him every last piece of myself—the pieces of myself it was becoming very clear I'd never figured out how to reassemble.
"Is that what you did in California?" he asked, moving closer to me.
I lifted my chin, literally turning my nose up at him. "All the time. As often as possible. Once you broke the seal, I figured—"
The look of raw pain that crossed his face stunned me and my words died on my lips. But just as quickly my anger flared again. He was upset I'd been with other men? Of all the hypocritical bastards! He was here, with her, the woman he had cheated on me with—the woman he'd made a baby with.
"That's not you, Tenleigh," he said softly.
I laughed in his face, an ugly, bitter sound. "You don't know me anymore. You know nothing about me. And I don't know anything about you anymore either."
He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it as if he'd changed his mind. "Christ, I can't do this with you." He turned and started walking away.
Fury flashed through my body.
"Hey, Kyland," I yelled. He turned back around. "Did you ever finish Wuthering Heights?" He blinked, and then furrowed his brows, regarding me with confusion.
"I don't have much time for reading these days, Tenleigh."
I leaned my hip against the bar and tapped my finger against my chin. "I was just wondering if you found Heathcliff the despicable, cheating bastard that I did?"
He started walking back toward me. "We never did agree on much in the literary world, did we?"
"Hmm, true. Still, I would think anyone with half a brain in his head would see what a worthless piece of lying trash Heathcliff was."
"I was more struck by what a dim-witted moron Cathy was . . . finally getting away from those . . . moors and then fucking coming back to experience more misery? Squandering the chance she was given? Doesn't get much more idiotic than that."
My eyes widened, my blood boiled under my skin.
"So what if Cathy came back for the moors—dark and foggy though they might be? At least she didn't come back for Heathcliff. Clearly Heathcliff was the very last thing on her mind. In fact, I found it extremely annoying how . . . Heathcliff kept showing up everywhere Cathy was."
I barely heard someone behind me at the bar say, "Are they fighting or having a book club?"
And a different person answered, "I'm unclear. Looks like foreplay to me."
We both ignored them.
Kyland looked me up and down. "You so sure about that? Maybe . . ." and he looked momentarily unsure rather than just angry, "maybe Heathcliff had been on her mind all the time she was away. Maybe Cathy wouldn't have gotten so angry every time Heathcliff showed up if he wasn't still very much on her mind, if her new boyfriend made her feel the same things Heathcliff could." His voice softened. "And maybe she'd been on Heathcliff's mind, too. Maybe she was all Heathcliff ever thought of, all he ever dreamed about."
Boyfriend? What boyfriend? I narrowed my eyes. "Well, it wouldn't matter. After the way Heathcliff betrayed her, she'd never give him a chance again. He ruined everything. He ruined her. He was the most selfish, disgusting character I've ever read about. I'm just sorry any paper was ever used to bring him to life. What a waste of a good tree."
Hurt flashed in his eyes and he opened his mouth to say something when he suddenly looked behind him. As he turned I saw Shelly tapping him on the back. All the fight went out of me and pain squeezed my chest. I had forgotten she was even here for a minute. And whatever battle we had just been engaged in, with that one tap on his shoulder, he'd won. I'd lost. Again. When he turned back to me, defeat must have been written on my face because he opened his mouth to say something, but then paused, his eyes widening. I looked away. In that one moment I realized what I'd always known. I couldn't hate Kyland. He wasn't a bad person. He'd just been bad to me. He wasn't incapable of love. He just had been incapable of loving me, unwilling to stay for me. But, he'd stayed for Shelly. And that was the most painful part of it all. The grief that battered my heart in that moment almost caused me to fall to my knees.
Not now. Not now—don't fall apart here.
I walked quickly to the ladies room where I locked myself in a stall. Marlo followed me in a few minutes later and helped me gather myself together the best I could. When I returned to the bar, Kyland and Shelly were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tenleigh
I worked a couple shifts at Al's that weekend, but Kyland didn't come back in. Thankfully. I was still embarrassed about the public argument, but I knew that, at Al's, it wasn't an uncommon occurrence. In fact, Gable Clancy's mail-order bride trying to run him over in the parking lot two hours later upstaged it. No, mostly, I was just hurt. The anger I'd held onto felt so much better. It made me feel in control. The hurt just hurt. But it was either feel it or turn tail and run out of town. I would see the completion of the school—it was my dream and my legacy to the town I'd been born and raised in—the town that had given me the means to get an education. But after that, I'd consider hiring someone else to ensure the upkeep of the yearly funding and then going somewhere else—starting fresh. Perhaps this was the closure I needed so I could truly move on from Kyland. Had I been lying to myself? Had part of me desperately wanted to know what would happen if I saw him again? Yes, probably. I hadn't really let go. And that was a problem. But it was better to be honest about it. It had been confirmed—he was really and truly with the woman he'd cheated on me with. He had a son with her. That was reality. And it was for the best that I face it.
You've seen it with your own two eyes now, Tenleigh. Can you finally accept it and truly move on? Well you better, because you have no other choice.
That Monday, Marlo and I had plans to visit Mama. I was ready early and decided to go say hello to Buster. I hadn't seen him since I'd returned. I knocked on his door and when he opened it, he let out a whoop and took me in a bear hug, lifting me off my feet. I laughed out loud. "Hi, Buster! Good to see you, too."
He put me down. "Well, let me look at you, Tenleigh girl." He shook his head, smiling. "Well, damn if you don't look like a city girl. You a city girl now, Miss Tenleigh?" He opened his door and I walked inside. Buster's house was filled with handmade wood furniture, every square inch of surface held a whittled couple engaging in various explicit sexual acts. If I hadn't known Buster all my life, this house would have made me seriously uncomfortable.
"Me a city girl? You know better than that, Buster. I'm hill folk through and through."
He chuckled. "Well okay, just makin' sure. You sure do look fancy."
I smiled as I sat down on a chair that was the carved, sanded, urethaned face of an upside-down naked man. Another woman was carved behind him, her mouth full with his private parts. I created the à trois in the ménage. This was the most action I'd gotten in quite some time. Lucky me.
"Tell me what you've been doing all this time? How'd you like college?" Buster asked.
I told Buster about the school I'd gone to, about California, a little about what it'd been like to be away, the few friends I'd met and would keep in touch with, and about the school I was building. After I'd finished with a brief summary, I said, "What about you, Buster, how have you been?"
"Good, better than ever. You know about the business us hill folk have, right?"
"Business?" I frowned and tilted my head.
"Sure. We're regular entrepreneurs up here. Some of the folks even take a real pride in it. Got their yards cleaned up—"
"Yes," I said. "I noticed that. What exactly is it you're doing?"