Smiling and happy.
Younger, much younger, the rugged had not yet settled in Deacon’s face.
But it sure as fuck was Deacon.
Deacon married.
Married.
My lungs caught fire and I forced myself to breathe.
I stared at the picture, unable to tear my eyes away, thoughts crashing into my brain.
He worked jobs.
Jobs away from me.
The phone he used when he was around me was a burner. I knew it, though never asked to confirm. A flip phone. No one had flip phones anymore. It was cheap and had no features. Only voicemail and text.
He had another phone. He had to. A smartphone.
He’d said back when we had the situation with those punks that he’d taken pictures and there was no way he went to his cabin to go get a camera.
He took them on his phone.
A phone his wife had the number to, not me. If I did, she might see me call. If I did, she might know about me.
And he didn’t take my calls. He didn’t take them unless he was in a place to take them or call me back, which was infrequently.
I stared at her in the picture and it gave me no comfort to see she was pretty. Very. But I knew with the exotic features my parents gave me, I had that on her.
He said he never smiled before me.
And there he was, smiling.
Happy.
Married.
Unable to stand anymore, I shoved the bag out of my way, tossed the picture on the bed, and sat on it, like sitting on it would make it not be real.
I knew nothing of him.
Not one fucking thing.
Nothing I could trace him by. Nothing that would lead me to the life he led when he was away from me with another woman. The woman who could legally claim him. The woman who was really his.
Not me.
God, he’d made me a cheater.
God! Did he have children?
“Woman!”
My eyes shot to the door and my throat closed.
Did he call her “woman?”
Did he call her “baby?”
“Cassidy!”
He was coming closer.
I didn’t move. I had to use all my energy not to throw up on the floor and I did this stupidly, because I did it wondering what he told her when he came to me, and that made me feel even sicker.
Deacon, so smart, why would he carry their picture with him?
It was like he wanted me to find out.
And maybe he did. Maybe that guilt at wanting me that ate at him all those years until he couldn’t control the urge anymore made him carry that picture. Take her with him when he was with me. Bring her into my house.
My fucking house.
But he’d said he was cutting ties. Did that mean he was leaving her? Leaving her and coming to me? Making me not only a cheater but a home-wrecker?
“Cassie.”
He was in the door.
“What’s your last name?” I asked, surprised my voice was so strong.
And so void.
I watched his body tense but his eyes moved to the bag then cut back to mine.
He took a step in and I lifted my hand.
He stopped and his face closed down. Totally. I watched that mask snap into place and it had been so long since I’d had it, I forgot how much it hurt when he gave it to me.
“What’s your first name?” I went on.
He didn’t move and didn’t speak, eyes locked to mine. He didn’t even launch in, giving me crap about invading his privacy by unpacking his bag.
“What’s your birthday?” I kept at him.
Not a muscle moved.
“Where did you grow up? What are your parents’ names? Are they alive? Did you play sports in high school? Did you even go to high school?” I fired at him.
He said nothing.
I stared into his tawny eyes, feeling just what he wanted me to feel. Closed out and in the cold.
And that cold was cold. So cold it was a wonder my teeth weren’t chattering.
“Do you love me?” I asked suddenly.
He moved then, but only to speak.
“Yes,” he clipped.
He loved me.
Bullshit.
I reached to the mattress, found the edge of the photo, yanked it out, and showed it to him.
His eyes went to it.
No reaction.
Not. One. Thing.
Seriously?
“Do you love her?”
He looked to me but said nothing.
“Do you have children?”
“No,” he bit out.
At least there was that. Daddy wasn’t a philanderer.
“Can she give them to you?”
His jaw clenched.
She couldn’t.
He wanted kids.
Enter me.
“Do you have a dog?”
He said nothing.
“A cat?”
Nothing.
“A gerbil?”
He gave me not one thing.
I stopped speaking.
Deacon didn’t move.
Neither did I.
We stared at each other across the room, her picture between us.
This lasted a lifetime.
“Say something,” I begged on a whisper.
He said nothing.
“Say something,” I repeated, my eyes burning now for a different reason, tears fighting to be unleashed.
Deacon just stared at me. His gaze dropped to the picture I held his way in my lap. Then it came back to me.
And still nothing.
“You need to say something, Deacon. You need to give me something, anything.”
He didn’t speak.