Brides and Betrayal (Reconciled and Redeemed Book 1) (7 page)

He sat up in bed, swiping a weary hand down his face. He turned as Holly felt her stir behind him. She sat up, and the hungry need for Hunter’s assurance was there in her sapphire eyes.

He opened his mouth to give her reassurance, but questions sprang to his tongue. The fear of the answers she would give him kept everything locked tight behind his lips.

While he got dressed, she sat on the bed, her hair spilling about her. She looked beautiful, but broken and hurting. He wanted to hold her, he wanted to make her feel better, but he couldn’t. Hunter left for work without saying anything.

T
he warm breeze stirred Holly’s hair, sending it twining about her neck. She had come out onto the front porch to watch the sun set. When she was younger, she used to escape the pain of her father’s house and sit on a hill behind their home watching the sun set.

Sugar-free syrup living
, Holly scoffed. That is what she used to call her life as a teenager. Flavorless but it served its purpose. Besides her stepmother’s hissed reminders about her sinful side, the Buckners were kind enough to welcome her into their home – even if they weren’t all that welcoming. It wasn’t like they were cruel - but it wasn’t the home that she had grown up in. Before the sin that stained their lives, her mom and her father had been happy and loving. She had always felt wanted. Well, until the truth was revealed. The Buckners tried their best, but she was an awkward accessory in their life.

A cruel laugh twisted from her lips.
Like now,
she thought. Ever since she had told Hunter the truth about her parents, he had grown more and more distant. He shrank from her touch, couldn’t stand to look at her, and barely said a word to her.

Years spent in the Buckner’s house had taught her to hide her pain, deal with her suffering, and hope there could be something more.

Hunter had been that
something more
and now she had lost him. This past week, he had done nothing but look at her like this sinful bag of trash her stepmother had always called her. He slipped those freak-show glances her way when he thought she wasn’t looking – the same ones her half-sisters had given her. And his drop of kindness was nothing more than a squirt of sugar-free syrup - meant to do the job, but lacking any real taste.

Holly swiped angrily at her tears, wishing she could stop crying. After years of swallowing her pain, she had spent this path week crying more than she had since the day her parents died. And telling him the truth - that had just made it all the worse.

She stood to go back inside when Seth pulled up in the driveway. Part of her was happy to see him - at least he didn’t look at her as unworthy. But part of her didn’t want him to walk up the steps, because he would ask, she would tell, and then she would cry some more.

“Hey, Holly.” Seth smiled as he came jogging up the steps. “I came to return Hunter’s...” He stopped as he saw her face. “What’s wrong?” He put the toolset down on a chair, and came to stand before her.

She opened her mouth, wanting the comfort she knew he could offer her, but needing the painful but safe restraint her silence would bring.

Closing her mouth, she looked away. She wanted him to tell her she wasn’t stained, ugly and tainted by her past. She wanted him to tell her she was different than her mother. She wanted him to tell her that she wasn’t unwanted by everyone around her.

No
, she admitted to herself,
I want Hunter to tell me that
.

Unwanted
. Like a knife slicing through her heart, that word whispered through her mind. For once, she wanted to know that she was wanted. Looking up at Seth, another thought slithered in, but she grabbed her glass and headed back into the house, not wanting to entertain it.

“I’m fine,” she said, calling over her shoulder as she walked through the doorway, Seth following in her wake.

“I don’t believe that any more than you do.” Catching up with her in the kitchen, he gently grabbed her arm and spun her around. “You can tell me what’s wrong. I won’t judge you.”

Holly choked back a sob - those were the worst words he could have said. From behind her on the counter, her cell phone chimed. Picking it up, she read the text message from Hunter.

“Staying an extra day.”

Her heart sunk, knowing he was using this business trip as a way to stay away from her. Desperate, she responded. “I will miss you. I love you so much.”

She stared down at the phone, waiting to see his response, but it didn’t come.

Tears fell as her mind hissed,
his silence was his response.

“Holly, what is going on?” Seth said, and she turned around. He was looking down at her with sympathetic eyes, filled with acceptance, and all she could wonder was why she wasn’t loved by her husband that way.

“I told Hunter about my parents and now he hates me.” She rasped out between her sobs.

Seth gathered her in his arms, patting her gently on the back. “He doesn’t hate you. You are probably just misreading it.”

She shook her head against his chest. “I just told him I love him and he didn’t even respond.”

“Maybe he is just busy. I bet you will get a reply any minute.” But her phone silently called him a liar.

Leaning back, he looked down at her. “I have seen the way Hunter looks at you, and he would never...”

“He looks at me like I am some piece of trash. He looks at me like my stepmother used to look at me, like I am one step away from falling into the fires of hell.” A sob tore through her throat as defeat settled within her. She stepped back from his arms. “He looks at me like I’m his mom.”

The truth of her statement burned through her heart. She wanted to feel anything but this awful pain. She felt a sliver of anger work its way through her, so she grabbed a hold of it. “I’ve always been faithful to him.”

A whisper of truth tried to surface, but she slammed it down as quick and hard as she slammed her hand down on the counter. “I may not be the best wife. I know I can be distant and guarded. But I was always faithful. I am not like my mom.”

Seth merely nodded his head, aghast in the face of her anger. Holly hardly noticed him as she fumed. She picked up her phone, checking the screen, and seeing no reply. She tossed it back on the counter.

“Holly, you are a beautiful woman and a wonderful wife. Hunter is just confused right now. I am sure he recognizes what a prize he has before him.”

His eyes were as warm and inviting as the cup of coffee they resembled. No suspicions, no judgment – just warm kindness.

Take a sip.

A dangerous thread of anger and pain curled within her, carrying with it an idea. The idea was ridiculous, unimaginable, and in the right state of mind, she would have ran from it. However, in her emotionally charged state, the idea had merit. The idea had spunk, fire, and something she thought she needed. In the height of her pain and anger there could be no other choice but to make the bad one.

If everyone sees me as stained and tainted - a sinner without hope - why fight it?

And as she stumbled over this idea, she found herself falling. Like a slow-motion movie, she saw herself slowly tumbling down into her parent’s dark, stained past, and she embraced it as her own.

Rising up on her tip toes she kissed Seth. As soon as she brushed her lips against his, Seth pulled back, and so did she. Holly touched her lips -
as wicked as I am, I should feel something.
Where was the passion, the longing, the bliss that led her mom foolishly down this path?

She felt no desire, she just felt the pain of feeling unwanted - a stained creature, a sinful girl right down to her DNA. Holly felt the wickedness of their kiss, and there was nothing delightful about it. The kiss should have stirred up passion, but it just brought pain. Pain that felt right, a pain that she knew all her life.

Her kisses with Hunter fluttered in her heart, but this kiss tore the insides of her soul. There was no joyful leap into adultery, it was a screaming free-for-all into a dark pit – a dark pit she had called home for far too long.

Seth pulled away from the determined look in her eyes. “Holly, you don’t want to do this.”

She could see in his eyes that he had felt more than she had, and while he had pulled away, he was still standing there. He was lonely and hurting - and so was she.

Would there be some redemption for me if I at least help Seth find some relief from this gnawing pain? He deserves relief.

Her justifications for her actions were twisted by her emotions, and they became even more entangled as she thought about Hunter’s look of disdain when he left for his trip - his cold response to her touch.

At least Seth wants me. I deserve that, right?

“I don’t think I want to - but I need to.” She said as she stepped closer to him. Knowing her next kiss wouldn’t be met with as much deterrence, she wanted to stop. Instead, she moved forward. She tried to lie and tell herself she was punishing Hunter, but she knew she was punishing herself. With arms wound around her sin, she threaded her fingers through Seth’s hair and tried to blot out the pain while embracing it at the same time.

Her mind flipped through her life, the scene of her parent’s death, her mom laying her head on her husband’s lap, accepting her fate. Isn’t that what she was doing now? Holly accepted who she was - stained and tainted, unworthy and unwanted.

She felt Seth’s resistance, then she felt him respond. She felt his hands where Hunter’s should have been.
Hunter
. His name brought pain and she welcomed it just as she welcomed the touch of this man.

Seth wrested his lips from hers and took some time to steady his breath. He untangled her arms from his neck. “Holly, we can’t. I can’t. You are just hurting right now and...”

She silenced his protests with another kiss – and then there was nothing but submission.

Holly thought adultery was something akin to the torrid, steamy unions you see on a TV dramas. There was no love, no passion, and no gasps of pleasure - only the painful scream of her sin and the sin she was tempting Seth to commit with her. Like Eve to Adam, she led Seth down the fallen path and down on the kitchen floor. She peeled away his protests as she peeled away his clothes.

When it was over, he stared down at her, guilt, shame, and hurt filled the cups of his coffee-colored eyes. He stood and left without a word. He all but ran out of her house, as if her sin was chasing him, nipping at his heels, and seeking to consume him.

A part of her was grateful, but that part was wrapped around years of pain, and Seth’s desertion was more proof that she was unwanted.

The words of the social worker came back to haunt her.
Stained and tainted – that’s how these kids look to others.

Her phone chimed and she walked numbly over to pick it up off the counter, catching a reflection of herself in the glass on the microwave. Her shirt was unbuttoned, leaving her bra exposed, her hair was mussed and her lips were bruised from the force of her kisses. Several choice words came to mind to describe how she looked.

A sob tore from her throat as she read the message displayed on her phone. She wanted to cry out
why
, but one look at her reflection confirmed what she feared long ago - she wasn’t meant for love, she was meant for pain.

She ran out of the kitchen, as if she could run away from her brash actions. She raced up the steps, as if she could outrun her past. She tore off her clothes and got in the shower, as if she could wash away her mistake. But she couldn’t.

And as she kept up her futile actions, her phone stayed on the counter, Hunter’s message still on the screen.
“
I love you, too. We need to talk when I get back.”

H
unter walked through the door the next evening. Her text message had torn at his heart. He needed to put aside his fears and suspicions. Holly loved him and his unfounded accusations were hurting their marriage. Guilt stabbed his heart as he remembered how desperate she had been to hear him say he loved her. He had withheld his love from her because of his doubts.

While he was gone, he had thought a lot about what Seth had said about forgiveness. Hunter knew he could never forgive his mother for what she did; however, he shouldn’t be making Holly pay for the sins of his mother - and that is what he had been doing for the past few years.

After calling for her with no response, Hunter climbed the stairs and walked into their bedroom to the sound of retching, followed by the swish of the toilet flushing.

“Holly?” Concerned tinged his voice as he peeked his head into the bathroom. She stood in front of the sink, holding her toothbrush in one hand and the tube of toothpaste in the other, her eyes dark from the smudged mascara. She looked pale and tired.

Guilt stabbed at his heart again. Had he done this to her?

She stood there for a few moments, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Sadness and regret flickered in her eyes, but she quickly looked down and placed a drop of toothpaste on her brush.
See how you’ve hurt her. She’s probably regretting ever telling you about her parents. Can you blame her for withholding the information from you?
Placing his hand on her back as she leaned over the sink, he asked, “How long has this been going on?”

She looked up, staring at him in the mirror, a faint ring of toothpaste around her mouth. Spitting it out in the sink, she dried off her mouth with the hand towel before she asked, “What do you mean?”

“The vomiting.” She wiped her mouth again, before he gently turned her toward him. Placing his hand on her head, he felt for a fever, but she backed away.

“It must have been something I ate.” She walked into the bedroom and crawled under the covers. She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Without looking at him, she asked, “How was your trip?”

Perching on the edge of the bed near her hip, he brushed back her hair from her forehead with his fingertip, then ran it along her cheek. Kissing her on the forehead, he said, “I missed you.”