Forgiving Patience (36 page)

“No, Jake, it’s fine. We were good at
hiding it. There was no way you could have known. I won’t lie and say that it
didn’t make me think about what was done to my mother, but I’m over it. Please
don’t feel bad about it any longer.

Em and her parents knew, and I’m sure
Ms. Edna knew too, even though she never mentioned it. Other than that it was
just a big family secret. After he left, my mom worked at the bank during the
day and cleaned the bank at night to make sure we had enough money. I actually
think she enjoyed all the work. It made her feel like she was worth something
again and that she was finally taking control of her life.” Anna couldn’t help
but smile at the memory of her mom when she got her first check. Her mom picked
her up from school early that Friday, and they went on a small shopping spree.
Which only included a new top for Anna and a new pair of heels for her mother.
But to them it was everything. It was forty dollars well spent.

“I always liked your mother. She was
a good woman, and I can see a lot of the good she had in you. I bet you don’t
know this, but I went to see her after you left. I begged her to tell me why
you left, but she just said you needed to get away. She said if you wanted to
talk to me, you would call, and for me to respect you. Before I left, she
handed me a shoe box. It was filled with pictures, letters, dried up flowers,
and tons of other stuff that represented our time together. I was touched that
you kept all those things. I think the box is still at Bradley’s in the attic.”

Jake and Anna both sat there a moment
staring at the floor, thinking back on their past. They’d had some good times
together. They had been truly in love to the point where it was overwhelming at
times. You weren’t supposed to find your soul-mate at the age of sixteen, but
Anna had thought she had. It had just about killed her when she’d discovered
Jake’s betrayal.

“No, she never told me. You were
right about something you said earlier.”

“What’s that, sweetness?”

“Me not having many lovers. I’ve only
slept with one other guy before you. His name is Chris. I took a business class
with him. He was a sweet single father. Safe. We went on a couple of dates
before I slept with him. I really just did it to see if I could. I needed to
know that I wasn’t as scared as I felt. It wasn’t spectacular or anything, but
it was an accomplishment for me.”

An expression she thought was
jealousy briefly passed over his face. He recovered and tried to downplay what
he really thought and probably wanted to say. “So, you didn’t see fireworks?”

She smiled for the first time since
they had gotten home. “No, Jake, there were no fireworks. I only see those with
you.”

He laughed. “Nice. I do have a
reputation to keep, you know?”

Anna should have been angry at the
fact that this man knew her deepest secret, but she surprisingly wasn’t. It was
freeing to finally let go of all her crap.

“I still have one question,” he said.

“What?”

“What brought all this on? I mean,
did something happen at the dinner?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I was talking
to Mrs. Bradshaw, and she said you loved me. I don’t know how she knows, but
she said she can see it in the way you look at me. I know you just said you
did, but I need time to process it. I’m not ready for this.”

“You process away. I will still be
here when you figure out you love me too. I will always be here.”

Chapter Seventeen

Anna woke just after midnight. After
she and Jake had made love, she fell asleep wrapped in his strong, safe arms.
She could hear the steadiness of his breath on her skin. Their lovemaking was
slow and gentle. A different pace from all the other times. They were still
learning each other’s bodies, and she still got butterflies when he started to
strip her clothes off. When he drew her into his arms, she didn’t hesitate to
relax into his hold. His hands roamed all over her skin, while his kisses ran
from her mouth and stopped at her breasts. He acted as if going any farther
down her body wasn’t even an option for him.

The man’s body was magnificent. His
endless litany of curses when he was about to empty himself inside her was
becoming music to her ears. She loved that she could drive him crazy and make
him lose himself.

She easily moved his arm from around
her and slowly got out of bed. After slipping on her panties, she pulled on the
polo shirt he’d worn earlier to the wedding rehearsal—surrounding herself with
his manly smell. It was just one part of him she wasn’t ready to let go. What
she was feeling was still somewhat of a mystery, but her heart felt like it was
about to explode in her chest. All she knew was that she was, for once in her
life, happy. Happy and safe. It was a welcome combination.

How did I fall in love with him? Oh,
give it up, Anna. You never stopped loving the man.

But he’d hurt her all those years ago
and hadn’t even explained himself. She couldn’t love someone who could so
easily break her heart, could she? But, on the other hand, he was so caring and
concerned. Was that enough? Did it make up for everything else he’d done when
they were teenagers?

Knowing it would be useless to try to
get more sleep, she padded to the kitchen and started brewing a pot of coffee.
She’d been too preoccupied earlier to take her little blue pill. And the day
had been too emotional for her to be able to just sleep pleasantly in Jake’s
arms. Now she would be up for the rest of the night—the night before
Em’s
big day. Well, Em wouldn’t have to worry about Anna
outshining her. Anna could already see the bags forming under her eyes.

When the coffee was ready, she
reached for a cup in the cabinet and was ready to wait out the night.

“
Whatcha
doing, sweetness?” Jake put both hands on her shoulder.

Anna couldn’t help but jump at the
voice coming from behind her. “Jake!”

“Sorry to scare you. You didn’t hear
me get up?”

“No, I didn’t. Want some coffee?” She
turned her head to the side so she could see him. Oh. My. God. “You’re naked.”
Feeling brave, she turned completely around to face him, abandoning her
interest in coffee.

He stared down at her and paused
before he said, “Yeah, I was hoping you would be too.”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen him
nude, because they’d had sex more times than she could count over the past
couple days, but this was different. This was just him standing, comfortably
naked, in the kitchen. No intense kissing or stripping of clothes this time. He
was just there in his birthday suit. “
Uhh
, I was just
making coffee. Do you…
uhh
…want some?”

“You already asked me that.”

Aggravated with herself and the way
she was acting around a naked man, she said, “Well, do you?”

“There are much tastier things I
want.”

She let that hang in the air for a
moment. Of course she knew what he meant, but she didn’t have anything sexy to
say back. God, she wished she did. If she was going to be a woman who had
unattached sex with hot men—or a hot man—she was going to have to come up with
some sex talk. Instead, she said, “We’ve got to talk.” Well…that turned the
heat down in the room.

“Not the reaction I was expecting,
but all right. What’s up?”

“Can you please put some clothes on?
I can’t do this if you’re standing here naked in front of me.”

“You’re tempted, aren’t you?” A smirk
was plastered on his face.

She couldn’t lie. He would see right
through it. Plus, she didn’t want to hide her feelings. She wanted to feel free
and wild. “A little.”

“Just a little?” He held his index
finger and thumb several inches apart from one another.

“Okay—a lot. Now, will you please do
what I say?”

“Bossy. I like it.” He walked the few
steps towards the bed where his khakis lay and pulled them on. Since she was
wearing his polo shirt, he just put on the white undershirt she’d pulled off of
him during the heat of passion. “Better?” he asked.

She poured herself a cup of coffee,
forgetting about asking him again. If he wanted some, he could get it himself.
She added her creamer, and when she was satisfied with the flavor, she went and
sat on the couch she rarely used. Jake sat in the oversized chair just
opposite. She missed his closeness, but it made what she had to say, or better
yet, ask, easier.

She’d never been strong enough to
hear the details of Jake’s betrayal, but she was ready now. It was a night for
answers.

“So, what’s got you up after midnight
drinking coffee?” he asked. His hair was unruly, and sleepiness was still
evident in his eyes.

“I need to know about Cara, Jake.”
There, she said it. It was finally out there. There was no taking it back now.

“Oh hell, Anna. You want to talk about
that right now?”

“Yes. I need to know, and I need to
know right now. The not knowing is driving me crazy. I think I deserve that
much.”

“You’re right, you do, but I don’t
see why we have to talk about it this minute. We have a wedding to go to
tomorrow, and I don’t know about you, but I need to get my beauty sleep.”

“It’s not funny, and I don’t
appreciate you brushing it off like it meant nothing. Maybe to you it was just
another night, but to me it was life shattering, and I think I deserve more
than a cute remark.”

“You’re right—”

“You’ve already said that, so get to
talking,” she interrupted.

“Okay.” The way he was violently
rubbing his palms over his face told her he wasn’t looking forward to the long
overdue conversation. “It was the night after you met me in the barn and broke
things off with me. Bradley was having a bonfire party, and as you can imagine,
he invited girls. Tommy was there, so was Em, even Tex.”

“I get it, everyone was there. I
don’t need a list of names. I need to know how you ended up sleeping with her.”

“You breaking up with me blindsided
me. I was in love with you. Tex had gotten one of his older friends to score us
some alcohol, so I had more than a few beers. I was walking around the field by
myself when I came up on the barn we met at the night before.”

“You slept with her at the last place
we were together? You sorry son-of-a-bitch.” She stood to walk off and leave
the conversation and the old wounds that were surfacing. She thought she could
do this, but she couldn’t. Why would she want to know about one of the worst
nights of her life?

“You wanted to know, so I’m telling
you. Sit down and listen.”

She stalked off, too riled up to hold
it in, then she stalked back. “You don’t tell me what to do.”

“Can you please just let me finish?”

She sat back down, but not because he
demanded she do so. But because whether she wanted to or not, she needed to
hear this, and it had been her idea to get it rolling.

“I don’t know why I wanted to torture
myself by going to the last place I saw you, but I did. I was trying to figure
out what had happened and how things changed so quickly. I heard someone
crying, so I called out. It was Cara. She was mumbling all sorts of things, but
I was going through my own shit so I just kept saying ‘yeah, yeah.’ When she
wouldn’t stop crying, I did all I knew to do. I rubbed her back and told her it
was going to be okay. Not that I believed anything was going to be okay for
myself, but it seemed to work for her because she was finally making some
sense.” He stopped to rub his hands up and down his face again, this time not
so hard.

“Well, aren’t you just a knight in
shining armor?”

“What was I supposed to do, leave her
there to bawl her eyes out? I can be a son-of-a-bitch, as you like to point out
every chance you get, but I wasn’t going to just walk away, leaving her to cry
all alone. I watched my mom cry for a month straight after my dad died, and it
broke me. I can’t just leave a woman when she needs help. I’m sorry for a lot
of things, but that I’m not.”

“Fine, go ahead, even though I think
it’s obvious that there were other ways you could’ve handled things—like going
to get one of her friends. But, whatever. You can’t go back and change what you
did, so just tell me what happened next.”

“I did ask if she needed me to go get
one of her friends, but she said no. She didn’t want anyone to know what had
happened. She was embarrassed.”

“About what?”

“Her boyfriend, an older boy she was
dating over in Knight County, had just broken up with her. She was supposed to
introduce him to all her friends at the party, and all the girls thought it was
cool that she had an older boyfriend.”

“That’s nothing. Em always dated
older boys.”

“I don’t know, Anna. All I do know is
she was embarrassed because he didn’t come with her to the party. We were kind
of in the same boat, so, since she’d opened up to me, I just decided to join in
on the pity party. Nobody knew about me and you. Bradley suspected, because
he’s my brother. He just can tell when something’s up, but unless you told Em,
nobody knew.”