Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (34 page)

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.

“You said you’d give me anything,” I
accused.

A muscle ticked in his jaw and he finally
spoke. “Told you I’d give it if I had it in me to give. You don’t
get that.”

That didn’t make any sense.

“You’re married,” I hissed.

“Trust me.”

Was he
crazy
?

“
How?
” I cried, tossing an arm out and
throwing the picture across the room to make my point. It fluttered
a few feet and fell, face down.

“You don’t get her.”

I didn’t get her?

What the hell did that mean?

I stood from the bed. “That doesn’t make any
sense, Deacon.”

“You don’t get her,” he repeated.

I leaned toward him and shrieked, “
That
doesn’t make any sense!
”

He again said nothing.

“Explain it to me,” I demanded.

He stood there, body wired and alert, the
room filled with something vicious, and…he…said…
nothing
.

“
Explain it to me!
” I screamed.

Deacon didn’t explain it to me.

“Say something,” I snapped. “You have to. You
don’t get that, Deacon.” I jabbed a finger to the picture on the
floor. “You don’t get that from me. You don’t bring that in my
house. To my cabins. To
my bed
.” I sucked in breath and
screeched, “
Say something!
”

“Cassidy, you gotta believe in me.”

“Fuck that,” I hissed. “Fuck you. Fuck not
knowing your name or your birthday or anything about your life
before me and when you’re away from me. Fuck that!”

“You got it all from me.”

He could not be believed.

“I have
nothing
from you except what
you give to me when you take from me, and you know precisely what I
mean,” I shot back maliciously.

“You know that’s bullshit,” he clipped.

“I…know…” I leaned deep, “
nothing
.” I
shook my head, straightening. “I can’t do this. I thought I could
because I felt so
fucking
much for you. I felt
everything
for you. From the first moment you stood at my
door when Grant and I were fighting, I felt it. I didn’t get it,
but I felt it. But I can’t. I can’t do it. I tried and I can’t. And
you know what? You shouldn’t ask me to.”

He was silent.

“You have to give me something,” I
demanded.

“You got everything you need,” he returned.
“Dig deep, you know it, woman.”

Dig deep.

He was. He was
insane
.

“You can’t be believed,” I snapped.

“Dig deep.”

“Fuck that, too,” I bit off.

He leaned toward me and roared, “
Fuckin’
dig deep, Cassidy!
”

“
Fuck that!
” I shouted back, so done
with this, I couldn’t be more done. “I unpacked your shit. Middle
drawer. Closet. Pack it and get out.”

I stomped to the door and he moved in a way I
knew he was going to stop me so I jerked to a halt and gave him
slitted eyes.

“You touch me, I’ll fight you until I die,” I
hissed, watched his chin jerk into his neck but that was all I
saw.

I stormed out.

I went directly to my computer. I did what I
needed to do there, one last chance.

One…last…
fucking
…chance.

I yanked the flash drive out.

Then I stomped back up the stairs.

Deacon was not in the room but I knew he was
there. His bag was on the bed, mostly packed.

He was in the bathroom getting his crap.

The picture was no longer on the floor.

He was leaving me.

He was shoving her back in his bag and
leaving me.

I didn’t let that penetrate. Couldn’t. If I
did, I’d come flying apart.

I stood in the doorway and tossed the flash
drive across the room. It landed on the bed.

“You’ve got an hour. Flash drive on the bed.
Listen, Deacon, make your decision. Then let me know by being gone
or being here and knowing what you have to give me,” I called into
the room. “I’m leaving. I’ll be back in an hour.”

I didn’t wait for him to come out of the
bathroom.

I stomped out of the room but went to the
kitchen where Deacon closed in
my
fucking dog and I brought
her with me when I took off.

If he was going to leave, he was not going to
get the idea to take my dog.

We drove around for an hour, Bossy having a
whale of a time, nose sniffing at the crack in the window she
couldn’t reach, my eyes burning from forcing them wide open, my
head hurting from concentrating so hard on what I was doing, and
not on anything else, so we wouldn’t crash.

After an hour, we came home.

The house was empty.

I wasn’t surprised.

But I was destroyed.

Completely.

Utterly.

In a way I knew I’d never be right again.

Not ever again.

Until the day I died.

I collapsed on the floor of my foyer.

And I learned something.

Puppies licked tears away.

And Boss Lady had her work cut out for
her.

In the end, I found she was good at it.

It didn’t make me feel better.

Not at all.

Let Her Go

Deacon

Deacon Gates lay on his back in the bed in
the hotel room, his laptop open beside him, the flash drive Cassie
gave him stuck in the side, iTunes up, the sounds of the piano
coming from the speakers.

A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera
singing “Say Something.”

The words started.

They cut deep.

He no longer felt it. He’d listened to the
song fifty times. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t
lacerated.

The song ended and he started again.

Halfway through, his phone rang.

He paused the song, took the call, and
listened to the asshole, piece of shit, dregs of humanity on the
other end of the line asking for his help.

When the fucker was done speaking, Deacon
said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

He flipped the phone closed and slid his
finger on the mouse pad, starting the song at the beginning.

He listened.

And again.

And repeat.

He didn’t sleep.

He didn’t eat.

And early the next morning, he checked out
and drove three states to help some asshole, piece of shit, dregs
of humanity take care of his shit.

* * * * *

It was raining when Deacon slid his Suburban
up to the little, tidy house on the street filled with little, tidy
houses in Iowa.

The steps up to the house were near to
covered with pots filled with flowers, only a narrow clearing was
available to make your way to the house.

That was his mother. She liked her
flowers.

Like Cassie.

He looked to the windows and saw his dad in a
lounger, TV on, game playing.

He’d given up the farm.

He’d had no choice. He got old and his son
had no interest in it. Never did. Always went his own way.

Until he just went away.

Deacon watched through the rain into the
window until he saw his mother come in, two glasses in her hands,
an iced tea for her, Deacon knew, an Arnold Palmer for his dad.

His dad took the drink. His mom bent to kiss
his cheek.

She sat in the lounger next to her
husband.

Deacon kept watching as he put the truck into
drive.

Then he looked to the street as he pulled
away from the curb.

* * * * *

It was still raining the next day when Deacon
stood by the grave, eyes on the headstone.

Jeanine Ann Gates. Beloved wife and
daughter. Always remembered.

Her parents put that shit on about beloved
wife.

She was.

Then she wasn’t.

“You broke me,” he whispered to the
headstone.

If she was there, she’d start crying. She’d
mean those tears. She felt hard, when she let herself feel, which
was why she did everything in her power to stop feeling.

She succeeded.

Spectacularly.

“Let me go.”

He closed his eyes and waited.

He saw her on that barstool trying not to let
him catch her watching him. He saw her walking down the aisle,
smiling at him so big, already crying happy tears and she hadn’t
even made it to his side. He saw her bending to the oven, taking
out yet another fucking tray of cookies.

And he saw her hanging from the hook,
suspended in the sling, taking another man’s cock.

“Let me go,” he repeated.

She didn’t let him go.

The bitch never did.

* * * * *

Deacon sat in a dingy, old roadside diner, a
cup of black coffee in front of him, the place deserted because it
was three in the morning, his eyes out the window, focused on the
dark sky.

It never happened so he didn’t know why it
did then. He didn’t give a shit about music. He didn’t give a shit
about anything. Jeannie taught him that just as Cassie did
everything she could to teach him something else.

But the song playing in the diner hit him,
every word, each stabbing like a knife in his chest.

He didn’t know why he did it but he picked up
his phone, the real one he never gave Cassie the number to mostly
because he was going to dump it when he left the life and get a new
one.

He hit the Shazam button, an app he’d never
used. An app Raid’s woman, Hanna, loaded on to it, teasing him,
“Everyone has Shazam, Deacon.”

Shazam listened and told him the song was
Passenger, “Let Her Go.”

Let her go.

Let.

Let.

That’s what he’d done.
He’d
done it.
He’d let Cassie go.

He took a sip of his coffee, leaned forward,
pulled out his wallet, threw some bills on the table that would
make the night of the lonely waitress in her short skirt and
ridiculous cap, who, by the look of her, needed to retire twenty
years ago.