Page 12 of Texas
“Maybe not everything. But something.”
She looks at me then. Really looks. “I didn’t want to scare you off.” The funny thing is, if she’d told me all this up front, I probably would’ve bolted. But now? After last night? After seeing this asshole? Now I only want to keep her safe, even if I don’t know how.
“You didn’t,” I say, and she gives me a grim smile.
“He’ll push. He always does.”
I walk to the counter, pour another cup of coffee, and slide it toward her. “Let him try.”
Taking it with both hands, I see her fingers are shaking. I hate that. I hate how calm she had to be. I hate how practiced she was. I hate that I know exactly what that kind of survival looks like. I sip my own coffee and let the silence stretch. She’ll talk when she’s ready.
And she does. “I met him when I was twenty-four,” she says. “Fresh out of grad school. I was still wearing my badge on a lanyard and thinking I could change the world one patient at a time.”
I sip my coffee. It’s gone lukewarm, but I don’t care. I’m watching her. Taking in every shift of her shoulders, and every flick of her fingers around the cup. She’s not telling me this for sympathy. She’s telling me because it needs to be said.
“He came into the clinic where I was working as a family nurse practitioner. Nothing wrong with him. He was there to drop off a check. One of those community health donors who likes to be seen doing good. I thought he was charming.” She gives a bitter smile. “He was. That’s the problem.”
I nod. I’m connecting the dots. She fell for a snake hiding behind charm that’s not even skin deep. She continues.
“He invited me to a fundraiser. Said he admired how passionate I was. Said the town needed more women like me.” Her mouth twists. “He made me feel seen. Wanted. Important.”
That hits something low in my chest. I know what it’s like to want to be seen and be more than what you’ve survived.
“He proposed a year later. Big dinner, fancy ring, the whole thing. His family owns half this town. Real estate. Development. Some political strings. He’s on the board of three banks and two churches. Maybe more now.”
I grunt. “And the kind of man who never hears ‘no’ without punishing someone for it.”
Looking at me, her eyes are sharp. “Exactly.”
I swirl the last of my coffee and wait. She’s not done. Not yet.
“At first, it was little things. He’d correct me when I spoke. Tell me I sounded too aggressive. Tell me I was too emotional with patients. That I needed to be more polished. Then it was who I could have lunch with. What I wore to work.”
“Sounds like a hell of a husband.”
She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “By the time I realized what was happening, we’d already moved into this house. I let him buy into my clinic.”
I raise an eyebrow. “He owns part of it?”
“Technically. He’s a silent investor. But nothing about him is ever silent.”
I feel tension building in my shoulders. My jaw’s tight. I hate this. Not because I’m surprised, but because I’m not. I’ve heard the story before too many times.
“I started pulling away a few years ago,” she says. “Stopped going to his events. Took back my maiden name of Lennox on my license. He started spending more time at his property in the hills. He never hit me, Reggie. Not once. But he didn’t have to.”
Sometimes I think that kind of control is worse. More dangerous. It leaves no bruises, no proof. Just invisible fractures under the skin that never quite heal right, so I nod. “Words cut cleaner anyway.”
She nods. “He made me feel small. Like I was ungrateful. Like I’d never be anything without him.” She looks at me then, eyes fierce. “But I am. I’m more.” The way she says it doesn’t sound like a declaration, it sounds like a vow. Something like she’s reminding herself just as much as she’s telling me.
“Damn straight you are.”
Breathing in, she holds it for a beat. “I haven’t had anyone in the guesthouse before,” she says. “Not since he stopped staying here. You’re the first.”
Setting my mug down, I lean forward, elbows on the table, my voice quiet. “Why me?”
Meeting my eye, she doesn’t hesitate. “Because you don’t look at me like I’m broken,” she says. “And because when I asked you to stay last night, you didn’t run.”
I don’t tell her I almost did. She reaches across the table, fingers brushing mine. Her hand is warm, steadier now.
