Page 98 of Surly Sheriff
“Really?”
Rae smiled. “Really.”
“You’ll come with me?”
“Sure. But maybe Mister Beau would like to take you? He knows the way.” She ruffled his hair, dropped a kiss on his forehead, and rose, walking back to the stove.
Jack looked at Beau. “Mister Beau, will you take me to Molly? She has a hen called …” He trailed off, his face scrunching up. “I forgot.”
“Henrietta,” Beau supplied.
The boy beamed at him, and Beau’s heart swelled with love.
“Do you know Hen’etta, Mister Beau? Molly said she makesblueeggs.”
Beau chuckled. “It’s theshellthat’s blue, Jack. The inside is yellow and white like other eggs.”
“Oh.”
Beau laughed at the kid’s crestfallen look. Guess the idea of blue scrambled eggs appealed. “How about we finish the puzzle, Jack?”
“Okay, Mister Beau.”
He winced at theMister Beau.
The way Jack addressed him needed to change. And soon.
*
“How many books did he con you into?” she asked, closing the lid of her laptop.
“Three,” Beau admitted, moving closer.
The evening had been bittersweet. Supper. A board game once the dishes were done. Taking Xena for a walk with Jack. Bath time. Where Jack had shown him a recent scar on his leg. “I fell outta a tree, Mister Beau. And got three stitches. Momma said I scared ten years off her life.” Then bed, reading to his son.
So many missed suppers, baths. Emergency hospital visits. Stories.
It was time for answers. “We gotta talk.”
He walked behind the couch, facing her. He needed physical distance. It would be too easy to slip back into old times. All evening he’d been battling dueling emotions.
Hate. Desire.
Rae uncrossed her legs and placed her laptop on the coffee table. “I really want to stress that I never set out to betray you. I thought I’d outrun my past and could have a life with you. Be happy.” She gave a harsh laugh, lifted her head, and met his gaze. “How utterly stupid of me. My past came hurtling back in a mighty way, and I panicked. And ran. The hurt I’ve caused … I know there’s no coming back from that. You hate me and I can live with that. Ideserveyour scorn. And if not for Jack … well, I don’t think I’d’ve had the courage to return and face you. Yet here I am, and you need to know—”
She paused and tilted her head. When she continued, her voice was low and urgent. “Bella said you had someone investigate me? You even drove to Florida—”
“My wife walked out on me,” he cut in, gripping the back of an armchair, his fingers digging into the foam. “I wanted,neededto know why, so yeah, I asked someone to investigate you. But Florida came first. That was your original destination years ago. Before I learned you told me a pack of lies,” he griped, unable to hide the renewed hurt roiling in him. “Guess the bungalow in Key West was just another lie.”
He felt a measure of satisfaction at her wince.
“I had no fixed destination in mind when I first arrived here, so yeah, I lied about Key West.” Rae stretched out her arm, and even though she was too far away to touch him, he reared back. She compressed her lips, breaking eye contact. “That was the only lie I told you.”
Her whispered words fueled his anger, the hurt twisting his gut into a tight knot.
“Stop.” He couldn’t bear to hear further lies leave her deceitful mouth. “I had medical records, school records, tracing your life from birth inDallas, Texas. You never had a sister. And your grandparents,both sets, died before you were even born. There was no abusivegrandfather, Raegan. And your parents died in ahouse firewhile you were in college.”
“Everything about theTexasRaegan Williams is a fabrication. She never existed.”
