Chapter 22
Magnolia stomped down the hallway. Fury like she’d never known overcame her. Dax… had… lied…. to… her. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. When she came into the living room, standing face to face with Lulu, she didn’t say a word. But Lulu stepped up next to the door, holding Magnolia’s shirt and bra she’d left on the kitchen floor. They hung from Lulu’s hooked finger as she held them out to her. “These are yours, I believe.”
Magnolia grabbed them and yanked them from Lulu. “Thanks.”
Behind her, she could hear Dax struggling. “Mag-no-lia.” His words were halted no doubt by the set of balls she just kneed up into his throat.
How the hell could he have done this to her? Turned her into the very thing she hated about Eric—a mistress. Vomit rose in her throat as she yanked open the front door. Lulu cleared her throat, drawing Magnolia’s attention. “Surprised he didn’t tell you about me. Oh, well, no matter. I’ve got the ring, and you’ve got nothing.”
Magnolia glared at her from head to toe, fighting the urge to leap forward and smack that smug smile from her face. “Bitch.”
Just as she was about to step out, Dax lumbered down the hall and limped into the living room. “Lulu, you shut up! You and I ain’t been a couple in years. Magnolia, I gotta talk to you.”
“Leave me alone, Dax.” She walked out into the cold night, with her bra and shirt in one hand and nothing in the other. As soon as the cool air went up the flannel shirt Dax lent her, she realized she’d forgotten her jacket… with the car keys in it.
Determined to leave, she turned toward the main house and started trudging across the field. Behind her, Dax flew out the door, calling over his shoulder to Lulu, “Don’t you go anywhere.”
Of course, he’d want her to stay. “Ugh.” Magnolia increased her pace, striding toward her house as if it was an end line for a touchdown.
“Magnolia, wait!” He was closing in on her.
She moved faster. “No.”
“You need to give me a chance to explain.” Dax was at her side in a moment.
Magnolia stopped dead in her tracks and faced him. “I need to give you a chance to explain?” The nerve of this man. First he lied to her, then turned her into a unwitting mistress, and now he wanted to explain things? Her temper flared to life, hot and heavy. She’d trusted him and now she was utterly humiliated, in front of Lulu Griffin, no less. Gritting her teeth, she hauled back her arm and let it fly right at his face. She wanted to connect with his skin, to make him feel one-tenth of the hurt she felt in this moment.
But Dax reacted so quickly, ducking under her swinging hand. The momentum of her hand forced her to spin in a circle and lose her balance. Magnolia fell backward, landing flat on her ass in the middle of the cold field. She lay there for a moment, with her heart thundering in her chest. Dax reached down for her. “Magnolia!”
She smacked away his hand. “I don’t need your help.”
“Come on.” He wrapped his hands around her arms and pulled her up as though she weighed nothing.
Once she was back on her feet, she pressed her hands into his bare chest and shoved him away. She couldn’t look at him without feeling like her heart might rip from her chest and never come back. “Get away from me.”
How could he have done this to her? All she wanted was to work things out between them. If she had known for one second he was a married man, she would’ve never even tried. Brushing her hands down her legs, she sucked in a deep breath, trying to fight off the tears that wanted to burst forward. Then it hit her—the most foul odor, a smell so sour she knew exactly what it was. She turned, glancing down at her backside to a big brown spot. “Cow shit?” She rolled her eyes to the sky. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Only a hundred feet away from her house, she stomped forward closing in on the porch when Dax grabbed her arm and spun her around. “Magnolia, wait.”
She yanked her arm free and narrowed her eyes at him. This man, this ruggedly sexy man had cut her deeply. Anger and sadness overwhelmed her. The tears that had been threatening to spill over now coated her cheeks. Great! Just great! Crying was not a weakness Magnolia liked to show. She turned away from him, brushing at her face. “Just go away, Dax. I have nothing else to say to you.”
They had gotten so near to her porch she could bolt for the door and make it before he caught her. Dax stepped so close to her she could feel the heat coming off his skin. “Well, I have something to say to you.”
And that was it. The hard-pressed control Magnolia had been clinging to snapped. “You have something to say to me!” She threw up her arms, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Then by all means, go right ahead!”
“I have waited for you for ten years!” he bellowed back.
She took a step toward him. “And in all that time you couldn’t think to, gee, I don’t know… Tell me you were married!”
“It wasn’t something that came up.” Puffs of smoky breath rose between them. Dax’s chest heaved. That magnolia tattoo was a beacon staring her in the face.
Magnolia curled her hands into fists to stop herself from trying to rip it off his chest. “You mean something that didn’t come up between banging me in the barn and just now in your house!”
“What in the hell is goin’ on out here?” Her uncle staggered from around the side of the house. A cigarette hanging between his lips, he tucked his stained shirt into his baggy jeans, like he’d just rolled out of bed.
Magnolia jabbed a finger at Dax’s chest. “Ask him! And his wife!”
“She’s not my wife!” His maple eyes turned hard as he gazed down at her.
Magnolia motioned toward his house. “Then maybe you should go and tell her that!”
A cold shot of water smacked into her ribs. Magnolia flinched back, colliding with Dax’s chest. She screamed, holding up her hands, trying to block the stream. Dax stepped up in front of her, blocking the hard-hitting water from getting her. A mist still rained down on them. He held out his hand. “Mike, what in the actual fuck?”
“Y’all screamin’ at each other like a pack of coyotes. Ya could wake the dead.”
Magnolia’s father came charging out the front door, shotgun in hand. His clothes were completely disheveled, nearly falling off his body. He held up the gun and aimed at the two of them. “Oh, Maggie. You scared the shit out of me.” He lowered the barrel. “What is goin’ on out here?”
Soaking wet and freezing, she threw up her arms. “Why don’t you ask Dax and his wife what’s goin’ on?”
Steam rose off Dax’s body. He stood beside her, thrumming with tension or cold, Magnolia didn’t know. He gritted his teeth. “She’s not my wife. Well, she is, but she’s not. It’s a long story.”
Magnolia rounded on him. “A story you should’ve told me a long ass time ago.”
“Maybe if we hadn’t been dealing with all your drama first, I would have.” He put his hands on his hips and leaned forward, towering over her.
“My drama? My drama? Well, excuse me for trying to figure out what it’s like to be a single mom and, oh, I don’t know, get a divorce.” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “You should try it some time.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” her father muttered, but Magnolia didn’t bother turning to watch him.
Dax jabbed both his hands into his hair, looking as though he might rip it out. “Ugh, I have been!”
“Have been wha—” A stream of water hit her in the back of the head. She ducked down, screeching. Dax tried to block the water from hitting her but ended up sliding in the puddle around them. When his legs shot out from under him, he landed on his back. The wet smacking sound of skin hitting mud was the only warning Magnolia got before he collided with her. Tipping back, she fell on top of his water-soaked chest. When she glanced back at her uncle, she saw her father had taken the hose and was now shooting them with the freezing water. She held up her hand. “Dad, stop!”
He pointed the hose away from them. “Are y’all finished fightin’?”
“This is between me and Dax.” She started to rise to her feet.
“Wrong answer.” Again, he directed that cold stream back toward them.
Dax tried to rise to his feet only to fall ass over feet. “Damn it, Thomas. Knock it off.”
“Not until y’all give it a rest for the night,” he yelled over the sound of the spraying water.
“Fine! I’m done.” Maggie crawled up onto her hands and knees. Her hair hung in soaking tatters down her face. Her borrowed shirt was like wearing a wet sack over her fridged body. She blew drops of water off the tip of her nose and muttered, “I’m so done.”
Dax lay sprawled out on his back, his chest heaving up and down. “For tonight, I’m done.” He turned toward Thomas. “Happy now?”
“Considerin’ y’all are actin’ like a bunch of children, I’d say yes.” A large smile spread across his face. “I’m happy to get me some shuteye instead of listenin’ to you two making a mess of things.”
“Dad, I really don’t need this.” Magnolia slugged to her feet, her wet jeans rubbing along her legs in all the wrong ways. She took a step toward the porch, then paused. Pulling off her boot, she turned and dumped a stream of water onto the ground next to Dax. Even now, lying with his back covered in mud and his chest covered in water drops, he was utterly attractive, and she wanted to turn and kick him for it. For a fleeting moment, she knew what is was to feel the soul deep kind of love that could alter her life. She didn’t know whether to hate him or try to understand how this could happen. Either way, it didn’t matter because Magnolia had fallen in love with a man who belonged to someone else. She dragged her sopping feet up the steps and reached for the screen door, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and this day to be over.
“Magnolia, wait,” Dax called after her, pleading for her to stay.
She looked over her shoulder at him, feeling as though a part of her had crumbled to pieces. “I’m done, Dax.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. His brow furrowed low over his warm honey eyes and that muscle in his jaw started to tick. For the briefest moment, she wanted to turn to him, smooth his brow and run her fingers over his jaw. But she held strong and didn’t budge.
He father walked up beside Dax and placed a hand on his shoulder. “End the day, son. Tomorrow, y’all can talk about things.”
Always the voice of reason and compassion, her father patted Dax’s shoulder then stepped up behind Magnolia. “Let’s go on in.”
“I’m done talkin’, Dad.” Magnolia pushed through the door with her father hot on her heels. Behind her, Dax bellowed an agonizing, frustrated sound only a man who’d had enough could muster.
Though she didn’t want him to hurt, there was nothing left to do. When she turned for the stairs, she felt her father’s hand on her arm. She paused, looking up at him. “What’s up?”
“You ought to give him a chance to explain things to ya.”
“He lied to me. He had plenty of time to explain things to me and he didn’t. I’ve been here. I’ve been around. What excuse could he have for not telling me something this big?” The cool seeped into her bones and all she could think of was a nice hot shower.
“Magnolia, he’s a good man, and he loves you. Now, he ain’t perfect, but not many of us are.”
Magnolia leaned over the railing and kissed her father’s cheek. “To me, Dad, you are perfect.”
A light red tinge colored his cheeks, and he cleared his throat. “I mean it, Magnolia. You got to hear that man out.”
“I know. But for now, I just want a shower and my bed. Like you said before—let’s just end the day.” She patted her father’s hand.
“Yeah, let’s end the day.” He pressed his hand to his shoulder and rolled his neck. “Just promise me you’ll talk things out with him. I’d hate for you to miss out on something.”
Magnolia gazed down at him. His skin was a few shades lighter than she was used to and dark circles hung below his eyes. “I promise.” She tilted her head to the side. “Are you feeling okay?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’d be feeling a lot better if y’all would let me sleep.” He swatted her playfully across the backside. “To bed now.”
“Hey, Dad, do me a favor?” He followed her up the stairs. “Next time, use something else other than water to get your point across. Winter is gonna be here before you know it.”
A light chuckle escaped his lips. “All right, darlin’.”
When they reached the top of the stairs, she turned to face him. He looked more haggard than she’d ever seen him. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I got a lot on my mind with the Triple R, and those corporate ranchers have had some interesting things to say lately.”
“Anything you want to talk out with me? I can help, you know.” It would be nice for Maggie to have to worry about something else other than her life.
“Tomorrow, darlin’. For right now, I just want to catch a couple more hours of sleep before I get goin’.”
“Okay.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love you, Dad.”
He touched her on the chin. “Not as much as I love you, baby girl.”