LITTLE BIT STRONGER | A COUNTRY ROMANCE

Chapter Six

Over the following weeks, Kate cried more than she ever had in her life.

Once the shock of getting caught cheating wore off, Brian bent his entire will to getting her back.

He begged her family and their friends to intervene on his behalf. He sent gifts and letters to her parents' house. Every day, he called and texted her repeatedly.

Kate didn't see or speak to the man she'd married for two weeks. She spent her vacation from the hospital in her old bedroom in her childhood home and relied on her family to act as a buffer while she got her bearings.

Roberta and Brian's attorney hashed out the details of the divorce but Brian insisted it would never happen.

Kyle was the one who drove Caleb back and forth to visit his father. Krista couldn't be trusted to act right.

One Friday night when her mom and dad were at an event for the town council, Kate took a long soak in the clawfoot tub on the second floor.

It had been her happy place as a teenager and she needed some of that magic with so much pain and upheaval.

She read a tattered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy while wearing a honey face mask and adding more hot water as needed.

It was reminiscent of how she'd spent many of her weekend nights as a young woman while her older brother tore things up with his friends.

Kyle had been the first-string quarterback for their high school football team. Brian was his center.

They weren't the biggest or strongest guys on the team but they were fast and ferocious. It made them popular with their peers. For young men, that meant plenty of dates.

From the first time she met him at fifteen, Kate thought Brian was obnoxious. He considered her a stuck-up prude.

She could have run with the popular kids but she thought they were assholes for the most part. The fact that she did her own thing seemed to annoy her brother's best friend.

Kyle casually dated the woman he eventually married in his senior year of high school - along with half a dozen other girls simply because he could.

Smart and oh-so-pretty Mary went away to college without a backward glance at the boy who took her for granted. She returned to her hometown with a degree in cosmetic dentistry and went to work at her father's practice.

Kyle lived in Austin for another year after graduating dental school but eventually got tired of sowing his oats, living the single life, and being so far from his close-knit family.

He moved back to Boxton and met Mary again at a dental conference in Oklahoma City. She rejected him over and over again for weeks before she agreed to let him take her to dinner. They were married three months later and welcomed their twins into the world the following year.

Brian followed his best friend to Austin and earned his CPA. By their own admission, they'd raised a lot of hell as bachelors and taken far too many risks.

When Kyle moved back to northern Oklahoma, Brian did the same. He was reintroduced to Kate at Kyle's wedding and was instantly fixated on her.

She still found him to be obnoxious.

If she was being honest, she let him wear her down. He was attempting the same tactic now because it had worked for him before.

Brian didn't have much family and wasn't close to the family he did have. His real love was for Kate's parents and siblings - the traditions they shared and always included him in. The loss of those connections was probably worse for him than losing her.

He was the last man she dated, the only man she'd fallen in love with, and she gave him seven good years of her life.

She could not, would not, give him another day.

There was a light tap on the frosted bathroom window. Kate looked at it and immediately felt frustrated.

She knew that on the other side, Brian was crouched on the porch roof. He'd done the same thing the night before they were married.

That night, she'd gone to the window. Soaking wet and wrapped in a towel, she opened the window, smiled at her fiancé, and let him in.

He made love to her against the bathroom wall and told her how much he loved her before telling her he'd see her the next day to start their fairytale life together.

How simple everything had seemed then.

"Kate?" he whispered now. "Kate, let me in."

Shaking off the cobwebs from the past, she answered, "No. Leave, Brian. You need to leave."

"Can't we talk? Can't we figure this out?"

Draining the tub, Kate took her time rinsing it, removing her face mask, drying off, and getting dressed in the leggings and t-shirt she'd worn earlier. She'd take a shower after she faced her ex.

Walking downstairs, she turned on the foyer light and opened the front door. Walking across the porch, she stood on the lawn and looked up.

"Come down from there. Right now, Brian."

"Kate!" He scrambled into the tree and dropped to the grass a moment later. He immediately came toward her with his arms out. "Honey..."

"Stop right there." He did with a look of confusion. "What are you doing, Brian? What do you think this is? We aren't in high school or even our twenties anymore. Your actions have consequences."

"It was a mistake. I can earn your forgiveness if you'll let me, Kate. I don't want to lose our family."

"You should have considered that before you cheated. I can't forgive you. You know me well enough to know that. I can't even forgive friends who cheat on their spouses...you think I can forgive a husband who not only cheated on me but talked shit about me to his mistress?"

"Listen, if you'll just listen..."

"There's never an excuse for cheating. If your needs weren't being met, you should have talked to me. If you were unhappy, you should have left. Staying, saying you loved me, then fucking some woman was wrong...and so cruel, Brian. You were cruel when you didn't have to be."

"Let me explain..."

"You want to explain? Okay. Explain how you didn't hesitate on the twenty-minute drive to the creek - nothing in you said to stop, to think, to remember what you had to lose. Explain how you ended up with your dick in another woman - without protection."

Clenching her jaw, she went on, "Explain how you returned home and tried to have sex with me an hour later and again that afternoon. Explain how you lied to my face over and over again. Go ahead...explain it to me, Brian. I'll wait."

He stood there, blinking, saying nothing.

She wanted to fill the silence with so many things she hadn't said but she didn't. There was no point in any of it.

"Kate, I..." His voice trailed away and they stood six feet apart in silence for almost a minute.

Finally, she whispered, "You can't explain anything. You did what you did with your eyes open and plenty of lies at the ready - probably for months. You were greedy. That's the only explanation. That's the truth."

Returning to the porch, Kate paused at the front door and looked over her shoulder. "You thought you could come here and sweep me off my feet. That you'd have sex with me and I'd fall apart for you."

She shook her head. "I'm not that woman anymore, Brian. You made sure of it. Sign the papers and don't come here again. There's no going back."

Inside, she closed the door softly and engaged the locks. She waited until he started his truck and drove away.

Upstairs again, she stripped and stepped into the shower. She cried painfully hard and tried to pretend that sending him away hadn't cost her.

A broken heart still wanted the thing that broke it.

For a little while.

© Shayne McClendon