She patted him on the back before stepping out of the room and closing the bedroom door quietly behind her.
“I’ve missed ye so much, me love,” he said sweetly, moving toward me only to come to an abrupt stop as my hand flew up between us. I only wanted to stop him so I could get a handle on the emotions battling for supremacy in my brain, but the movement was so sharp it almost looked like I was trying to hit him.
It was so good to see him. He looked great. He was letting his beard grow out and his hair had gotten longer, too. But he barely looked like the man I’d married, and that made me nervous, even though it shouldn’t.
As I was cataloguing all of the changes in his appearance, he seemed to be doing the same thing because I watched as his eyebrows drew down into a frown and he gently reached out to touch my still taped-up fingers.
“What happened to yer hand?” he asked quietly. “What de hell is goin’ on?”
I didn’t answer. Of course I didn’t. Any thought of doing so had been erased with the glaring reminder of my injuries… and the reason for them.
“Answer me,” he said, jamming his hands into his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Amy? What de fuck?”
I didn’t look away from him as his worry turned to frustration and then anger.
“Mum!” he called, watching me closely. “Get in here, Mum!”
The door opened quickly, and there was Peg, with tears in her eyes.
“I thought for sure—”
“What de fuck is goin’ on?” he asked incredulously.
“Ye need to tell him,” she ordered, her eyes full of sympathy. “He deserves to know.”
“What do I deserve to know?”
“I’m pregnant,” I said, the words scratchy and a bit wobbly.
He looked back and forth between Peg and I as if he was trying to gauge our sincerity, and then I watched as the most beautiful little grin spilt his lips. He lifted a hand to run his fingers over his beard, and it was evident that he was trying to keep a handle on his excitement. As much as I loved watching the transformation come over his face, I couldn’t let it continue.
“It’s not yours,” I said flatly.
Peg let out a pained gasp and fled the room, but it took Patrick a little longer to fully comprehend my words.
“What a horrible t’ing to say,” he rasped in disbelief.
I laughed bitterly. “Horrible, yes, but also true.”
“Why would ye—”
“We didn’t have sex after Robbie died,” I cut him off. “I had my period after that.”
He gaped at me for what seemed like forever, and I knew he was trying to come to terms with the information I’d just given him. I saw the exact moment he realized the full extent of my announcement because his face morphed into an expression I’d never seen before.
“If ye were attemptin’ to pay me back,” he said, “Ye could not have done a better job of it.”
I laughed. For the first time in months, I laughed, and I did it so hard that my whole body was shaking and my breath was wheezing in and out of my chest. I was hysterical, unable to curb the noise even as he stared at me in disbelief and disgust.
“Filthy slapper,” he said, his hands coming out of his pockets. He stepped forward menacingly, and my laughter finally cut off in shock as he leaned forward.
Then he spit in my face.
I didn’t wipe it off.
I was filthy. I was disgusting. But so was he.
He left that day, slamming out of the house before my tears had even washed away his saliva from my face.
He’d had no idea. None. He’d looked right past my shorn off hair and mangled hand. And that’s what was so heartbreakingly funny.
My pregnancy was most definitely payback.
It just hadn’t been mine.
Chapter 40
Patrick
She’d wrecked me.
I didn’t understand how she could have fucked someone else after I left. She’d only had a few bloody days to do so, but there was no way I’d misinterpreted her words. She was pregnant, and it was not by me. Unless it was the Lord’s child, she’d had another man between her thighs.
Repeating her words over and over in my head made the ride home seem hours shorter than the ride to Texas had been. When I’d been anxious to see Amy and Mum, the ride had seemed to be unending. However, as I pulled into the driveway of the small house I’d been able to afford on my pay from the garage, it was as if the trip had taken mere moments.
There’s a saying, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. The words have been bastardized a bit since William Congreve first wrote them—but the sentiment was the same.
She’d been angry at me—with good reason—and she’d paid me back in kind.
The thought of another man’s hands on her made me shake with fury. I couldn’t even fathom it, and more than once during the ride I’d had to pull off the side of the road to be sick. It made me want to hurt someone. It made me want to hurt her.
Fuck her and her disgusting American views of marriage and fidelity. Fuck her short hair and her missing fingers and her accent.
I’d never speak of her again. It was the only way I’d survive without her, because as much as I hated her—I loved her still, and that made me angrier than anything else.
The house was quiet as I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. It was late and Moira hadn’t known I was coming home so soon, so she hadn’t left any lights on in the house.