Choosing Fate (Love in Eden 1.70)

Jolene hesitated a moment, then nodded. She turned her attention back to weeding. "I wouldn't give them up," she said as she motioned with her chin to the flowers in front of her. "They were the only thing that kept me going for the longest time."

"What do you mean?"

When she didn't answer, I paused and looked at her. She'd stopped moving and was staring at one of the flowers in front of her. Then her eyes shifted to a weed in her hand. I really wanted to know what was going on in her head, but I was also reluctant to interrupt whatever inner battle she was dealing with. So I waited quietly. When she did speak, her voice was low and soft. "Was last night real, Zander?"

I'd never been a huge fan of the "where is this going" conversation, especially after a hookup that was very clearly just that. But she wasn't really asking that and even if she had been, my response to her would've been different than it’d been to the other women I'd been with.

"Yes," I responded. "It was real and it was fucking amazing, Joli."

Her eyes shifted to me and I could see the pain there. "He never touched me like you do. I just thought it was always like that, you know? I thought I was being selfish to want anything more. Jackson practically begged me to marry him when we were kids… I wasn't even old enough to get married when he asked me. My parents had to give permission."

"How old were you?"

"Seventeen. I was a married woman before I even graduated from high school."

"Why would your parents allow that?"

"Jackson came from a good family. His father was the town's minister. He was a very respected man and my parents knew I probably wouldn't be able to do any better."

"Do what any better?" I asked.

Jolene went back to digging up weeds. "Find a better husband."

Her words were nearly emotionless. I was outraged by the idea that her parents’ only goal for their daughter had been to marry her off. Even twenty-some years earlier when she would've been a teenager, much of society had gotten past the bullshit about a woman needing to be a wife and mother rather than have her own career.

"What did you want?" I asked.

She didn't answer, which was answer enough. Even if there’d been something she’d wanted, she’d accepted her parents’ goals for her.

"I was lucky, Zander. Jackson was… is a really good man. He took care of me. He gave me Cameron. I was happy to be his wife."

I couldn't stop myself from snagging Jolene's arm to stop her. She sounded like a Stepford Wife and it was driving me crazy. "You're allowed to be angry with him, Joli. I don't know what happened between you, but something must have because you're no longer together—"

Jolene pulled her arm from my hold. Her face was flushed with color and I could see the emotion in her eyes as she snapped, "It was my fault! I was the one who asked for the divorce. Jackson tried really hard—"

"I don't believe you," I interjected.

Jolene stilled and then she said, "I think you should go."

The comment wasn't really a surprise. I had stepped over an invisible line, but I wasn't really sorry. And I wasn't going anywhere. "It takes two people to make a relationship work, Joli. I don't know if your ex deserves your loyalty, but stop trying to sell me the shit about it being your fault. Tell me why you asked for the divorce."

Her anger seemed to die down as quickly as it had flared up. "He was suffocating," she whispered. Her eyes actually filled with tears and I saw her trying to blink them away. "He always said he was happy with me, but he wouldn't touch me. He wouldn't talk to me. Sometimes I’d go to the ranch to bring him some lunch and I’d see him working with the other hands or the horses or whatever, and he was just so… alive. He laughed, he smiled. Then he’d come home and there was this sadness around him." Jolene lifted her eyes to mine. "I tried so hard to be perfect for him, Zander. I tried to be a wife he could be proud of. But it was just like… it was just like when I was a kid and nothing I ever did was good enough. My parents, they always looked at me with this… this disappointment. I couldn't bear the thought of Jackson looking at me like that one day."

I got to my feet and then reached down to pull her up. I put my hands on her upper arms and said, "Joli, I've known you less than twenty-four hours and I can already see what an amazing woman you are. If Jackson didn't light up every time you walked into the room, that's on him, not you. If Jackson wasn't spending every minute of every day waiting to get back to you, that's on him. If he didn't thank the heavens above every time you touched him or looked his way or even just said his name, that's on him. He had an obligation to you to tell you if he wasn't happy. I get that he's a good father and a good man, but if he made you feel like you were the one who needed to change, then he wasn't a good husband and I can honestly say I'm glad you got out. I've seen way too many men and women who twist themselves into something they're not just to try to please their partner. All that twisting, all those knots that get created inside, eventually it becomes too much and something has to give."