“Do you love me?” I asked suddenly.

He moved then, but only to speak.

“Yes,” he clipped.

He loved me.

Bullshit.

I reached to the mattress, found the edge of the photo, yanked it out, and showed it to him.

His eyes went to it.

No reaction.

Not. One. Thing.

Seriously?

“Do you love her?”

He looked to me but said nothing.

“Do you have children?”

“No,” he bit out.

At least there was that. Daddy wasn’t a philanderer.

“Can she give them to you?”

His jaw clenched.

She couldn’t.

He wanted kids.

Enter me.

“Do you have a dog?”

He said nothing.

“A cat?”

Nothing.

“A gerbil?”

He gave me not one thing.

I stopped speaking.

Deacon didn’t move.

Neither did I.

We stared at each other across the room, her picture between us.

This lasted a lifetime.

“Say something,” I begged on a whisper.

He said nothing.

“Say something,” I repeated, my eyes burning now for a different reason, tears fighting to be unleashed.

Deacon just stared at me. His gaze dropped to the picture I held his way in my lap. Then it came back to me.

And still nothing.

“You need to say something, Deacon. You need to give me something, anything.”

He didn’t speak.

“You said you’d give me anything,” I accused.

A muscle ticked in his jaw and he finally spoke. “Told you I’d give it if I had it in me to give. You don’t get that.”

That didn’t make any sense.

“You’re married,” I hissed.

“Trust me.”

Was he crazy?

“How?” I cried, tossing an arm out and throwing the picture across the room to make my point. It fluttered a few feet and fell, face down.

“You don’t get her.”

I didn’t get her?

What the hell did that mean?

I stood from the bed. “That doesn’t make any sense, Deacon.”

“You don’t get her,” he repeated.

I leaned toward him and shrieked, “That doesn’t make any sense!”

He again said nothing.

“Explain it to me,” I demanded.

He stood there, body wired and alert, the room filled with something vicious, and…he…said…nothing.

“Explain it to me!” I screamed.

Deacon didn’t explain it to me.

“Say something,” I snapped. “You have to. You don’t get that, Deacon.” I jabbed a finger to the picture on the floor. “You don’t get that from me. You don’t bring that in my house. To my cabins. To my bed.” I sucked in breath and screeched, “Say something!”

“Cassidy, you gotta believe in me.”

“Fuck that,” I hissed. “Fuck you. Fuck not knowing your name or your birthday or anything about your life before me and when you’re away from me. Fuck that!”

“You got it all from me.”

He could not be believed.

“I have nothing from you except what you give to me when you take from me, and you know precisely what I mean,” I shot back maliciously.

“You know that’s bullshit,” he clipped.

“I…know…” I leaned deep, “nothing.” I shook my head, straightening. “I can’t do this. I thought I could because I felt so fucking much for you. I felt everything for you. From the first moment you stood at my door when Grant and I were fighting, I felt it. I didn’t get it, but I felt it. But I can’t. I can’t do it. I tried and I can’t. And you know what? You shouldn’t ask me to.”

He was silent.

“You have to give me something,” I demanded.

“You got everything you need,” he returned. “Dig deep, you know it, woman.”

Dig deep.

He was. He was insane.

“You can’t be believed,” I snapped.

“Dig deep.”

“Fuck that, too,” I bit off.

He leaned toward me and roared, “Fuckin’ dig deep, Cassidy!”

“Fuck that!” I shouted back, so done with this, I couldn’t be more done. “I unpacked your shit. Middle drawer. Closet. Pack it and get out.”

I stomped to the door and he moved in a way I knew he was going to stop me so I jerked to a halt and gave him slitted eyes.

“You touch me, I’ll fight you until I die,” I hissed, watched his chin jerk into his neck but that was all I saw.

I stormed out.

I went directly to my computer. I did what I needed to do there, one last chance.

One…last…fucking…chance.

I yanked the flash drive out.

Then I stomped back up the stairs.

Deacon was not in the room but I knew he was there. His bag was on the bed, mostly packed.

He was in the bathroom getting his crap.

The picture was no longer on the floor.

He was leaving me.

He was shoving her back in his bag and leaving me.

I didn’t let that penetrate. Couldn’t. If I did, I’d come flying apart.

I stood in the doorway and tossed the flash drive across the room. It landed on the bed.

“You’ve got an hour. Flash drive on the bed. Listen, Deacon, make your decision. Then let me know by being gone or being here and knowing what you have to give me,” I called into the room. “I’m leaving. I’ll be back in an hour.”

I didn’t wait for him to come out of the bathroom.

I stomped out of the room but went to the kitchen where Deacon closed in my fucking dog and I brought her with me when I took off.

If he was going to leave, he was not going to get the idea to take my dog.

We drove around for an hour, Bossy having a whale of a time, nose sniffing at the crack in the window she couldn’t reach, my eyes burning from forcing them wide open, my head hurting from concentrating so hard on what I was doing, and not on anything else, so we wouldn’t crash.

After an hour, we came home.

The house was empty.

I wasn’t surprised.

But I was destroyed.

Completely.

Utterly.

In a way I knew I’d never be right again.

Not ever again.

Until the day I died.

I collapsed on the floor of my foyer.

And I learned something.

Puppies licked tears away.

And Boss Lady had her work cut out for her.

In the end, I found she was good at it.

It didn’t make me feel better.