Breakup In A Small Town. Kristina Knight
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dogs aren’t just for the blind or deaf. Did you even read the literature?”
He’d put it in the nightstand drawer, and refused to open that drawer since putting the pamphlets there. “Of course I read the stupid flyers.” What was one more lie on the mountain of lies he’d been telling her since the accident?
“Then stop acting as if a service dog means you’re permanently—” She covered her mouth with her hand.
“Disabled? News flash, Jen, the doc thinks I am permanently disabled or he wouldn’t keep bringing it up.”
“Epilepsy isn’t the end of the world.”
“Well, it sure as hell isn’t normal, either,” he said. He got out of the wheelchair, slapped at it until it collapsed into a flat heap, and shoved it into the trunk of the Mustang convertible he’d restored his senior year in high school. The handles stuck out so that the trunk wouldn’t close. He shoved at it again, but no matter what he did, the stupid chair wouldn’t fit into the trunk.
Jenny pushed him aside. “Let me do it,” she grumbled. “If we had a family car, this wouldn’t be such a big deal.”
“We don’t need a family car just because I’m stuck in that stupid chair for another couple weeks.”
“Rehab might shorten those couple weeks,” she said. “There is no way to rehab epilepsy.”
She glared at him for a long moment then started around the car. Adam opened the passenger door, got in and slammed it shut. She slammed her door when she got in, too.
“We need a family car because we have a family,” she said, anger making her husky voice even huskier. It sent a thrill down Adam’s spine, which was ridiculous. He couldn’t walk without a wheelchair; there was no way he could make love to his wife the way he wanted to. “Two kids, all of their school stuff, Frankie is already playing football because he wants to be like you. We need a family car.”
“This car is important to me,” Adam said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“This car is impractical.”
“I restored it. It’s a classic.”
“Then we’ll just get a second car.”
“No.”
She glared at him again. “No?” she asked, her voice deceptively calm. Quiet.
“No.”
Jenny put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot. She didn’t say anything until they pulled onto the highway leading to Slippery Rock. Adam glanced at her. Jaw set. Mouth in a hard line. Hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, knuckles white.
Adam started to apologize. He didn’t want to snap at Jenny. He didn’t want to fight with her. It was too hard to fight. He leaned his head against the rest and closed his eyes. He didn’t like fighting, not with Jenny. Not with anyone. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had always been. The Mustang was the way things had been.
The Mustang meant everything would be okay again.
* * *
THEY DROVE IN silence until the big “Welcome to Slippery Rock” sign came into view. It had taken everything she had not to snap at Adam, not to react when he obviously wanted a reaction. A reason to fight. She wasn’t going to be that reason. He hated his diagnosis? Well, so did she, but according to some of the information she’d read online, keeping his world bland and ordinary could help to keep the seizures under control. Something about blood pressure spikes and endorphins, and it didn’t make a ton of sense to her, but then Jenny had never pretended to be interested in biology or any of the other sciences. She’d been too busy reading fiction books and daydreaming about Adam Buchanan.
She didn’t want to lose him now. She couldn’t let him keep walking all over her, though. She was done with that. Everything had been Adam’s way since they got married. They’d bought the fixer-upper he wanted, drove the car he’d restored, watched the TV shows and movies he liked best. Hell, she’d taken the job he wanted her to take—and fallen in love with the intricacies of it, true enough.
It never bothered her before the tornado that her life was so closely wrapped up in his. She didn’t mind being the one to discipline the kids or pay the bills or make the vacation plans he wanted or bring up the possibility of expanding Buchanan Cabinetry. But now she had the job, and the parenting, and the house upkeep, and she didn’t even have Fun Adam to run around with the kids in the backyard while she caught up on the laundry. Or, God, the man she loved to have take her in his arms and kiss her senseless.
God, she missed being kissed.
She’d give anything if he would reach across the car right now to take her hand. To tug on her ponytail the way he’d done a thousand times in her life. Anything, just to let her know he was still there. She’d done all the reaching since the tornado, and no matter what she tried, she hadn’t been able to touch him in whatever dark place he lived now.
The Mustang flashed past the town sign, and Jenny slowed. She was through missing things. Missing Adam. Missing picking up the kids at school. Yes, her husband had limitations now, but that didn’t mean he could shut himself up in a room and avoid the rest of the world.
Act as if none of them existed anymore.
“It occurs to me that I’ve been too soft on you.” Jenny said the words carefully as she pulled to the stoplight outside Mallard’s Grocery. No inflection. No anger. Just words. Calm, cool, concise words. From the corner of her eye, she saw Adam’s head snap in her direction. Maybe this change in tactics was a good idea. “I don’t like this any more than you do, and I know you have it much worse than me because you’re living it. But I’m living it, too.”
The light turned green and Jenny continued to their home. Adam didn’t say a word as she pulled into the drive. “I’m watching you fade away and I’ve tried everything I can to stop it. To bring you back.”
“You think this is easy for me?” he asked after a long moment.
“I think this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.” Her finger traced the small scar at his neck. His skin was warm, and it took all her self-control not to kiss the scar, the way she’d done a million times. She had to be stronger than the attraction she had for her husband.
Jenny pulled her hand back, not wanting to feel the heat of his skin against hers. God, she wanted to kiss him there. Just for a little while, she wanted them to be the Jenny and Adam they’d been since high school. She would kiss the scar and then make her way to his mouth. He would carry her inside the house and make love to her on the living room floor because there wasn’t time to carry her all the way upstairs, to that big bed he’d built for her when they were first married.
She pushed the hot thoughts of sex with Adam away as quickly as she’d drawn her hand away from his neck. Made herself remember the phone call that came in the middle of the night when she was fifteen. Aiden and Adam had lost control of their dad’s Buick on black ice and totaled it. Adam had cracked two vertebrae in his neck, and had to wear a halo for three months, until the bones were strong again. Then, after the halo came off, he’d needed screws to hold those vertebrae apart.
She’d thought at the time nothing would be harder than that.
God, how wrong she’d been. His life hadn’t ended with the car accident, and it hadn’t ended when the tornado tore through Slippery Rock. But she had no idea how to reach him this time.
“You’d think God would have been satisfied with one head injury, huh?” he said, and his mouth twisted in that familiar half smile that usually made her heart skip a beat. Instead of sounding like a joke, though, his words were flat, with hard, pointy tips.
“I could have done without either. You scared ten years off my life with that car accident. And when I saw the steeple start to fall during the tornado...” Jenny shook her head. “I know