Anything You Ask (10 page)

Now that he uncovered the depth of what she endured in his absence, he finally understood she had every reason to despise him. His rescue came far too late.

He’d left her with a monster.

****

After the boys went to sleep, Danielle lay on her bed. A robin’s throaty birdsong drifted in through the open window, filling the desolate void inside the house. She tried to listen to the melody but found herself straining to hear Cocoa’s prancing paws or the heavy thump of Hale’s work boots.

Right after their argument, the pair got into his truck and drove away. The three hours they’d been gone felt like three long, lonely years.

She pulled the elastic band from her ponytail, letting her hair drop in a loose mass around her face. Fumbling under the covers for Hale’s pillow, she tucked it under her head, comforted by the faint scent of his skin imprinted on the pillowcase. Now that she was alone, she let guilt bubble up out of the controlled façade she’d worn in front of the boys.

The echo of Hale’s angry voice rattled inside her brain, fragmenting into a thousand thorns pricking at her conscience.

How can you trust a drunk with your kids, but not me?

When she chastised him for not considering the welfare of her sons, she’d accused Hale of a crime he hadn’t committed. Just like his father did when he threw Hale off the farm after the fire.

Tossing out her baseless accusation was a terrible thing to do. She felt as hollow as a dried out, useless gourd.

She ran her thumb along the back of her wedding band. Hale had kept every promise he ever made. Deep inside, she knew he would return. Clinging to that hope, she closed her eyes and waited.

When she opened her eyes again, the sherbet glow of sunset disappeared and the silver haze of moonlight filled the room. Something solid pressed against her leg. She reached down, feeling a deep twist of relief when her fingertips grazed the worn denim stretched across a man’s lean hip.

Hale sat beside her on the bed.

She scrambled upright to throw her arms around his neck, letting out a sob of relief when the hard plastic of his hearing aid pinched her cheek.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her fingers scraped across the solid breadth of his back as she grabbed two fistfuls of his t-shirt. “I shouldn’t have said those awful things. You were right. Now that you’ve fixed the floor, the barn should be fine. I trust you with the boys. You are so good with them. I had no business suggesting you can’t watch out for them. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”

Hale pulled Danielle into his lap and hugged her tight. “I never should have yelled.”

“After what I said, you had good reason.”

“You said those things because you were scared. Like an idiot, I lost my temper. I frightened you and Drew. There’s no excuse for that.” He sighed. “Can you forgive me?”

“I already have.” Cold fear dripped into her stomach. “Will you be able to forgive me?”

His voice dropped to a husky murmur. “I’ll do anything you ask.”

“Keep being my friend.” Tightening her arms around him, she rested her chin on his shoulder. Sweet hay and fresh air scented his clothes. She couldn’t get enough of how good he smelled. “I knew you’d come back. Still, a part of me was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“Took a long drive. Needed to think after I saw you flinch in the barn. The look on your face tore me apart. Hell, sweetheart, I had no idea Mark mistreated you.” Hale pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Tell me the truth. How often did my brother hit you?”

Danielle’s throat tightened. She didn’t want to talk about Mark’s violent outbursts. For the longest time, the only way she could move forward was to pretend everything was fine. That masquerade would have to stop now. The raw determination on Hale’s face indicated he’d keep pressing until she told him the truth.

“He hit me twice last year. Both times he was drunk.” Resolved not to keep Hale in the dark any longer, she pulled the hair out of her face and met his concerned gaze. The torment in his sky blue eyes made a watery sheen of tears blur her vision, but she had promised herself to stop crying over the terrible way Mark treated her. “He only hit me when he was drunker than normal. The whiskey changed him into a different person. He never would have raised a hand to me if he was sober.”

“He never should’ve hit you, no matter what.” Hale touched the hearing aid hanging on his left ear. “Did he hit the boys, too?”

“No. Just me.” Shame trickled under her skin. Danielle shivered and leaned into his broad chest. Heat radiated through his t-shirt, permeating her tank top to warm her breasts. “Something was eating at Mark. At times, he would stare out into space with this guilty look on his face. No matter how often I asked, he never talked about what plagued him. After a while, I accepted the fact he wasn’t going to tell me. You should know, your family didn’t talk about what bothered them.”

Hale responded by rubbing her back like he had the day they got married.

Comforted by the soothing caress, she felt compelled to tell Hale how his departure affected the family. “Your father and your brother never spoke your name, but I could tell your absence hung over them. That’s why I wanted Luke’s middle name to be yours. I was tired of all the silence.”

He leaned his temple against hers. “Nothing you did would make my family talk.”

“I know that now, but Mark seemed open about everything when I first came here. You and your father didn’t say much. I had no idea how either of you felt about me, but Mark let me know he liked me. After you left, he closed up. The longer you were gone, the quieter he got.” She took a restorative breath and braced herself for the rest of the story. “He started drinking after we got married. I think the alcohol dimmed whatever memories he was trying to shake. When he started spending too much time at the Freeburg Bar, I asked him to stop. He managed to scale back, but he resumed drinking after your father died.”

“Did Mark ever tell you what bothered him?”

“Only once. I walked into the barn and caught him with a half-empty bottle of whiskey. At that point, he was drunk enough to admit he felt guilty, but he wouldn’t say why.” She curled her palm around the back of Hale’s neck, loving the feel of his skin against hers. “I never understood how guilt could silence a person until I started feeling the emotion myself.”

Hale’s body stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Things had gotten so bad between us, I told Mark I couldn’t live with him any more. I was packing my bags the day he fell.” She eased back and forced herself to meet Hale’s gaze. “If I’d given him one more chance, maybe he wouldn’t have gone to the bar to drink so much at lunch. Maybe he would’ve seen the rotten floorboards when he returned to the barn. Maybe he’d be alive today.”

“Don’t say that.” Hale’s arms tightened around her waist. “I’m the one who should feel guilty. Mark wrote to me a few weeks before he died. He wanted to make things right between us, but I never responded to his letter. I was still angry he turned his back after I lost my hearing. Ever since then, I’ve wondered if he would’ve turned things around had I given him the forgiveness he needed.”

She hugged him. “Thank you for telling me I’m not the only one who feels guilty.”

For a long time, they held each other while the summer night sounds twinkled through the open bedroom window. The pearly moonlight wasn’t strong enough to combat the dark shadows across the bed.

Knowing Hale had trouble reading lips in the dark, she flicked on the nightstand lamp.

Hale squinted in the harsh light. “Aren’t we going to bed?”

“I wanted to talk a little more.”

His brow arched. “About what?”

“You Cooper men keep a lot of secrets.” A spike of anxiety knifed through her. “How many do you have?”

The tendon along his jaw flexed. “Three.”

“I want to know what they are.”

The clean planes of his face hardened. “I can’t tell you.”

Her mouth went sour with the bitter taste of resentment. Hurt that Hale wouldn’t spill his guts after she’d just spilled hers, she rose from his lap and strode to the other side of the room.

“Danielle, I can hear you better if you face me.”

Abashed he had to remind her of that, she twisted the hem of her tank top in her hands. Whenever she and Mark fought, their terse barbs were delivered to each other’s backs. What better way to cloak one’s emotions? With Hale, Danielle couldn’t hide. She had to face his compelling gaze just to get across her point.

As she turned toward him, her body braced with apprehension. The intense way he watched her mouth made her feel vulnerable. “Why won’t you tell me what troubles you?”

“Because saying those things out loud won’t solve anything.” He remained seated on the bed and spread his hands open. “So, I can’t tell you three things. Ask me anything else.”

Twisting her wedding ring around her finger, Danielle frowned. “You’ll answer me? No matter what?”

“Yes.”

She knelt by Cocoa, who was half-asleep on her dog cushion. Venturing to touch one velvety brown ear, Danielle was startled when the dog thumped her tail on the floor in welcome. “Why did Cocoa follow me around the house yesterday when you were cleaning out the chicken coop?”

“Cocoa is scared of the chickens. You’re the only one they don’t chase.” A wry grin lifted the corner of Hale’s mouth. “Thanks for starting off with an easy question. Now, ask what’s really bugging you.”

Danielle sat on the floor, stroking her hand down Cocoa’s smooth back. “I’ve never seen you take a drink since you’ve been here. Is that because you promised not to get drunk?”

“I don’t drink. Booze makes me dizzy. I hate that feeling. Reminds me of when I started losing my hearing. Back then, I’d lose my balance for no reason at all.”

A distant memory made Danielle’s heart clench. “When we bailed hay the summer I came to the farm, you fell off the tractor and hit the ground hard. You acted like nothing was wrong. Why didn’t you tell me you were dizzy?”

Hale pinched the bridge of his nose, a line of tension creasing his brow. “Better to let you think I was clumsy, rather than sick.”

She remembered the obstinate jut of his jaw when his family joked about his fall. Their ribbing seemed even crueler now that she knew his unsteadiness was due to his hearing loss, but she could tell Hale didn’t want her pity. Instead, she forced herself to ask what she’d been wondering ever since he came back home. “What did you give up in Oklahoma when you married me?”

He squinted and ran a hand over his jaw. “What do you mean?”

Not sure he’d talk about this, she bit her bottom lip. “Were you dating anyone?”

Flicking a piece of grass off his jeans, he shook his head. “I didn’t leave anyone behind, if that’s what you’re wondering. There was a girl a few years ago. I told her I didn’t want to have kids because I didn’t want to pass on my hearing loss. She was okay with that, so I got a vasectomy. We were together for a while.”

Struck by the radical measures Hale took to prevent fathering a child, Danielle clasped her hands in her lap. “Are you certain your child would inherit your deafness?”

“I don’t want to take the chance. I couldn’t stomach watching my own kid go deaf, knowing I caused his suffering.” He rubbed the crown of his head and shrugged. “My girlfriend understood. We had a decent relationship, but she broke up with me a year ago.”

“Why?”

“She said I wasn’t crazy about her.” His gaze focused on a spot over her shoulder and he nodded at the memory. “She was right.”

He was being remarkably forthright. Danielle stood, deciding to press her luck. “What happened the night the barn burned down?”

“Honey, I can’t tell you that.” Across the room, his narrowed gaze burned into hers. “Thank you for never asking if I started the fire.”

“I know you didn’t. A good man like you wouldn’t do something so careless.”

He let out a gruff laugh. “You never stop, do you?”

“Stop what?” She hooked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear with an impatient swipe.

“Defending me.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

The strained humor drained from his face, leaving behind deep grooves framing his mouth. “Six years ago, I couldn’t wait for morning so I could be with you. Didn’t matter what we were doing, whether cleaning out the chicken coop, baling hay, or driving to the mill. Being by your side was the only place I wanted to be. Now I can’t last a few hours before I need to see you again.”

Danielle took an unsteady breath. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this, given our arrangement.”

“I know you need to leave this place, just like I did. You deserve a chance to start over.” Hale stood, fisting his hands. “But this is getting damned complicated. Every day, not reaching for you kills me. Every night, I can’t touch you the way I want.”

She took a stumbling step backwards and bumped into the bureau, sending her hairbrush clattering to the floor.

A crease deepened on Hale’s brow. “The day we applied for our marriage license, you hated the fact I rescued you. Do you still feel the same way, Dani? Do you still hate me?”

The heartbreaking question made her eyes sting with regret. “No, of course not. When I said that, I hated myself for getting into this mess. If I had managed my life better, you wouldn’t have had to give up everything to come back to the place that caused you so much pain. The day I agreed to marry you, I lashed out because I wanted you to think twice about putting yourself in such jeopardy.” She pulled the hair away from her face, barely able to control the heavy waves with her shaking hands. “How can I hate my best friend? How can I hate you?”