“Thanks, Marge.”
She nodded, still popping her gum and went on to the next booth.
“Anyway. I’m gonna make this long story short. My freshman summer, I came home and my mom had arranged a dinner between the two families. That wasn’t anything new. I’d usually grit my teeth through it, joke with my brothers a bit, then I’d be lost in ranch work all summer, easily avoiding Reese. She never liked to get a speck of dirt on her Mary Janes, so the barn was a good place for me to hide.” Hart scrubbed his hand over his beard, “But, that night she was acting strange. She kept sassing her dad and snapping at her mom, right there at the dinner table.”
Hart went quiet and let Margery set their plates in front of them. When she was gone, he was happy to have a distraction. He talked while he ate his eggs and toast.
“She was throwing a fit, and I guess trying to be rebellious, because she grabbed my hand and pulled me from the dinner table, all the way until we were outside and marching across the field toward her property.
“I remembered thinking, ‘if I just be quiet, she’ll have her tantrum and I’ll go back home’. Even back then, Reese was a spitfire. In high school, I went along with what she said most times since she only used me to get her daddy off her back. She’d go out with me, but when we’d get to an outing, the movies, a diner, or wherever, she’d leave me and go off with her friends.
“It wasn’t me she had her eyes set on. It was the ranch hand in a neighboring town she wanted, but her poppa wasn’t having that. Well, that night she took me to their barn and in her anger felt she was teaching her father a lesson by denying her what she wanted.”
Hart swallowed a large gulp of water at the look on Free’s face. It’d gone from understanding to disgusted. He knew the feeling. The details of his and Teresa’s marriage always made him sick to his stomach, too. “Just like in the movies. She got pregnant. I’d only had sex with one other female at school, and she’d told me I was nothing to write home about and that was the end of that. With Reese, I didn’t get a chance to do anything before she was on top of me.”
Hart paused again at Free’s horrified expression.
“Whoa now. She didn’t force me, Len. In college I was six-one and just as big as I am now. She didn’t make me do anything.” Hart shook his head, “I was a guy in my twenties. I got horny if the wind shifted east. I also wasn’t able to act on what I knew I really wanted, so I laid there.”
“Gosh. I’m…” What could Free say? Nothing.
“Like I was saying. She got pregnant. I didn’t want to marry Reese’s mean ass, but then the Colt came out. Len, I can only imagine what you’re thinking. But, the men in my family, we do the right thing. Her poppa didn’t have to threaten me. I would’ve taken care of my responsibilities, regardless.”
“But, she lost the baby after you got hitched,” Free said softly, brushing Hart’s knee with his under the table.
“Yes.” Hart glanced at Free. “My older brother told me I should’ve left her then, but…I couldn’t. Reese was devastated. I couldn’t add to her depression by divorcing her, for shit’s sake. Losing our baby girl so late in the pregnancy hurt me like hell, so I could only imagine what it did to her.
“Reese thought something was medically wrong, so I dropped out of college and moved us to Dallas so I could work in a bigger police department than in Slaton County. That way, Teresa would have access to better doctors in the larger city and I could move my way up in the ranks gradually, since I didn’t have a degree. I knew I’d have to put in hard work if I ever wanted a command. And that the only way would be through years of experience.
“I was working so much, that I…I didn’t realize how miserable Reese was. She missed her real beau, she missed home, and she hated the sight of me.” Hart pushed his plate away. Free had long ago stopped eating, his breakfast only half consumed.
“At thirty-two weeks she lost the baby girl. Stillborn. That was the first of four kids she tried to carry to term.”
“Oh my god. Oh Ivan. I didn’t know.” Free squeezed his hand.
“Only God and Fox know this. It’s been a while and I’ve lived with the fact that losing my kids is not my fault, no matter what Reese tried to beat into my head. I wanted desperately to give her a baby so she’d be happy. But…she kept…miscarrying. We only had sex to try to conceive. She hated my body on top of her. But she wanted children so badly, always did. When the SWAT academy accepted my application, we moved to Atlanta. Better health plan, better OB doctors for her. I thought again, she’d be happy. But, after she lost our son, the last miscarriage—she was thirty-six years old—she couldn’t take it anymore.