“I told you to leave.”
He looked up at me from the floor, and I remembered him rolling around in pain. My eyes focused between his legs and I smiled. Jude quickly covered his dick and pulled his knees up.
“I want to explain.”
“There is nothing to explain. Leave, or I will call the sheriff.”
I turned my back on him and came face-to-face with my mother’s confused and wary expression.
“Morgan, who is that man?” she asked, her hands on her hips. It was a look she’d given Devlyn and me many times over the years. A look that saidI’ll know if you’re lying to me.
I looked over my shoulder and glared at Jude. Turning back to my mother, I told her the truth.
“My dead husband.”
My mother’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, and I left her by the couch as I went to start the coffee. No one spoke a word until I turned the coffeepot on and said, “I need to change.”
As I walked down the hall, I heard Jude saying, “You must be Bernadette. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
I slammed my bedroom door, not wanting to hear my asshole husband charming my mother. And I knew he would. There was one thing Jude was good at, and that was charm. He used it to lower your defenses.
It was why I knew I’d forgive him eventually. That and I loved the son of a bitch.
I quickly showered and got dressed. When I stepped back into the kitchen, Jude was leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee in his hands and my mother—the traitor—was sitting at the table smiling at him.
The smug bastard handed me a cup of coffee with a grin on his face, and I eyed him as I took a sip. It was perfect. He remembered how I liked my coffee.
I set it on the counter, determined not to drink it, and opened the refrigerator to pull out what I needed for breakfast.
“Jude, will you be having breakfast with us?” my mother asked, her voice as sweet as the tea they drank in the South.
“No.”
“I’d love to.”
I glared at my husband.
My dead husband.
The one I’d been missing for the last seven years.
The one I’d been pining for, trying to make deals with God to bring him back.
The one who had left me without a word.
The one who wasn’t there when I lost our son.
“I told you to leave.”
“And I told you we needed to talk. I’m not leaving until you listen to me and let me explain.”
I stomped my foot like a three-year-old. “There is nothing to explain!” I shouted. “You didn’t come back! You weren’t there!”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them and looked at Jude, I said, “Losing you was the worst day of my life. Until a week later, when I lost our son.”
He took a step closer to me, and I held up my hand.
“If it hadn’t been for King, I would have had to go through both of those things alone. He was there for me when you weren’t.”