Chapter 12: Not Rawson

Rhett drove me home himself, in the gray light, and he did not get out of the truck.

"Noon," he said. "I'll see what Hiram wants, and I'll call you the second I'm out."

"Don't let him see you looking worried."

"I never look worried."

"You look like a man who's been up all night with a woman."

"That's because I have." He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles. "Go inside, Jessa."

I climbed down with his flannel shirt around me and the snapped silver chain in my fist.

He had found it on the planks and pressed it into my palm without a word.

I had not decided what to do with it.

The kitchen light was on.

Mom and Dad were both at the table, dressed, with untouched coffee.

They looked like two people who had not slept in a week.

Mom saw me in the doorway and stood up so fast her chair went over.

"Your eyes," she said.

I touched my face.

"What about them?"

"They're still silver at the rims."

Her voice cracked.

She crossed the kitchen in three steps and took hold of my hand, the one with the chain in it.

She tried to close my fingers around it.

"Put it back on. Quickly. Please, sweetheart, put it on."

"Mom."

"It will mend, your father can fix the clasp in a minute, just put it..."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fated Mate Was the One Man I Could Never Have from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.