He Chose Her. I Left Carrying His Heir. novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Every Chitwood Wife

I drove straight to the county courthouse and filed the papers myself.

The clerk was a tired woman with reading glasses on a chain, and she stamped the petition without looking up.

"Anything else?" she said.

"Can the other side stop it?"

"Sure. He can contest it." She slid the receipt across the counter. "It won't stop it, honey. It just makes it slower."

I folded the receipt into my wallet behind my driver's license and sat in the truck with my hands on the wheel until they stopped shaking.

Then I drove home.

I did not stop to think the word home, and I noticed it only when I turned onto Route 9.

My duffel bag was sitting in the bed of my truck when I pulled into the gravel.

Somebody had packed it and carried it down from the apartment, and the zipper was pulled shut.

Rhett sat on the tailgate of the tow truck with his elbows on his knees and a cold cup of coffee between his hands.

He looked up when I stopped, and he didn't smile.

"Your keys are in the ignition," he said.

"They're always in the ignition."

"The truck's gassed. There's three hundred in the glove box. If you're going back to the house, I'd rather you went now."

I got out and slammed the door.

"You packed my bag."

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because every Chitwood wife goes back." He said it slowly. "My mother left Pop six times. Six, and she went back every time, and the club called it loyalty. She died in that house."

"I'm not your mother."

"I know you're not. But you lived there eight years, and Cade will cry, and Floyd will talk about the land." His throat moved. "I'd rather let you go while I can stand it than watch you go on the day I can't."

I took out my wallet, and I took out the receipt, and I put it in his hand.

He looked at it.

It was a small white paper with the county seal and the date and my name, and the words Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, filed.

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