Break Me Down (The Breaking Trilogy, #2) Read online

  Break Me Down

  M. Mabie

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Connect with M. Mabie

  Also by M. Mabie

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  A Preview of ROOTS AND WINGS

  Also by M. Mabie

  About M. Mabie

  Copyright

  Break Me Down © 2018 M. Mabie / Fifty5cent Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1724717405 ISBN-10: 1724717405

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/ publisher. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not indented by the author.

  LICENSE NOTICE. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER. This is a work of adult fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication and use of these trademarks are not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  The author does not endorse or condone any behavior enclosed within. The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please note this novel contains profanity and explicit sexual situations.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2018 by Jay Aheer/Simply Defined Art, Photograph by Wander Aguiar Photography of Jamie Walker, Editing by Felicia Wetzig.

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  Also by M. Mabie

  THE WAKE SERIES

  Bait

  Sail

  Anchor

  THE KNOT DUET

  Twisted Desire

  Tethered Love

  STANDALONES

  Fade In

  All the Way

  CITY LIMITS SERIES of STANDALONES

  Roots and Wings

  Sunshine and Rain

  Smoke and Mirrors

  THE BREAKING TRILOGY

  Break My Fall

  Break Me Down

  Break the Faith

  (Coming December 3)

  1

  Abe

  Sweat ran off the tip of my nose.

  It was silent in the shop and my ringer volume was on high.

  I hadn’t gone to work yet that week. Wracked with worry and guilt, I’d texted Dori that I was staying close to the cabin in case Myra called. In case she came back.

  They understood.

  Maybe I was punishing myself. Penance for whatever I’d done to make her run away. But I’d blazed through a pile of raw walnut I’d kept from a tree I’d dropped on the property last fall. For two days straight, I hand worked each piece. Planed and scraped every inch of surface manually until they were smooth. Flawless and level.

  My bones hurt.

  My muscles ached.

  My hands were blistered and, in spots, bloody from abuse. Abuse I deserved.

  Why hadn’t I explained things better? Why had I withheld the truth from her?

  Selfishly, I’d been telling myself it was because I didn’t want to hurt her. Didn’t want to cause her more pain. In the long run, I’d hinged what I said and didn’t say on my own doubts.

  Worried she wouldn’t believe me. Worried she’d reject the facts. Worried she’d go back.

  It was all in vain.

  Instead of manning up and facing it head on, like I should have, I kept pushing the truth away. Holding off until a better time. Waiting for her to be ready.

  The damn truth of it was: I’d never be ready to hurt her. I’d dreaded it. All but ignored it because I was never want to expose her home and family for what it was and what they were to her. As we’d gotten closer and she’d begun to come into her own without hindrance, all I saw was forward.

  My forward, not hers.

  My future had changed with her there, had transformed into something I wasn’t willing to risk. At some point, I didn’t want to picture my life going back to what it was before Myra anymore. Didn’t want things back to normal.

  In some ways, Ted had been right. I enjoyed her cooking and her feminine presence in my world. I’d told myself those were her choices, but they were just the ones I’d given her to make. I was lost to her there and the little things that came with her, like the way the cabin smelled like her soap and the fresh flowers she always seemed to find. I’d kept her there like a pet.

  All the times I’d thought I’d put her first, I’d been a fool.

  I hadn’t taken her to the doctor. Hadn’t done the hard work of advocating for her in all ways, but only in the ones I’d handpicked.

  Regardless, I missed her, and it was all my fault.

  My temper reared as I hit one of the last rough edges, and I threw my back-up jack plane across the shop where it landed beside the good one I’d chucked the night before.

  I was going crazy.

  Pulling my hair, I stepped away until my shoulders met the wall and I slid down it to the dusty concrete floor. My head in my ravaged hands, I prayed for the thousandth time in four days.

  God,

  I can do better. Give me another chance. I’ll prove it to you. To her. Even if she hates me for it, I’ll tell her everything. Even if I never get to touch her again, I’ll be the man I thought I was. I’ll be the man she deserves. Even if she doesn’t want me anymore.

  Just, please. Please bring her back. There’s so much I need to tell her. So much I didn’t explain.

  Neither my father nor Matthew knew where she was, or at least that’s what they’d told me. Half the time I believed them, for their amusement alone at my inability to “control my helpmeet” was proof. The other half of the time, I nightmarishly pictured her somewhere being told lies. Isolated. Forced to pray until they decided what to do with her.

  She had my truck, and I was borrowing Chris’s old Ford Festiva. Who knew why he’d kept
it after he’d bought his truck, but I was lucky to at least have wheels if I needed them. More than once I’d driven to the end of my lane not knowing if I should go south to Lancaster or north to Newmecula before turning around and going home.

  If she’d just pick up the phone. Just answer one of my messages.

  I rose enough to fumble around my workbench, grabbing my cell to check again, hoping she’d finally reached out and I hadn’t heard the notification.

  It was five thirty in the evening, and still nothing from Myra. Again.

  How was I going to make it through another night?

  I was dirty.

  I was sweaty.

  I was falling apart at the seams.

  I hadn’t eaten anything measurable since the cookout, and more than once that day, I’d drank water straight from the hand pump outside the shop.

  After sitting there for long, unsatisfying minutes, I shut down the shop and wandered back to the cabin. I wished the light was on in the bathroom and she was in there brushing her hair and getting ready for the night. Instead, the whole place was dark and empty when I got inside and kicked my boots off.

  I went through the motions and tossed my t-shirt and jeans into the washer before I climbed into a cold shower. The water hit my skin like needles, and I took it.

  Numb.

  That’s what I was without her. Nothing mattered. Not my growling stomach and not the store I’d been working toward. Everything was stalled, and it was hell on earth. Unsure of what to do with myself or how to fix things, I was helpless and lost.

  I dried off and studied at my reflection for a second, but I could hardly look at myself in the eye.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Ted was at my table and he stood when I came into the room.

  “Sorry, I let myself in.” He scratched his neck. “Place looks good.”

  No, it didn’t. It looked lifeless and vacant.

  Face to face with yet another obligation I wasn’t meeting, I explained, “I know you’re short-handed at the mill, but—”

  “No, Abe. That’s not why I’m here.” He pulled out the chair beside the one he’d been sitting in. “We need to talk.”

  Had he heard something? Had one of his connections in Lancaster given him news about her?

  A flood of both needing to know and fear of finding out something I didn’t want to know, swamped me as I took a seat.

  His aging face was somber which only constricted the knot in my gut.

  “I brought your truck back,” he stated.

  My neck crooked to see for myself out the window, and I started to get up.

  Was Myra home?

  His hand clutched my forearm. “Sit down.”

  My chest pounded. If the truck was back... “Is she okay?” I demanded. “Is she here?”

  He ran his craggy hand over his jaw. “She’s fine, but she doesn’t want to see you right now.”

  Suddenly, I couldn’t catch my breath. A levee I’d built inside nearly broke from the pressure and relief bashing against it. Like I’d come up for air, I filled my lungs and my vision blurred from the headrush.

  Questions toppled out of my mouth without giving him time to answer them. “Where was she? Where is she? Why doesn’t she want to see me? I have to explain.”

  “We wanted to tell you, but she asked us not to. She overheard me at Ashley’s.” He ran his fingernail along a seam on the table’s surface. “She panicked and took your truck but followed us when we left. She slept in the cab that night in front of our house. We didn’t even know she was there until the next morning. Dori found her and brought her in. She was upset and very confused.”

  They knew this whole time while I was going out of my damn mind. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been sick wondering where she was. If she was okay.”

  He sat back in the dining chair and crossed his arms over his chest atop his round belly. “I know you’ve been worried, but we gave her our word. You know what that means.”

  I threaded my hair through my hand and rested my forehead on my palm, trying not to lose my temper and flip the table. I understood why I’d been left in the dark, but frustration for not being the one she trusted enough to go to, brawled inside me.

  “And now?”

  “We told her you needed your truck. I offered to bring it back for her.”

  I stared at the grains running through the wood, thankful she wasn’t hurt physically. She was safe and knowing she hadn’t gone back to Lancaster or to her brother was a huge mercy.

  Thank you, God.

  But my jaw tensed, irritated with myself that she didn’t want to come back.

  I was one of them. Another man with an agenda.

  “I need to apologize to her.”

  “And that’s fine, but not right now. She’s not ready to talk to you.”

  Yet. She wasn’t ready yet, but she would be. If she needed time, I could give it to her.

  Myra deserved all the time she needed.

  “Is she staying with you?”

  His eyes answered that she was, but his mouth stayed tightly shut.

  Scanning the room, I landed on her sewing machine and the scraps of something she’d been working on. Her soaps and things were in the bathroom. Her clothes still hung in the closet.

  I hated asking, but it wasn’t about me. “Does she want her belongings?”

  “No, not right now. Dori took her shopping and got her some new stuff yesterday.”

  “Let me pay you. She couldn’t have had much money on her.” I flew to the counter where I’d put my wallet and flipped through the bills. There wasn’t a lot, but about seventy in cash. I slid it over to Ted and sat back down.

  Another way I’d failed her by not telling her about her money. Giving it to her. Showing her how to manage and budget it. I thought I’d have more time. I thought I was just pacing things out so living outside Lancaster wouldn’t be so overwhelming all at once.

  “I’ll give this to her,” he told me and folded it before slipping the bills into the breast of his thin plaid shirt. “And as far as apologies go, I owe you one too. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have. Put a lot on you and it wasn’t right. I know you better than that, so I’m sorry.”

  He had accused me of wrongs that weren’t true, but some were, no matter how much I hated admitting it.

  “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “I know, and I shoved everything in a different direction for you both, but it can’t be undone now. She’s asked a lot of questions, and you know Dori and I don’t hold back.”

  Firsthand, I knew. But when they’d helped me, I was ready for help. It had been my decision to abandon the church. I wasn’t happily behind the veil like Myra was.

  The chair barked across the floor as Ted rose. “Maybe it’s for the best.” He snuck a few fingers into a hip pocket in the front of his saggy denim bibs. Metal rang and rattled as it rolled under his hand atop the table.

  “She wanted me to give this to you.”

  Her wedding band.

  Our marriage was one of convenience, born out of false pretenses. It was fake.

  So why did seeing the ring she’d worn, only out of mock obligation, feel like actual rejection? Why did my chest hurt like the wind had been brutally knocked from it?

  If it had all been pretend, why was the pain so damn real?

  2

  Myra

  My feet dangled off the end of the exam table. I was exposed in the gown the red-haired nurse had given me to wear. Maybe I should have let Dori come into the room with me because waiting inside it alone, in the silence, was overwhelming. One lamp in the overhead light flickered every so often, which was why I quit trying to read the posters on the white walls.

  My head was beginning to hurt again, and my pulse hadn’t quit racing for days.

  Mrs. Grier had told me what to expect, but she hadn’t mentioned how long I’d be waiting by myself.

  Finally, only seconds before I changed back into my
clothes and left, an older woman in a white coat stepped in.

  “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting like this. I had to take a call from a first-time mother who is most likely in the first few hours of labor.” She flipped a page on her clipboard. “Myra Hathaway. Yes, I was expecting you.”

  I adjusted on the table, tucked the gown under me again, and offered her the closest thing to a smile I could manage.

  Although I was surprised when Dori told me her doctor was a woman, it had put me at ease going in.

  Her tone was calm, and she spoke slowly to me. “I’ve known Dori Grier since her daughter Ashley was born. So a long time. I’m happy you came to see me.” The doctor bumped a rolling seat with her foot toward the table and sat on it in front of my bare legs. She put the board on her lap and looked up at my face. Frowning, the lines on her forehead bunched. “To a certain degree, I’m familiar with Lancaster, having been Dori’s doctor. So I gather this might be uncomfortable for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered and locked my gaze on my toes.

  “Have you ever had a pelvic exam or been to a women’s health physician?”

  I’d only seen the doctor once or twice in my life. Both were for common ailments that hadn’t gone away on their own.

  “No.”

  “Okay, then we’ll do a complete physical today. I’m what you call a primary care physician, Myra. I can see both male and female patients, young and old, but I went to school for a little longer, so I could specialize in helping women. Since you’re a new patient for me, I want to make sure you are the healthiest woman possible and that there isn’t anything we need to do to ensure we keep you that way. Does that sound okay?”

  She was kind, but her eyes were the same hazel color as his, which caused my chest to pinch when I looked at them. I didn’t want to think about him and did my best to only look there when I had to.

  “You deliver babies?”

  “I do. Over six hundred, in fact.” She set her papers on the table behind me, lifted her stethoscope, and then pressed it against my chest.

  “I’ve helped with sixteen births,” I told her.