His Marriage to Remember - By Kathie DeNosky Page 0,56

you. All I ever wanted was you, but you were never there with me and I got tired of being alone.”

He noticed that she hadn’t reached for the papers and hoped that was a good sign. Maybe she wasn’t as anxious to be rid of him as he had first thought.

He sat forward and, propping his forearms on his knees, stared down at his loosely clasped hands. “I realize now just how hard it must have been on you with me being gone all the time and I’m sorry for that.”

“Yes, it was hard,” she agreed. “I wanted my husband to want to be with me more than he wanted to be with his livestock.”

Sam knew that now would be the time to explain why he was so driven to succeed, why he felt compelled to work hard to give her everything her heart desired. But it wasn’t going to be easy for him. He had left that life behind when the state removed him and Nate from the house their father had abandoned them in some eighteen years ago and he wasn’t in the habit of looking back.

He had never been the nervous type, but his entire life seemed to hinge on what he was about to say and it was tying him in knots. “My mother died from a massive stroke when I was twelve and Nate was ten,” he said, not quite sure where else to start.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Bria said, her voice filled with compassion. “That must have been terribly hard for you and Nate.”

For the first time in years, Sam allowed himself to think about the hurt and abandonment he had felt when his mother passed. He damn near choked on the emotion and, pushing it to the back of his mind, cleared his throat in order to continue.

“She sometimes worked two jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths,” he said, hating that he hadn’t been old enough to help her.

“Where was…your father?” Bria asked quietly.

Sam clenched his jaw so hard, he was surprised his teeth didn’t crumble from the pressure. “The son of a bitch sat flat on his ass and watched her work herself to death.”

Her soft gasp seemed to echo throughout the small room, and he wasn’t certain if she was shocked at Joe Rafferty’s laziness or the anger in his tone. “That’s why you work so hard and never took time off unless you were forced to, isn’t it?” she asked.

Unable to sit still any longer, Sam nodded and stood up to prowl the room. “I was determined when we got married not to be anything like my father. I wasn’t going to sit back and watch my wife struggle to support us like he did with my mother. I wanted to make sure that I could provide the best life possible for you and the family we wanted to have.”

She looked confused. “Why didn’t you explain this to me all those times I asked why you were working so hard? Didn’t you think I would understand that not wanting to be like your father was what motivated you?” She shook her head. “All you would ever tell me was that you were working to ensure our future and that you wanted me to have nice things.”

In hindsight, he realized that it would have saved them both a lot of heartache if he had told her about his childhood up front. But once he had been removed from the situation, it wasn’t something that he cared to revisit.

“I guess I figured that if I told you about my situation as a kid, you’d know you married a man that wasn’t nearly good enough for you.”

“Sam Rafferty, don’t ever let me hear you say something like that about yourself again,” she said forcefully. “You’re a good man. No one works harder or has more ambition than you.”

He shrugged. “I think you’d better hold that opinion until I finish telling you what led me and Nate to become wards of the state.”

“I can’t see that it will change my mind about you, but go ahead,” she encouraged. “I’m listening.”

“Everything was okay while Mom was alive. We didn’t have much, but she somehow managed to provide the necessities. But after she died, more times than not when we came home from school, there wasn’t anything in the house to eat and the old man was nowhere to be found.” He took a deep breath in order to