Page 72 of The Score We Never Settled

I do love him.

I’m always going to love Briggs Kerrigan.

However, I don’t see how we could ever not keep fighting about the things we have, and if Cruz truly will lay off the crap.

Maybe it’ll get worse now.

Maybe he’ll say he messed around with Briggs’s wife and send Briggs down another series of fights and clearing out the dugout.

And, now, I’ll have the whole town to answer to with how I kept the longest secret in Magnolia Ridge.

The latter isn’t what I’m worried about the most. It’s Briggs and I and how we could move past this, and how I manage all the hurt.

He told me he married me so Cruz couldn’t. It made me feel like he dug his claws into me so he could trap me and didn’t trust me then.

And everything else in between.

My lips part to tell him I’m not going to answer that question amid a divorce that’s already painful enough, but then a male voice slices up my spine and has me jolt in Briggs’s arms.

“Layla, we havedinnerplans.”

Uncle Ben.

Briggs begins to unravel his hold on me, and I hate it. I don’t like that he automatically does it because he knows where we’re at.

What Uncle Ben doesn’t know—or didn’t know—and everything in between. Briggs has been so beyond patient with me, but I’ve always been uncertain if he stayed to outdo Cruz’s commentary and to lock me down so no one else could have me, or if he truly couldn’t live without me.

“It’s not seven yet,” I say before turning my head to acknowledge him because it’s not. I just dropped off the desserts with Agnes, maybe thirty minutes ago, and that was at five. “And what are you doin’ on the dance floor?”

Okay, I’m frustrated.

I haven’t had more than a minute or two to breathe alone before Briggs caught up with me, and now Uncle Ben is starting.

I’m overstimulated as hell.

“I’m done drinkin’ beer with Tom and the boys.”

That’s his answer.

Not that he heard the news trickling down that Briggs was my husband. I search his expression for any sign of that, but I don’t find any.

“I’ll meet you at the fish tent then.”

Uncle Ben glares at me openly because I’m defying him in front of the man he can’t stand, more than likely proving why he didn’t want me to end up with Briggs in the first place.

I’m not helping here.

“She’s all yours,” Briggs compromises, releasing my hand and taking a respectful step away from me. “I know how much you love the fish and chips, Mr. Melrose.”

Uncle Ben looks at him, suspicion written all over his features, but he doesn’t have any ammo in this fight, nor can he say anything that would suggest so.

“See you’re harassin’ my niece,” he chimes in then with a scowl. “I told ya to stay away from her.”

Maybe not.

“Excuse me?” I upbraid, trying to rein in my already piqued temper. “Why would you feel the need to do that?”

“Because—”