Page 279 of Santa Daddies

Not like the George she knew.

“Simple? There is nothing simple about Anson. He’s everything you aren’t. Kind, protective, caring. A hundred times the man you are.”

“Really, Alice. You’re being ridiculous. Come on, we’re leaving.” He actually turned around, as though he really thought she would go with him.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, George.”

George turned around and glared at her. The lights from inside the house showed the anger on his face. “Yes, you are. You’re going to get over this temper tantrum and return with me.”

“Temper tantrum?” Anson repeated. “She left your ass because you’re an abusive dickhead. She’s not coming back.”

“Do not speak to me! You backwoods hick!” George lashed out, shoving Anson.

She gasped in horror, but Anson barely rocked. And, to her surprise, he grinned. “Well, this backward hick just landed your ass in jail.”

“What do you mean?”

“You just assaulted me,” Anson told him.

“No, I didn’t, I barely touched you! And you can’t prove it.”

“The video footage from my camera will say differently. Hmm, I wonder how the judge will feel about you shoving a guy with a damaged leg who was in a car accident eight months ago?”

George scoffed. “Good luck with that.” But there was a nervous note in his voice.

“I also wonder how the judge will feel when he or she learns that your wife left you because you were abusive.”

“I never laid a finger on her!”

“You don’t have to hit someone to abuse them, George,” she said quietly.

“Just get in the car, Alice!” he screamed.

She stared at him in surprise. “What is going on? Why have you come after me now?”

“And how did you find her?” Anson asked.

“I hired a private investigator. He managed to track you down to the cabin up the mountain. Only, you weren’t there and there was no car. But when I called the owner of the cabin where you were meant to be staying, he said you were here.”

“Caldwell is a dead man,” Anson said in a dark voice.

“Really, Alice, pimping yourself out to a guy like this? You must be desperate,” George told her.

“You are such an idiot,” she told him. Something released inside her with those words. “You’re an abuser, George. And you don’t even think you’ve done anything wrong, which is worse. I’m not coming home with you. I’m divorcing you. Now, you need to go and never return. Or Anson will turn that footage over to the police and have you arrested.”

“You need to come home with me!” George screamed.

“Why? So you have someone to clean the house and iron your shirts? Someone to put down and belittle? Poor George, it must be so hard for you.”

“I don’t like this new attitude, Alice,” George told her. “It’s so juvenile and reflects poorly on you and your upbringing, you stupid fool.”

“You speak to my woman like that again and it will be the very last thing you say,” Anson said warningly.

George shot him a nervous look, then straightened his shoulders. “Well, I wonder what the police would think of you threatening me?”

“I threatened you? Baby, did I threaten this dick?” Anson asked her calmly.

“Not that I heard. We could ask the sheriff tomorrow what he thinks of all this. When he’s here for Christmas lunch,” she suggested.