Love's Suicide (Love's Suicide #1)(51)

“Okay. Just ask.” I was still sobbing, but I was calm enough to hear what he was saying to me.

I watched as he wiped his eyes and looked right into mine. “I’m real sorry to ask you this right now, but I think considerin’ all you’ve told me, I have the right to ask.” He sniffled and played with his wedding ring as he spoke. “What happens now? What happens with us?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I want to know is, after all that’s happened it’s clear he was what was standing in the way of us being happy. Now what happens? Do I get another chance? Can we rebuild all that’s been broken, or is this your way of sayin’ goodbye to me to? Because, I’m tellin’ you right now, I’ve been patient and understandin’. I’ve sat here listening to you tell me you loved someone else. I read that man’s letters to you. All I can tell you is that I want what he had. I want to feel that love and what it could do for us.”

Bobby was right. As much as it hurt to admit, I’d strewn him along and pretty much used him, knowing all along that if Brooks showed up one day, nothing would stop me from being with him.

I hadn’t been fair.

The thing was, at that very moment, I needed Bobby. I needed him more than ever before. It wasn’t just about me either. Bobby was the only father B would ever know. I owed it to her to give things a second chance; to start over, even if it was because my first choice was gone forever.

“I never realized how important you were until all of this happened. I don’t expect you to understand, but I need you.”

Bobby crossed his arms and looked right at me. “You need me? Since when?”

“Since right now. Does it really matter what circumstances made me say it?”

He finally smiled. “No, you’re right. It doesn’t matter. What matters is me being in that little girl’s life. She’s my world, Katy, and so are you.”

I could feel my lips trembling. “I know.”

He reached over and touched the top of my hand. “I love you.”

I closed my eyes, feeling that love radiate through me; the love that Bobby had always wanted to give me. Without regard for what I was doing, or even if it was the truth, I looked right at him. “I love you, too.”

I’d never love Bobby the way that I loved Brooks, but I loved him for loving me and B. I loved him for putting all of his feelings aside to comfort me when I lost the other man in my life. It took courage and understanding and not every man would have been able to do it. Bobby had showed me compassion and now it was my turn to stop holding onto something that would never be and move forward with what already was.

I owed him a lot and I vowed right then and there that I was going to do everything in my power to be a better partner to him and to our family.

In my eyes we were even.





Chapter 24


May 2013


There was one thing good about my situation. The more I focused on my marriage, the less I dwelled on things I couldn’t change, like losing Brooks.

Bobby and I were still seeing a counselor, except we’d been going together to help our marriage move in the right direction.

Since I’d destroyed my cell phone and never wanted to hear from Melissa or anyone else again, I decided to get a new phone with a new number. My life had enough drama and I just needed to stay focused.

It was amazing how much a difference it made in my relationship when I gave it my all. I’d never been able to communicate with Bobby the way we were, and to make things even better, he was getting around with the help of a walker. He’d been going into the shop a few days a week to make calls and do some backed-up paperwork. I spent those days visiting Sarah, grocery shopping and spending quality alone time with B. I can’t say it was easy looking into her blue eyes and seeing so much of Brooks there. When she smiled, it melted my heart and I knew she was the greatest gift he could have ever given me.

It was in the middle of the week when I started noticing an unfamiliar truck parked outside of my house. The first day I just figured it was someone from the permit office doing a double check on the property.

The next day, when Bobby noticed the same truck, I started to get nervous. After we’d both agreed that we didn’t recognize the vehicle, we called the sheriff, feeling as if we were being scoped out for a robbery.

As a favor to Bobby, he parked on the road and waited for the conspicuous truck to show up.

It never did.

A week went by and we didn’t see it again.

Bobby had made a commitment to service all of the school buses in the area for their annual inspection and it required him to be present to sign off on each job. I knew he was going to be gone the whole week during the day, so after dropping him off at work that Monday, B and I went into town to do some shopping.

I’d wanted new things for the house and hadn’t had time to really go out and shop. We headed to a bigger town, called Columbia, where there were malls and larger stores to shop at.

I hadn’t thought about it being extremely close to the Army base.

Everywhere I drove, and each store I entered, I saw people wearing fatigues. As a direct response to it, I would lose it, thinking of Brooks and how I’d never see him again. I ended up spending the majority of the day sitting in the car with B, crying my eyes out.

On the way home, we were sitting at a light and a group of soldiers pulled up in an open camouflaged jeep. My windows were down and I was trying to avoid eye contact. I didn’t notice if they were waving to her, but in the rear view mirror I could see her waving to them, full of smiles.