The Trouble with Tomboys (Tommy Creek #1)(23)

“I guess you already know what I did,” he said without preamble, setting the irises at the base of his wife’s marker and kneeling down to sit on the grass beside the bouquet.

He gave a small laugh as he looked at his hands.

“Yeah, you always knew what I did, usually before I was even going to do it.” Grinning, he lifted his face and stared at the name of his wife on the gravestone.

“Remember when I proposed? You were holding out your hand for the ring before I’d even gotten down on one knee.”

69



Linda Kage



Grady smiled for a good three seconds before his face fell and his muscles tensed in misery. Dropping his gaze from the name that always caused him heartache, he caught sight of a weed and pulled it up. Amy didn’t deserve weeds growing over her dead body.

“The funny thing is,” he confessed as he reached for another, “I didn’t feel guilty. Not during, anyway.”

Tossing the weed away from Amy’s plot, he

lifted his face toward the bright day and squinted at the sunlight. For some reason, he wondered if B.J.

was up there somewhere, cruising through the clouds in that death trap of hers. God, he hoped she’d fixed the fuel line.

Jerking his gaze guiltily from the sky, he turned back to Amy’s name.

“I always thought it’d feel different than this. I thought, I don’t know...I just assumed I’d think of you the whole time...that’d I have to close my eyes and pretend it was your lips I was kissing, your body I was touching.”

He shook his head and lowered his gaze,

ashamed. “But I didn’t even remember you. Not till afterward.” Letting out a long sigh, he closed his eyes and confessed, “And that’s when the guilt finally came.

“I know I didn’t betray you,” he said after a moment of silence. “You’d want me to move on. And I know you’d even approve of the woman. You always liked…” He couldn’t say her name aloud, so he settled with, “her. But, God, I don’t know, Amy.”

Pausing, he wondered why he was confessing all this to someone who couldn’t hear him. Probably because she couldn’t hear him, he decided.

“I feel bad because I didn’t picture you at all through any of it. I didn’t think of how you—hell, I wasn’t thinking at all. And that’s not me. You know 70



The Trouble with Tomboys



that’s not me. As soon as she touched me, my mind just shut down. I lost control of myself like I’d never lost control before. I just...I had to have her...right then.”

He winced when he whispered, “That never

happened with you. I think that’s what bothers me most. I experienced something strong and intense with someone else and...it should’ve been you.”

He cradled his head in his hands. “I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. I guess, I’m sorry. I’m all tore up because I felt something...something amazing, and it wasn’t because of you. You had nothing to do with it. Well, okay, it all started because we were fighting about you, but...as soon as the clothes came off, you were completely erased from my mind. I was so mad and desperate I would’ve done anything to get inside her. And I can’t even say it was just about sex. It was her.

“I hate to admit this, but if you’d walked into the room at that moment, I still would’ve wanted her.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said,

“That’s what has me feeling so crappy. I wanted a person...a specific woman, not just some warm body to fill the space you left. For the first time in two and half years, it wasn’t about you.

“Yeah. If you were here now, you’d be giving me a lecture, I know. You’d be happy I made a big step with moving on...and you’d be mad because I haven’t called her.”

He shut his eyes and rested his back against the gravestone. “I know I should call or go see her...or something. I’m not a one-night stand kind of person, and I’m not going to be. But damn it, Amy, I’m scared to death. That woman intimidates me. She makes me want things, feel things...things I never felt or wanted with you. I lose my head when I’m around her, and I don’t know how to deal with that.

You always let me be my logical self, go my slow, 71



Linda Kage



methodical pace. She doesn’t. I can’t talk to her or look at her. I’m just...I’m not ready yet.”

Nothing answered his troubled report but a light breeze that sifted through his hair. He smiled lightly, keeping his eyes closed, and imagined it was Amy’s fingers. But then he frowned. He couldn’t remember what his wife’s touch felt like. Instead, he remembered a brown-haired wildcat who cursed like a sailor when she came apart in his arms. Frowning, he fisted his hands in the grass and wished for things that could never happen.

He wanted his wife back. He wanted his safe, comfortable, predictable Amy. He wanted to shred her tombstone with his bare hands and dig out her body so he could grab her by the shoulders and shake her back to life if for no other reason than to just talk to her.

He and Amy had been inseparable since their

freshman year of high school when they’d first started dating. Not only had the woman become his wife and lover, but she was the best friend he’d ever had. They’d talked about and shared everything.