Guilty Needs(19)

Needing her? He didn’t—

But all his dreams over the past six months rose up to haunt him, defying him. And Alyssa stood there watching him with knowing eyes. “Why don’t you want to need her?”

“I made a promise to you. I swore to love you. I don’t want to love anybody else.”

“Not really something we can control.” Alyssa sighed. Her body shimmered, wavered with the sound, before solidifying again until she seemed almost solid. “You did make a promise…and you kept it. You promised to love me ‘til death do us part…then death parted us. You’re free from that promise.”

“And if I don’t want to be?”

Her eyes flashed. The room chilled. Abruptly, Colby remembered other times when he’d heard this voice, the irritation or anger, followed by an icy chill. It was her—came from her—he realized.

“What are you going to do, spend your life alone?” she demanded. “Is that what you want?”

“I want my wife back!” he shouted. His voice echoed around him, the words leaving an empty, aching hole in his chest. “I need my wife back.”

“No. You don’t.”

Alyssa reached out, her hand hovering just above his cheek. He could feel the cold radiating off her and it made him think of Bree. Made him think of her warmth. Her smile.

As though she knew exactly what he was thinking, Alyssa nodded. “You need her. More, you want her. It’s time to let me go, baby. Letting me go doesn’t mean you don’t love me. It just means you’re ready to love her.”

“Bree.” He shook his head. “I don’t love her. I…”

Alyssa smiled at him. “Don’t you?”

“It doesn’t happen like that.”

She gave him a quick wink as she backed away. “Love doesn’t have a rulebook, you know. It can happen any way it wants.” Her words hadn’t even faded in the air before she was gone.

If Bree hadn’t come looking for him, Colby had no idea how long he might have stayed down there in the basement, staring at nothing, replaying those minutes with Alyssa over and over and over—each word, each movement.

Letting me go doesn’t mean you don’t love me—it just means you’re ready to love her.

I don’t love her.

Don’t you?

Like a DVD stuck and skipping back to the last scene, he kept going back to that.

It just means you’re ready to love her.

I don’t love her.

“Colby?”

Her quiet voice drifted down the stairs and he closed his eyes. For a few minutes, he’d almost forgotten where he was. “Yeah, I’m down here,” he said, raising his voice just a little.

At the sound of her feet moving lightly down the stairs, he turned. She glanced at him, then down. He realized he was still holding a bottle of wine. “Sorry. I was thinking about getting a drink.”

She shrugged. “I don’t mind.” As she moved closer, he caught the scent of soap and lotion—something exotic, like coconut and tropical flowers. “We can have a glass before we go eat if you want.” She took the bottle from him and turned it until she could read the label.

A glass? Oh. Yeah. Wine.

Not for him, really. He’d given up on alcohol. He’d come down here to distract himself so he wasn’t thinking about a wet, naked Bree. And he’d ended up being confronted by his wife, who really didn’t care if he was thinking about a wet, naked Bree.

Getting a drink was the last thing on his mind but he couldn’t exactly tell her he’d given up on drinking when looking for a bottle of wine sounded so much better than the truth.

Sorry, came down here so I wasn’t thinking about you wet and naked in the shower.

Well, no, not exactly right—Alyssa did care, as in she wanted to have him thinking about Bree. In any capacity. Wet. Naked. Clothed.

“Changed my mind,” he said, his voice rusty. “We can, though, if you want.”

Bree just shrugged. “Nah. I’m better off getting something to eat first. Skipped lunch. A glass of wine will probably go straight to my head right now.”

Oh, now that was just not what he needed to hear. A tipsy Bree, her hair still damp from the shower and her skin smelling of tropical flowers and Colby on a mission to track down just where the scent was the strongest. Her neck? Along her torso? Lower?

Suppressing a groan, he took the bottle and returned it to the shelves. “Let’s head on out then.”

Before he decided to open that bottle and drag Bree to the shower, because just then, a wet, naked, tipsy Bree sounded like bliss.




“Are you okay?”

Colby glanced up from his lasagna to smile at her. It was a familiar one, the one that said he was distracted, thinking about ten different things and not really paying attention. But when she had been about ready to repeat herself, he’d shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just…do you believe in ghosts?”

She’d been lifting her sweet tea up for a drink, but as that question hung in the air between them, she lowered it back to the table and then ended up folding her hands in her lap. “Ghosts?”

He nodded.

“Yeah.” Squirming on the bench, with its thin cushion and hard back, she met his gaze and nodded. “I believe in ghosts. Not necessarily the kind that rattle chains or play with the lights, but I believe in them. Sometimes people die before they can take care of everything they wanted to do.”