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Maybe it had been more than that.
Maybe it had been memories of a certain woman.
“Well,” Agnes interrupted his thoughts. “What are you going to do about her leaving?”
He blinked at his godmother and almost smiled at her feigned, or not so feigned, outrage. “Not one thing.”
He wasn’t. Although he wanted one more night, he could see the plus sides to her having left. Saying goodbye to Chrissie wouldn’t have been easy. Odd, as he didn’t recall having problems telling her goodbye four years ago. Then again, he’d been leaving that week for parts unknown so he’d been saying goodbye to pretty much everyone.
He’d be doing that again within a few weeks.
Agnes frowned. “You’re not going to go after her?”
“She left without saying goodbye,” he reminded her, shoving his hands into his cargo-shorts pockets and fiddling with his keys. “A woman doesn’t do that if she wants a man to come after her.”
“Sure, she does.”
Maybe in some cases, but not theirs. He shook his head. “That’s not the kind of relationship we have.”
Agnes harrumphed. “Well, sex every four years doesn’t seem to be a very normal kind of relationship, if you ask me.”
Trace winced, but stood his ground. “I didn’t.”
He was not talking sex with Agnes. Nope. He wasn’t going to do it no matter how well meant her intentions were.
“Don’t give me that look or that attitude,” she warned in her most motherly tone. More motherly than his own mother’s usual tone for sure.
“I know you like her,” Agnes continued, not backing down.
“I never said I didn’t,” he reminded her, knowing that to resist was futile. Agnes had always been able to read him and it wasn’t as if he and Chrissie had tried to hide their attraction to each other. At least, not after she’d gotten past her initial hang-up.
“Then why would you let her walk away?” Agnes’s question echoed what was running through his mind.
Crossing his arms, he considered the woman he’d adored all his life, then shrugged. “She was avoiding having to say goodbye. I understand that.”
On some levels, he really did.
“Well, I’m glad you do, because I sure don’t,” Agnes huffed. “I think you should go after her and see what happens.”
Trace laughed. What would be the point?
“I already know what would happen.”
Agnes’s salt-and-pepper brow arched. “What’s that?”
“We’d say goodbye.”
“You seem so sure.” Her disappointment was palpable.
Trace let out a long breath. “Whether today, tomorrow, or next week, we’d have to say goodbye. I’m leaving and will be gone for months on end. Perhaps years. This way is best.”
* * *
Chrissie was still telling herself that leaving was the best thing for her and Trace when she was at Savannah’s house that evening. The farther away she got from Atlanta, the more unsure she became.
Part of her knew she’d done the right thing.
A goodbye between her and Trace would have been messy. Just look at how messy their talking about it during the farewell had been.
