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How dare she insinuate something so horrible? Sam didn’t just want to sleep with someone—anyone—to forget about his wife. He’d been deeply in love with Dani, and a person didn’t move on from something that special in a matter of months.
Did they? It wasn’t as though she had much long-term relationship experience to draw from.
Swallowing hard, Rory picked up the apple and squeezed out her frustration. Only when juice spurted out around the indents she’d made did she realize what she’d done. Great. There went breakfast. At least she had lunch to look forward to.
And dread.
Chapter Two
Dani,
Loving you is all I know. All I want to know. You own my heart as surely as if it beat in your chest. Despite what we’ve been through, I still breathe for you.
~ Sam
“What the hell are you doing?” Sam pulled at the collar of his T-shirt and flicked his gaze up at the rearview mirror. The guy behind him was still riding his bumper. If the clown got so much as a scratch on Bertha, he’d pay for her new paint job.
Sam hissed out a breath and tightened his fingers around the steering wheel as he counted backward from twenty as he’d been taught in his anger management classes. Long enough to calm down and let his brain engage. Then he saw the guy hadn’t backed off and his annoyance level shot back up to the red zone.
Today’s jumpiness aside, he had to admit his anger had lessened lately. Writing helped. He did the journaling thing now and then, and he still wrote the occasional letter. And the billboards.
Doing those had become routine. Every three months, it was time to do another one. Just because Dani had died didn’t make her any less his wife. Even if she’d been dating other men before her death.
He didn’t begrudge her the life she’d worked so hard to rebuild. The undiagnosed heart condition that had led to her passing had been a cruel twist of fate but at least she’d been living again.
Something he still hadn’t quite managed.
The next time he glanced back, the guy playing chicken with his bumper made a right turn. Both Sam and Bertha—all right, not really, though his car definitely had a personality—breathed sighs of relief.
Sam rubbed his jaw and focused on the traffic ahead. He took car maintenance seriously under normal circumstances, but it had become an obsession the last few months. Blowing out a breath, he fought to unkink the muscles in his lower back. He needed to relax. Getting out was a positive thing. Progress. He spent way too much time cooped up in his musty apartment with his punching bag, his free weights and his memories. He knew he needed to try to expand his world beyond the s
hop and his place, but he didn’t feel ready.
Would he ever be ready?
Perhaps his ex-shrink Dr. Curtis was right. Maybe he needed to get a pet. At least his apartment wouldn’t be so damn lonely.
Even his friends had stopped coming around. They didn’t know what to say to him. A couple of his buddies had settled down and were thinking of getting married, but none of them had yet taken the plunge. Friday nights still meant a couple pizzas, beer pong and wrestling on cable, not composing words for a woman who would never read them.
The long, quiet nights were definitely getting old. Getting a pet sounded like a plan.
After he had lunch with Rory.
Rory. What a weird name for a girl. He still couldn’t fully believe she was a girl, after thinking she possessed XY chromosomes, not XX, all this time. Their email exchanges had never been anything other than friendly and businesslike. But hearing that husky voice pour over his phone line this morning had given him one heck of a jolt. It wasn’t just that she was female. He’d hooked in to that voice and to the woman behind it.
Did lust at first talk exist? Probably not. More fodder for the weird file.
A wry smile curved his lips as he swung his gaze to the rearview mirror again. He knew all about weird, as he’d felt disconnected from life for months. Six, to be precise. And then two years before that. Not quite two, but awfully close.
Today was a start. Like a damn shut-in, here he was taking his first wobbly steps back into the real world. He’d made an impulsive decision while talking to Rory, so now he would follow through.
There was someone new on his ass now. He glanced at the road, then back at the mirror. Yep, she hadn’t given him any space in the interim.
Though he’d always tended to critique other people’s driving, he’d never been this edgy before. The sunny day had brought out all the speeders and the college kids. But this chick behind him wasn’t a kid, from what he could see of her. Not only was she about a hairsbreadth away from smashing his fender, she was also putting on lipstick. Mouth open wide, hand moving in wide swings.
“Fuck.” Sam slammed on the brakes as the car in front of him stopped suddenly. Only by the grace of God did he manage to stop—served him right for being so occupied by the pretty girl behind him—but said pretty girl wasn’t so lucky. She didn’t hit the back of his Chevelle as fast as he’d expected, somehow managing to whip the wheel so that she barely glanced off the bumper and also avoided the line of cars parked at the curb beside them. She had quick reflexes, he’d give her that.
Carmen’s stood on the corner, three storefronts away. So close. So far.
