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He shrugged. His chest felt as if someone had raked him inside out with a backhoe, but sure, he was okay. Just dandy. “Timing’s off. It happens.”
Karyn clutched his hand. Only then did he realize she’d removed her wedding ring, the solitary item of gold in a sea of silver. That bare
finger spoke volumes, inspiring hope.
He couldn’t hope.
“Tell me you’ll give me time.”
There it was, the rope he’d wished she would toss his way. Somehow grabbing hold of it seemed like only a new way to delude himself. “Why don’t you take care of what you need to, then we’ll see?”
“So this is it then. Just…goodbye.”
He made himself stare into her dark eyes, allowed himself to drown a little. “You know my number. If you ever decide you’re ready, use it.” When her eyes began to film, he drew back and rose. “Take care of yourself, Karyn Collette Allison.”
Not James. Not any longer.
She smiled through her tears, the sun coming out during a rainstorm. “You too, Jeffrey No Name Maddox.”
He started to say more. The words were right there. For once, he didn’t have to search for how to phrase things. But he wouldn’t do that to her. If last night had taught him anything, it was the value of allowing a person to become who they needed to be, on their own timetable.
Letting them make their own choices, and live their own damn life.
He walked out before he could ask for things she couldn’t give and he had no right to want.
Chapter Seven
One year later
Cold wine, warm wind, the sun on the verge of setting in a fiery blaze of orange and pink. What more did a man need?
Jeff exhaled as he surveyed the slowly darkening sky. He loved fall, especially when it actually lasted for a few weeks before winter kicked down its rickety door. In Cedar Hollow, that was never a certainty.
They’d been lucky so far. October had been absolutely gorgeous with sunny, crisp days that hinted at long nights curled under thick duvets while fires crackled in the hearth.
He didn’t have a duvet or a hearth. But he sure as hell had the long nights and he recorded every nuance of the cold. It had settled inside him, remaining even in the face of the most persistent sunshine. As much as he loved the fall, no towering pile of colorful leaves or wisp of wood smoke in the air could chip it away.
October ninth. Almost a year since he’d done something completely crazy. Nosing into Daisy’s business had been one thing. But going so far as to grab his sister’s boyfriend’s phone and texting his wife—estranged or not, she was the man’s wife—then meeting with her, talking to her, sleeping with her…
Falling for her. So hard he still hadn’t picked his ass all the way up off the ground.
He’d never been prone to introspection. But alone, stretched out on a deck chair in the miserable space that passed for his balcony, a glass of Shiraz in hand and his phone in his lap, he could admit he’d changed. Not outwardly. But parts of him had altered irrevocably.
Whether that was good or bad, he didn’t know. He’d just save that question for the day he finally bought that six-pack of sessions with a shrink he’d always wanted.
His cell buzzed and he grabbed it, smiling as he saw the caller. If he felt a moment’s hesitation, a moment’s hope, it didn’t linger. His response to the phone was instinctive. And annoying. “What’s shaking, Daze?”
“You know what’s shaking. Have you made up your mind to help me with Trick’s Treats yet?”
“Halloween’s not for three weeks.”
“It’s not on Halloween. It’s the weekend before. C’mon, Jeffy. You’ll get your very own striped suspenders.”
He snorted and tipped back his bottle of wine. The more he drank, the better the stuff tasted. “Dressing up as a clown isn’t my idea of fun.”
“But you’ve been volunteering so much lately.”
He’d decided to volunteer at the senior center on a whim, much as he’d decided to sext Karyn. One day he would learn. He hoped. But he’d had too much time to think, and the center needed help.
