Page 19 of This Time Around
I smiled and shook my head.“It’s embarrassing, and I hate that I avoid town and my friends, but it’s hard to be on everyone’s radar, too.”
I was sick of it.But I was also sick of worrying about it.At some point, I had to get over the looks and whispers, didn’t I?And who knew, maybe Brooke had a point.Maybe becoming the recluse rancher only made things worse.
These decisions sucked.I opened my mouth to put everything I was thinking into words when Cooper said, “I can stay here.”
He would, too.He said it with all the honesty in his tone and expression, but beneath that, there was still the desire to go with me.Who could blame him?He’d been cooped up, hiding out in a thousand square foot shack without cable for weeks.
“No.We’ll go, but wear your wig.Brooke loves all things about big cities and Hollywood.She’ll recognize you in a second.”
“Will she—”
“She won’t say anything if I tell her not to.She’s bossy and loud but loving and loyal.At some point, I’ll have to tell her though.”
“Okay.”His hands went to his knees and he shoved up to standing.“It’s a date.”
My face and neck went cold, he must have seen because he cringed.“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Sure?”
“Yup.”Goodness.I was being a fool.“It just took me by surprise is all.I know what you meant.”
“Okay.”He stepped back, the distance between us made it easier to breathe again.“Then if we’re good, I’m going to go shower the manure off me.Which”—his lips twitched—“is not something I ever thought I’d say.”
Unbidden, a short laugh burst from me.“Go,” I said, laughing.“Go and wash the shit away.”
“If only I could.”His eyes darkened and for a moment, I saw his pain.The pain of losing Camilla and I realized two things as he disappeared.
One, we were in different circumstances, but he truly did know my pain in ways other people couldn’t.
Two, no truer words could ever be spoken.
If only we really could just wash away the shit in our lives.
Maybe I couldn’t.I couldn’t erase it, but maybe I could live my life in a way that made the shit easier to manage.
Perhaps it was time.
Seven months.Seven months since my husband died and I’d trudged through my grief like a badge of honor, instead of honoring Joseph and the life I’d always thought we were building.
Perhaps it was time to do what I know he’d desperately want me to.
“I’ll try to be happy, Joseph.I promise.For you, because you’d hate me like this, wouldn’t you?Especially since some of it’s your own damn fault.”As always when I talked to him, yelled at him, cursed him, and cried for him, I couldn’t hide my anger.Or my love.
That was the problem with losing him with unsettled arguments lying between us.He was ripped away from me before I could understand any of it.Or apologize.Or forgive him.I still loved him as equally as I was still so damn angry with him.
“Fine,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks, like he’d actually spoken back to me.I grazed my thumb over his smiling face on the picture frame from our wedding I kept on my desk.We’d been married in Kansas City, at a beautiful church, at my mom’s insistence.All I’d wanted was to get married behind the house with the land behind us and our closest friends surrounding us.
But my irritation with my mom hadn’t come close to surpassing the joy I’d felt the day I walked down the aisle to Joseph.His short brown hair, styled nicely for once, his glimmering blue eyes on mine, tears on his cheeks that rolled freely and without shame as I made my way to him on my dad’s arm.
“We’re going to make a beautiful life, you and I,” he’d said.
I’d smiled up at him through my own blurred vision.“I know.”
He’d grinned back, moving closer and whispering, “And we’re going to have a helluva lot of fun doing it too.Promise me.”
As always when it came to Joseph, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t give him or promise him.It was time to uphold the promise, despite him not being here, or him upholding his part.
“I really miss you, damn it.”I pushed off the chair and moved out of the office.
I had a life to start living.I’d never get the answers I needed without finding the one person who held them.There was no way in hell that was ever going to happen.
