Guilty Needs (3 page)

Shit, could she possibly feel any guiltier? Didn’t seem possible, but Bree realized she was wrong. As he innocently stroked her shoulder and tried to make her feel better while his dying wife lay sleeping, Bree stood there, her body reacting to his touch as though he had stripped her naked and put his mouth on her. Her guilt grew until it encompassed everything
.

Haltingly, she said, “She’s my best friend, Colby. I need to be with her.”

“I know. And she needs you.”

Tears blurred her eyes. Rage churned inside, trapped, unable to find any outlet. She started to shake and she knew, just knew she was going to break. Alyssa was wrong. Bree wasn’t strong—she was about as weak as they come
.

Colby sighed
.

So attuned to him, Bree heard the soft catch in the sound and unwittingly, she lifted her head and looked at him. Saw a muscle jerk in his jaw, saw the suspicious glitter in his eyes. But then he blinked and it was gone. “I’m glad she has you with her, Colby.”

Then she rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. If she breathed in the scent of his skin a little deeper than she should, it wasn’t intentional. If she shivered a little and wished she had the right to kiss him differently, it wasn’t because she could help it. She loved him—she always had
.

But no matter what Alyssa had asked of her, this wasn’t something she could do
.

The next day, Alyssa was gone. Colby had lain down with her for a nap and she died quietly in his arms while her private-duty nurse was at lunch. Bree was five miles away, bringing Alyssa some cinnamon candy from a small, family owned candy shop, even though she knew Alyssa wouldn’t eat them. She’d spent the past day trying to come up with the words for Alyssa, words to explain that what Alyssa wanted wasn’t something that Bree could really do.

But it was too late for explanations.

Too late to tell her best friend how sorry she was, even if Alyssa didn’t want apologies.

Too late to do anything but watch as Colby quietly and emotionlessly went about the task of calling the doctor and everybody else. Even though the nurse told them she’d handle it, Colby did it all. And when it was done, when all the final arrangements were made, he walked out of the house without looking back. She didn’t see him for two days, not until the visitation, and he didn’t say a word, didn’t speak to anybody. It was almost like looking at a robot.

Today was no better.

He continued to stare down into the gaping hole in the earth. The silent agony on his face had her eyes tearing up. She wanted to say something,
wanted to do something, but what was there to say? What was there for her to do?

Still, she couldn’t just stand there. Making her way across the sodden earth, the heels of her boots sinking into the soggy ground, rain pelting her face and hair, she went to stand with him. “Colby.”

At first, he didn’t even act as if he’d heard her. Then, slowly, he lifted his gaze from Alyssa’s coffin and stared at Bree as though he’d never seen her before. She gave him a half-hearted smile and held out a hand. “Come on. You don’t need to keep standing in this rain.”

Off to the side, a sleek, dark-gray limo waited, but if she knew Colby, there was no way he was going to climb into it. He’d followed the unspoken funeral protocol, done what was expected, arriving at the funeral home and sitting in the front pew as Danny spoke about Alyssa’s too-short life and the grace she’d shown even when death came for her. The words had been like ashes to Bree and she had no doubt the words of comfort and commiseration had been every bit as bitter for Colby.

Now the funeral was over and there was nobody but them. He’d likely throw protocol to the wayside.

As though following her line of thought, he glanced toward the limo and his lip curled. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

Jerking his head toward the limo, he said, “Tell them to get the hell out of here.”

She rephrased a little, explaining to the driver that she’d get Colby home. As the limo drove off down the narrow black road, she made her
way back to Colby. Inside her boots, her feet were damp and cold. Her sodden skirt didn’t do anything to block the chilly wind.

Keeping her arms wrapped around her midsection, she joined him once more at the graveside. “Let me drive you home, Colby.”

He shook his head. His dark hair was plastered to his head, he was soaked through and through, but he showed no intention of getting out of the rain. “I can’t go back to that house right now, Bree. I can’t do it.”

She suppressed a sigh. Pushing her dripping hair back from her face, she hooked her arm through his and tugged. To her surprise, he fell in beside her. Every step away from Alyssa’s grave was painful and by the time they reached her car, tears mingled with the rain on her face. “We’ll go to my house for a while, if you want.”

“Fine.” His voice was hollow. Expressionless. His eyes were every bit as empty. “Whatever.”

Help him through this…she knew that was what she needed to do.

But Bree had no idea how. How did you help a person who had lost the other half of their soul?

It still didn’t seem real.

Colby had known this day was coming for weeks now. He had feared it for months, ever since Alyssa’s lab tests came back showing positive for cancer cells. But still, it
did not
seem real.

It might if he let himself think about it, but he wasn’t ready to do that.

Fortunately, Bree seemed content to drive in silence, not trying to force him to talk about anything, anybody. Since they’d climbed into the big black truck she drove when she was working, she hadn’t said anything.

It was meticulous inside the cab. Bree owned her own landscaping service and usually her truck was a mess of notes, gloves, fast-food boxes, clipboards on the inside and the truck bed was full of tools and equipment.

But today it was pristine. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back against the headrest and breathed in the scent of Armor All, rain—and Bree. The woman always smelled like flowers. Incongruous as hell, such a soft, feminine scent on Bree, a woman who stood five-foot ten, hauled around forty-pound bags of soil and regularly kicked ass on the basketball court. With the rain pounding down around them and the quiet in the truck’s cab, he almost—
almost
—felt comforted.

Almost felt as though he was ready to think about it.

A knot formed in his throat and he realized he wanted to talk—needed to talk. But then the truck stopped and the engine cut off. Opening his eyes, he saw that they were in Bree’s driveway. The thirty-minute drive had passed far too quickly and dread churned inside him. He didn’t want to go in there.

What the hell had he been thinking?

Bree’s house would be almost as bad as home—pictures of the two women all over the place, ranging from when they’d been cute kindergarteners showing off gap-toothed grins up to the barbecue at the
house last summer. Up until Alyssa had gotten too weak to leave the house, she’d still come over to Bree’s house two or three times a week and many of those times, Colby had been with her. This place had practically been a second home.

But Bree was already climbing out of the truck. She stood in the driveway, and once more, rain soaked her through. She stared at him levelly and he knew she wasn’t going to go inside until he did. Some lingering courtesy had him climbing out of the truck, and as one, they headed into the garage. The garage was half office space, half storage space and unlike her truck, it was always meticulously organized.

Inside the house, warmth wrapped around him and he abruptly realized how damn wet he was. He stripped out of his overcoat and Bree took it from him before he could figure out where to put it. As she moved away, he pushed a hand through his wet hair and glanced down and realized he was dripping all over the floor. He took off his shoes—they were probably ruined after standing in mud and rain all day. Something knotted in his chest as he carefully put them on the floor by the door. Alyssa had made him buy the damn things a few years ago, telling him he needed to own something besides three or four pairs of tennis shoes, a pair of hiking boots and a very badly abused pair of loafers.

Dragging his eyes away from the shoes, he headed into the kitchen and found Bree standing at the counter, making up a pot of coffee. The strong scent of it already filled the air. Grabbing a couple of paper towels, he mopped the rain from his face and hands. His clothes were still damp but at least he wasn’t dripping now that he’d taken off the shoes and coat.

“You want something to eat?” Bree asked quietly.

“No.”

She grimaced. “Me neither. Okay, let’s try this—have you eaten anything today?”

Colby blinked and tried to remember. No. He was pretty sure he hadn’t. Yesterday at the visitation, one of their friends had tried to talk him into a sandwich, but after two bites, he’d put it down. As far as he could recall, that was the last thing he’d eaten and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d eaten much of anything since…

Since…

Shit. The burn of tears stung his eyes and he turned away from Bree and rubbed a hand across his face. He wasn’t ready to do this. Not yet. Not here. Where and when escaped him, because Colby wasn’t too certain he’d ever be ready to acknowledge reality, but he sure as hell didn’t want to do it here and now.

“Colby.”

He glanced at Bree over his shoulder and gave a half-hearted shrug. “No. I’m not really hungry—” he tried to tell her but she was already rooting through the refrigerator.

Over her shoulder, she said, “I’m not hungry either, but we both should probably eat. I bet I haven’t had a regular meal this week.” Turning to face him, her arms full of lettuce, lunch meat and tomatoes, she cocked a brow at him. “Have you?”

“No.” Colby couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hungry, though. Probably a couple of months ago, ever since the visit to the oncologist had revealed that the chemo hadn’t worked. The thought of eating anything held about as much appeal as going back out into that cold, driving rain.

Heaving out a tired sigh, he dropped down onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “What is it about funerals and food? Megan Lowell kept asking me about a wake, asking if she should bring something.”

Bree slid him a glance. “Yeah. She cornered me and told me that the two of us, me and her, should take care it, have it over at your place. I told her you probably weren’t too keen on that idea.”

“Good.” Something occurred to him as she pulled a knife from a chopping block and started to slice a tomato. “You ran interference for me the past couple of days. Thank you.”

She shrugged. “That’s what friends do. You’ve got enough to deal with right now.”

Shaking his head, Colby said, “I’m not dealing with anything that you’re not dealing with. Alyssa—” his voice cracked and it took two tries before he could finally speak without worrying he’d break before he finished the sentence. “You two were like sisters. This is every bit as hard for you as it is for me. But you…” his words trailed off and he had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say. “Just—well, thank you.”

Lame as hell.

Thank you? That was the best he could say to the woman who’d all but put her life on hold to spend time with Alyssa before she died? The best he could say to the woman who had been like a sister to his wife?