Greg kept giving his head mental shakes. Was he really sitting with Carrie Carter in her personal living space, not the café? Sure, Mary P was here and Lindsay was walking in the door, but he was sitting at Carrie’s table, drinking Carrie’s iced tea, letting Carrie tend his—his what? Wounds sounded too extreme, regardless of what they were saying on Twitter and Facebook. All he had were a few scrapes and bruises. No big deal.
But Carrie had treated them with such care.
And she’d enjoyed Home Depot!
Man, Lord, what am I thinking?
He stood. “Well, I’d, ah, better go.”
He was pretty sure that was a flash of disappointment on Carrie’s face, though she was quick to hide it. He couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad. He held out the now-defrosted packet of peas. Carrie took it and put it back in the freezer.
“You’re not allowed to leave.” Lindsay pushed him back in his chair. “I haven’t had the report straight from the horse’s mouth yet.” She sat across from him beside Mary P. “Come on, Greg, Carrie. I want to know what really happened.”
Greg began telling the story again as Carrie paced, in spite of the empty chair beside him.
“So it wasn’t that big a deal,” he finished.
“Ha!” Carrie said behind him. “The guy could have killed you! I know. I was there. Only your quickness saved you.”
“When he drove at you—” She began to pace faster.
“Sit, Carrie,” Lindsay ordered. “You’re driving me crazy.”
So Carrie sat, back straight, eyes fixed on her sister, hands folded on the table like a kid ready to say grace. To him, she seemed on edge, not the usual easygoing Carrie of the café. She’d been tense when they’d gone to Home Depot, but he’d chalked that up to driving the truck. What did she have to be stressed about now? And she seemed determined not to look at him.
What did he expect? He’d kept his distance for all the years he’d been coming to the café. Of course, it wasn’t just Carrie he’d kept at arm’s length; it was any woman.
It had taken his breath when he discovered that as soon as Ginny was dead, there were women who saw him as available. They didn’t seem to understand that loving someone didn’t stop just because that person died. Deep and true emotions continued, even seemed to intensify, with the absence of the loved one and the stark realization that she was now gone forever. If anything, the fact that he was grieving seemed to bring out the nesting, mothering instincts in these women. They wanted to take care of him, coddle him, marry him.
Ginny and the kids weren’t gone a month when he got his first invitation to dinner from a single woman. And they kept coming. After he refused enough of them, word seemed to have gotten around, and he’d been left more or less alone by the women themselves. That’s when the dinner invitations from families who just happened to have single or divorced daughters began in earnest. He’d even gotten a couple from families with unhappily married daughters. It was like they expected him to fall in love with one such sad woman and ask her to leave her husband for him, therefore curing all her ills.
Ri-i-ight.
Not that Carrie had ever been one of those women. She’d always been polite and kind, never pushy. Sometimes he wondered if she might have a bit of a crush on him. After all, she tended to blush whenever he spoke to her. Then again she might be allergic to him and the flush was the first step in getting hives or something. Wouldn’t that knock his pride down a notch or two?
Because he felt foolish to even think of Carrie and crushes, he had held himself more aloof than usual around her. Until today. He had to admit he’d enjoyed his time shopping with her. He’d enjoyed her attention to his injuries. He’d even enjoyed her distress at Chaz’s near miss.
So what did that mean? What did he expect from her now? That she’d get all teary and tell him how glad she was that he’d escaped death because—because what? Life wasn’t worth living without him? She’d have died if he had?
No, what he wanted was for her to sit beside him and smile at him. Not just smile like she smiled at Mr. Perkins and everyone else who came into the café, but smile. At him. For him.
He swallowed hard as it hit him that he wanted to matter to her differently and more deeply than anyone else, even than her sister or Mary P.
His stomach cramped. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. It would be unfair to Ginny, disloyal, unfaithful.
Which was stupid.
Ginny was dead. Three years dead.
Greg still got the sweats whenever he thought about that day. And he had suspected nothing. He should have. He should have!
“You’ve got me blocked in,” Ginny had said, her voice rushed. “I’ve got to get the kids to school.”
He pulled his keys from his pocket with no shiver of premonition and tossed them to her. She caught them, grinned, and blew him a kiss. As she and the kids went chattering out of the house, he took a bite of his Cap’n Crunch, savoring the taste, when his world exploded in a fireball.
There were no screams, at least not from Ginny and the kids. Just his own anguished cries. Just the shrill shouts of the neighbors and the shriek of the sirens of the first responders. And the mocking whispers of flames writhing and dancing in the bright morning sunshine.
If only he hadn’t ignored the threats, hadn’t treated them like so much hot air from a buffoon who thought he was John Dillinger. If only he’d realized the depths of brutality and utter lack of morality in the man whose goal in life was to become a crime kingpin. If only he’d realized it didn’t take a large following to have men who would seek vengeance on their leader’s behalf, men who knew how to make bombs.
If only. If only.
Marco Polo was little more than a street thug, but he’d attracted a band of loyalists who followed his every wish. If his charisma had been coupled with matching intelligence, the man would have become a real-life don to rival the fictional Don Corleone or Tony Soprano.
When Greg first heard of him, he’d joked about the man’s name. “His mother must have failed history to name a son Marco when he has the last name Polo.”
Well, Marco got the last laugh if you didn’t count serving life with no possibility of parole.
So here Greg sat, wanting Carrie to smile at him, all the while overwhelmed with guilt about what he knew was a very normal feeling.
I like her.
Greg couldn’t breathe. It was Ginny’s voice.
I do.
“Ginny?” But it couldn’t be.
Her name as he said it was a mere whisper, little more than a breath, but Carrie heard it. She turned to him with a shocked, sad expression, not the smile he’d wanted. He tried to smile at her, thinking maybe then she’d smile, but he couldn’t. His facial muscles weren’t working.
Go for it, Greg. With my blessing. It’s time.
It was the bump on the head. It had to be. He felt like Scrooge blaming Marley’s ghostly appearance on a bit of potato because Ginny’s voice was every bit as impossible as Marley’s materialization.
His phone vibrated on his hip. He grabbed at it, grateful for something to break this painful moment.
The caller ID read Fred Durning.
“I need to take this call.” He stood. “It’s a guy about the closing on the property sales tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Carrie pointed toward the front of the apartment. “The living room’s through there.”
He nodded. At least she hadn’t sent him out the door. He slid his phone open as he walked into a warm, inviting room. Why it appealed to him he couldn’t have said. He just knew the room stilled the chaos swirling inside.
“What can I do for you, Fred?”
“Hey, Greg. Tomorrow’s the big day. When and where can we meet?”
Someplace neutral. Someplace friendly. “How about we start with a cup of coffee at Carrie’s Café?” He gave the address. “Ten o’clock sound okay?”
Appointment made, Greg slid the phone shut and just stood there. He stared at the rug, a light gray. He had to go back to the kitchen, back to Carrie. He wanted to, but at the same time he didn’t. He’d spent three years keeping life as complication free as he could manage. He’d liked it that way, and Carrie was a complication with a capital C.
But the voice was right. It was time to move on, to live again. As it said in Ecclesiastes, there was a time to mourn and a time to dance. Had he at last come to the dancing time after the long, black stretch of mourning?
“Everything okay for tomorrow?”
Carrie stood just inside the room, caught in a stray beam of sun, like a carefully staged frame in a film. Her shoulder-length blond hair gleamed and her steady navy blue eyes studied him. She was slim, a little taller than Ginny had been, and at this moment she appeared so female he didn’t know how to react. Or rather he did, and that scared him.
“Everything okay?” she asked again.
He blinked and held out his phone. “I’m meeting the guy tomorrow at the café.”
She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s nice.”
“Make certain there are a couple of sticky buns for us, okay?”
“Sure. Not a problem.”
He had to walk back to the kitchen, but he’d have to pass her in the narrow doorway to do so, feel her body heat, smell her scent. But he couldn’t stay flatfooted in her living room, staring at her like some lost Rain Man. “Um, I’ve got to go. Get back to work.”
She nodded, turned, and walked into the kitchen. He followed her, feeling the fool, but at least he didn’t have to walk past her.
“See you later, Mary P, Lindsay,” he said. They smiled and waved. Carrie held the back door for him, and he had to pass her after all. It was as if she’d burn him if he got too close. Which was ridiculous. She was just Carrie. Sweet Carrie. Lovely Carrie.
He swallowed hard. Had he been so conscious of Ginny when they first dated? He must have been, right? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that Carrie Carter, in one afternoon’s time, had struck him a heart blow without even knowing it.
She followed him onto the porch, where she was forced to stand close because of the landing’s small size. The air snapped around them.
“Thanks for all your help,” he managed. He pointed to his battered face. “And for your peas.”
She waved his thanks away. “Always glad to share a vegetable with a friend.”
A friend. “Look, Carrie,” he began but didn’t know how to continue.
Look, Carrie, saying Ginny’s name didn’t mean anything? Because it did, but not as Carrie clearly thought.
Look, Carrie, I think there might be the very real possibility of something between you and me? And Ginny approves?
“And you know this how?” she’d ask.
“She told me.” And wouldn’t that sound just fine. Carrie’d be certain he’d suffered a concussion after all. Which he must have.
“It’s okay, Greg. It’s okay.” Again that sad smile.
And Carrie went inside, closing the door softly.