But his pain had lessened over the past few months and Alyssa knew if he’d just give himself a chance, he could let her go. Whether Bree believed it or not, Colby was ready to move on and Alyssa was damn well going to do whatever she could to convince him to move on to Bree.
Leaning against the marbled countertop, she watched as Colby finished his shower. When the door opened, she studied him. A frown darkened her face and the downward spiral of her thoughts made the room’s temperature drop a few degrees. Angry or upset ghosts had a chilling effect but it wasn’t until she saw him rub his arms that she realized what she was doing. Reining her thoughts in, she tried not to think about how lean he’d become. He’d lost too much weight over the past year.
Shoving away from the counter, she moved toward Colby, testing him. He never once glanced her way. She wondered once more why he could hear her but not see her. Bree was the rational, grounded type. Colby believed in ghosts, spooks and Big Foot. He should be the one seeing her, not the other way around.
Alyssa waved a hand in front of him, but still, he didn’t react. Satisfied, she said, “She loves you.”
He stilled.
How her voice sounded to him, she really didn’t know. For all she knew, she sounded like herself, just more distant. That was what Bree said—as if she spoke from the bottom of a deep well.
She trailed a hand down his arm, her fingers lingering to touch the gold band on his third finger. “It’s time to take this off, Colby.”
He jerked away, his hand clenched into a protective fist. His gaze came up, searching the room, but he wasn’t going to see her. So Alyssa settled for resting a hand on his chest and stroking downward. Down. Down. He felt abnormally hot to her, but everything seemed warmer than she remembered. Why should he be any different? He had secured a towel around his waist but she slid her fingers inside it and tugged. He hissed, eyes going wide as he backed away.
“You don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone,” she whispered, remaining still as he grabbed his jeans from the floor and pulled them on over his wet, nude body.
“I’m going insane.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I am going fucking insane.”
Alyssa laughed. “You’re not going crazy.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw as he finished buttoning his jeans, but he didn’t say anything, just stared off into the distance. She started toward him. “She’s been waiting a long time for you.”
This time, his gaze flew toward her, tracking the sound of her voice. But he still didn’t see her. “Why did you come home, Colby? It wasn’t about this place. It doesn’t mean anything to you. Not anymore.”
One thing Colby was certain about, if he was going crazy, he was pretty sure it was natural for some part of his brain to still argue that he was sane and rational. Even if the voice sounded like the echo of his dead wife. So the soft, almost amused assurance, You’re not going crazy, didn’t do a damn thing to reassure him.
Crazy people didn’t really think they were crazy, he figured.
And crazy people definitely heard voices.
Did they feel people touching them, even when they were alone in a room?
Shoving a hand through damp, tousled hair, he tossed his towel in the general direction of the shower and said aloud, “I’m leaving now.”
A low, sad laugh filled the room.
He turned to go, determined to just ignore his current hallucination. It would go away, sooner or later, right?
“Going to keep hiding away, Colby? How did that ever solve anything?”
He stopped in the doorway. Slowly, he turned around, but there was nobody in there. He saw nothing. His voice hard and firm, he said, “I am not hiding.”
Then he left the room.
Something light, oddly soothing, touched his shoulder. He hissed and jerked, scanning the room. “If you’re not hiding, then go find her. She’s the reason you came back. Not this house. Admit it. Even if you can only admit it to yourself for now…stop hiding.”
He wasn’t going to hide. He didn’t come here to hide.
He came to tie up loose ends and decide what in the hell he was going to do with his life. That had nothing to do with hiding.
As he made the thirty-minute drive to the cemetery, he even managed to almost make himself believe that.
Then he saw Bree sitting by the grave as he made his way up the path.
She’s the reason you came back…
He hadn’t seen her since she’d left his place a week earlier and he really didn’t want to see her now.
Liar! Okay, well at least that thought actually felt like his own and it wasn’t ringing in his ears like the echo of Alyssa’s voice.
Stop hiding.
He wasn’t hiding. He just…well, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to see her yet. That was all. But the memory of that soft chastising kept him from backing away, even though he wanted to.
It would have been easy enough to leave. She hadn’t seen him yet and since he hadn’t seen her bike or her truck in the main parking lot, he figured she’d parked in one of the smaller ones. He could just avoid her until she left, make this first visit to his wife’s grave in privacy.
He didn’t though.
That voice kept whispering through his mind and he had to wonder if maybe his hallucinations weren’t on to something.