It had hit the high nineties today and right now, he’d bet the water would feel like warm silk. He was right. The water closed over him in an embrace. Holding his breath, he swam along the bottom until he had to surface. Then he started to swim laps.
His muscles warmed and he fell into a regular rhythm. Letting his mind drift, he toyed with the plotline for Darkness, taking mental notes and debating whether or not he should even try getting a proposal together for his agent. Hell, if she was still his agent. He hadn’t talked to her in a year and he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d decided to let him go. Yeah, he’d made her a decent amount of money but he was dead weight right now. Publishing didn’t allow for a lot of dead weight.
But the story wasn’t going quiet—he already knew that. He even had a glimmer of how it was going to end and unless he’d lost his rhythm during his twelve-month break away from the computer, he had a feeling he could wrap Darkness up in a few weeks.
Putting together a proposal was a good idea.
His muscles were starting to burn but he didn’t quit swimming until he’d managed to hammer out the basics in his mind and formulate a somewhat formal letter to his agent. Angela Browning wasn’t the overly formal type, but since he’d been playing mute the past year, going formal wasn’t a bad idea.
He swam another two laps and then just let his body float.
Overhead, the moon shone down—a pure, clear circle of silvery-white. His mind drifted, with little surprise, to Bree.
It just means you’re ready to love her.
Ready to love Bree.
For some reason, the idea of it didn’t rub him quite so raw. Ready. Was he ready?
Always one to test himself, Colby deliberately thought about his wife. For the longest time after she’d died, he wouldn’t let himself think about her and when he had, he’d tried to jerk his thoughts away before he got lost in them. Thinking about her bought a stab of pain that threatened to eviscerate him.
It got to be habit, until he found himself thinking intentionally less and less. Wayward thoughts would intrude and he’d find himself fighting the tidal wave of grief, but thinking back, he realized that had been slowly ebbing down over the past couple of months.
It no longer had the power to level him.
And now? It was the first time he’d deliberately tried to do much more than visualize her face in his mind—excluding all the times he’d done it just to punish himself.
He went through a mental list, tried to recall the way she smelled. The way she tasted. The way she felt against him. It was all too hazy and vague. A surreal memory that would grow ever fainter with every passing day. Some part of him hated that—he wanted to keep her memory alive. But, even as he tried to make his thoughts of Alyssa clearer, more vivid, he realized other thoughts were trying to intrude.
Bree.
He closed his eyes, and just like that, he could see her. The way she knelt in the grass, her long, slender fingers digging through the earth. The way she smelled of flowers and sunshine. The smooth, golden glow of her skin and the quiet, deep gray of her eyes. Her smile. The way one look at her had his knees going weak while his dick got hard.
It just means you’re ready to love her.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
Of course, just because he was ready to admit that maybe he was falling in love with Bree didn’t mean she felt the same.
And one thing he knew he wasn’t ready for was to have his heart shatter inside his chest again.
Chapter Five
Saturday dawned a little cooler, the skies a leaden shade of gray and threatening rain. Although Bree tended to sleep in a little on weekends, she rolled out of bed and hit the shower. Saturday—she needed to cut some flowers from the backyard and take them to Alyssa.
It was a ritual.
After a quick shower, she cut a couple of stargazer lilies from one of her flowerbeds in the back, their pale petals streaked with deep pink. She wrapped the stems in wet paper towels and climbed into her truck—only to swear, the second she looked at the gas gauge.
She’d forgotten to fill up. If she took the truck, she might not have enough gas to make the drive to the cemetery. Weird for her, but the past few weeks had been a study in weirdness. So much so that she couldn’t do more than sigh and swear under her breath as she climbed out and headed for her bike.
Half an hour later, she knelt by Alyssa’s grave and took out the flowers she’d brought last week, replacing them with the fresh lilies. They’d fared okay on the bike ride, she guessed. Good thing she hadn’t decided to bring roses this time.
“So are you still going to be bringing me flowers this time next year? Five years down the road?”
Blowing a sigh, Bree looked up to see Alyssa sitting on the stone bench a few feet away. “You know, it’s sort of a respect thing.”
Alyssa shrugged. “No. It’s sort of a comfort thing people do for their loved ones.” Her face softened with a smile and she said, “I’m glad you still think about me, but you don’t need to bring flowers to do that.”
“I’ll bring flowers if I want to bring flowers.”