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.