“When he didn’t regain consciousness, they figured it was coming.”
Cole had called the day before and had told her the same thing. Jake’s uncle had spent too many years living hard for his body to have the capacity to fight back.
“They said his liver was hardly functioning at all. If he’d lived he’d have needed a transplant.”
“Judging from what I saw of the man around town, he didn’t look in good enough health to survive surgery like that.”
“Probably not.”
Blake seemed to be taking the whole thing so personally. “You did all you could, Blake. You gave him a fighting chance. Probably his only chance.”
“I know.” Still, his eyes were shadowed.
“So what happens next? No one knows where Jake is. What if the authorities can’t locate him?”
“I suspect they will. They’ve got sources you and I don’t have access to.”
“And the body just waits until they do?”
Blake shrugged. “My guess is the sheriff will find Jake pretty quickly now that they have a good reason to do so. Cole asked to be the one to call him.”
That wasn’t going to be easy. But she respected her brother for making that effort, especially considering how hurt he had been by Jake’s failure to ever contact him over the years, leaving his best friend in the dust, just as he had the town that had scorned him. “Are they going to let him?”
“Yeah.”
His wineglass half-empty, Blake didn’t appear to have anything else to say. Or be in any hurry to leave. She’d never seen him like this. Didn’t know what to make of any part of the visit.
“Why’d you come here tonight, Blake?” She didn’t want to open the door to anything more personal between them. The question came, anyway.
His perusal was completely personal. And weighty.
“For you,” he said finally. “I’ve had a lot of time to…think.”
The conversation was not easy for him. Sensing the effort it was taking Blake to sit there and attempt to engage with her in this way, Annie felt like crying.
“And I can see how my reticence hurt you. I never meant to hurt you, Annie.”
“I know. I never thought I could hurt you, either, but th
en I did.”
He didn’t seem inclined to say anything more. And Annie felt as if they’d only just begun to scratch the surface of all that needed to be said.
“I always thought that love would be enough,” she murmured, almost to herself, replaying not only her relationship with Blake, but the conversation she’d had with her mother. “Yet sometimes it’s just not, is it?”
“No.” Blake stood. “Sometimes it’s just not.” He took his glass to the sink. Rinsed it and put it in the dishwasher, loading it exactly as she would have done. But then, he’d know how she loaded the dishwasher. They’d done it together hundreds of times.
He was going to leave her. She knew that had to happen. That for them to consider any alternative would only bring more pain to both of them.
And tonight she wasn’t herself. She was changing right before her eyes. Wasn’t sure who that self was going to turn out to be.
Tonight she didn’t have any rules.
“Blake?” She spoke to his back for the second time in half an hour.
“Yeah?”
He didn’t turn. And Annie couldn’t wait. Close behind him, she slid her arms around his middle, pulling him back against her. Laying her head on his stiff back, she began to caress him, tentatively at first, and then, when he moved and she feared he was going to pull away, to leave, she dropped her hand down to the part of him that had been reserved for only her at one point in his life. Just for tonight, she wanted it to be for her again.