Tim

He went to work as soon as he hit send. If Tara was married, he’d best get a grip on his heart. And the best anecdote to a man’s bleeding heart was diversion.

He didn’t see her response until much later that night.

Don’t get frustrated with me. I don’t do well with tension. I’m writing this from my phone. So it’s going to look and sound weird. And u have no idea how far for me my head is under water. I don’t generally talk about Tara in a private sense. U already know more than most of my closest friends. The deal is u ask I’ll try to answer. U get mad at me I stop.

I’ll have to explain my husband tomorrow when I can really type. For now can u just relax and be content that we’re talking at all?

Tim didn’t sleep much that night.

Thursday morning I held my breath as I opened my e-mail client. Would there be a note from Tim? Or had I pushed him away again?

I told myself either way it would be okay, but I knew it wouldn’t be okay. Either way. I couldn’t bear to lose Tim again.

And we’d never be a couple again, either.

I saw his name in my inbox and didn’t even pretend to notice other mail.

Sometimes I have to prime the pump a little to get any water, but you’re doing fine. You are finally starting to sound like someone I knew before.

Tim

I paced my office. And when the walls were too confining, I went outside to walk along the edge of the desert behind the house that had been my home for so many empty years.

I hadn’t seen or heard from Chris since Sunday night. At some point we had to make arrangements for me to get the rest of my things out of the house. To get my share of the furniture, though all I really wanted was my family heirlooms and my kitchen. The dishes and pots and pans and utensils were all my personal choices.

I’d paid my friend for a month’s rent. Hopefully the dissolusion paperwork would be done by then. I could pack a moving truck and head to Phoenix. And sometime between now and then, I had to call my mother and let her know what was going on.

And I had to make a decision about Tim. He wasn’t accepting Tara Taylor Quinn. He wanted Tara.

Could I give her to him?

And be strong enough to recover when he moved on?

My answer came in the form of another question: Can you live with yourself if you don’t at least try?

I sat down to write what was probably going to be the hardest letter of my life.

Tim slept to escape. He’d been headlong on a course to live a miracle and Tara apparently had a husband. Or used to. He hoped. He’d been pushing her to give him her intimate confessions, her innermost thoughts, and he’d been out of place doing so if she was married.

Was that why she was so newsy and standoffish? So distant? Because she’d only been connecting with an old friend while he’d been running off into the sunset with her?

Clearly she was it for Tim. He’d wasted years of two women’s lives. Hurt two women by his inability to love wholly and completely.

There was nothing new on his computer when he hauled his ass out of bed just after six the next morning. But then, there wouldn’t have been. It was only 4:00 AM her time.

Out in the shop most of the morning, he didn’t get to his e-mail at work right away, either. And that had been his choice. At least partially. They’d had a machine break down. But one of the technicians could probably have handled it.

By lunchtime, he couldn’t hold himself off any longer. As she’d promised, Tara had emailed him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read what she’d sent.

He had to know.

Tim,

I didn’t sleep much last night. My husband’s name is Chris . . .

The office bustled around him, engineers talking, phones ringing, people walking by—all buffers to his imminent crash and burn. Tara gave him a very brief overview of a marriage that sounded as though it was empty at best, and Tim was jealous anyway.

Tags: Tara Taylor Quinn Romance
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