“Thanks for coming,” he managed, but his voice sounded all strange and choked.

“It’s what family does,” Tom answered roughly. “Sticks together. Though it took Abby kicking my sorry ass to make me see it.”

Josh released Tom’s hand before he embarrassed himself by pulling him into a man-hug. He looked down at Abby. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “For the way I acted at Sarah’s. I was a jerk. No excuses.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine. I understand, Josh. And I’m so sorry for your loss.”

She could have made it difficult and instead she was being generous. He looked back at Tom. “You’d better hang on to her.”

Tom’s brown eyes glinted with the touch of humor Josh remembered. “She’s too good for me,” Tom answered plainly.

“Shit, we all know that,” Josh replied, and Tom’s answering low chuckle took the tension away.

“Jess?” Meggie’s voice came from a few feet away. “Sarah wants to see you.”

Jess slid away and Abby excused herself to see if she could get anyone coffee, leaving Tom and Josh standing in the middle of the hallway.

“I suppose we should talk,” Tom said. “Seeing as how I don’t think you’re going to punch me again. At least not today.”

“I think the time for that’s past.” Josh looked over his shoulder, watched as Jess went in the hospital room. “I feel so damned sorry for Sarah. She wanted this baby so much.”

“Sarah’s the softest heart in the bunch of us,” Tom admitted. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

A few moments of silence hung in the air until Josh decided he might as well get rid of the elephant in the room. “I know now’s not the time, but I know why Erin did that last tour, Tom. I only had to see her face when someone mentioned your name to know.”

Tom swallowed. “I swear to you, Josh, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“I know that. I did what I could to love her enough, but it was always you. I hated you for it.”

Tom came forward and laid a hand on Josh’s arm. “We never, ever had an affair. Please believe that.”

“Not even when she went to you before her last deployment?”

Josh expected to see guilt on Tom’s face. He wasn’t prepared for the pain.

“You knew.”

“I knew,” Josh confirmed. “She told me she was going to Boston to see some girlfriends. I knew it was a lie. When she got back I checked the history in her GPS.”

Awkward silence fell. Tom cleared his throat. “She came to see me. She wanted us to be together, permanently, said she’d stay Stateside and—”

“And divorce me.” The words were harder to say out loud than he could have imagined.

“What was I supposed to do?” With a sharp exhale, Tom turned away. He ran his hand through his hair. “If I … if we…” He glanced up at Josh. “If we’d slept together, it would have been betraying you and the promise I made myself to not put myself in the middle of your marriage. I couldn’t do it. I’m not proud of how all this shook down but I do have a little bit of self-respect that I try to hold on to. So I said no. And by turning her away…” He stared off into space. “I practically sent her on that last deployment. And she never came back.”

Tom blamed himself? Josh felt like sitting down. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

“I wasn’t enough,” Josh admitted. “I thought if we started a family, a life in Hartford, that she’d forget about you. But she didn’t want that. She made sure there were no babies to tie her to me.” Josh sighed heavily. “I found her birth control pills. She didn’t want me. I wasn’t you, you see.”

More silence as they both absorbed the truth.

Loving Erin had cost them both so much. Perhaps too much.

“Things won’t be the same,” Tom finally said quietly. “I know that. But not beating on each other every time we’re in the same room would be a good start.”

Josh couldn’t help the smile that flickered on his lips. “That’s just because I always win.”

“You wish,” Tom replied, and a bit of the old comfort between them came back.

Tags: Donna Alward Jewell Cove Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net