Okay, now she knew she’d made the right decision not to go to her funeral. The closest she had come was reading about it in the Caldwell Courier Journal—and the picture of all those surgeons and hospital staff and patients had all but snapped her in half.
This was so much worse.
And Manny looked exactly how she felt: ruined on the inside.
Jesus, that aftershave of his still smelled good . . . and in spite of having lost some weight, he was still handsome as sin, with that dark hair and that hard face. His suit was perfectly tailored and pin-striped—but it had dirt around the cuffs of the precisely pressed slacks. And his loafers were likewise soiled, making her wonder where the hell he’d been. He certainly hadn’t picked it up from the grave site. After a year, the soil was packed down and covered with grass—
Oh, wait. Her plot had probably looked like this from day one. She hadn’t left behind anything to bury.
As his fingers rested on the stone, she knew he had to have been the one to pick the thing out. Nobody else would have had the sense to get her exactly what she would have wanted. Nothing froufrou or wordy. Short, sweet, to the point.
Jane cleared her throat. “Manny.”
His head shot up, but he didn’t look over at her—as if he were convinced that he’d heard her speak only in his mind.
Making herself fully corporeal, she spoke louder. “Manny.”
Under any other circumstances, the response would have been a laugh riot. He wheeled around, then shouted out, tripped over her headstone, and landed flat on his ass.
“What the . . . hell . . . are you doing here?” he gasped. The expression on his face started as horror, but shifted quickly to utter disbelief.
“I’m sorry.”
It was entirely lame, but that was all that came out of her mouth.
And so much for thinking on her feet. Meeting those brown eyes of his, she suddenly had nothing to say.
Manny sprang to his feet, and his dark stare went up and down her body. And up and down. And up . . . to lock on her face.
That was when the anger came. And a headache, evidently, given the way he winced and rubbed his temples. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“No.” She wished it were. “I’m so sorry.”
His vicious frown was achingly familiar, and what an irony to go nostalgic about a glower like that. “You’re sorry.”
“Manny, I—”
“I buried you. And you’re sorry? What the fuck is this?”
“Manny, I don’t have time to explain. I need you.”
He glared at her for a long moment. “You show up after a year of being dead and you need me?”
The reality of how much time had passed weighed on her. On top of everything else. “Manny . . . I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Oh, really? Other than, oh, b.t.w. I’m alive.”
He stared at her. Just stared at her.
Then in a hoarse voice, he said, “Do you have any idea what losing you has been like?” He quickly brushed a hand over his eyes. “Do you?”
The pain in her chest made it hard to breathe. “Yes. Because I lost you . . . I lost my life with you and the hospital.”
Manny started to pace, going back and forth in front of her headstone. And although she wanted to, she knew not to get too close.
“Manny . . . if there had been a way to come back to you, I would have.”
“You did. Once. I thought that was a dream, but it wasn’t. Was it.”