If it weren’t for Victor, I wouldn’t have survived this week. I was juggling so many things and taking such poor care of myself that it all finally crashed in on me. He waylaid a nervous breakdown I was heading for on this last trip. I’ve never in my life been so happy to see anyone as I was when I looked through that peephole and found him. My heart almost stopped.

The last few days were so wild with my schedule that we didn’t get to talk much and it was nice not having to think about anything. Victor handled everything. My only job was to drive the truck, smile for the cameras and sign autographs. It was almost robotic, but I did my best to make it good for the fans.

As soon as we got on the flight home, though, my thoughts started spinning. There are still the issues of his dead wife and of his work life that I don’t fit into. Those people will eat me alive at company dinners and functions. I may have a tough outer layer but there is only so long I can be treated like trash before I will lash out and hurt his career. I wonder if his wife was super polished and fit in with those people. Did she have the same issues as me or did she navigate this with ease? By the time we land I know it’s time to have a real conversation about a life together because I’m attached to him in a way I haven’t been before and can’t imagine letting go all over again. I need to know how he feels about Carol and if he’s ready to move on or if I have to walk away now. I can’t go another day with her memory lingering around if I can’t really have him.

When I arrive at home ahead of Victor, I kick the heat on higher to kill the chill in the air and drag my suitcase to my room. By the time I return to the living room he’s knocking on the door. I let him in and tell him, “Take your stuff back to my room. I need a drink; you want one?”

“Yeah, if you have a beer, that would be great,” he yells to me from my room.

The stomach butterflies arrived with him, swarming inside me for more than one reason. The scent of his cologne as he moves through my house wraps around me like a warm embrace, flipping the switch of my dormant libido. But my nerves also switch to high alert with the idea that he may end up walking out of my life for good tonight after we discuss Carol. I’d rather spend the evening wrapped up in each other naked, I know I’ll never be the same if he chooses to live in the past instead of moving on with me.

Returning to the living room, he comes straight to me, framing my face with his hands. “You okay? You were thinking too hard,” he says, his genuine concern obvious in his gentle touch.

“Yeah, but I know we need to talk and I’m worried.”

“Don’t be. It’s going to be okay. Let’s grab our drinks and sit down on the couch.”

“Okay,” I say, my voice almost a whisper. He kisses me softly and releases me to grab his beer and head for the couch. Settling in with his back angled to a corner, he pulls me in against him so I’m facing away from him but against his body, with his arm securing me across the upper chest. It’s a comfortable, non-threatening position that settles me a little.

“What do you want to talk about, Colby?”

“Us.”

“Okay.”

“And Carol,” I say, and then hold my breath, waiting for him to push me away and say something I don’t want to hear.

“Let’s start with Carol,” he says as he holds me a little tighter. “You were right. I was holding on to her, but I didn’t realize it. When she died it was so much easier to get up and go to work every day and pretend things hadn’t changed. Obviously, they had changed because when I came home she wasn’t there and I knew why. But if I didn’t go through her things and get rid of it all, I didn’t have to actually say goodbye. Colby, I’m going to be honest. I’ll always love her. She was a good wife and a good woman all around, but she’s gone and I want to move on.”

That statement gives me conflicting feelings. I’m glad that his loyalty and honesty are such that he would admit he loves her and always will, but the part of me that’s all woman felt the sting of jealousy when he admitted she was a good woman and wife and that there will always be another woman he loves.

“What about your house with her?”

“On the market. I’m already out of there though. I went through everything and kept some pictures and some things from our life together, but I gave the rest of her belongings to members of her family to do with as they wanted. I can’t change the fact that I was married, nor do I want to. I also don’t think you’d want a man who would do that. But I can and did say goodbye.”

“I get that you were married and that you still love her, but if I’m also being honest, it’s hard for me to know that you still love another woman. How do I get past that? I don’t want to share you. I know that’s awful and selfish, especially considering the circumstances, but you have to put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel if I was still in love with another man and tried to make you feel better by saying, ‘but I love you too’?”

“Let me try to explain it to you this way: When Carol and I were first married, we were crazy in love and were that way until I came back from Afghanistan. We struggled after that. I had changed. She stood by me as I fought to reacclimate to life outside of a war zone, but we were never the same after that. Then the cancer came along and changed her. Life does that. It changes people and their relationships. The last year we were married, she was sick so there was no more sex and very little physical affection because she was so frail and everything hurt. We’d become best friends and our love was more like that of long-time friends. If she were here, I think she would agree. My love for you is different. It’s vibrant and exciting and full of life. Does that help you understand a little better?”

“Yes, but it scares me at the same time. What happens when our love is no longer new or some crazy twist of fate changes it for us?”

“Then I will continue to love you in whatever way we adapt. I can’t tell the future—I wish I could—so I don’t know what that will bring for us. I can tell you that I plan to wake up every day and give my everything to you and I just pray that will be enough.”

I sit quietly, hope building in my heart, but I have one more question.

“There was a nursery.”

“Yeah. Packing that room was the hardest.”

“Did you lose a child?” I ask, praying he didn’t have to endure that too.

“No, thank God. We tried so hard for her to get pregnant before I was deployed the first time and it didn’t work. Then we added fertility clinics to the mix between deployment one and two. They said it was going to be damn near impossible for her to get pregnant due to some scarring in her uterus. She was crushed, ready to give up hope, and I couldn’t stand to see her like that so I took out a small loan and transformed the spare room into a nursery using a wish book she’d made in the beginning and surprised her with it. I was using the Field of Dreams mentality that ‘If you build it, he will come.’ It worked in a sense because she kept hope for a baby, but it never brought the baby we wanted.

“While I was away on the third deployment, she was diagnosed with cancer and started treatment. When I was coming home, she finally told me about the cancer because at that point there was no way to hide it. I was furious that she was going through it without me, but she knew how important the Army was for me and didn’t want to take that away.”

“The Army meant that much?” I ask, surprised. He doesn’t talk about his time in the service much. In fact, I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for our hiking excursion and all that happened that day.

“Yeah, and now when I look back I hate it because the one thing I was truly fighting for, the one person I wanted to keep safe had to face her own battle alone because she didn’t know she was more important than any sense of duty I had. I was so selfish I didn’t catch the cues or ask the questions that would have gotten me the answers. My wife was fighting for her life alone and I should have been here.”

“Is that why you got out of the Army?”

“Yes. As soon as I got home and figured it out, I put in the paperwork to separate. Luckily, I was close to the end of my contract and with my situation they let me go early. I started school and helped to take care of her. I blazed through college at breakneck speed while caring for her. She was in and out of remission two times before she died nine years after being diagnosed. I look back and wonder if I should have gotten a job at Home Depot so I could be home more for her. I wanted to make enough money so she wouldn’t have to work, so she would only worry about being healthy. So that’s what I did. I worked my ass off for something that made no difference. The war against her disease was one that couldn’t be won.”

“You know you couldn’t save her, right?”

“Now I do. But for a long time I felt that if I had cared for her better and given her more of my time she would’ve lived.”

Unable to stand not seeing his face, I wiggle free and switch to straddling his lap. I place both of our bottles on the table and trace the stubble on his jaw with my fingertips while trying to find the right words.

“Did you mean it in Texas when you said you love me?” I ask to make certain.

“Of course.” He never breaks eye contact.

“I love you too, Victor. I was just afraid to be in Carol’s shadow forever. I felt like you hadn’t let her go and I can’t compete with a ghost. Does that make sense?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t figure all of that out before you came along. The truth is, though, I had no reason to figure it out. There were no dating prospects, no one who pulled me out of that funk. Prior to the fight you had with your truck outside the cemetery, no one made me wish for more than what I had with the ghost of her. Valerie sparked my interest, but she didn’t consume me. From the moment you and I met, I’ve thought of little else.”

With no need for more words I close the gap between us, melding my lips to his, pouring all that I feel for him into that little connection. His hands slip up under my T-shirt and along the bare skin of my back until he reaches my bra strap. Just a quick flick of his fingers makes it pops loose and his hands continue up higher to push my shirt over my head. With that out of the way, he tugs the bra straps down my arms and tosses it to the side. I’m now naked from the waist up and I can feel him thicken at my core. His gaze lowers to my breasts and his fingers trail softly from my waist to the underside of my breast at an unbelievably slow pace. As soon as he brushes his thumbs across my nipples, I groan and rock into him. He leans forward and takes one into his mouth to suckle softly while pinching the other one harder. My fingers, that were resting on his shoulders, dig into his skin as pleasure pulses between my legs. He works my nipple until I’m squirming and moaning, begging for more.

When I can’t take any more I pull away and climb off his lap. Then I tug at his jeans a little. “Off, I want your clothes off,” I breath, frantic as I let go of his denim and shuffle off my pants and panties too. He does what I ask and quickly pulls a condom out of his wallet. Before he can take control, I push him back to the sitting position, snatch the condom from his hands and roll it on him. Then I straddle his thighs between my knees and sink down on him. He growls as I take a second to adjust to his girth and leans in again to take one of my hard little nipples into his mouth. He grazes it with his teeth, causing me to buck against him. He does it again.

“Victor,” I moan, before I begin to rise and fall on him. In this position my clit rubs deliciously against his skin on the down stroke every time. The growing pressure in between my legs is almost too much to contain and I fight to keep the rhythm steady. I can tell he’s getting closer too because he’s abandoned my breasts and gripped onto my hips, helping to move me faster and harder on him. His thighs tense under me and I clench him tight as my muscles lock up around his cock and I come apart in his lap, moaning as I fall limp into his chest.

“Hold on, baby. Just a little bit more. I’m almost there,” he grunts out as he thrusts up into me. “You’ve got to sit up and hold on!” he commands, and I lean back and brace myself on his shoulders as he hammers up into me a few more times before he finally comes and pulls me in tight against his chest.

Sweet bliss.

* * *

With the dawn, my eyes open. I’m still tired and not all the way back to normal, but I’m better than I was last week when I came home. I dread going in to do the books. I don’t know how my sister chose this as a career, but I will dance for joy when she’s not only well again but able to return to work. I was never meant to sit behind a desk and crunch numbers. I don’t mind coming home and working on cars—it kind of clears my head—but numbers… Ugh, they are the worst.

I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, determined to get going early, when Victor’s sleepy voice asks, “Where are you going?”

“Work; I have to update the books and make the drop at the bank before I start on the overflow of cars that need to be worked on.”

“Wrong. Lie back down. We need to talk. We only finished part of our discussion last night.”

“I have to do this. I don’t have a choice with my sister out of work. Can we talk tonight when I get home?”

He pats the empty spot in the bed and summons me with a flick of his fingers. “Just come here and lie with me for a few minutes so I can explain a few things. Please.”

A few minutes won’t hurt anything. He’s not usually insistent so it must be important.

“You aren’t going in to work this time in between shows, unless you want to say hi to your family.”

“Wha—” I begin to protest. I don’t like people telling me what to do, but he hasn’t been around so he has no idea how bad it’s been. “I have to do the deposit at least or we don’t make our bills.”

His fingers rest against my lips. “Shhh, let me finish. Shaunda is the one who called me to help you. You aren’t going in because there is no reason for you to do it. She’s already done the books for this week, and the deposit. She had Jeff bring her all the work home and she worked remotely. Jeff dropped off the deposit the next day. She said it wasn’t a problem and that it was easy to do it that way. She called the doctor and he said it’s fine.”

“I don’t want her to get sick again because she’s working too hard and can’t heal all the way.” My lower lip trembles. The idea of losing my sister is almost more than I can take.

“I promise it’s going to be okay. She said it made her feel useful again and it only took her a little over an hour. Let her do it. You know Jeff wouldn’t allow it if he thought it would hurt her.”

Victor is right about that. Jeff is as protective of her as I am, maybe even more.

“I still have cars to work on so I can delay, but I need to go in for that in a little while.”

“About that…” he trails off and I realize there is more.

“Yeah, what else?” I ask as I cock my eyebrow higher.

“They hired a part-time mechanic. Some veteran who gets a VA pension but wants something to do on a part-time basis. He started on Thursday and worked through the weekend to get them caught up so you could come home and relax.”

“They hired someone without consulting me?” My anger flares.

“If the situation were reversed and you saw your sister or your brother drowning in the obligations of life, wouldn’t you do what you could to save them from themselves?”

“No!” I say emphatically and watch as Victor’s eyebrows hit his hairline because he knows I just lied to him.

I let out an irritated breath. “Okay, yes, but we all have to work together. What if I don’t like him?”

“He’s on a temporary basis—90-day trial, which he agreed to. It will give him the chance to see if he likes it and if you guys like him. So far Jeff and Marshall like the guy. They say he works hard and keeps to himself.”

“So they don’t need me?”

“Oh, they need you. Just not the way they have. They need you to be their sister, but they don’t need you running yourself into the ground to save everyone. They will have a couple of cars for you next time you come home, but this time they want you to relax and get well.”

“We can’t afford to hire someone new though,” I say, worrying my lip with my teeth.

“He’s part-time and doesn’t want a high salary. It’s a good fit to get you guys through until it all gets better. Trust me, trust them, and please don’t be upset with them. They just want to make sure you’re okay for a change.”

I lie there for a minute, deciding if I’m going to be stubborn and pitch a fit or relax and be happy about my sudden freedom. Seems like a no-brainer.

I turn toward him, his hazel eyes are on me, waiting to see what I’ll do.

“How much time do you have to make me forget I’m supposed to be mad?” I ask with a grin.

He chuckles and leverages himself over me in one quick, easy move. “I’ve got the rest of my life,” is all he says before his mouth descends on mine.

* * *

After we’ve made love and had breakfast, Victor cleans up the kitchen while I call my brother and sister to check in. When I come back to the living room Victor is waiting for me with his feet up on the coffee table, his legs crossed at the ankle. His arm is thrown across the couch so I drop into the spot that looks like it was made just for me and snuggle in.

“I want to talk to you about something,” he says.

“Okay, go ahead.” Good things don’t usually follow statements like that, but he’s given me no indication of an issue I should be concerned about so I wait patiently.

“I want to lend you the money to pay off the loan at the bank.”

I shake my head without thinking about it. Money comes between people faster than any other issue. No way.

“No.”

“Just hear me out.”

I’m already prepared to decline, but I stay still and quiet out of respect for him.

“I’ve invested well, but I’ve had a ridiculous amount of money sitting in savings since Carol died. I don’t want to buy stocks, and participating in more traditional investments doesn’t appeal to me. It’s sitting there doing nothing. I could pay off your loan, and when everything is straight at the shop again, you can start to pay me back. It’s an investment of sorts for me, but more… It’s an investment in your future and the future of what I hope is going to be my family.”

My breath whooshes out of my chest and I’m left without any way to speak. Did he just say that he hopes it’s an investment in his future family? Oh my goodness, that’s what he said.

He continues in my silence. “I know we are newly rekindled, but I’m old enough to know what I want in life and you are it. But God forbid something split us up, we could have formal papers drawn up about the terms of the loan if it will make you feel better. I’m not interested in any of that. I just want to make things easier for you guys and I have the means to do it. It doesn’t hurt me in any way to do this. Please think about it and talk to Shaunda and Marshall.”

I still haven’t said anything because I’m not sure what to do. It would take a ton of stress off of all of us until Pop’s estate is out of probate. It’s not fair to make a decision like this without talking to the other two. Maybe I will meet with them tomorrow and discuss it before I turn him down.

I turn and face him. “Thank you so much for being thoughtful. I have reservations about taking that kind of help from you, but I will talk to Shaunda and Marshall and see what they say.”

“That’s fair. You know I love you, right? I’m not just back because you need help. I’m back because I missed you every day we were apart.”

“I know. You know I love you too, right? I’m not just cuddled up next to you on my couch because you’re taking care of me.”

He grins. “Yeah, I know.”

* * *

I’m sitting with Shaunda, Jeff and Marshall at Shaunda’s dining table while the kids watch television. I laid out Victor’s proposal for them and thought they would all immediately say no way, but there is an odd silence hanging in the air. I’m waiting for them to say something, and their quiet contemplation is making me antsy.

“Listen, don’t be offended. I already told him my answer was no, but he insisted I talk to you guys about it. I will just tell him I did and the answer is still thanks, but no thanks.”

Jeff is the first to respond. “I think we should talk about taking his help.”

I jerk back a little, having thought Jeff would be the last one to accept any help from anyone. “What?” I ask, my eyes widening.

“Listen, for our situation it makes sense. We have our lawyer draw up the paperwork and make it official. We pay Victor back when Pop’s estate comes out of probate. The sale of his house alone would clear the debt, and that doesn’t count any other assets he had. It’s not like we’re borrowing the money, hoping to scrape enough up to pay it a little at a time. We just need to take some pressure off by paying the mortgage and business loan off now. We know we will have the money in another couple of months at the latest. I don’t want to kill us all by working to death to fix an issue that has an easy solution now. Even if you two break up, we will have a binding contract that states that he will get paid back once Pop’s estate is settled.”

Shaunda and I look at him for a moment, both surprised by his thoughts on the matter.

“I agree,” Marshall chimes in. “We can even agree to pay interest on the loan if that makes you feel better.”

My sister is shaking her head when she responds. “I’m shocked you both feel this way. I never thought you’d want to borrow money, especially from Colby’s boyfriend.”

Marshall surprises me again. “I think it’s safe to say the guy is not just a boyfriend. He will be much more before we can blink an eye. Also, I think we’ve all learned that life is fleeting and we need to cherish every moment. Working day and night to never quite catch up, is not doing that. I don’t want to live like that and I know you guys don’t either. Besides, I think Jeff is right; if we treat it like a regular loan and make it official, paying him back with interest, it will be a win-win situation.”

We all sit quietly for a moment and I’m sure they’re waiting for me to say something. I’m just not sure what to say. It was my idea to hire Jasmine-the-thief, who stole all the money in the first place. I don’t know if I trust myself to make these kinds of decisions. “I’m afraid to make the wrong decision again,” I confess.

My sister reaches out her hand and places it over mine. “You didn’t make the wrong decision with Jasmine. She was a bad person, but we didn’t know that. We did everything we could to assure we hired a good person and it wasn’t enough. Sometimes things just happen. Now it’s time to let that go. What do you want to do? I’ll back you 100%, no matter what.”

I look up at Jeff and Marshall. “You guys tired of working overtime?”

They both nod. “What do you want to do about the new guy?”

Marshall answers, “I say we keep him. He likes having part-time work and it will be nice to be able to take a vacation without worrying that everyone will drown in work if one of us is gone. Besides, he’s a good guy. Business is good enough that we can keep him on and still all work full time.”

“Okay, we’re keeping the new guy and I guess we’re getting a loan from my boyfriend.”

Jeff stands up and walks around the table, stopping right next to my chair. He squats down to make eye contact. “This is the right decision. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s going to mean something to him to be able to help take care of you in this way. He’s the kind of man who needs to take care of his lady, so let him do that. I think you finally found the right one, so hold on tight and give him as good as you get.”

“Thanks, Jeff, I will.” He kisses my forehead and wanders to the living room to hang with his boys.

“He’s right,” my brother says. I look over to my sister and find her nodding.

“Yeah, I think so too,” I whisper, fighting the emotion that’s building.