The scorching South Florida sun beating down on the gathering only added to the misery of the moment. Despite the oppressive humidity and not a whisper of a breeze to alleviate it, birds chirped merrily in the trees as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Their cheeriness grated.
On the worst day of her life, why wasn’t the weather gray and rainy, matching her dark mood? It wasn’t comparable, but at least when she’d lost her parents, Ethan had stood beside her, holding her hand, sharing her pain, still breathing. Not today, though. Never again.
“It’s time, Em.”
She nodded at Alec’s gentle prompt. Thank God for him. If he hadn’t been with her these past awful days, she wouldn’t have made it through.
He released her hand so she could pick up a fistful of loose earth and toss it into the yawning hole. The first clump spattered on top of her brother’s casket. Alec’s handful joined hers a moment later.
A grim tradition meant to offer closure. As if it was possible to bury grief.
Quiet weeping rose from around them.
Not family: she was the last Peterson. Ethan was only twenty-seven. Never married. He thought he had plenty of time to find a wife and have kids. But bullets from the gun of a twice-convicted felon had stolen his future.
Heads bowed as the police chaplain offered a last prayer for their fallen brother in blue. Emily bowed her head, too, but his words didn’t reach her. She’d stopped believing in prayers long ago.
Her gaze fell upon the sprays of yellow roses wilting in the heat. They’d been on her parents’ caskets, too. Once her favorite flowers, they were now tainted by heart-wrenching loss.
“Can we go now, Alec?” she asked as the collective amen faded.
“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s over.”
The ceremony might be, but not her grief. She knew from bitter experience that bleak days would come when the visits from well-meaning friends and coworkers stopped, and the noise died away.
Alec shepherded her toward his car. Mourners stepped forward with condolences; he deflected them with a polite word or a clippedthank you. He had to know from the stranglehold she had on his hand how close she was to falling apart.
When she slid into the passenger seat and he shut the door, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe. But the memory of the private viewing—Ethan in his dress uniform, his body cold and so still, he might as well have been a stranger—kept surfacing. He looked nothing like her always-smiling big brother. She’d half expected him to sit up, pull off a mask, and call it a cruel joke. But the silence and truth of the moment were absolute.
When Alec opened the door and slid behind the wheel, she turned her gaze to the window, batting away tears. They were pointless, and she didn’t want him to see her cry. What she had to do would be impossible if he thought she was falling apart.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded, staring at her pale reflection in the glass. “I’ve seen my fill of cemeteries.”
The ten-minute drive home passed in tense silence.
When they climbed the stone steps to the front porch, she froze, staring at the door.
“Let me,” Alec said, reaching into his pocket for his key.
Ajingleandsnicklater, he pushed the door inward. When Emily stepped inside, the silence hit her—thick, suffocating, absolute. Ethan’s boots still sat by the door, laces tangled as though he’d kicked them off in a rush. His favorite ball cap, tattered and faded, lay on the entry table, beside it a wilting yellow rose someone had left after the wake. She hadn’t touched a thing. She couldn’t.
Alec had followed her in and stood beside her, his gaze sweeping the room. She saw the flicker of pain in his eyes when they landed on Ethan’s things. He didn’t speak, just stood there, hands clenched at his sides.
He was handsome in a way that made her ache. Wavy blond hair ruffled from his fingers, light-blue eyes that could read her too well, sun-kissed skin stretched over a powerful 6’3” frame built to protect and to anchor. His image blurred through her unshed tears. Not for Ethan but for what she was about to do to his best friend.
It wasn’t fair. He’d been watching over her since she was a child—the boy she’d chased around the neighborhood, the teenager she’d crushed on, the man she loved in secret. But her heart was broken. Once she picked up the pieces again, it would be for the last time.
“Are you sure you’re okay to stay here by yourself?” he asked.
“Where else would I go?” she whispered.
“You could stay with me as long as you need to,” he suggested.
And get used to it. Become dependent on him. Then when the blow came, she’d be even more devastated.
“I’m okay,” she said, breath hitching as she tried to contain her tears. “But I keep expecting him to walk in. To tell me I’ve overbaked the muffins again.”
