Page 12 of Love Me Again

“I’m not here to bother you,” he said, hunching in his coat irritably.

“Do you have signed and sealed divorce papers under your coat?”

“No.”

“Then you’re bothering me.”

He sighed. “Jo. When did it happen?”

She moved out of the doorway, closer to the fire. She stared at it instead of him. “Six months ago. I would have invited you to the funeral if I’d known where you were.”

He wasn’t so sure he believed her. She’d found him now, hadn’t she? Besides, she wasn’t meeting his gaze, which was usually a sure-tell sign she was lying, and she’d always been a terrible liar.

She’d pretty much never tried to lie to him. She wasn’t a liar by nature. She was… it really didn’t do him any good to think about all the things she was. Or had been.

“I thought he was okay,” Boone managed to say through a surprisingly tight throat.

She lifted a shoulder, still didn’t meet his gaze. “We all did.”

Silence stretched out. Heavy. Painful. Boone knew he should either break it or get the hell out of here, leave her alone like she wanted. But he couldn’t seem to move or speak.

She was here.

Paul was dead.

And where the hell was he?

In the exact same place you were when you walked out of that hospital.

He’d believed that. Even an hour or two ago he’d probably believed that, but standing here in this room with her he realized he was not the same man.

Because he couldn’t walk away.

Back then all he’d been able to do was walk away.

“In the end, it wasn’t the cancer coming back,” she finally said. “I mean, maybe it was. But he suffered a heart attack before he even got done with the chemo. He was…gone in a few days. Nothing as drawn out as we anticipated.”

“I’m sorry.” It was weak. Paltry. Pointless. His own father had died when Boone had been six, but he’d been too young to understand what grief really meant. He’d been too young to learn how to deal with his own or anyone else’s.

“It doesn’t change anything. I mean, I wouldn’t have to be tracking you down so I can sell that stupid plot of land if he was alive, because I wouldn’t have been distracted enough to let that scummy lawyer off the hook. We’d be divorced. That’s the only difference. But it’s not like you would have been able to save him, Boone.”

She said that pointedly and purposefully, and he had the uncomfortable realization that a few years ago, he would have taken that at face value. That he was worthless and incapable of saving anything or anyone.

Something about the past two years of trying to figure out what his life was on the other side of losing everything he’d worked for, or living with his family, or hell, being a goddamn step-uncle to Micah who reminded him so much of himself it hurt, he’d learned enough or changed enough to realize Josie wasn’t calling him worthless.

That’s just what it felt like. And that was his own shit. Not hers.

“Your mother insisted I stay until the storm is over,” Josie continued. “I suppose I don’t have a choice.”

“No, there aren’t usually too many choices when it comes to Deb Tyler.”

“She said her name was Deb Tyler-Donahue.”

Boone wrinkled his nose, couldn’t help himself. Even not hating Ben like his brothers had, his mother being remarried was just weird and uncomfortable.

Maybe he hadn’t changed all that much, because discomfort always made him want to bolt, one way or another. “I won’t bother you.”

Her dark eyes met his. Too many emotions flitted through them