Better Than the Best

by Amabel Daniels

  He avoided her eyes. Maybe she didn’t miss the idiot, per se. But she’d go home and realize it was where she belonged. With her family. With people who weren’t afraid to tell her they loved her.

  Like a magician’s incredible shrinking man, he scolded himself for thinking she belonged here on the lake with him. She always talked about her brothers, her dad, some Heather woman. She was loyal to her family. She’d never stay away from them for good.

  For good. He looked at her with a lump in his throat. Kelly for good. Forever. How had she gotten under his skin? And she was leaving him.

  “Why do you need to go then?”

  Begging? I’m pleading?

  “I was married to him. He was family. I’d be a bitch if I didn’t. It’s like how people sneeze and still say ‘God bless you’. I’d like to think everyone knows it started from the superstition that you sneezed your soul out or whatever. Everyone knows it’s not true, but they still say it because it’s polite.”

  “You’re going to the funeral to say Gesundheit?”

  “Something like that.”

  Quiet filled the living room.

  She took a deep breath. “Will. I need to tell you something.”

  Christ, it’s over. Whatever magic they had, it was fucking over. I knew it. He clenched his jaw, readying for the blow.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s not fair. To either of us. You can accept it or fight it, but I have to do this.”

  Shoot me now. Will stared into her warm blue-green eyes. “Don’t.”

  She shook her head and her eyes moistened as she cupped his chin. “I love you. I know you won’t reciprocate. I know you don’t believe in it. But I do. I want you to know. I love you and I’ll probably always love you. I want—” She inhaled shakily and he put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I wanted to make sure I told you. John was only thirty and his life is over. Done. Just like that. You and I, we’re so young but life is so damn short. I can’t take it for granted. I don’t want another day to go by without you knowing I love you.”

  Will let out the breath he had been holding. He took her hands. “Kelly, I—”

  She kissed him.

  He allowed a small smile at her lips as he kissed her back. It was tender and slow and telling. Because when he held her like this, he wondered how she didn’t catch on to his lie. As he kissed her, he showed her he reciprocated every and any kind of love he knew.

  Chapter 37

  On the drive back to Atlanta, it seemed like every median dash was a cumulative tally mark for the void that had grown in her heart. Kelly had told Heather, almost a year ago, that she left home because she had been lost. Back in her hometown for John’s funeral, she felt lost, but empty, too.

  Seeing her friends and family again lifted her spirits. Heather stuck to her side like glue. Wade was the only brother who wasn’t there, but he called. Grant reported his ankle was fine. Finn interrogated her about “this Will character” Grant had mentioned. Sean asked how long she was staying in Churchston.

  Still, even surrounded by people she loved and had truly missed, she couldn’t shake the emptiness.

  At the funeral home, she felt as though she was on display. Kelly had always been civil and fond of her in-laws, but she never liked them. She caught people staring. Some glared and whispered. She assumed they figured she was connected to John’s death or somehow at fault, regardless of her alibi. Some wrapped her in teary-eyed hugs and murmured condolences. She had a guilt trip for depriving them of the mourning, loving, weeping act.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t mourn. John’s death was bad news. Especially the way he was killed. But having witnessed enough death, she was hardened to it. She couldn’t weep. Dry-eyed and sober, she had attended the services because she knew she should.

  John’s death fell under the same category of the hundreds of patients she had seen at the hospital. Strangers. Acquaintances. How could her grief be heartfelt if John never had her heart? Not like Matt’s death for Will.

  It was almost easier to accept John’s death than Norbert’s. She hadn’t been in control of John’s health, his life. It had taken a while for her to bound back from the betrayal and humiliation of rejection, but sometime on the lake in Churchston, she had accepted it. There was no love between her and John when they divorced and she had suspected there never had been any real love for the man she had married. Not the real kind. Not the physical kind which had her missing Will every second she was gone.

  Kelly sat in the back with her family and studied John’s picture on the prayer card in Heather’s hand.

  Irony overwhelmed her. Not for the divorce. Not for being unable to appease his desire to get her back, but regret he had never gotten to experience the kind of bond she had with Will. She hoped everyone got the chance. It was a rare gift.

  “She’s not here,” Heather whispered.

  Kelly knew who. She had wondered if she would come face to face with the bitch she had found in her master suite. If ‘Sasha’—or whatever her name was— would come to say good-bye. Kelly glimpsed Gannon standing at the door. He was probably wondering the same thing.

  Since she had been his most recent companion, Kelly garnered Sasha had to know something about John’s death. The timing said everything: the woman came and had left with no trace. And John had been killed.

  Coincidences are crap.

  ***

  The night after Kelly left, Will went to Elmer’s and tried to drink himself stupid. Easier said than done. Every time he lifted the glass to his lips, he saw Kelly’s face in the reflection of the glass, her smirk keeping the whiskey away from his lips. Exhausted, he leaned his head to the counter.

  Kendra came in and purred to him until he snapped at her. With a roll of her eyes, she stalked off. Later, Jaycee tried and Will nearly yelled. She got the point, too.

  Randy hobbled in on his crutches and, with a graceless slump, took the stool next to Will. They didn’t speak in companionable silence. Will flinched when a glass fell and broke behind the bar. Goddamn post-trauma. He preoccupied himself with visions of Kelly in his head.

  “She’ll be back,” Randy said without turning from the TV overhead.

  Will shook his head. He opened and closed his mouth, with no clue how to express what was going on in his head. Randy patted his back and ordered a beer. His company was little comfort.

  I’m not completely alone, after all.

  But Randy would find a nice, polite, responsible girl someday, and he’d get married. Clay was probably already on his way to fatherhood and eventually, reluctantly, to husbandry. Matt, well, he was gone.

  Panic pricked him as he considered a life without Kelly.

  He traced the rim of his glass with his forefinger, the whiskey still untouched. He would lose Kelly, there was no question about it. She would go home to her family and realize she was loved. But he loved her too. Surrendering the walls to his heart brought a lot of grimaces, but she was worth it. He did love her, but he could only win her for good, forever, if he took the risk and really let her in.

  It would be a tough fight. The brothers and dad she worshipped like heroes, or him, a gloomy scarred pissed-off veteran no one had ever thought was good enough.

  She’d never leave her family for me. Not forever.

  But what if she had family here? It would be a fight on a level playing field. He swallowed, guessing he was either suckered, stupid, or smarter than he realized.

  I’ll make her my family. And try every damn day of my life to make sure she won’t want to leave.

  They had good times, right? Sure they fought, but they were loving fights, not like Clay fought with women. Debates. Not arguments. And they always made up even when it was unnecessary.

  He straightened abruptly.

  Randy quirked a brow at him. “You alright?”

  It was simple. He’d get a ring and she’d stay. She said she loved him and always would. “When does Kelly’s lease expire?�
��

  Randy jumped at Will’s unexpected question. “Uh, she paid upfront for the next two months, why?”

  Settled. And he was watching Eddie for her. She had to come back for the dog. He clapped Randy on the back and took off. While he had the guts to follow through with such an ill-planned idea, he intended to ride on the momentum. Kind of like how Matt had decided they should go into the Marines.

  One, two, three, do it.

  Chapter 38

  After the funeral, Heather helped Kelly make broccoli chicken alfredo and German chocolate cake to tease Dad. It was the supposedly foolproof meal he had burned when she was six years old—when she had decided it was time for her to do the cooking in the household.

  Afterwards, they retired to shoot hoops in the driveway. Once it was too dark to see, and Grant grew crabby since he couldn’t play because of his ankle, they went in and started a board game.

  Finn frowned at her. “You’re cheating.”

  “Am not.” She had always won at Clue. Not only did she use deductive reasoning, Kelly watched when her brothers wrote down a clue on their lists. She couldn’t see what they were writing, which would have been cheating, but she could tell if they were writing at the top, middle or bottom of their lists, telling her which of the clues they asked had been granted. Not cheating. Sharp.

  “What happened to your leg, honey?”

  Kelly followed Dad’s gaze to her calf. “Oh.” The cut was nothing but a pinkish red slash of new skin. “Fell off a boat.”

  “On the same lake he tripped into?” he asked of Grant. “Sounds like a dangerous place.”

  Kelly dismissed him with a wave. She didn’t want to face the gazillion questions he would have asked. Reminded again of the incident, she hosted a renewed angry question mark at which idiot was driving. “Accidents happen.”

  Lesson learned: don’t play with drunks on boats.

  Knocks sounded at the door and Grant got up to answer. Gannon entered the dining room.

  Kelly assured him whatever he wanted to talk about, her family could hear. Finn offered his seat to Gannon, but he opted to stand.

  “When was the last time you spoke to your ex-husband?” Gannon began.

  She lifted a brow. They had covered this when they talked at the kayak hut. “I told you. At Grant’s office when we finalized the house papers.”

  Grant confirmed since he had been the one who wrote the lease for them.

  “Did you speak much to him between when you found him this with Miss Jones and the divorce?”

  Kelly shook her head. “No. It took me about half a day to call him and tell him I wanted the divorce. I don’t think I saw him much except to sign papers.”

  “He was agreeable to the divorce?”

  “Yes. In the short time we discussed divorce, he was degrading and accusatory, saying he wanted me out of his life. He tried to make it sound as though he had asked for the divorce, not that I wasn’t going to if he hadn’t. Heather told me he moved in with Sasha when he quit his job.”

  Gannon reached in his pocket and pulled out a recorder. “He made several phone calls to you after you moved out of the house.”

  “I’m telling you, I didn’t talk to him—”

  “He called your old number. It took me a while to get the messages since you had shut off your phone, but he called the number you had before.”

  She relaxed. “Oh. It was a joint account. I canceled the phone and got a new one when I moved out and started my own account.”

  “I understand. It was a bit of luck I even got this message,” Gannon said. “Someone bought a phone for his elderly mother and she couldn’t figure out how to use it. John didn’t know your number had been recycled. I’d like you to listen to this last message. The call was probably made around the time of his death.”

  Probably. They couldn’t know for sure how long he had been dead from the advanced decay of his remains. And the body could have been maintained in the freezer before the power had gone out.

  Kelly swallowed and nodded. It was eerie, listening to John’s slightly nasal voice in the room, as though he was back from the dead.

  “I know you hate me, Kelly. And I don’t blame you. I screwed up. I think we should give it another chance. Maybe we could meet for coffee, you know? It’s not… I’m not the same man now. I realize what I lost. She’s not you, Kelly. She’s not at all like you and I miss you. Sure we drifted apart but we’ll work on it. I promise. I told Lisa I couldn’t see her anymore either.”

  Kelly rolled her eyes. Not one but two mistresses. My, he was a busy man.

  “And Sasha…she’s crazy. I want you. We’ll make it work. I know you spend more money than you can save and you can be kind of paranoid sometimes and you’ll always be a slob, but I can overlook your faults.”

  She bit her lip and glared at the recorder. I’m not an overspending paranoid slob!

  She knew he had been stringent about finances because of his job the same as she was slightly germaphobic because of hers. And unorganized did not equal sloppy. She had always kept the kitchen and bathroom excessively clean. Who cares if my bra sits on the floor for a couple days before I chuck it in the washer?

  “I don’t want her. I want you—”

  The sound of a door slamming shut came in his pause.

  “What are you doing here? I never want to see you again—” His tone rang of anger and urgency. Scuffling noises took over speech and then the call ended.

  Kelly stared at the recorder. Was that when he died? Was that the sound of his neck breaking? She had a hard time swallowing, imagining the grisly attack.

  “You had no idea?”

  Inhaling deeply, she looked up at Gannon. “No. But it wouldn’t have mattered if I did, it was beyond over to me. I’m sorry about how this happened and I hope justice is served but I don’t see how I can have any answers for you. I don’t see how I’m related to this.”

  Am I related to this?

  She tried to clear her throat. “Do you think I’m involved—”

  “Kelly—” Grant warned, ever the lawyer.

  She held a hand up to him and continued. “Do you think I’m in any kind of danger? I wasn’t even here. We divorced. I didn’t matter to him. I moved away. I have a new job, a new life—”

  “Deep breaths, Kel.” Heather rubbed her back.

  Gannon put the recorder back in his pocket. “Like you said, there is nothing to connect you to his death. Other than his attempts to mend the marriage—”

  “There was no more marriage! We divorced!”

  “Other than his attempts to reconnect with you, there is nothing to tie you to him. From his phone records and your relocation, there’s no reason to think he had any hope you’d come back. It seems he didn’t even know you’d left town. He did call you around the time of his death. It’s a fact I can’t overlook.”

  No one spoke.

  Gannon cleared his throat. “I’m looking at every angle, Kelly. There’s little else to go on at the moment. I don’t see how you should be worried personally. Maybe he was in trouble with something you weren’t aware of. Maybe he pissed off the wrong person. Maybe he made a mistake and wanted your forgiveness before things got worse. I won’t know unless I ask.”

  “What’s the date of the phone call?” Kelly asked. “Is it before or after he sent the email about quitting his job?”

  Gannon took a deep breath before answering. “He made the call an hour before the email was sent.”

  Then whoever killed him had to have sent the email. Covering tracks.

  Some minutes later, with a mutual agreement to stay in touch, Kelly saw the detective out the door.

  Clue seemed like an ironically ill-fitting way to spend the rest of the night. Instead, they tossed ideas and speculations about the way John had died. The brothers departed one by one for the night and Heather stayed with Kelly in the kitchen over the last of the cake.

  “You really love him.” Heather’s comment pulled her from sc
heming ‘what ifs’.

  Kelly straightened from her chocolate galore and groaned. “No. My God, I came back for the damn funeral because it seemed appropriate. I don’t love him and I don’t think I ever really did. For one kind gesture of respect for the dead—”

  Heather smacked Kelly’s forehead lightly as she stood up and poked in the freezer. “I meant Will. Is there still ice cream in here?”

  “Oh.” Kelly sighed. She had left Atlanta defending her explanation she had needed space, and she had come back to Atlanta defending her statement she wasn’t mourning her true love. “I think so. I thought you were watching your cholesterol.”

  Heather shrugged and sat down with the tub and a spoon. “It’s the real thing. It was like you were listening to a weather report or the stock market closing. The whole thing about missing you, it didn’t even make you smile.”

  Because she had been busy craning her ears for a clue or a ninja noise. Some sound, some whisper, something to tell her who did it. The rest, in one ear and out the other.

  “This is the kind of stuff that happens in movies, Heather.” Her voice was shakier than she wanted it to be. She had seen all kinds of people maimed and dead in the ER. But she never knew any of them personally. It had made her world particularly safe in a philosophical way.

  “I never realized how unhappy you were. The whole marriage.”

  Kelly pulled the ice cream toward herself for a bite. “I didn’t either. I settled and thought I should tell my doubts to shut up and be happy with what I had.”

  “And Will? He makes you happy?”

  Kelly smiled around the lump of Rocky Road in her mouth, amused the ice cream still felt so cold with the heat on her cheeks.

  At night before she went to bed in the room she had used when she was a little girl, Kelly called the garage simply to hear his voice.

  “He’s not here.”

  Kelly smiled at Clay’s greeting.

  “He left a couple hours ago to help Randy with some kind of mold.”

  “Someone’s house flooded?”