LITMIR.BIZ

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He’d been the ideal life partner, except that he’d thrown the game before they’d even reached halftime.

      “Go ahead, gloat,” Amy said, folding her arms. “You told me Harry Griffith would turn up, and he did. And he said something about discussing business with me tomorrow, so you’re batting a thousand.”

      Tyler grinned again, looking cocky. “You thought you were dreaming, didn’t you?”

      “Actually, no,” Amy said. “It’s more likely that you’re some sort of projection of my subconscious mind.”

      “Oh, yeah?” Tyler made the swing spin a couple of times, the way he’d done on so many other summer nights, before he’d single-handedly brought the world to an end by dying. Somewhere in that library of albums inside the house, Amy had a picture of him holding an infant Ashley on his lap while they both turned in a laughing blur. “How could your subconscious mind have known Harry was about to show up?”

      Amy shrugged. “There are a lot of things going on in this world that we don’t fully understand.”

      “You can say that again,” Tyler said, a little smugly.

      He still couldn’t resist an opportunity to be one up on the opposition in any argument, Amy reflected, with affection and acceptance. It was the lawyer in him. “Debbie’s theory is that you represent some unspoken wish for love and romance.”

      Tyler laughed. “Unspoken, hell. I’m telling you straight out, Spud. You’re not going to find a better guy than Harry, so you’d better grab him while you’ve got the chance.”

      Only then did Amy realize she hadn’t felt an urge to fling herself at Tyler, the way she had before. The revelation made her feel sad. “Doesn’t it make you even slightly jealous to think of me married to someone else?”

      Amy regretted the words the instant she’d spoken them, because a bereft expression shadowed Tyler’s handsome features for several moments.

      “Yes,” he admitted gruffly, “but this is about letting go and moving on. Think of me as a ghost, or a figment of your imagination, whatever works for you. As long as you get the message and stop marking time, it doesn’t matter.”

      “Are you a ghost?”

      Tyler sighed. “Yes and no.”

      “Spoken like a true lawyer.”

      He reached out one hand for her, as he would have done before, but once again he pulled back. He didn’t smile at Amy’s comment, either. “I’m not a specter, forced to wander the earth and rattle chains like in the stories they used to tell at summer camp,” he told her. “But I’m not an image being beamed out of your deeper mind, either. I’m just as real as you are.”

      Amy swallowed hard. “I don’t understand!” she wailed in a low voice, frustrated.

      “You’re not supposed to,” Tyler assured her gently. “There’s no need for you to understand.”

      Amy stepped closer, needing to touch Tyler, but between one instant and the next he was gone. No fadeout, no flash, nothing. He was there and then he wasn’t.

      “Tyler?” Amy whispered brokenly.

      “Mom?” Ashley’s voice made Amy start, and she turned to see her daughter standing only a few feet behind her, wearing cotton pajamas and carrying her favorite doll. “Did Mr. Harry go home?”

      Apparently Ashley hadn’t heard her mother talking to thin air, and Amy was relieved. She reached out to stop the tire swing, which was still swaying back and forth in the night air.

      “Yes, sweetheart,” she said. “He’s really a nice man, isn’t he?”

      Ashley nodded gravely. “I like to listen to him talk. I wish he was still here, so he could tell us a kangaroo story.”

      “Maybe he doesn’t know any,” she suggested, distracted. If Tyler had known what she was thinking earlier, had he also discerned that his widow felt a powerful attraction to one of his best friends?

      “Sure, he does,” Ashley said confidently as they stepped into the kitchen together. Amy closed and locked the sliding door. “Did you know they have yellow signs in Australia, with the silhouette of a kangaroo on them—like the Deer Crossing signs here?”

      Amy turned off the outside lights and checked to make sure all the leftovers had been put away. The dishwasher showed no signs of Max’s exploratory surgery. “No, sweetheart,” she said, standing at the sink now and staring out the window at the tire swing. It was barely visible in the deepening darkness. “I didn’t know that. I guess it makes sense, though. Off to bed now.”

      “What about the story?”

      Amy felt tears sting her eyes as she stared out at the place where Tyler had been. That was what her life was these days, it seemed, just a place where Tyler had been.

      Harry sat on the stone bench beside Tyler’s fancy marble headstone, his chin propped in one palm. “Damn it, man,” he complained, “you didn’t tell me she was beautiful. You didn’t say anything about the warm way she laughs, or those golden highlights in her hair.” He sighed heavily. “All right,” he conceded. “I guess you did say she was a natural wonder, but I thought you were just talking. Even the Christmas cards didn’t prepare me…”

      He stood, tired of sitting, and paced back and forth at the foot of Tyler’s grave. It didn’t bother him, being in a cemetery at night. He wasn’t superstitious and, besides, he’d been needing this confrontation with Tyler for a good long time.

      “You might have stuck around a few more years, you know!” he muttered, shoving one hand through his usually perfect hair. “There you were with that sweet wife, those splendid children, a great career. And what did you do? In the name of God, Tyler, why didn’t you fight?”

      The only answer, of course, was a warm night wind and the constant chirping of crickets.

      Harry stopped his pacing and stood with one foot braced against the edge of the bench, staring down at the headstone with eyes that burned a little. “All right, mate,” he said softly, hoarsely. “I know you probably had your reasons for not holding on longer—and that’s not to say I won’t be wanting an accounting when I catch up with you. In the meantime, what’s really got under my skin is, well, it’s Amy and those terrific kids.”

      He tilted his head back and looked up at the moon for a long time, then gave a ragged sigh. “We were always honest with each other, you and I. Nothing held back. When I laid eyes on that woman, Ty, it was as though somebody wrenched the ground out from beneath my feet.”

      While the damning words echoed around him, Harry struggled to face the incomprehensible reality. He hadn’t been with Amy Ryan for five minutes before he’d started imagining what it would be like to share his life with her.

      He hadn’t thought of taking Amy to bed, though God knew that would be the keenest of pleasures. No, he’d pictured her nursing a baby…his baby. He’d seen her running along the white sand on the beach near his house in northern Queensland, with Ashley and Oliver scampering behind, and he’d seen her sitting beside him in the cockpit of his jet.

      This was serious.

      He touched his friend’s headstone as he passed, and started toward the well-lighted parking lot. “If you know what’s good for you, Harry,” he muttered to himself, “you’ll give the lady her money and then stay out of her way.”

      Harry got behind the wheel of his rented vehicle and started the engine. Nothing must be allowed to happen between him and Amy Ryan, and the reason was simple. To touch her would be to betray a man who would have trusted Harry with his very life.

      3

      Amy didn’t sleep well that night. She was filled with contradictory feelings; new ones and old ones, affectionate and angry

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