Guilty Needs

by Shiloh Walker

  But it was his eyes she saw staring back at her from the mirror. Her aunt Cara had eyes the same shade of dark gray. Cara hadn’t been prepared to suddenly become mama to a two-year-old child but she’d done the best she could.

  Bree didn’t suffer serious self-esteem issues. She knew what she looked like. She was attractive and when she put half a mind to it, she might even be beautiful. She preferred jeans over just about anything else and kept her hair cut short just so she didn’t have to spend as much time messing with it. Still, she was pretty.

  But she wasn’t Alyssa.

  She wasn’t the woman Colby had fallen in love with.

  She was a friend. In his eyes, that was all she’d ever be. Delusional ghosts… Bree figured being grounded in reality wasn’t much of a concern for them anymore. Quietly, she repeated, “It doesn’t matter if he missed me. Yeah, I missed him too. But he missed a friend, Lys. That’s all I ever was to him. That’s all I’m ever going to be.”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Man, you are so stubborn.”

  Bree blinked, then snickered. “Me? You’re the one hanging around here, determined to play matchmaker. A year, Lys. It’s been a year. And you’re not showing any signs of moving on.”

  With a melodramatic sigh, Alyssa said, “I can’t move on until I know you’ll be happy. Both of you.”

  Tugging her gloves off, Bree shoved her damp hair back from her brow and then fisted her hands on her hips. “You can’t force this to happen, girl. Things happen because they are meant to, not because you force them.” Rising, she strode away, determined to get a little peace and quiet.

  Of course, the way her luck ran, Alyssa would just follow her.

  But to her surprise, that didn’t happen.

  She settled down in a flower bed near the back of the garden and worked in peace and quiet. It occurred to her that Alyssa had given up a little easier than normal this time, but maybe that was because Alyssa was finally getting the point.

  Chapter Three

  Alyssa didn’t understand the deal with being dead but it wasn’t what she’d expected. She hadn’t gone on to some glorious place in the sky, she wasn’t roasting in some pit of endless torment and she hadn’t ceased to exist either.

  She hadn’t intentionally clung to the land of the living, but apparently, in her subconscious, that was what she was doing. She faded in and out of conscious existence, sometimes lost inside herself for hours, days at a time. But never for too long.

  It had happened again, just now. One minute she’d been talking to Bree, teasing her, chiding her, nagging her and then, just like that, Alyssa was gone. Time passed and she wasn’t even aware of it, just that Bree had left and now Alyssa was alone in the house with a man who refused to see her.

  She wasn’t always here—here being on Earth. Sometimes she was someplace…other. No place she could describe, but it seemed as if it were a prelude to what waited, if she could just move on.

  She wasn’t always alone there, either.

  People came and went. Some lingered for just a few heartbeats, but she’d been told that others had waited there endlessly. Trapped—trapped by their memories and regrets from a life that was over.

  She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to be trapped between life and death, here and now and the hereafter. Which mean she had to move past what held her bound to her life. According to what she had been told, at least. And she believed it. It made sense.

  Colby and Bree—they were the only people who mattered to her any more. None of the others from her life even seemed real. Just Colby and Bree. Almost surreally real, if that made sense. Thinking of one of them was all it took to go to them. She’d been watching them almost from the moment she breathed her last.

  Bree had seen her the very first night but Colby continued to fight the knowledge. If he didn’t want to see her, she couldn’t force it on him. It had frustrated her to no end, but now she was glad of it. Maybe his stubborn refusal to see her could come in handy.

  A wistful sort of yearning moved through her as she found herself in their bathroom, staring at him through a steamy panel of glass. He was in the shower, blissfully unaware of her. Leaving her to stand there and stare at him and remember. Lost in the memories, she thought of the way his hands had felt on her, the way he had touched her—careful, gentle—as though he feared he’d bruise her or mark her somehow.

  She didn’t miss sex. That was seriously weird, but she attributed it to being dead. Sex was for the living. She did miss the idea of it, missed being close to him, able to touch him. But it was a distant ache, almost as though he’d been lost to her for years and years.

  The pain wasn’t fresh, it wasn’t vivid and it hadn’t been, not even from the first. More weirdness to death, she supposed.

  And another weirdness—her ability to know what they were thinking.

  It was as though the words passing through their minds created a sound only she could hear. Now that had taken a while to get used to. Hearing his grief had been harder on her than anything else since her death. Sometimes it was still so raw, if she could have wept with him, she would have.

  But his pain had lessened over the past few months and Alyssa knew if he’d just give himself a chance, he could let her go. Whether Bree believed it or not, Colby was ready to move on and Alyssa was damn well going to do whatever she could to convince him to move on to Bree.

  Leaning against the marbled countertop, she watched as Colby finished his shower. When the door opened, she studied him. A frown darkened her face and the downward spiral of her thoughts made the room’s temperature drop a few degrees. Angry or upset ghosts had a chilling effect but it wasn’t until she saw him rub his arms that she realized what she was doing. Reining her thoughts in, she tried not to think about how lean he’d become. He’d lost too much weight over the past year.

  Shoving away from the counter, she moved toward Colby, testing him. He never once glanced her way. She wondered once more why he could hear her but not see her. Bree was the rational, grounded type. Colby believed in ghosts, spooks and Big Foot. He should be the one seeing her, not the other way around.

  Alyssa waved a hand in front of him, but still, he didn’t react. Satisfied, she said, “She loves you.”

  He stilled.

  How her voice sounded to him, she really didn’t know. For all she knew, she sounded like herself, just more distant. That was what Bree said—as if she spoke from the bottom of a deep well.

  She trailed a hand down his arm, her fingers lingering to touch the gold band on his third finger. “It’s time to take this off, Colby.”

  He jerked away, his hand clenched into a protective fist. His gaze came up, searching the room, but he wasn’t going to see her. So Alyssa settled for resting a hand on his chest and stroking downward. Down. Down. He felt abnormally hot to her, but everything seemed warmer than she remembered. Why should he be any different? He had secured a towel around his waist but she slid her fingers inside it and tugged. He hissed, eyes going wide as he backed away.

  “You don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone,” she whispered, remaining still as he grabbed his jeans from the floor and pulled them on over his wet, nude body.

  “I’m going insane.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I am going fucking insane.”

  Alyssa laughed. “You’re not going crazy.”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw as he finished buttoning his jeans, but he didn’t say anything, just stared off into the distance. She started toward him. “She’s been waiting a long time for you.”

  This time, his gaze flew toward her, tracking the sound of her voice. But he still didn’t see her. “Why did you come home, Colby? It wasn’t about this place. It doesn’t mean anything to you. Not anymore.”

  One thing Colby was certain about, if he was going crazy, he was pretty sure it was natural for some part of his brain to still argue that he was sane and rational. Even if the voice sounded like the echo of his dead wife. So the soft, almost a
mused assurance, You’re not going crazy, didn’t do a damn thing to reassure him.

  Crazy people didn’t really think they were crazy, he figured.

  And crazy people definitely heard voices.

  Did they feel people touching them, even when they were alone in a room?

  Shoving a hand through damp, tousled hair, he tossed his towel in the general direction of the shower and said aloud, “I’m leaving now.”

  A low, sad laugh filled the room.

  He turned to go, determined to just ignore his current hallucination. It would go away, sooner or later, right?

  “Going to keep hiding away, Colby? How did that ever solve anything?”

  He stopped in the doorway. Slowly, he turned around, but there was nobody in there. He saw nothing. His voice hard and firm, he said, “I am not hiding.”

  Then he left the room.

  Something light, oddly soothing, touched his shoulder. He hissed and jerked, scanning the room. “If you’re not hiding, then go find her. She’s the reason you came back. Not this house. Admit it. Even if you can only admit it to yourself for now…stop hiding.”

  He wasn’t going to hide. He didn’t come here to hide.

  He came to tie up loose ends and decide what in the hell he was going to do with his life. That had nothing to do with hiding.

  As he made the thirty-minute drive to the cemetery, he even managed to almost make himself believe that.

  Then he saw Bree sitting by the grave as he made his way up the path.

  She’s the reason you came back…

  He hadn’t seen her since she’d left his place a week earlier and he really didn’t want to see her now.

  Liar! Okay, well at least that thought actually felt like his own and it wasn’t ringing in his ears like the echo of Alyssa’s voice.

  Stop hiding.

  He wasn’t hiding. He just…well, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to see her yet. That was all. But the memory of that soft chastising kept him from backing away, even though he wanted to.

  It would have been easy enough to leave. She hadn’t seen him yet and since he hadn’t seen her bike or her truck in the main parking lot, he figured she’d parked in one of the smaller ones. He could just avoid her until she left, make this first visit to his wife’s grave in privacy.

  He didn’t though.

  That voice kept whispering through his mind and he had to wonder if maybe his hallucinations weren’t on to something.

  She’s the reason you came back…

  The house didn’t matter to him.

  Hell, his career didn’t matter to him. It had been a year since he’d written a damn thing and he couldn’t care less. Even though he knew he should.

  But the house, his writing, his career, none of it seemed real. Nothing seemed real anymore, not since Alyssa had died in his arms. Well, nothing except dreams that made him hot with lust and sick with guilt. Until Bree had walked back into his life seven days earlier, or rather, until he had walked back into hers, nothing but those dreams had affected him.

  Seeing her made him feel more alive than he had felt since losing his wife and if not for the guilt choking him, he might have even enjoyed it. But the guilt, man, it was killing him. How wrong of him was it to think about how damn pretty she was as he joined her at his wife’s grave? He laid a single pale-pink rose in front of the headstone and then sank down to the grass to sit by Bree.

  “A year.”

  Her voice was huskier than normal, soft and sad. He glanced at her and could tell she’d been crying. “Yeah. I can’t believe it.”

  “Me either.”

  She licked her lips and glanced up at the sky. “At least it isn’t pouring down rain today.”

  He thought back, remembered the unseasonably cold rain that had poured from the sky the day they buried Alyssa. That rain had chilled him through and through, freezing him in a way that had gone deeper than just the surface. It had frozen him clear through to the heart and he’d been grateful. He hadn’t wanted to feel anything. Hadn’t wanted to grieve. Grieving meant letting go and he hadn’t been ready to do that.

  The hot sun shone down on his back, warming him through the simple white polo shirt he’d unearthed from his closet. He could feel Bree’s body heat along his side, warming him in a way the sun never could. And he could smell her—that soft, sexy scent that had nothing to do with any store-bought lotion or perfume.

  She was so damn different from Alyssa. Smooth, caramel-colored skin, dark gray, quiet eyes that seemed to notice everything, a long, lean body with those dangerously sexy curves.

  Aside from that pinup body, everything about Bree was subtle.

  Everything about Alyssa had been vivid, intense, fast—just like her life. She had worn a riot of colors, had talked fast, jumping from one subject to the next with a speed that often left the listener struggling to keep up. Five-feet-four, a lush ripe figure, her long blondish-red hair a mass of spirals and ringlets. She’d spend nearly forty-five minutes a day on her hair, another twenty or thirty picking out her clothes and putting on makeup. Completely female. He couldn’t go into the bathroom without finding something lacy and frilly and pink draped somewhere. He’d loved it. He’d loved watching her slick herself down with lotion, loved watching her mess with her hair, loved everything about her.

  But he’d spent half of the last year since her death fantasizing about her best friend.

  Maybe it was the polarity of the two. Bree was so damn different from Alyssa—always had been.

  Or maybe you’re just realizing there’s an attraction there.

  That thought was quickly followed by a rush of guilt. Realizing an attraction, admitting to one that had started within weeks—no, hours—of burying his wife, what kind of bastard did that make him?

  It had only been hours after they’d buried Alyssa that he’d found himself lying on the floor in Bree’s house, her arms around him, his head pillowed on her thigh and his mind full of her. He’d looked at her…and wanted.

  So what kind of bastard was he?

  The human kind? You’re not dead.

  “You ever think you’re going stark-raving mad?” he asked abruptly.

  She glanced at him. A smile tugged at her lips and she shrugged. “Daily. Sometimes hourly. Why?”

  He sighed. “Just wondering.”

  A breeze drifted across the cemetery, bringing with it the smells of fresh earth and flowers. Bree. It wrapped around him, taunting, teasing. The memory of the voice whispering in his ear, She’s the reason you came back.

  Stupid. Fucking moronic. Why would he have come back because of Bree? She had been his wife’s best friend.

  Just Alyssa’s friend? Not yours?

  Okay, so yeah, she’d been a friend to him as well. But it was friendship. Nothing more. At least not since he’d gotten past that high-school infatuation years ago. He was a one-woman guy. He had been happy that way. Alyssa had been it for him and he had been it for her. They’d been each other’s first love, each other’s first lover. He’d planned on them being the only. But fate had stepped in and taken Alyssa away.

  He couldn’t see himself spending the rest of his life celibate. Even depressed and eaten up inside with guilt, the past year had made him all too aware that he wasn’t cut out for a life without sex.

  It wouldn’t be too difficult, he didn’t think, to get laid. A quick, anonymous fuck would ease the ache in his balls but that idea held about as much appeal as jacking off in the shower.

  He wanted sex, wanted to feel a woman beneath him, her arms around him, rising to meet him as he rode her.

  But he had no right wanting it from Bree.

  She was his friend.

  Bree said, “Colby?”

  But he wasn’t listening to her. It was the third time she’d said his name and he was staring off into the distance as though something out there held him spellbound.

  Sighing, she pushed to her feet. Pausing by his side, she stroked a hand down his hair. Befor
e she could walk away, though, he reached out, caught her wrist.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, without looking at her.

  With a shrug, she replied, “Back to work. Have a few more clients to hit before I can call it a day. Besides, you need some time to yourself, don’t you?”

  He lifted his head slowly, their gazes connecting. Something in her heart stuttered to a halt at the heat she saw in his eyes. Then he blinked and it was gone, as though it had never existed. “Yeah. Not a bad idea.” His thumb stroked along the inner skin of her wrist. He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but what, she had no clue.

  “Colby?”

  He squeezed her wrist gently, then let go. “You mind if I call you in a few days? Maybe we could get a bite to eat or something.”

  “Sure.”

  When he let go, Bree felt the loss of contact clear down to her feet.

  Get over it already. Get over him.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  If she hadn’t been able to make herself get over him as he married her best friend, she wasn’t going to force herself to get over him now that Alyssa was gone.

  Chapter Four

  A week passed.

  Two.

  Three.

  She didn’t hear from Colby, didn’t see him when she went to take care of Alyssa’s flowers. By the third week, she knew he wasn’t going to call and she told herself she wasn’t disappointed.

  She wasn’t, either. Not really. As much as she might have enjoyed eating a meal with him, she didn’t need to expose any more of herself to him.

  So when it was time to head back out to his place, she did it during the week, figured it would be quicker, easier, if her crew went with her—the less time spent at his place the better. While her crew cut the grass and tended to the front yard, she was in the back, yanking up more of the stubborn weeds, thinning out the pansies and lilies, pruning the rose bushes.