Holden's Resurrection (Gemini Group #6) - Riley Edwards Page 0,77

horrible. Quite possibly one of the worst days of my life.

“We shouldn’t talk about this. I think this needs to be one of those things that’s left in the past.”

My stomach started to tighten painfully and it had nothing to do with facing Paul’s bitchy mother and sister.

“I don’t want anything left between us. We need to talk about it so in the future, nothing pops up that can hurt us.”

If he wanted to talk about it, fine.

“Well, Holden, let’s see. I found out I was pregnant. Married a man I didn’t love. As a matter of fact, if we’re being a hundred percent honest, a man I ended up not liking all that much, yet to this day I still force myself to say he was a good man and a good friend to me so my daughter will never find out her father was a cheating asshole. And so I don’t look like a bitch for speaking ill of the dead. Or saying something bad about a man who died a hero. I was very pregnant, not feeling well, Bea and Patty had been at my house the week before the funeral and had ransacked my bedroom and living room, packing up everything that belonged to Paul. I’d spent the next two days cleaning up the mess they’d made. I had made fifty-two-million phone calls, fought with the Towlers about Paul’s service. And I was a pregnant widow who had been married less than a year and was tired as hell. I wanted it over. My life had turned into a sham. A total lie. I was feeling weak, hateful, and vulnerable, and to top all of that off, you were there.

“I spent half the time looking at you, wishing my life was different. I couldn’t stop thinking about how handsome you looked in your dress uniform. Pretty fucked—my husband was in a coffin a few feet in front of me and I was thinking about you. Then shame hit. Then my parents were being over-the-top dramatic. I wanted to be anywhere but there. I was in shock mainly because that’s what one feels when someone they know gets shot and killed.”

I still hadn’t paused to take a break when I finished.

“If all of that wasn’t enough, I saw you and Patty’s friend.”

“Come again?”

“I saw you, Holden.”

“Saw me doing what?”

Jerk was going to make me say it. Fine. He was right. It was better just to let it all hang out.

“I saw the two of you together. It started at the gravesite and continued on to O’Malley’s.”

God, I’d wanted to get out of that stupid bar. Bea and Patty insisted we have a farewell after the service at Paul’s favorite bar. The only thing those two loved more than Paul’s money was the attention they got from him being a SEAL. And Bea had shamelessly abused being a Gold Star Mother, garnering all the attention she could get. Paul would’ve been pissed as shit. And most of the men who were in attendance were biting their tongues in an effort not to blast the stupid cow.

But above all else, what I remembered about that day, the very day we put Paul into the ground, was Holden leaving the bar with a very drunk blonde. The same woman who’d been hanging all over him all night.

“What continued?”

“Why are you being so obtuse?”

“Charleigh, the last thing I’m being is obtuse. I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about. If you’re talking about Shelly, I took her home.”

“I’m sure you did,” I mumbled.

“To her house. Then she stayed there alone.”

“Right.”

“Do you remember Freddy?”

“Yeah.”

Holden’s friend Freddy died in a training accident the year before I’d met Holden.

“Shelly’s Freddy’s sister. As you can imagine, burying Paul reminded her of when we buried her brother. She wasn’t acting like herself, and to top that off she got smashed at the bar. I drove her home, walked her to her door, and left. I didn’t even step one foot into her place.”

Oh. Well, I guess I read that situation wrong.

“I thought she was Patty’s friend.”

“She was. It doesn’t mean she also wasn’t Freddy’s sister, and that’s why I was putting up with a fuckton more than I would’ve from a woman I didn’t know who liked touching me.”

And Shelly had been touching him. At one point, she was trying to put her hands down his pants.

“And for the record, Shelly called me two days later to apologize. She was mortified. If memory serves,