goats to the north side of the mountain when he came back. I see they’re gone, so he must have.”
“Do you think he heard?” he asked thickly. His hands started to burn from holding the ice-cold meat.
“Heard what?” Ginny didn’t take her eyes off the path.
“My lame apology,” he said thickly.
“There wasn’t anything lame about your apology.” Placing the preserves in the crook of her elbow, she wound her free arm through his. “It was a straightforward apology, which I appreciated you saying.”
“You’re not mad at me anymore?” Licking dry lips, which he blamed on the high altitude and the fear of how she would answer his question.
“I was never mad at you.” She slipped her hand down to link their fingers together. “I was more hurt than anything else.”
“You’re not hurt anymore?” He experimentally squeezed her hand inside of his.
“No, I’m not hurt anymore.”
Ginny squeezed his hand back, the motion releasing the stitch in his side, allowing air to flow freely through his lungs. The reason why was just as scary as having trouble breathing.
Since she had exposed her feelings for him, somewhere along the way, he started to believe her. When she said she was going to back off and give him space, he felt as if a rug had been swept out from under him. Now Ginny’s forgiveness was righting his world again.
Reaper hated himself for accepting it when she would have done better telling him to leave. For her well-being, he was worse than the virus taking over the country. At least with the virus, she would have a chance at a normal life when it was over. Loving him, her chance of being happy plummeted to a probability of zero.
Ghosts weren’t granted happily ever afters.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Are you sure this is the right house?”
The dark house gave him the fucking willies.
Aaron watched Lena take out her cell phone, to double-check the numbers brightly lit on the exterior of the house under the porch light. “I’m sure. Look, there’s the bench with the red cushions that he said would be there.”
Looking through the windshield to where his wife was pointing increased the trepidation he was feeling.
“We should just go, Lena. This doesn’t feel right.”
“You promised me we could do this.”
Her scornful glower at him conveyed the view she had of him as a wimp. The many times she blamed herself for ever marrying him in the first place were too numerous to count. Each marked by his refusal to halt the risky sexual encounters she thrived on. He had never fulfilled her sexual needs, and she made sure he had been told that fact frequently. Blaming him for being a coward and leaving her to take the incentive to find the gratification she craved—which he was unable to fulfill.
“I told you I checked him out. Whitney and Derek already made another appointment with him.”
“You’re trusting them when we’ve only talked to them a couple of times?”
Every facets of his wife’s life was cut-throat. He had seen her fire someone just because an employee had come to work one minute late. She ruled their checkbook, making him payback if he spent five dollars over what she expected to spend, yet when it came to sex her standards were lower than those of a slut.
“What else was I supposed to do, Aaron? It’s not like you’ve made any effort to replace Slate’s assistance at finding us partners.”
“I wouldn’t describe them as partners.” He tentatively looked around, seeing there weren’t any other houses nearby. The last one they had passed was a couple of miles away. Jesus, he should just file for a divorce. He would, but he was too afraid of Lena’s maliciousness directed at him in a courtroom. He didn’t trust that she wouldn’t be vengeful enough to spill the beans about their sexual diversions and place the blame on him.
“Come on. Are we going to do this or not?”
“Slate told us to hang tight until he contacted us again.”
“I didn’t marry Slate, and the last time we used him, the piece of crap he gave us wasn’t anything to brag about. Of course he’s not going to want us to find someone else—he won’t be pocketing the money we’re giving him.
“I’m going. You can stay here if you want,” she hissed through pinched lips. “I’ll tell you what you missed when I come back.”
“I’m coming.” He reluctantly got out of the car and walked up the steps with Lena to knock on the front door.
Anxiously waiting, he