Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,87

been so handsome. So stern. But that hadn’t been him. Fritz had laughed and loved and was generous to a fault.

She shoved her phone at Tom, who sucked in a harsh breath.

“Oh.”

She laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Oh.”

Because Fritz Pohlmann and Tom Hunter could have been brothers. Same body type, same size, same chiseled jaw, same blond hair. Fritz’s eyes had been brown, though. At least when she’d looked into his eyes, she’d seen Fritz. Not Tom.

“He looks like . . .” He trailed off, staring at the screen.

She took her phone from his hand and turned it off. “You. He looks like you.”

Tom lifted his gaze to hers, searching for what, she wasn’t sure. “Why did you marry him?”

She swallowed hard, shame forming like a boulder in her chest. “I shouldn’t have. But . . .” She sighed. “You’d met Tory. You’d popped the question and she’d said yes.”

He flinched. “When did you get married?”

“February first would have been our first anniversary. He was dead by March first.” She’d gone to New Jersey on the anniversary of his death, to grieve with his family. It had nearly torn her apart. Meeting Mercy and the Sokolovs a month later had pulled her out of a dark place.

“Tory died on March fifth,” he whispered. “I told you that she was pregnant around the end of January. Is that why you married him?”

“No.” And that was true. “I’d already let you go by then. It was a wake-up call, though. You were living your life. I wanted to live mine. Fritz wanted me.” Which couldn’t have sounded more pathetic if she’d tried.

His expression went carefully blank. “I’m sorry, Liza. I didn’t know how you felt.”

He was sorry. That hurt more than anything. “Didn’t matter. You didn’t feel the same way.”

“No,” he said simply. “I didn’t.”

She recoiled, his words a physical blow. She’d thought it couldn’t hurt worse, but she’d been very wrong. “I know.”

His very audible swallow was followed by a less than graceful escape. He lurched to his feet, backing from her room. When he cleared the door, he bolted and ran down the stairs.

She heard the kitchen door close and the house was silent once more.

She stared at the place where he had been for a minute, shocked by his sudden departure, shocked by the bluntness of his words.

He’d run. From me. He’d been disgusted and he’d run. Her vision blurred, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever been so weary. I can’t keep doing this. Something had to change.

She cleared the laptop and notebook from her bed and straightened the blankets as best she could with a one-hundred-twenty-pound Great Dane sprawled over them. “I can’t stay here,” she told Pebbles, who got up, turned in a circle, and flopped down beside her, big doggy head on the other pillow. “I’ll find a new place to live and come back to see you when I can.”

But she knew deep down that wasn’t going to happen. She needed to cut Tom Hunter out of her life completely and move on. Again.

ROCKLIN, CALIFORNIA

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 5:30 A.M.

Tom stared at the image that filled his computer screen. Friedrich Pohlmann, known as Fritz to his family and friends. It was his official army photo.

It was also his obituary.

Fritz Pohlmann was the beloved son of Marian and Kristofer Pohlmann and was survived by two brothers and two sisters. And by his wife, Liza.

Liza had been married. To a man who looked like me.

Tom didn’t know what to think. How to feel. It was . . . shocking. Numbing. But below that was a current of hurt. Maybe even betrayal.

She hadn’t told him about Fritz.

He wondered if she’d told Fritz about him.

He studied Fritz’s face, stoic and unsmiling in his uniform. It wasn’t like they could have been twins. But the resemblance was obvious at a glance. Same jaw, same hair. Same build.

Different eyes. Fritz’s were brown and, in the more personal family photos attached to the online obit, appeared joyful. His smile was broad.

Especially in the photo taken the day he and Liza had married. The man looked too damn happy as he stared adoringly at his wife.

Wife.

It was too much, and Tom had to click away from their wedding photo. He wasn’t even sure why. Because she’d been married at all? Because she’d married someone else?

No, that wasn’t it. Tom was sure of that. Mostly sure.

It was, he decided, because she’d never told anyone. Or had she? Had she told Dana and Ethan Buchanan? She hadn’t at