It was time to settle this once and for all. I had to admire his determination, although it wouldn’t do him any good. “If you force her to decide between the two of us, you’ll lose,” I told him flat out.
Greg sighed. “I was hoping we would avoid putting her in that position.”
Of course he was. I’d win and he knew it.
“If you think I’m going to step aside so you can steal away the woman I love, then you’re in for a big disappointment.”
Greg grinned. “That isn’t why I decided the two of us needed to meet and have this talk.”
Despite the fact that he cared about Jo Marie, which made me want to punch him in the gut, I admired his openness and honesty. Arranging this meeting wasn’t comfortable for either of us.
“Then why are you here?” I demanded.
Greg met my look, his own eyes as dark and as resolute as mine. “I’m here to square things with you. Man to man.”
“Square what?” In my mind’s eye there was nothing to square. Jo Marie was mine.
“You need to know I love Jo Marie, too. I care about her. She told me you’re considering returning to Iraq. I understand this isn’t an easy decision and that you’re torn between doing what Jo Marie wants and whatever it is you’re being asked to do.”
He had me pegged.
“The thing is, in an effort to be up front and honest, I felt it was only fair you know that if you do decide to go back to the Middle East I plan to take full advantage of your absence.”
His words had a curious effect on me. They were like a vine that wrapped its way around my torso with small thorns that dug menacingly into my flesh, drawing blood.
“And if I don’t go?” I asked, pinning him with my gaze.
Greg hesitated. “I’d like to say I’d be man enough to gracefully step aside, but the truth is I won’t.”
“What do you intend to do?” Although I asked, I didn’t actually expect him to reveal his battle plan. After all, I was clearly his enemy in winning over Jo Marie’s heart.
Instead of directly answering my question, he asked one of his own. “Have you ever been married?”
“No.”
“I suspected as much. I was. Julie died the same year as Paul.”
Greg and Jo Marie shared a common bond. So what?
“We both know what it means to love another with everything that is within us. We’ve both dealt with grief, a grief that has forever marked our souls. You love Jo Marie and I understand that better than you realize. I love her, too. Like I said earlier, it wouldn’t serve either of us well if we made her choose between us.”
“You don’t want to force her into a decision because you know she’d choose me,” I repeated. I didn’t want to sound smug, but it was the simple truth.
His smile was equally self-assured. “Are you sure of that, Mark? You admitted you’re a different person, but then so is she. When you moved away, leaving her blind as to your reasons, leaving her bereft and lost, it nearly destroyed her. It was a betrayal.”
“She knows why.” I wasn’t about to explain myself to him.
“She knows now, but she didn’t at the time. When you left it marked her. You made it clear the chances you’d be returning were next to nil. You voluntarily turned your back on her and it devastated her.”
In a defensive gesture, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“You don’t seem to realize how badly you hurt the woman who loved you.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t ever hurt her?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Not in the same way, because I know what it did to her when you walked away. She’d given you her heart, trusted you, cared for you, and then almost overnight you were gone.”
“To an extent that’s true, but I had a friend explain after I left.”
“Bob. Yes, I’ve met him.”
“You’ve met Bob?” This felt like a small treachery to know that Jo Marie had introduced Greg to Bob.
“And Peggy, too. They’re good friends to Jo Marie and have stood by her, comforted her, encouraged her, because you weren’t here. I don’t think you appreciate the agony Jo Marie was in for the last year, wondering if you were dead or alive, desperate for word, any word. And now you’re asking her to do it again.”
I couldn’t argue with anything he said. Not one thing.