Texas! Chase #2 by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

resistance when he gave her arm a tug, but eventually she relented and returned to her stool. Her chin was held high, but after their exchanged stare had stretched out for several moments, her lower lip began to quiver.
    "You do blame me for Tanya's death, don't nil you?

    He took both her hands, pressing them between his. "No," he said with quiet insistence.
    "No. I never wanted to give you that impression. I'm sorry if I have."
    "When you came to my hospital room the morning after the accident, I asked you if you blamed me.
    Remember?"
    "No. I was saturated with grief. I don't remember much about those first few weeks after it happened.
    Lucky told me later that I
    acted like a nut case.
    "But I do remember that I didn't harbor a grudge against you, Marcie. I blame the boy who ran the stop sign. I blame God. Not you.
    You were a victim, too. I saw that today when you were driving us home."
    He stared at their clasped hands, but he
    didn't really see them. Nor did he feel them as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the ridge of her knuckles.
    "I loved Tanya so much, Marcie."
    "I know that."
    "But you can't understand… nobody can understand how much I loved her. She was kind and caring.
    She never wanted to make waves, couldn't abide anyone's being upset.
    She knew how to tease enough to make it fun but not enough to hurt. Never to hurt. We had terrific sex.
    She made bad days better and good days great."
    He pulled in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. "Then she was gone. So suddenly. So irretrievably.
    There was just this empty place, vapor, where she had been."
    He felt an unmanly lump forming in his throat and swallowed it with difficulty. "I told her good-bye. Gave her a hug and a kiss.
    Waved to her as she left with you. The next time I saw her, she was stretched out on a slab in the morgue. It was cold. Her lips were blue."
    "Chase."
    "And the baby. My baby. It died inside her."
    Scalding tears filled his eyes. He withdrew his hands from Marcie's and crammed his fists into his eye sockets. "Christ."
    "It's okay to cry."

    He felt her hand on his shoulder, kneading gently. "If only I had gone with you like she wanted me to, maybe it wouldn't have happened."
    "You don't know that."
    "Why didn't I go? What was so damned important that I couldn't get away? If I had, maybe I would have been sitting where she was. Maybe she would have been spared to have our baby, and I would have died. I wish
    I had. I wanted to."
    "No, you didn't." Marcie's harsh tone of voice brought his head up. He lowered his hands from his eyes.
    "If you say anything like that again, I'll slap you again."
    "It's the truth, Marcie."
    "It is not," she declared, shaking her head adamantly. "If you really wanted to die, why aren't you buried beside Tanya now? Why haven't you pulled the trigger or driven off the bridge or picked up the razor or swallowed a handful of pills?" She came to her feet, quaking with outrage as she bore down on him.
    "There are dozens of ways one can do away with himself, Chase. Booze and easy women and bull riding are among them. But they sure as hell aren't the fastest means of self-destruction.
    So either you're lying about seriously desiring death or you're grossly inefficient.
    All you've done effectively is fall apart at the seams and make life miserable for everyone around you."
    He came to his feet, too. Grief wasn't paining his injured chest now so much as anger.
    "Just where the hell do you get off talking to me like this? When you've lost the person you love, when you've lost a child, then you'll be
    at liberty to talk to me about falling apart.
    Until that time, get out of my life and leave me alone."
    "Fine. But not before leaving you with one final thought. You're not honoring Tanya with this kind of bereavement. It's unintelligent and unhealthy. For the brief time I knew her, she impressed me as one of the most life-loving people I'd ever met. She positively idolized you, Chase. In her eyes you could do no wrong.