Gone by Annabel Wolfe Page A

had to make some tough calls. I really can’t tell you much more than that. It is simple and complicated at once. I get it. Having someone tell you this is the limit of the information available has made me crazy more than once.”
    He wasn’t crazy. That was part of the problem. He was entirely too intelligent and aware, and there was a part of her that wondered since the country needed men and women exactly like him, how selfish it was to not want to share him with everyone else.
    The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few …
    Only this wasn’t a Star Trek movie and he wasn’t just any heroic figure, he was her husband, and while she’d been fed up and frustrated and willing to walk out the door, she’d discovered something interesting in the past half a year.
    “I don’t know if I can live without you,” she whispered, looking up at him, their mouths inches apart. “But I can’t promise you I can live with you either. If you have a suggestion, I’d love to hear it. Be honest with me, Pete…are we better off with you or without you? Every single time I told myself I should pick up the phone and tell you about the baby I stopped, and it took me six months to come to a decision and I still don’t know if it is the right one.”
    His hand lifted to touch her hair, just a feathering of his fingers through the loose strands. “Does that mean you’re coming back?”
    She was sure he had no idea how many hours she’d spent awake in the dark wondering about what she would say if she was asked just that question.
    In the end, Kathy took in a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
    “Please consider it. God knows I have leave coming. I’ll move heaven and earth to be here for the delivery.”
    His smile was slow, and not quite too late, though she had been starting to wonder if it was ever going to surface. “I like you this way. It’s very sexy. I didn’t realize I would feel so…much.”
    The opposite was true for her. She’d known exactly what she’d feel, and when he tentatively bent his head to brush his mouth gently against hers, she kissed him back, one hand coming up to rest on the muscled strength of his shoulder. Tears stung her eyes. “I missed you,” she whispered against his lips. “And I wish I’d never have to tell you that again.”

Chapter Nine
    Nicole and Eric arrived separately, Eric parking his sports car far out on the grassy edge of the drive, a little bit away from the already long line of vehicles. By the time Nicole pulled in fifteen minutes later, the cookout was well underway, the backyard full of people both under the tent Jack’s mother had rented and strolling around in the grass.
    At first he’d objected, half-laughing when she called it a “reverse wake”, but then he acknowledged it was just as well to see all his old friends and the relatives who could make it all at once. At least fifty people were expected, so he figured by the end of the evening he’d be weary of back slaps and affectionate hugs, but at least that would be over.
    “This will be the hard part,” Eric murmured, standing next to him, casual in worn jeans and a Purdue T-shirt exactly like his favorite shirt from their college days, a plastic cup in his hand. “For the rest of this party how the three of us act toward each other is going to be under a microscope.”
    Jack took a sip of his own beer. While his mother had promised she wouldn’t go to too much trouble, she’d ordered a keg of beer, there were coolers full of ice and bottled water, liters of soda, and his dad was at the grill already, flipping hamburgers and cooking ribs. Casual might apply, but “no trouble” did not.
    He replied, “I hear you there, brother.”
    Nicole found his mother first and they hugged for a long, poignant moment and when they released each other, Jack saw his mother wipe her eyes. The sun was warm on his shoulders, but he felt a small chill. He could have so easily lost all of this. All the laughter,