Page 58 of Colt
None of that had prepared me for standing on Betty’s porch in a button-down shirt, holding a bouquet of daisies, waiting to take my own wife on a date.
Ex-wife, some old reflex said. Seven years of calling her that—in my head, on paper, in the dark when I couldn’t stop thinking about her walking away.
But the divorce was a fraud. Based on a lie. Signatures forged while she was unconscious in a hospital bed, under a name that wasn’t even hers. It was a document Death’s Head had fast-tracked to keep me from looking for her, and it had worked.
She was my wife. Had been the whole time. Didn’t care what a piece of paper said. Didn’t need a piece of paper to claim her.
I’d been taking it slow all the same. Weeks of showing up, keeping my hands to myself, letting her set the pace. The boys needed stable. She needed time. I’d told myself that every day until Dutch called me into his office this morning on some bullshit pretense about the Louisville contracts and then looked at me the way he looked at prospects who’d fucked up.
“You’re taking Lilac to dinner tonight.”
I’d opened my mouth. “She’s got amnesia. I don’t want to push. The boys—”
“Indira and I will take the boys.” He’d spread his hands. “Betty says there’s no medical reason you two can’t have a conversation without six-year-olds in the room. Lilac might not have her memory, but those boys need parents who talk to each other.”
“We talk all the time.”
Dutch had grinned. “Talk talk.”
I hadn’t had a response to that.
“I ain’t asking,” he’d said. “I’m telling you. You’re picking her up at seven. You got a problem with that, take it up with Indira.”
The door had cracked open. Indira leaned in, already shaking her head.
“Nope. Not up for discussion. Seven o’clock.”
Then the door closed.
I’d looked at Dutch. He was already back to the contracts.
“She has a new fancy dress that Indira bought for her after she noticed her eyeing it up last weekend,” he said, not looking up. “In case you were wondering what kind of restaurant to make a reservation for.”
So here I was. Button-down shirt. Daisies. Betty’s porch.
The door opened and I stood there like an idiot.
Lilac was wearing a deep purple dress that hugged her curves and fell just above her knees. Her hair was down, loose waves I hadn’t seen since before—since a different life in Texas. She’d put on lipstick. Something deep and dark that made my mouth go dry.
For weeks I’d seen her in soft, worn things: cardigans, jeans with grass stains from the yard, her hair pulled back while she helped our boys with homework. I’d learned to want her in those too, had trained myself not to reach every time she passed close enough to touch.
But this. This was something else entirely. This was the woman I married, looking at me like she wasn’t sure what to do with me.
“Hi.” Her voice was soft, almost shy.
“You look…” I had to clear my throat. The wordbeautifulfelt insufficient. Embarrassingly insufficient. “I don’t have the right word for it.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Indira said I needed something that wasn’t covered in paint or playground dirt to remind myself who I was.”
“Remind me to thank her.” I held out the daisies. “These are for you. I remember—” I caught myself. “I thought you might like them.”
She reached for the flowers and our fingers almost touched at the stems—a near-miss, her hand brushing the edge of mine. She didn’t seem to notice.
I wanted to close my hand around hers.
“They’re my favorite. How did you know?”
Because you told me on our third date. Because I brought them to you every time I came home from a run, every birthday, every anniversary.
