Free Remember Tuesday Morning by Karen Kingsbury Page A

breeze off the lake and washed over him in a way he could still remember.
“What?” He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “What wonderful thing do you hope for, Holly Brooks?”
She smiled. “I hope God’s plans for me always include you.”
“They will.” His answer was as quick as it was certain. “Because I meant what I said a few days ago.” He touched the side of her cheek, wanting her to see the seriousness in his eyes. “I love you, Holly.”
For a long time neither of them looked away, and with indelible ink the moment wrote itself across Alex’s heart. Finally Holly touched her fingers to his, her eyes seeing deep inside him. “I love you too. So don’t ever leave me, okay?”
“I won’t.” He pulled her close, and she rested her head against his chest. Alex was never sure how long they stayed there that night. The fact was, in some ways no matter how much he tried to let go of her memory, she was still there. Sitting beside him in the moonlight in the Adirondacks, knowing they would never leave each other for anything.
Alex took a deep breath and again willed the memories to leave. He squinted at the house ahead of him. Still no movement, so maybe tonight wasn’t the night to catch them in the act. But that didn’t discourage him. As long as he knew their meeting place, he’d be back, and their meeting would break and he’d follow them down the hill until they put their plates back on, or maybe he’d come on a day that wasn’t Wednesday and the house would be empty and he could look around, maybe stumble onto something that gave him probable cause to search the place.
He turned the key in the engine, kept his lights off, and slowly pulled out of his hiding place in the bushes. Bo stirred in the back, and Alex heard him scramble to a sitting position.
“It’s okay, Bo … we’re going home.” Alex waited until he was halfway down the winding road before he turned on his headlights and picked up speed.
The thing that bothered him most about Holly was that he’d hurt her. Even after his dad died in the terrorist attacks, the last thing he’d wanted was to harm her in any way. He tried to explain it to her, that when the terrorists had killed his dad, they’d killed something inside of him too. He couldn’t love like he’d loved before.
He wanted to live his life as a memorial to his father, and that left no room for relationships. Holly didn’t believe him at first. She figured all Alex needed was to work through his anger and loss, and they could be fine again, the way they’d been before. But she was wrong. The part that laughed and loved and trusted God wasn’t broken inside Alex; it was gone. Forever gone. And he could never subject Holly to a lifetime with someone who was no longer capable of those kinds of feelings.
He reached the on-ramp and sped up as he entered the Ventura Freeway again, this time south toward his townhouse. He hadn’t talked to her in many years, and that could only be good for Holly. By now she would’ve met someone kind and trustworthy, someone with the faith he’d walked away from. He tightened his hold on the steering wheel. Yes, she was probably married and starting a family, smack in the middle of a life she perfectly deserved.
His precious Holly.
Because it wasn’t that he no longer cared about her, and that’s the part he never could get her to understand. No one would ever take Holly’s place in his heart. He would die for her right now if it meant assuring her happiness, giving her the life she had dreamed of having all those years ago on that moonlit night by the lake. No matter how he tried to explain himself, Holly couldn’t see that his care for her was what forced him to leave, what drove him to load up his car and move as far away from New York as possible. She didn’t understand that releasing her was maybe his greatest and final act of love, because it nearly killed him to do it. But in the end he had no choice. The part inside him