Why Now? Read Online Free Page B

together. Nothing like how my Gram went. Still, I’m not sure which is a worse way of dying.
    “That’s a shame. Your mom is one heck of a good woman, she still well enough for visitors? I’d like to see her while I’m in town.”
    His voice is thick when he replies, “She’d like that. She always liked you.”
    “No accounting for taste,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
    He gives a halfhearted laugh. “You always had a way with women.”
    All I can do is nod. It’s pointless to tell him all of that attention meant nothing. A way with women, fuck, what the hell does that even mean? They never wanted me. They only wanted what they thought they saw in me. Sad thing is, what they saw and who I was were never the same thing.
     

 
     
    There’s a bell over the door of the pizza place that jingles every time it opens. Without fail, I always look up out of curiosity. It’s Heath and redness hits my cheeks when his eyes find mine. Heath Mackey, my fiancé.
    I still can’t believe I said yes.
    It is without a doubt the craziest thing I’ve ever done. My gaze moves down to my ring finger. There, for all the world to see is his grandmother’s engagement ring. At work today, the whole office freaked out when they saw it. It was the strangest thing. I’ve worn rings before, even on that finger, yet no one has ever noticed them.
    Everyone noticed this ring. It’s not that it’s a giant rock or anything. It’s simple, classic. A perfect fit.
    When Heath took me over to tell his mother and ask for the ring, Mrs. Mackey cried, which made me cry. We sat on each side of her as she held my hand and cupped his cheek with her other hand, her eyes solely on him.
    “I could not have dreamed of a better wife for you, Heathcliff,” she had said.
    He hadn’t cried, but watching him sniffle and blink while his eyes softly held his mama’s was my undoing. It’s a side of Heath I never knew. Even though I’m still scared we’re making a mistake, seeing him that way made me think that, maybe, we could learn to love each other.
    Shyly, I smile at him. He flashes me a grin before looking over his shoulder and holding the door for the person coming in behind him.
    I do a slow blink when I see who it is.
    Jake Whitmore is here.
    No!
    Why?
    How?
    My gaze shifts to Reilly. She looks guilty.
    There’s no time to call her out on it. Heath and Jake are heading our way.
    She stands, her face splitting in a wide grin; she opens her arms wide as she calls, “Jake!”
    Reilly is tall but Jake is TALL. His bear hug easily dwarfs her. Like an addiction I’ll never shake, I drink him in.
    Over the years, his looks have changed. Before he worked on the oilrig, his hair had a messy bad boy quality to it. Now he keeps it buzzed short. My fingertips itched to run over his scalp, or maybe his neck.
    Is it possible to have a sexy neck?
    The answer is yes because Jake Whitmore had a sexy as hell neck. It was thick, but not in a way that made it disappear like those weightlifters whose necks disappear the bigger their muscles get. Just the thought of muscles drew my eyes to his chest and his arms. He was solid, so incredibly solid. He had a way of making my belly flip without even saying a word.
    Part of me thought that another man’s ring on my finger would lessen the pull he had over me. A year ago, I would have stood and patiently waited in line for my hug.
    A year ago, I would have tried to convince myself that the way he hugged me was different from the way he hugged Reilly, even though it wasn’t. A year ago, I still loved him. A year ago, and every year before that, it killed me that he hugged me like a little sister.
    A year ago, I decided to stop pathetically throwing myself at him.
    I haven’t hugged him since, even though I wanted to. What other way will I ever fall out of love with him? I make no move to stand.
    Releasing her, Jake’s face turns to look at me. “Hey, Killer.”
    Heat hits my cheek at his nickname for me and