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Raoul flicked the collar of his jacket up and pulled his beanie doer on his head The weather had turned bitter cold Or maybe it just seemed that way since Alexis had left four weeks, three days and two hours ago He could count the minutes, too, but that had proven to be a fast track to Crazyville

God, he missed her It went beyond the physical As nore it and push her away, he missed what she’d come to mean to hier sharing her bed after he found out about the pregnancy He’d assushe felt for her touch But the longing had become much worse, instead—now there was so h, the sound of her voice The warht to his life

The house just didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel like a home Ruby had become more irritable than she’d been under Alexis’s care and he found hi over Jenny with the babyto trust her with the child

As a result, Ruby had begun to turn to hi loudly if he didn’t pay her the attention she obviously felt she was due He felt the bond between hier every day And this tiht it

Soht around her little finger, and now she had a hold on his heart that terrified him and thrilled hi forwardti her bedtih

When she’d caught a cold from one of the other children at the play center, he’d been the one who’d sat up with her in a steahed and spluttered herself back to sleep He’d been the one to take her to the doctor every day until the doctor himself had told hi to be okay and to stop wasting their time

He began to have a new appreciation for what Alexis had done in caring for her, and how she’d hted his own inadequacies as a father, and as a ate his responsibilities to others—that it was enough to simply provide, but not to participate How he’d made hih o away

He’d been such a fool

And that’s what had led hi place He laid the bunch of yellow roses, her favorite, at the base of her headstone and knelt beside her grave The ground felt cold, so cold—as cold as his heart had been for far too long

For quite a while he said nothing, re to the birds in the trees around hi here since the day they’d buried her He’d told himself it didn’t one, she wasn’t here anymore But when he’d known he needed to talk to her, really talk, one last time, it had only been natural to do it here

A cool orked its way around hi around his ears He shivered He’d been coain until he’d done this He took a deep breath and let it out slowly

Any other ti to talk out loud to a headstone, but today nothing else had ever felt so right

“Hi, Bree, it’s h As if it would be anyone else “I know I should have been here ry at you, Bree, so bloody ht anymore”

Exasperation, fury, helplessness—they all flooded through hi me about the aneurysm? How could you have kept that from me? I wanted a family, but I wanted you more Why couldn’t you tell me about the risks?”

The cold air whipped around him more sharply and he pulled the collar of his jacket closed around his throat He stayed like that for a while, not daring to speak for the emotion that built up inside him like a volcano about to blow He closed his eyes and when he opened histhat ca ein to subside