"Are you still married to someone else?" Lindsey said.
"Now you listen here, missy-"
Lindsey didn't stop. "Problems in the bedroom?"
"Never," Aunt Jessie said. "Not ever."
Will grimaced. He'd have to thank Lindsey for that visual later.
"Money problems?" Lindsey suggested. "Religious differences? You want children and she doesn't? I've been a divorce lawyer for ten years. I can keep going all day."
"I'm dying," Donnie blurted. "You happy now? I'm dying."
He sagged against the wall that used to hold pictures of the whole family. "I'm dying," he repeated, softer.
Silence descended like a thick smoke. Will tried to pick his jaw up off the floor. Lindsey gripped his shirt where her hand had been resting on his back.
And Jessie stood there, gaping, her heart-her life-breaking before his eyes.
Will moved first. In three steps, he was at Aunt Jessie's side. He knew something about heartbreak. Knew something about being left behind. Hell if he'd let her think she was alone.
"Got cancer." Donnie swiped at his eyes. "End's coming. My momma had cancer. My daddy had cancer. Now I got cancer. I took care of 'em both for nearabouts ten years, all said and done. Ain't pretty. Jessie, darlin', you deserve a better life. You deserve a man who's whole, who can keep taking you out to the Pork'n'Fork, who can keep up with you goin' out and havin' fun. You got the whole rest of your life ahead of you. Don't need to be turning you into a nursemaid. You've given up enough for me. I don't want you doing any more."
Jessie shrugged out of Will's reach. "Donnie Boyd, you are the dumbest man God ever put on this planet, but you're my man, and I'll be danged if I'm letting you get away with this."
"Jessie. Been a good two years, but I can't ask you to spend the next forever taking care of me till I die. Sacha was right. I-"
Jessie mauled him with a hug. "You hush. You ain't going through this alone, Donnie. Not so long as I got breath in me and a heart in my chest." She had a clenched fist buried in Donnie's shirt while she tilted a look at Will, then at Lindsey. "We're right, us two. He's mine. In sickness or health. He's supposed to be mine. And I'm his."
Lindsey nodded. Once, but it was an honest nod, the truth echoing in the sadness and longing and sympathy in her eyes. "You're a beautiful match."
Will's heart swelled to twice the size of Texas.
He wouldn't have picked Jessie and Donnie to be forever, but if Lindsey would put stock in them, then Will could work harder on accepting Donnie. She did see. He had the same shivers on his shivers that he got when Sacha was dead-on.
And turned out, Sacha might not have been wrong. And that put a crimp in Will's heart for his aunt.
While she fussed over Donnie, Will took Lindsey by the elbow and steered her to the backyard. And when they stood outside in the warm Georgia sunshine, he wrapped his arms around his girl and rested his forehead on her shoulder. "You see that coming?" he asked.
"No," she whispered. "I thought maybe he was doing it for Sacha, not for … that."
"They really good together?"
She hesitated, went stiff against him. But then she put her arms around his waist and softened with a whole body sigh. "Yes."
For how long was anybody's guess, but Sacha hadn't been wrong.
Will had to get over and tell her. Jessie would need her now-would need all of them-more than ever.
"Bet it feels good to say that," he said into Lindsey's hair.
And there she went, getting all stiff again. "Will."
He let her go and hoisted himself onto the top of Aunt Jessie's picnic table, his feet on the bench. "After seeing all the people who get married for the wrong reasons, wouldn't it be nice to nudge couples together who have the chance to get married for the right reasons?"
He was pushing her buttons, but she wasn't biting. No stubborn lawyer face coming out, no stubborn just-plain-being-Lindsey face either. Instead, she nodded. Once. Again. "It would."
That bass drum kicked up in Will's chest. He reached for her hand. Soft, smooth, with pink-tipped nails. She squeezed his hand back. She was all woman, all beauty, all strength.
And she was finally figuring out how much more she was too.
"You feel like making any other matches today?" He couldn't keep the raw, husky hope out of his voice. He wasn't on a stage, wasn't talking to reporters or deejays or fans.
He was talking to the woman who had always been his world.
Her gaze dropped. "Will," she said again.
"Don't tell me you're leaving tomorrow because we ain't good for each other. I know you don't like crowds. I know you don't like being in the spotlight. You don't have to be, Lindsey. I can fix that."
"Stop," she whispered.
He slid off the table, cradled her face in his hands, her soft hair cascading around his fingers, and tilted her head so he could see those pretty, teary brown eyes. Wasn't anything in the world that could've stopped him. "I didn't ask for three weeks for me. I asked for three weeks for you. A long time ago, you believed I had what it takes to be a star. You believed in me. Now it's my turn. I believe in you. I believe in who you are, who you are under the suits, under the baby-eater lawyer lady, under the smileys. And I'm gonna keep believing in you as long as it takes, until you're ready to believe in us."
A tear dripped on her cheek. Her chin wobbled. But instead of tipping up like they were supposed to, her lips drew down. Instead of crinkling in happiness, her eyes had hopeless misery written in them. "I can't," she whispered.
His heart let out an oomph like it had been socked in the gut.
"Will, you are an amazing man-"
"Stop," he growled.
"-and you could be happy with any woman in the world."
"I'm looking at the woman I want to be happy with."
"No, listen. Listen to me. I've seen you with Pepper, with Kimmie, with Dahlia and Nat and Marilyn, with all those women who wanted your signature at Suckers. And you're a good match for all of them. All of them. You can do so much better than-"
"Stop." She was wrong. He couldn't do better. He didn't want to do better.
He ignored the quaking in his gut, in his bones, in his soul, and stared into her, willing her to know what he knew. To understand that in this case, he knew better. "And what do you see when you look at me with you?"
"Everything." The word was barely audible but it boomed through his ears anyway. "Typhoons and rainbows. Earthquakes and sunshine. Thunderstorms and spring flowers. Everything."
"That good or bad?"
"I don't know." She inhaled a shuddery breath. "But I do know you can be happy with someone else. Anyone else. You should be happy, Will. You deserve to be happy. I want you to be happy. But I can't be the one who makes you happy. I can't."
His chest hurt from all the pounding behind his ribs and his arms trembled from the effort of holding her without squeezing so hard she couldn't leave. "I can fix the Billy stuff. I can make it go away."
"Will, let go." More tears streaked down her cheeks. "You have to let me go."
She didn't mean taking his hands off her.
She meant taking his heart off her.
"You're wrong," he said.
She pulled out of his grasp. "So go get a second opinion." She wasn't mean, wasn't angry. Simply matter-of-fact. She brushed a tear off her cheek. A pained look creased her forehead. "I'm sorry, Will. I'm so sorry." She took two backward steps, then turned and fled the backyard.
He followed after her. "Lindsey. Lindsey, wait." She wasn't leaving. She couldn't leave. They weren't done.
Even tomorrow, they wouldn't be done. They had a future. They had things to work out, but they were meant to be together. He was hers. He'd always been hers.
She kept fleeing. Head down, power-walking away. Sacha stepped between the houses and dangled something that flashed in the light. Her dark hair lifted in the wind, and her dark eyes flashed a storm's coming warning.
Lindsey stumbled to a stop. Will saw her hand reach out to touch Sacha's.
"No-" he started.
But it was too late. Sacha had already handed over the keys to her car. "Leave it at the airport."
"Stop!" Will said.
"Let her go, William." The vision voice. She was using the vision voice on him. "She's meant to go, honey. She did what she needed here. She's meant to go."
Lindsey skittered into Sacha's Winnebago, fired the engine, and then his life, his love-she sped away down Billy Brenton Lane.
And Will stopped.
All of him. He just stopped.
Stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped feeling his heart beating. He hunched over, broken.
He knew where Lindsey lived. Knew where she worked. He had her phone number, her email address and he knew how to get in touch with her family.
But knowing where she was didn't change that she didn't want him.