“That’ll be the day.” But the comment still drew from her a smile.
She went into her father’s bedroom and looked around. The photo of her mother was gone. She checked the trash can. It wasn’t in there either. She looked under the bed for some reason. There it was. She pulled it out. The glass was cracked. She stared down at it. A bit of sharp glass had ripped across her parents’ faces.
Is this what a nearly fifty-year marriage came down to? The next thought was equally devastating.
And where exactly is my life going?
She carried the picture back into the guest bedroom, slumped on the bed, and started trembling.
“Damn it!”
She cursed again, stood and walked to the bathroom. She started shivering again and hesitated. She swallowed hard, opened the door, and passed through. She was still trembling, sobs bumping up and down her throat.
Sean saw her through the shower door. “Michelle?” He looked at her questioningly, keeping his gaze on her eyes that looked ready to dissolve into tears. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Sean!”
He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around himself before stepping out of the shower. He led her out of the bathroom and over to the bed. They sat on the edge, her head cradled against his chest.
“I really think I’m losing it,” she said.
“You’ve been through a lot. It’s only natural to feel overwhelmed.”
“My parents have been together forever. Had five kids. Four brothers and me the mutt. The bring-up-the-rear mutt.”
“I don’t think anyone feels that way about you. I certainly don’t.”
She turned to face him. “How exactly do you feel about me?”
“Michelle, I—”
She picked up the cracked photo. “Nearly fifty years of marriage and five kids and this is what you get? This?”
“Michelle, we don’t know what’s really going on here yet.”
“I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life.”
“An Olympian, Secret Service agent, and now my partner?” He attempted a smile. “I think a lot of people would like to switch places with you. Especially about being my partner.”
She didn’t smile. She didn’t cry. She leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips.
She breathed into his ear. “I don’t want to waste any more time, Sean. Not another second.”
She kissed him again and he kissed her back. She leaned into him.
And then Sean pulled back.
Their gazes locked. “You don’t want me?” she said.
“Not like this. Not this way, no. And neither do—”
She slapped him and turned away.
“Michelle—”
“Leave me alone!”
She started to run, but then it was like a hard wall of something both hot and cold slammed into her, inflaming her organs, icing her skin. Her knees buckled and she was on the floor, sobbing, curled into a ball so tight that she seemed to have shrunken down to a child. Her fingers clawed the floor, found the fractured picture where it had fallen. She held it against her chest.