War Bride - Chapter 3 - A Rival Departed
A/N: This chapter is not for Kelly lovers! (I make this note in case any exist...) Once again thank you for all for your wonderful support. :-)
Kelly had been long gone, and Ava with her. Her assistance, limited though it had always been, was a non-possibility. She had followed the smaller fish she had snared after failing miserably to catch the much larger one she had originally set her sights on.
Rachel did miss Ava, her dear deceased friend's daughter. She missed the little girl's Mother a whole lot less. But then she and Kelly had never really got on to start with. It was pretty unsurprising that the apocalypse had made things worse between them rather than better. Especially considering by the end of it Kelly had been laying the blame of losing, not one, but two men on Rachel…
Personally, Rachel thought the woman was just a bit of a nut.
Rachel knew she would always feel some level of guilt over bringing Quincy on in her mission to save the world and his subsequent death protecting that mission, but it truth it was not a whole lot more guilt than she felt for the any number of people she had failed to save from a virus she had made it her duty to defeat.
Tom's first wife was high amongst that number…
Kelly had come to St. Louis with Tom's family when he had sent for them, despite not actually being specifically invited to do so…
But even in her condition back then, in those early weeks of her recovery, Rachel had clearly seen the other woman's jealousy over the time Tom had preferred to spend with her in her recovery, or with his children and father.
Rachel had not been witness to the other woman's more specific come on's to Tom, though she had been sure they existed. It was Tom who had eventually and sheepishly admitted that the other woman had gone on to make her position and desires increasingly clear, and despite Tom's discouragement of such advances, she had not ceased. The final straw had apparently been when Tom had woken to find the other woman in his bed!
Rachel would have given money to see that! Tom had been extremely and deliberately light on details when he had made the confession…and very red faced. Of course, this was long before she and Tom had even been 'a little bit' together, so his confession to her had been unnecessary, but it had been very cute…and filled her with her first special type of hope for the two of them.
Because as small and hesitant as 'they' were as a silently proposed couple, it had still been her that he had felt the strong urge to 'confess' his supposed wrong doing too. To make sure she knew he had not betrayed...not betrayed her…them.
Or rather, the still silent promise of them.
The man was nothing if not loyal.
Nothing if not a man of his word.
It seems he would even steadfastly keep a promise he had not even yet made.
She had certainly known she would never have to worry about infidelity…it was evident that he would rather die than dishonor a woman or a promise so.
She had mainly found the bed incident humorous, though Tom had gone to lengths to not provide specifics…merely assurances, that very fact spoke volumes to Rachel, and his red face and clear embarrassment conveyed the rest. Rachel had highly suspected that very few clothes had been involved in the incident…for him or Kelly.
Though Rachel had to admit that she did harbor some hard feelings for the other woman over the incident. Both for failing to respect Tom's wishes in his mourning and for showing so little respect for her husband, her friend, who had died saving her life…
Rachel would completely understand if people didn't believe it, but she had genuinely never been jealous of the other woman, despite having harbored strong and growing feelings for Tom herself and clearly seeing the other woman's interest in him, early. And she meant very early, like while both Kelly and Tom's spouse's were still alive.
She wasn't proud of herself and her feelings in those earlier days, whilst his first wife still lived. All she could be proud of was that she had not acted back then and even when the time had tentatively come, she had taken her queues from Tom, allowed him to take the lead, tried to remain assured of his comfort in their progress at all times.
The same could not be said for Kelly, who was supposedly in mourning for a spouse herself.
It had been unpalatable, but frankly a non-concern for Rachel. She always felt it would work itself out…and she had had far more pressing concerns to worry about. She had just never seen them together, or more importantly; she hadn't seen Tom falling for her very unsubtle and highly ulteriorly motivated pursuit of him. And if the low chance of the occurrence had happened, Tom wouldn't have been the man she had been falling for.
But he had proved true.
Very true.
TBC