But when he bent to kiss her outside on her porch, she allowed it, even clinging to him for a brief passage of moments and then she was gone. The screen door was shut, the front door was closed and he was alone with nothing more than the memory of her scent, the sense of her mouth under his. He felt the yielding pressure of her hip, the fullness of her breasts. He wondered how he could live without her.And yet he knew there was no possibility of them being together, that he’d killed any chance of that as effectively as he’d murdered Joan Latimer. Anita would tell him to get off the pity pot. But it wasn’t pity; it was fact. Truth. Reality. He couldn’t change it. Nothing he ever did was going to undo the consequences of his actions. All the bad shit would still be all the bad shit. Cotton didn’t think about it when he stopped and bought the pint of Jim Beam. He tossed it into the passenger seat, yanked off his tie, loosened the collar of his shirt, and then drove aimlessly. He thought of finding a meeting.
