I have almost the same problem as you, I also want to show on the page categories - products the image A (and another in the hover)
I found the code of how to load the images, but I don't know how to modify it.
in theory you should not use $ product.cover, but image $
<div class="thumbnail product-thumbnail relative flex-container"> {block name='product_thumbnail'} <a href="{$product.url}" class="relative{foreach from=$product.images item=image}{if ($image.cover != 1)} subimage-true{break}{/if}{/foreach}"> {if $product.cover} {include file='catalog/_partials/product-image.tpl' image=$product.cover type=$type} {if Configuration::get('pm_hover_image') == true} {foreach from=$product.images item=image} {if ($image.cover != 1)} {include file='catalog/_partials/product-image.tpl' image=$image type=$type} {break} {/if} {/foreach} {/if} {else} <img src="{$urls.no_picture_image.bySize.large_default.url}" style="width:100%;"> {/if} </a> {/block}