I stared at the dining room table.
“Lottie,querida, you didn’t know?”Eddie repeated.
I tipped my eyes up to him.“Plastic sheets?”
Eddie’s face got hard and he looked to Lee.
Tex’s big mitt fell on my shoulder and squeezed.
“He was…he was getting ready to follow through, wasn’t he?”I asked.
Eddie looked back to me.
“Yeah, Lottie,” he said gently.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
Tex pulled out the chair beside me and settled his bulk intoit.
His hand covered mine on the table.
“Safe now, girl.All good,” he low boomed.
I stared at his hand covering mine.
“Lottie, look at me,” Tex urged.
But something was wrong with me.
“Lottie, my girl,look at me,” Tex repeated.
“I love you, Tex, you know that, don’t you?”I said to ourhands.
“I do, darlin’, and I love you too,” Tex replied.
The astonishing and magnificent event of Tex actually sayingthe words and not getting tongue tied and feeling awkward at open emotiondidn’t even register with me.
“I love you, Eddie, you know that,” I told Tex and my hands.“I love you for my sister and my nephews and I love you for me too.”
“Love you too, sweetheart,” I heard Eddie murmur as I feltmy hair gently pulled off my shoulder and a hand land reassuringly on my neck.
I wasn’t reassured.
“I love all you guys,” I said.
No one replied but I felt the goodness all around me.
It just didn’t work.
“I need Mo,” I whispered in a voice even I barely heard.
“Sorry, darlin’?”Tex asked.
Abruptly, I turned my gaze to his, totally lost the hold I’dbeen keeping now for a week, and shrieked, “I need Mo!”
The back door opened even before Vance and Ren took offtoward it.
I heard heavy, fast steps then I was in strong arms andafter that I was sitting in a wide lap, burrowing into a big body, tremblingfrom head to toe.
