“I know that. But she shouldn’t still be paying for it. She’s really opened up to Lori. If this doesn’t turn out the way it should, it’ll break Gabe’s heart.”And mine. Anything that hurt Gabe hurt hertwice over. She might never entertain the romantic version of love, but she loved Gabe as much as she’d loved anyone.
“If that happens, we’ll be here for her like she’s always been there for us,” Woody said. “It’ll make a change for us to look after the alpha, right?”
Shay smiled easily this time. Their chosen family could be as dysfunctional as a blood family, but their bonds had been forged in the heat of war and were unbreakable. If Lori was stupid enough not to listen to Gabe’s explanation, if she was too short-sighted to give Gabe a chance, and if she did break Gabe’s heart, Shay and the rest of their little family would circle the wagons and hold her safe until she recovered.
After everything Gabe had been through, she deserved her happily ever after. Shay hoped that Lori was just as smitten with Gabe. Everything would work itself out. It had to.
CHAPTER 6
The troublewith having a best friend was that they often knew you better than you knew yourself. Rosie had told Lori she was slammed this week and too busy to have lunch, but Lori had launched a text offensive to rival a celebrity stalker, and Rosie had eventually caved. She was happy that Lori and Gabe had made up after the disaster that had been Lori’s party, but with that over with, she had plenty of time to think about the chaos in her own life.
“I’m sorry I spent the whole time waxing lyrical about Gabe.” Lori hugged her and squeezed even tighter than usual.
The Turner family hugs could be a national treasure or an ancient curse; today, it was the latter. Rosie was one excessively long Turner hug away from dissolving into a flood of tears, and she had to pull away, not wanting to create a spectacle in view of people she knew. Lori had booked a table at the eighteenth-floor garden restaurant of her ex-office building for “old times’ sake.” Lori was moving on with her life, and Rosie was supposed to be doing the same with her new job, so Lori had postulated that it’d be nice to eat at one of their old haunts. The logic was flawed, but the view of Lake Michigan wasn’t, so Rosie had reluctantly acquiesced.
Worry flashed across Lori’s expression at her withdrawal, and she took her seat without taking her gaze off Rosie. The waiter who’d seated them confirmed their usual order, while Rosie adjusted the cutlery on her place setting to avoid eye contact.
“What’s wrong?” Lori asked.
“What makes you think something’s wrong? I told you I was busy this week. I haven’t been avoiding you.”
Lori arched her eyebrow and took Rosie’shand. “I know when you’re not okay, just like you do with me. What was it you said last month? ‘The good thing about someone knowing you so well is that you can barely do anything without someone caring about it.’ And my BFF radar tells me you’re avoiding me, but I can’t figure out why. So talk to me.”
The waiter interrupted with two glasses of white wine, and Rosie took a much-needed sip.
“It’s Mom,” she said, knowing that Lori wouldn’t give this up now that she had a sense something wasn’t right.
Lori rolled her eyes then frowned. “Isn’t she a couple of months too early to begin her usual Thanksgiving drama?”
“That’s what I thought…at four a.m. on Thursday morning.”
“Four a.m.? That’s a new low, isn’t it?” Lori picked up her glass then put it back without drinking. “Wait. That was a week ago, and you’re only just telling me now.”
Rosie tsked. “I’m only telling you now because you’re forcing it out of me.”
“That’s a good thing too, because apparently, you don’t share your troubles with your best friend anymore. What’s up with that?”
Rosie smiled at the waiter after he placed their starter platter on the table and waited until he left before she answered. “I wasn’t sharing because I love you, and you don’t need this. You’re just re-emerging from over a year in hiding after a particularly vicious end to your marriage, and you’re only a few days into a brand-new relationship with a woman whom you may well have manifested into existence from your dreams. You should be riding the rainbow on your pink unicorn, not sharing in the atomic bomb disaster that is my mom.” She chose a warmed tigelle and placed a piece of ham on top before taking a bite. She let out a contented sigh, grateful that her mom’s latest drama hadn’t affected her appetite…yet.
“No. Just no.” Lori popped a cherry tomato in her mouth and shook her head. “I’ve disappeared on you enough. I wasn’t there when you were coping with your career change, and that was bad enough. I won’t let any new relationship get in the way of beingthere for you, especially when you’re dealing with your craz—with your mom.”
Rosie chuckled. Having someone in her corner as loving and supportive as Lori had taken some getting used to after spending her life practically alone, but that unconditional compassion was also why she’d struggled so much when Lori had retreated into herself after her divorce. “It would be nice to talk to you about it.” She filled Lori in on the early morning conversation and reeled off the cocktail of chemicals her mom might need to manage the condition, as well as the astronomical cost to get the drugs in this country. “With the basic insurance she’s got, she can’t afford it.”
Lori bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “She’d need to win the Powerball lotto to afford that. I hate to say it, but it seems like Mexico was her only choice.”
Rosie nodded and chewed on another piece of melt-in-the-mouth tigelle. “And I understand that, I do. But why the early morning phone call and then nothing?”
Lori’s expression made it clear that Rosie knew the answer to her own question. “That’s how she operates, isn’t it? That’s been your whole life. She has no motivation to change that behavior.”
Rosie tried to spear a tomato with her fork, but it skidded off the plate and onto the floor, before rolling under another table. She and Lori pretended not to notice. “Her behavior is the whole reason I got into counseling. I thought I might be able to help her change.”
“It was her job to help mold you to cope with the world, not the other way around,” Lori said and waved her fork at Rosie. “You told my mom that you left therapy because the people you were helping weren’t changing. Was it that? Or was it more about your mom never changing?”
“I thoughtIwas supposed to be the therapist.” Rosie chuckled, but Lori’s question sowed a seed she knew she’d have to cultivate eventually since it was something she hadn’t thought of. “I can’t deal with that right now. Mom disappearing has me suspendedin limbo.”
“Which is exactly the way your mom likes her audience—waiting with bated breath for the next act. Enter Brenda Morgan, stage left.”
Lori was right. After all the experiences Rosie had recounted to her, she didn’t need a degree in therapy to make that judgment. “Meanwhile, I’m scurrying around trying to figure out how to come to the rescue. Again. I can’t cover her on my insurance unless she’s considered dependent on me, which would mean having her move in and?—”
