“I don’t climb. I don’t like to ski. I haven’t traveled. I spend my life doing paperwork and picking up dog poop.”
“You train SAR and HRD dogs, and you volunteer for the most respected search-and-rescue team in the country. Your work has saved lives. Some people would say that’s pretty exciting.”
“Okay. That’s probably true.”
“What do you think drew Harrison to you?”
“Gabby.” That was the truth. “He adores her. When he left, he told me to tell Gabby he’d miss her, but he didn’t say anything about missing me.”
This brought a fresh rush of tears.
“I’m betting there was more to his attraction than your puppy.”
“We had an incredible sex life—I mean, off-the-charts incredible.”
“That tells me there was some real connection there. People who don’t have a true emotional connection rarely have sex lives that are off the charts.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Esri handed her another tissue. “Let’s talk about what happened in New York again.”
Kenzie told the story once more. “Then he said, ‘I do care about you. That’s the point.’ Does he really think that dumping me and leaving me out of his life helps me?”
“Let me ask you this: Do you think you did the right thing?”
Kenzie nodded. “He needs to talk to someone. I bit my tongue for a long time, afraid that pushing him to get counseling would drive him away. That day I didn’t feel like I had a choice. If you could have seen him and how on edge he was… ”
“For what it’s worth, I think what you did was completely valid. The two of you were intimate, and you had every reason to be worried about him.”
“But what good did it do if I alienated him? I don’t think anyone has seen him. He didn’t show up when the Team was toned out yesterday to help the guy with the asthma attack. Maybe what I did just made things worse.”
Esri reached out, took her hand. “What Conrad does is his responsibility, not yours. When he decides he needs help, I’ll be here.”
“So what can I do? I can’t stand feeling like this. It hurts so much that I can barely breathe. Are there some meditations or exercises I can do to make it better?”
“I wish I had the cure for a broken heart, but I don’t.” Esri squeezed her fingers. “It will get better with time, I promise you.”
But Kenzie wasn’t so sure about that.
* * *
Conrad was passedout drunk on the sofa when athunk thunk thunkwoke him. Had Gabby gotten into something?
He lurched to his feet—and remembered Gabby didn’t live there anymore. “Shit.”
He was about to flop back onto the couch when the noise came again.
Thunk thunk thunk.
Was someone knocking on his door?
Kenzie.
God, he missed her. He missed her so fucking much.
Heart slamming, he threaded his way through empty bottles and pizza boxes to the front door, too unsteady on his feet to make use of the peephole.
He opened the door. “Megs.”
