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“Are you sure you don’t need help?”
She could see it in his eyes - the need for her to say yes. To act as if everything was fine and this afternoon hadn’t scared her. But, she just couldn’t say that.
“I’ll be fine. Go get some sleep.” She managed a small grin, enough to draw a hopeful smile from him. “You did really well tonight. I think you’ve just about got that romance part down.”
A proud smile tugged at the right side of his mouth, making her heart skip. That was the man she’d kissed - the man who made sarcastic jokes and flowed through the day with an easy confidence. She instantly regretted not asking him to stay. Maybe, she was being overly dramatic. But her mouth just wouldn’t form the words.
“Goodnight,” he whispered. And then he was gone.
It took her nearly an hour to put all the finishing pieces on the set. A modern day manger setting took a surprising amount of work. By the time she was done, Chloe had an overbooked motel, a broken down van to serve as the manger, and an ambulance to carry her modern-day wise men to the scene. Her play was going to be fantastic; she could feel it. They just had to make it to Christmas Eve before Amanda gave birth to her own Christmas baby. Easier said than done.
Picking up her paint supplies, she turned off the rest of the lights and headed to the kitchen to wash up. She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t working on this play, spending every waking hour obsessing over the details. It would be strange to be done with it.
As she approached the swinging double doors to the kitchen, she heard the strange hum of voices. One was a feminine whisper and the other, a hushed male voice. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but adrenalin coursed through her body.
The church was supposed to be empty. Pastor Steve had asked her to lock up tight when she left. The only kind of visitors that came at this hour of the night on a weekday were the kind with nefarious intentions. Instantly, she thought of the silver communion cups and crosses in the rectory. Something like that might catch a few bucks on the black market…or Ebay. She couldn’t let that happen.
Pressing a shoulder softly to the swinging door, she inched it open. The kitchen was dark, but the owners of the voices were clearly inside. Peering into the darkness, Chloe waited for her eyes to adjust. She’d bust the thieves. She wasn’t afraid of them. No one stole from her church.
The voices grew louder. Listening hard, she realized with a start that she recognized both of them. Right away, the mellow baritone of her sister’s fiance came into focus. She could spot his tall outline next to the sink, his characteristic striped leather jacket draped over his torso. He was facing a woman, someone with long dark wavy hair and darkened skin. She wore a schoolgirl style skirt with boots that reached her knees. Her hands were wrapped around Aaron’s neck and their faces only inches apart.
Chloe had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping. The woman with her sister’s fiance was none other than Ashley Lynn. She watched in horror as Aaron tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then leaned in to plant a kiss on her lips, drawing her hips closer to his.
Without a second thought, Chloe backed out of the kitchen and ran to the exit, dropping her wet brushes in a heap at the door. Snagging her purse, she sprinted to her car, threw it in drive, and didn’t stop moving until she’d pulled up to her home. The lights shown warmly through the lacy curtains, inviting and comforting. Staring at her front door, she clung to the steering wheel, unsure what to do next.
She should tell her sister. That’s what any good sibling would do. Her fiance was cheating on her. And with none other than that awful Ashley Lynn. It was the worst news of all. She would’ve rather given her the news that he’d died.
The familiar figure of her mother crossed in front of the living room window. Abandoning her purse in the car, she strode toward the front door and burst through it.
“Mom?” If anyone knew what to do, it was her mother. “Mom, I need you!”
“I thought you stopped needing me when you became a teenager.” Her mother rounded the corner to the hallway and fixed her with a warm smile. “I’m glad to know I was wrong.” She got one look at Chloe’s horrified expression and the smile melted from her face. “What happened?”
“Is Brianna here?” Chloe looked around wildly, poking her head into the kitchen.
“She’s at work.” Her mother ushered her in, parking her at a kitchen bar stool. “Your father is at bowling league. It’s just you and me.”
“Good, good.” It would be a lot easier to get mom’s opinion without her sister here, pressing her for information. “I need to ask you a question. A hypothetical question.”
Her mom gazed at her with one eyebrow lifted in amusement. “Hypothetical, huh? I’ll see what I can do.”
Grabbing a paper napkin from the tray, Chloe twisted it in her hands and began to tear it into tiny pieces. She wanted to come right out and confess what she’d seen, but she had to know if she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want her sister to blame her - to hate her for giving her the news.
“I have this friend…” she began. The way all hypothetical stories started. “And, let’s say that this friend had another friend in a committed relationship with a boy.”
“Uh huh…” Her mother sat in the stool next to her. She nodded her head slowly, her tight curls bouncing with her every move.
“And let’s say that one day, this friend of mine happened to walk in on this boy kissing another girl. What should she do? She doesn’t want her friend to hate her for breaking the news.”
“That’s a very serious problem.” Leaning back in her stool, her mother clicked her tongue and considered. “But I think it would be best for this friend of yours to confess to her other friend what she saw.”
“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.” Chloe buried her head in her arms. Her mother patted her on the back, a sympathetic smile lighting up her lips. “But my friend thought these two were meant-to-be. They’re perfect together. Practically soul mates. It’ll destroy her.”
Raising a single eyebrow, her mother didn’t ask any questions about the identity of this friend, but frowned and reached for her hand. “You know, dear, love is messy. Even the best couples have hard times.”
Chloe gestured at her. “But look at you and dad. I mean, you’re perfect. I don’t think I’ll ever find anything like that.”
“You won’t find anything like that because it doesn’t exist.” She frowned again and stared hard at her daughter. “Did you know there was a time when your father and I were split up?”
