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She looked baffled by his question and shrugged helplessly.
“I don’t know . . . a few.”
“And since coming here? Have you made any new ones?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated with a warm smile. “It’s easy for you: you’re sweet and warm and genuine, and people are drawn to you.”
She shook her head, looking perplexed, and shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“Tina has one friend, Libby. You.” She stared at him in shock. Her eyes filled with regret and then defiance.
“Well, that’s her own fault. She could have more if she wasn’t so distrustful of everybody she met.”
“People haven’t given her much reason to trust them in the past, Bug. You know that.”
“I’ve been through the same experiences—I overcame them.”
“Your experiences haven’t been the same,” Harris murmured, thinking of that damned bet. “You had supportive parents; you had me. You had Tina. And once you went to university, you had so many new experiences, made new friends. Tina only ever had you.”
“You don’t even like Tina. I don’t understand why you’re talking like this,” she murmured, swiping her hand across her eyes again.
“I like Tina. I’ve always liked her. But I’m the reason she and I could never be friends and never got along. If she hasn’t told you about it, then I can’t. But whatever caused this rift between you, it’s making her”—he paused, his hand reaching up to find his pendant through his shirt as he considered his next words—“sad. It’s making her so sad. And I have to tell you, I’m finding it . . . difficult to see her sad.”
His words made Libby pause, and she tilted her head to eye him thoughtfully for a moment. She sighed in frustration.
“She won’t even look at Clara, Harris. Won’t pick her up. I don’t think she’s ever touched her. I don’t want Clara around someone who hates kids.”
“Tina doesn’t hate kids.” Harris thought back to that night in the hospital, the absolute love and delight on Tina’s face when she had first laid eyes on Clara. “She adores Clara.”
“One of the reasons I moved up here was because, while we were staying with her, she went to great lengths to avoid coming home until very late at night. She never offered to hold Clara or bathe her or any of the other normal things people want to do when they’re around babies. My God, your mother spent half an hour cooing inane little nothings to Clara when she and your father dropped in for a visit. And you know how she is.”
Harris was having a really hard time reconciling her words with the image of Tina staring yearningly through the glass when the nurse had lifted Clara.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but there has to be a reason for her behavior, Libby. Talk to her.”
Libby’s gaze softened.
“I will, Harris. Of course I will. She’s my best friend, and I do want to figure this out . . . but it’s hard. I’m so much more protective of Clara than I ever dreamt I would be. I can’t bear the thought of her being exposed to such negativity. She was born into rejection. I don’t want her to experience any more of that.”
“I understand,” Harris said quietly, and she cleared her throat.
“Thanks for talking me off the friend-murdering ledge,” she said with a half smile. “But I still want to get in there and tell her to back the hell off. Gently, of course.” This last added when he had opened his mouth to caution her to do just that.
He smiled and nodded, got up when she got up, and watched her slender back as she walked toward the office in that brisk, no-nonsense way of hers.
“Tina.” Libby’s quiet voice came from the doorway, and Tina looked up from the dazed-looking Greyson, who had sat down on the sofa roughly halfway through her tirade. Well, not sat so much as dropped, his knees seeming to have given in. He’d spent the rest of the time sitting there with his forearms resting on his spread thighs and his hands dangling between his knees, just gazing at the carpeted floor, while she continued to rant at him like a fishwife. In hindsight, maybe she had been a little too honest with him.
“That’s enough,” Libby continued without heat, and Greyson’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice. Tina was stunned to see his eyes gleaming with moisture, and for a second she wasn’t sure how to react.
Greyson leaped gracelessly to his feet, but Libby kept her focus on Tina. She didn’t look angry; she looked emotional and teary, and Tina wondered how much she had overheard.
“Would you mind leaving us, please?” Libby asked, and Tina nodded, her reflexes feeling off, her legs leaden. She looked at Greyson again, feeling strangely compelled to apologize to him. But his eyes were glued to Libby’s face, and Tina wasn’t sure he would hear anything she said right now.
