AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I was hoping you would talk to me for a little bit,sweetheart,” a familiar voice said.
Kala whistled under her breath. “Damn, they teamed up onyou, Lou. Your dad was a distraction.”
Oh, she doubted that. Her dad would absolutely be doing thatstaring thing he did when he was disappointed. For a man who hadn’t come intoher life until she was twelve, he quickly picked up on the dad thing, as TJ wascurrently learning.
But there was someone she wanted to talk to less than herdad.
Her mom stood in the doorway, a bag in one hand and herbrother, Jayce, at her side. He was adorably gangly at twelve years old. He wasall long limbs and blonde hair that matched his father’s.
He grinned at her. “Hey, Lou. I heard you’re going to marryTJ. That’s awesome. I love TJ.”
A flash of anger went through her. This was why she’d wantedto keep the whole thing under the radar. She looked at her mom. “Who told himthat?”
A brow rose over her mom’s eyes. “I think he’s making a leapthat you can’t be surprised he would make. Jayce, I told you it’s early days.”
“But they’ve mostly been together for years. And all herother boyfriends suck,” Jayce said.
Kala grinned. “We should discuss this, little dude. Come on.I’ll take you down to the cafeteria so your mom can talk to your sister.”
“But…” Jayce began.
“They are serving chicken tenders and fries.” Kala knew howto deal with her brother. Her kid brother looked like a younger version oftheir dad, and he had Boomer Ward’s appetite. And metabolism. “Also, there’sgoing to be a lot of feelings discussed.”
“We should talk about our feelings,” Jayce told Kala, but hewas already moving behind her.
“Daphne, you ruined this child,” Kala said with a shake ofher head as she held the door open. “Come on, buddy. We’ll get lunch and talkabout how to properly shove all your feelings down deep.”
Her mom frowned. “Maybe I should stop that.”
“Or maybe you should say what you’ve come here to say so Ican get back to work.” Lou winced. She hadn’t meant to sound so cold.
“Okay.” Her mom set the bag she was holding down on Lou’sworkstation. There were several of them through the suite, this one containingthe smart watch she was playing around with. The Daphne’s Delights bag satright next to her tool kit. “I don’t think macarons are going to solve this. Icame by to see if you’re okay, and I can see plainly that you’re not. What’s hedone to you this time?”
Wow. This was a problem she hadn’t counted on. All this timeshe’d worried that TJ would leave her, and she hadn’t thought about theramifications if he stayed. Her mom was always circumspect. When she had a problem,her mom gave her reasonable advice on how to handle it, and for years when itcame to TJ it was all about getting out there and finding someone else.
She’d never thought about the fact that her mom might notlike TJ. Her mom liked everyone. “It’s not a big deal. We kind of fell in bedtogether, and he’ll be gone in a couple of months. We’re working on an op andit’s…”
“Classified.” Her mom knew the drill. She sighed and movedin, a frown on her face. “So much about your life is classified. Sometimes Ithink I would resent Kala if I hadn’t known her as a kid, hadn’t watched howclosely she protected you.”
“Mom, she’s my best friend.”
“And she pulled you into a world I can’t understand,” hermom pointed out.
“Dad does.”
Her mother’s head shook. “Well, Dad lived it, but he didn’thave a wife and kids. He wasn’t close to his family, so he made one out of themen and women he worked with. I assure you he feels it now, though I know BigTag tells him what he can. All I’m saying is sometimes I wonder what your lifewould be like if you hadn’t met Kala Taggart. If Boomer hadn’t been involvedwith the Taggarts, and we were a family of four.”
The word actually hurt. “You can’t ever let Kala hear that.She loves you. You’re one of the only people she actually will listen to, andif she knows you don’t like her…”
“I didn’t say that,” her mom argued. “I love Kala. I adoreher, but I wonder where you would be without her.”
“Alone. Lonely is what I would be. I have no idea where thisis coming from.”
Her mom stared at her for a moment. “If you’d never metKala, you would be working at a university and you would have met a nice manand started your life.”
Her mother was forgetting a few facts. “If I’d never metKala, I wouldn’t have figured out what I want in a man because I would havecurled in on myself and become everything my grandmother wanted me to be. Doyou honestly think Dad would be the same person if he hadn’t worked at MT andbecome part of that family? What about you? You have friends. You never hadfriends. You didn’t trust anyone, and now you want to wish that away so youknow where I am twenty-four seven? You think I would be some successful professoryou could point to and be proud of? I would be lonely. I would be sad. I wouldnever have learned how to be a sister to Jayce because I would never have seenit, been surrounded by it. I’m sorry my friends annoy you, but I am who I ambecause of them. You and Dad had a lot to do with it, but so did they.”
Her mom sank down to the couch, her expression going acareful blank. “Does the ‘they’ include TJ?”
