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"How did you find them, Brynn?" Dani asked.
"I was reading the police report on Kade's computer about the robbery and the missing stones, and I had this weird memory. Mom was in the garden, and she had something shiny in her hand. It was a blue stone. I asked her why she was planting the stone. And she said that stones made the flowers grow." I paused. "I looked out the window at her flower bed and I just had this feeling I should dig."
"You used to tell me that stones made flowers grow, and I didn't know what you meant," Dani said, a gleam in her eyes.
"I don't think I understood what I saw when I was little. But it suddenly clicked into place." I paused as Dani stifled a yawn. "You're exhausted. You and Steve can have the guest room. I washed the sheets earlier. They're still in the dryer. I'll make the bed up."
"I'll make the bed up," Kade said, waving me back into my seat. "You sit."
"I'll help," Steve said, as he got to his feet.
As the men left the table, Dani reached out her hand to me. "Kade is a better man than I thought. You figured that out earlier than I did. I guess I should stop questioning your instincts."
I smiled. "You should, but I'm not sure you can."
"I will try. I have some habits that need to be broken when it comes to you, Brynn. I meant what I said earlier—I pretended that I was the strong one, the one you needed so much. But it was really the opposite. I needed you to need me. You gave me the strength to do everything. I took over your life because I couldn't make a decision without you. It wasn't fair to you."
"I let you take over because I needed your bossiness. It made me comfortable, sometimes too comfortable." I took a breath. "We don't know Mom and Rachel's story, but I think maybe they are a mirror we need to look at."
Dani cocked her head to the right as she gave me a speculative look. "What do you mean?"
"They seem to have had a very close, twisted, secretive, co-dependent relationship. I can see how easily they fell into that, because being twin sisters is different than being sisters. It's easy to feel like you're living one life instead of two. I'm not saying I don't want us to be as close as we have been, because I do. I love you more than I love anyone else in this world, but we need to have our own lives, Dani. You're going to have a baby. You have a husband who adores you, and those two people need to be your priority."
"They will be, but I'll still be loving you, Brynn, and worrying about you no matter what you're doing. I'll also be rooting for you every step of the way, and I better get good tickets for your shows."
"First row, I promise." I looked up as Steve and Kade came back into the room.
"Your bed is waiting," Steve told Dani.
"I'm ready," Dani said as her husband helped her to her feet. "Thank you again, Kade."
"Get some rest," he replied.
"I will." She turned to me. "You'll be upstairs?"
"Yes. Sleep well."
"You, too."
As they moved down the hall and into the guest room, I took our plates to the sink.
"You're not cleaning up," Kade told me, as he blocked me from doing any more clearing. "Why don’t you go upstairs and lay down?"
"I am tired. Where are you going to be?" I asked.
He hesitated. "I'm going to clean up and then I'll go to my apartment."
As our gazes met, there seemed to be a lot of unspoken words between us, but neither one of us opened our mouth. Finally, Kade cleared his throat, and said, "I'd like to go with you to the hospital tomorrow. I want to hear what Laura and Rachel have to say."
"You should be there. Their story is part of your past as well as mine. I'm sorry they had anything to do with what happened to your dad."
"I'm sorry, too," he said heavily, a deep sadness in his gaze. "But it has nothing to do with you."
As I headed upstairs, I wished that was true, but I had a feeling it wasn't.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
My mother had been movedout of the ICU, and there was no longer a guard at her door when Dani, Steve, Kade, and I arrived at her room just before eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning. We'd all slept in after the exhausting, traumatic events of the day before. But now our break from reality was over.
