Aftermath (3 page)

And, in the last few months, she’d done a bang-up job of doing the exact opposite. So much for that winning attitude. The I’ll-look-danger-and-heartache-in-the-face-and-laugh mantra she used to wield like a sharp dagger.

Time to get it together, Nettles.

She tried to yank the ring from her finger. It wouldn’t go past her knuckle.

Really?

Another hard tug did nothing to loosen the piece of jewelry.

Not now. McKenna would be here any minute.

Soap should do the trick. As she headed toward the kitchen, she continued struggling with the metal. Had to get it off. Put the stupid dress in a shipping box. Auction the ring on eBay, too. It was time to grow up and face her future like a confident woman.

Accept the way things had turned out. And be thankful for what she had. Family. Friends. Her health.

Amanda squirted some soap into her palm, flicked on the water and began working a lather around her digit. She adjusted the temperature. Ice, cold liquid rushed over her skin, but the ring wasn’t budging. Her knuckle already looked red and swollen, each beat of her heart pounding through it.

It served her right. Nothing good came from dwelling on the past. Lesson learned and repeated in unnecessary fashion.

Might as well have a blinking neon sign:
Moron right here.

MCKENNA BENING APPROACHING FRONT ENTRY.

Amanda froze. The rush of water splattered across her fingers and hit the counter in flying droplets.

Thank God for AtEase. The security system ensured no surprises. Or at least, almost no surprises.

Like announcing her childhood friend’s arrival and Amanda’s subsequent hell on Earth. One million badgering questions, worse than any cross examination, if her best friend saw this ring.

Okay, maybe
hell
wasn’t strong enough. “She couldn’t be late. Just once.”

She gave the ring one last tug. It slipped forward, but got hung up halfway over her knuckle. Pressure made the throbbing worse. It sent sharp pain racing up her finger.

She couldn’t open the door like this. McKenna would see it in two seconds. Ask those questions. Want to look deeper into the reason Amanda had even opened the box and slipped it on.

She didn’t have any answers. Nothing that didn’t lead down a dangerous road with an eighteen-pronged fork, each destination less satisfying than the last. Standing at the crossroads was better. Or plain going back the way she’d come.

She pushed the ring back, instant relief coursing through her finger. Flicked the water off. And then grabbed a paper towel and dried her hands.

It was only a matter of time before someone noticed. But she could try to stave off the inevitable for a while longer. Amanda stole the towel from the oven handle, to her right, and piled ice from the freezer, inside.

Maybe her best friend would buy some line about a burn.

The buzzer filled the room with a loud peel. Amanda slapped the makeshift ice pack on her hand. Headed for the door and opened it. McKenna stood with a tow-headed little girl in her arms. A full diaper bag hung across the opposite shoulder.

Dark circles rimmed her friend’s eyes. Riley had one chubby thumb in her mouth. A small smile, complete with eight pearly white teeth, formed around it.

Need for under-eye concealer, confirmed. The cutest toddler on the planet.

“Hey.” McKenna’s eyes darted to the fabric in Amanda’s grasp. “What’s with the kitchen towel?”

Riley wiggled in her mother’s arms. The finger in her mouth moved toward Amanda with a healthy dose of saliva attached. “Aha-tee.” The toddler bridged the gap between the women, trust in her sudden movements. As if she knew one of them would catch her.

Oh, crap.

McKenna jerked to avoid the child’s descend. The diaper bag slung down her friend’s arm and hung at her elbow. The other woman’s balance wavered. Amanda dropped the towel in her hand. Iced scattered across the entry as she reached toward a smiling Riley. Scooped her up as McKenna lost her hold.

The toddler’s grin grew larger. She clapped as if they’d finished a game.

And Amanda sent a grin back at the little girl as if she hadn’t had a whole bunch of hair turn gray somewhere on her head.

A harsh exhale came from her friend. She placed a hand over her chest. “She takes ten years off my life, every day.” McKenna picked up the towel and the ice, then stepped into the apartment. Didn’t ask any other questions. Got rid of both items and deposited her bag near the island as if Amanda were one of her children who’d made a mess.

Odd. “Have you been harassing your mom, cutie pie?”

The toddler tucked her head to her shoulder and fiddled with the necklace around Amanda’s neck.

“Thanks for letting us hang out while they fumigate the house. The next time Jordan brings home a stray animal, it’s staying outside.”

“No problem.” Amanda shut the door and flipped the lock.

“I told him that dog had mange or something, but he insisted every family needs a pet. And he’d be fine after a good bath.”

“Puppy cute.” Riley’s wide and beaming smile accentuated her words.

“Puppies are cute. Fleas are not.” Amanda tickled her honorary niece’s chunky belly.

The toddler squirmed and let out a giggle. Tugged on the chain still in her grasp. Stuck the circular pendant, Robinson’s niece had given her on her birthday, into a mouth full of drool.

Pride had shone from Ariana’s eyes when she’d demonstrated how their matching pieces fit together like a puzzle. The girl hadn’t picked it out in a cheesy mall shop, but found a place that hand-made such trinkets. Their respective birthstones nestled on part of the surface.

Friends, no matter what, right?

Man, she missed the girl. Full of spunk with brains that kept even Robinson on his toes. Enough heart to keep smiles in permanent residence. Even when her mother had been in a coma for over a year.

Riley gave another firm tug.

“Hey, kiddo, that’s mine. You wanna slobber on something, how about using one of those teething rings Auntie keeps on hand for you?” Amanda removed the metal from the toddler’s mouth.

One quivering lip protruded outward, her face crumpling as if Amanda had shouted at the top of her lungs. Oh, boy.

“That’s a big boo-boo face.” And any second now there’d be epic waterworks. She contemplated handing the necklace over. “How do they say no to you?”

“Carefully.” McKenna scooped up her child. “Hey. No fussing. Auntie Amanda is right. You don’t need that in your mouth. Okay?”

“’Kay.” The impending meltdown disappeared. She wiggled down and toddled for the couch in the living room. A stack of children’s books hid in a basket, under the coffee table. One tug brought them out and soon Riley was surrounded by
Dr. Seuss
and other various picture books.

Then her chubby fingers reached for the decorative bowl resting on the table. McKenna swiped the glass container from her daughter.

“She’s got a great memory.” Amanda folded her arms across her chest, hiding the hand with Robinson’s ring still attached, beneath her elbow. If only she could hide everything else so easily.

“Tell me about it. I put her Easter candy on top of the fridge where even
I
can’t see it. Every morning, she goes right for it. Starts pointing and gets all excited.” McKenna turned. Set the breakable item on the countertop, next to the laptop. And the giant picture of her wedding dress on eBay.

Amanda froze. Danger alarms blared in her head.
She
held her breath and waited for the other woman to notice. She should have shut the thing before answering the door. Hidden all the other evidence.

McKenna kept her hand on the bowl a second, her head a short turn from the eBay acceptance screen. “Before I forget, Jordan and I have a babysitter for tonight. Feel like coming out?”

Amanda moved around her friend. Slipped her laptop closed and pushed both it and the decorative table setting farther back on the surface.

McKenna turned toward the place she’d moved, but didn’t say anything, expectation written all over her face. “So?”

Amanda released a breath. One near-crisis averted. Another to go.

The last time her friend had suggested an outing hadn’t ended well for Amanda. It wasn’t McKenna’s fault. Her bossy, take-charge attitude came naturally. So, she’d assumed Amanda and Robinson needed direct contact, in a situation they wouldn’t be able to easily escape.

Which may have worked, if there were some sort of miscommunication between them. But that had never been the main problem. “Where are you headed?”

“We were thinking about Gemma’s. There’s gonna be live music. Some of Jordan’s old band members.” McKenna mirrored Amanda’s stance, arms folded, feet braced apart. “A drink, some fun and no kids.”

How did she say no to that? “Maybe.”

“That means no.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “It means, I have to look at my schedule.”

“Come on, Amanda.” She threw her hands toward the ceiling. “We haven’t been out in forever. I miss you.”

Danger. Guilt imminent in less than five.

No wonder Riley was a pro.

“Who’s all going?” Amanda fingered the piece of metal cutting into her skin. Hated the fact that she’d even asked. Hoped it sounded like a nonchalant inquiry instead of the direct question she sought.

Would Robinson be in attendance?

“Me, Jordan, Rupert and a few people from work.” She ticked the names off on her fingers as she went. As if realizing a detail she’d forgotten and didn’t want to admit, she paused. Her blue eyes connected with Amanda. “Don’t say no. Think about it.”

It wouldn’t change her answer. Another run-in with the most handsome agent the FBI had might destroy her. She couldn’t risk breaking down and admitting every desire she had, to the one man who would understand the messiest of sentences. Pick them apart until he got to the crux of any dilemma.

McKenna hadn’t moved, her lips a firm line. “This isn’t like last time.”

Forgetting that disastrous night was second hardest on her current list. It burrowed under the-wedding-that-wasn’t and kept kicking like an angry kid in the backseat. “I know.”

Moving on. Yup. She’d get right on that.

“Amanda, I thought it would help, I didn’t...”

“Don’t worry about it.” When was the last time she, Jordan and McKenna had hung out, outside of work? The last time she’d done something besides try hard not to screw up? To toe the line and never cross it, all while putting criminals behind bars.

All that work meant so little when she knew there were felons escaping their notice. And certain people who weren’t sure if she shouldn’t be investigated further. Even after she’d withstood several intense bouts of character defamation and come out the victor.

At least in her own eyes. And to those closest to her.

One of McKenna’s dark eyebrows rose higher than the other as if she knew every thought Amanda had. “Then you’ll come?”

The options were limited. Accept this offer of friendship or deal with never-ending, soul-searching questions.

“Gemma’s?” She moved into the open kitchen, behind them. Reached in a cupboard, for two glasses. Then filled them both with the fresh sweet tea she’d made earlier.

It shouldn’t matter who was going. If
he
was going. What a terrible position she’d put her friends in.

Choosing sides in a complete stale mate.

And really, what did she have to do here? Watch the minutes tick down on her eBay bids?

They were adults. So, if he showed up, she and Robinson could handle a little interaction without the world coming to an end, right?

CHAPTER THREE

BEING A KID was reminiscent of a person stuck between two plates of scorching metal with enough chewed gum to keep a body in place. Even if there was clearance for an escape, it wasn’t possible.

There wasn’t any way around it, either.

And that would be fine if Ariana Gabriel didn’t have to suffer with the stigma attached to being an almost fourteen-year-old girl with no boobs.

Surrounded by plenty of girls her age filling a B-cup. Some of them flaunting what Mother Nature had given them like weapons meant for torture. And the only way into the club was to have an all-access pass.

Short of stuffing her bra and using her allowance to buy makeup her uncle would never let her out of the house wearing, it wasn’t happening.

Ariana glanced around as if anybody could hear her thoughts. Like Uncle Robbie, who corrected her language even if she didn’t swear. Or her mom, who never left the house anymore. Or Miss Amanda, whom Ariana hadn’t seen in months.

Not since the wedding.

Her step faltered. If she asked Robbie about it, his face would get that crazy-scary shuttered look. As if he wanted to unleash all his frustration at once. Instead, he’d change the subject. Tell her to do her homework. Try to talk her mom into joining a class at the gym, the library or somewhere. Shower. Get dressed. Live.