take this one,” she finally said.
“I figured.”
He went back downstairs for her things and she was glad to be alone. How ironic was that? She’d never felt like that when this was her home. So now she was over the first hurdle, the one she’d dreaded most. Facing down the past. Part of her had wanted to turn down Nick’s offer to stay here, but that would have given it importance, adding complication and breaking their cardinal rule.
Now she’d walked down memory lane and somehow felt more whole. Stronger. Unlike the immature girl who’d lived here before, she was a woman going after what she wanted. Until zero hour, she’d be sleeping as far from Nick as she could get. With luck it was far enough to keep any more memories from following.
On the up side—she and Nick never had sex in the guest room.
The night after moving into Nick’s place, Ryleigh juggled a pizza box in her hands, then rang the doorbell of her friend’s condo. Almost immediately it was opened and Avery O’Neill stood there in jeans and a royal-blue sweater. She had blue eyes, a blond pixie haircut that was incredibly flattering and she barely weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. At just over five feet, she was shorter than Ryleigh. Almost no one was shorter than her. This woman was too cute for words, but Ryleigh didn’t hold that against her. They were best friends.
“Hey, you.”
“Hey you back.”
“Get in here.” Avery pulled the door open wider and took the pizza. She walked the length of the extensive tiled entryway and into the kitchen. The white cupboards topped with black granite were a big, bold look for her pretty petite friend. After setting down the box, she opened her arms. “Now for a proper welcome-home hug.”
Ryleigh squeezed her hard, then held her at arm’s length and studied the new look. “Love the hair.”
“Thanks.”
“It makes you look like a fairy, like you belong in a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings book.”
“Spencer Stone calls me Tinker Bell.”
The doctor was the finest cardiologist at Mercy Medical Center and Nick’s best friend. Ryleigh still remembered the look on his face when he thought she planned to approach the guy to father her baby. It could have been jealousy. A girl could hope anyway. But probably it was just shock.
Her friend was the hospital controller and handled the day-to-day hospital money issues. They’d met when Ryleigh was executive assistant to the administrator. “Is Doctor Drop-Dead-Gorgeous still giving you a hard time about all the cardio equipment he wants to buy for Mercy Medical Center?”
“Always,” her friend said.
“If he was a pediatric cardiologist I might be able to help you out. But he’s a big-people doctor.”
“Yes, he is. And likes to brag that he fixes broken hearts.”
“He does.”
“And he’s good at it,” Avery admitted grudgingly. “If he weren’t it would be a lot easier to dislike him.”
“But you manage?”
Her friend shrugged. “He hits on women like crash dummies hit windshields.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Not for me. I can handle him.”
Ryleigh didn’t doubt that. She might look small, blonde, fragile and defenseless, but Avery was not an airhead, didn’t take any crap and could handle pretty much anything.
She pulled two paper plates out of the pantry and scooped a piece of pepperoni pizza onto each one. Then she carried the food into the adjacent family room and set it on the glass-topped table sitting between the green and coral floral sofa and the fireplace with wall-mounted flat-screen TV above.
“Well, I like your new look. It’s adorable and becoming. Fresh and new since I last saw you.”
“Barely four months ago when I visited you in Baltimore.”
“I know that tone.” Ryleigh followed her and sat on the couch. “You’re annoyed.”
“Yes, I am.” After filling two glasses with red wine, Avery sat beside her.
“Why?”
“Let me count the ways.” Avery held up her index finger. “First, you moved away.”
Ryleigh finished chewing a bite of pizza, but it tasted like cardboard. She knew where this conversation was headed. “You know why I had to leave.”
“I know you believed it would save your marriage, but I think we can all see how well that turned out.”
“Sounds stupid when you say it like that, but distance seemed like a good idea at the time.” She sipped her wine, but it didn’t dull the memory of how much it had hurt to leave Nick. “I know now that I was hoping he would beg me not to go. Even after I’d started the job, I had a fantasy that he’d come after me, bring me back. It was immature and naive.”
“Nope. I completely get it.” There was sympathy in her friend’s blue eyes. “I just didn’t like it.”
“That’s why I love you.”
“Really?” The annoyed tone was back. “If that were true, you’d have said something about moving back to Las Vegas. No?”
“No. When you visited, I’d just applied for the job and you know how that goes. Contact followed by weeks of waiting. An interview and more waiting. Another interview, then the field is narrowed to two and you’re on pins and needles while they try to decide, even though we all know they’re probably going to flip a coin. Heads it’s John Doe, tails it’s Ryleigh Evans.”
“I know how it works, but best friends tell each other everything.”
Ryleigh wanted to remind her that there was a big chunk of her life that Avery wouldn’t talk about, but decided not to go there. There must be a damn good reason why she didn’t talk about it, and the best friend bond respected that.
“And sometimes,” Ryleigh said, “a friend tries to spare her best friend pain. I didn’t want to get your hopes up and then have it all fall apart.”
“Okay. Totally understandable. Because my hopes would have gone stratosphere high. And I remember how hard it was to let you go. I still haven’t forgiven you for leaving.”
“You just said you understood.”
“I did and I do. But that’s different from letting you off the hook for abandoning me.”
“Well, I’m back now.”
“Yes, you are and about darn time. But why is that?” Annoyance was gone, replaced by curiosity.
“Because I’m the regional coordinator for Children’s Medical Charities.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s a really good job.”
“Totally,” Avery agreed.
“And very important.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
“Doesn’t feel that way,” Ryleigh pointed out. “I’m raising money for programs and equipment to help kids.”
“I know what the charity does. You’ll do a fantastic job because you’re motivated. No one loves kids more than you.” Avery finished her pizza, then tapped her lip thoughtfully. “As I recall, you were determined to have a baby before the big 3-0. How’s that going?”
This is where the best-friend bond got awkward. Confessing everything would result in Avery’s honest opinion. And most of the time Ryleigh valued that. Now? Well, no one wanted to be told they were an idiot. Or worse, crazy.
Ryleigh