to prevent me from seeing the million and one texts. They had no idea all I wanted to do was hear Kevin’s voice. But then he ran through the door.” If I feel a pervasive relief wash over me at her words months later, what must she have felt? “It wasn’t him, that’s all I could think. It wasn’t my baby.” I swallow hard as she rasps, “How could I have been so selfish?”
“Once I calmed down, they asked if I was the sister of Dean Malone. I tried to get Kevin to go to his room—he refused. Then they asked if I was also the emergency point of contact for Jed Malone. When I said yes, they told me we needed to hurry. I thought they were both alive. An accident. It wasn’t until I was in the back of the officer’s vehicle being taken to the hospital with Kevin that I heard the words ‘mass pileup.’” Her eyes flicker up to meet my horrified ones. “And that’s when Kevin completely lost his mind.”
I stroke her hair as haunted amber eyes seek out mine. “The service was exquisite and a nightmare wrapped into one. Everywhere I turned there were colleagues of Jed’s and Dean’s, families who knew them both, all of whom came to pay their respects. And amidst it all was Kevin, who was so shell-shocked the only two male influences in his life were swept from him in what seemed like a heartbeat.”
Beseechingly, she looks up at me. “Do you understand now why I email my dead brother? Do you understand why I can’t let him go? Why our son needs to talk to someone? Do you understand why I need time to think?”
“I do, but I also know something else.”
“What?” Her voice is shredded.
“Jed asked me to take care of his family,” I tell her firmly. Rolling from the bed, I walk over to the dresser and pull the letters out he wrote to me. Walking back over to Kara, uncaring I’m as naked as the day I was born, I hand them to her. “Go ahead, Owl. It’s time.”
With a trembling hand, she reaches for them. As I’m sliding back into bed, she scooches back against the headboard to brace herself. “READ ME NOW?” Her watery voice laughs. “It’s like some of the memos he’d leave his kitchen staff.”
“Have I mentioned I despise you worked there?” I mutter as I tug her closer.
“No, why?”
“Because I would give up the world to take care of you,” I admit honestly.
Her face softens, but she doesn’t respond to my declaration. Instead she pulls out Jed’s first letter. “God, I can hear him in my head as we argued that day. I’d give anything to have that time back,” she whispers as she folds the letter back and hands it back to me.
I brush a light kiss on her mussed-up hair. “I wouldn’t give up you or Kevin,” I tell her seriously. She blinks up at me. “Just remember that. Now, read the second one.”
Kara holds the larger envelope for a moment, before sliding the letter and the other contents out. “Oh, I remember this picture!” she exclaims.
“Kara, sweetheart, the letter,” I remind her.
“Right.” A few seconds in, she mutters adorably, “I do not have a temper.”
Which just makes me smile.
When she finishes, she flips through the photos until she’s clutching the one of them all at Jed and Dean’s wedding. “It was such a happy day, and in the back of my mind, it was so wrong,” Kara whispers.
I pluck the pictures from her hand and place them on the nightstand with the letter. “Why?”
“Because you all should have been there. And I knew it.”
“Then, tell me all about it. Tell me about the men who helped raise my son,” I encourage her.
So for the next few hours, in between convincing Kara I need to touch her body all over again, I hear all about the exploits of Jed and Dean Malone. And I laugh and hold her while she cries. And by the time she convinces me she needs to get back, I’m more assured than ever that not only did my son have an amazing life, but my friend did as well.
As did the woman I’m falling for all over again.
Kara
I use my key to open the lock when I get home late in the afternoon. My body aches as much as my heart after everything that’s happened since last night. Dropping my keys on the