Home to Stay (The Long Road Home #2) - Maryann Jordan Page 0,73

in college. Looking up at Paula’s house, she now wondered if their friendship had been more of a convenience rather than a true melding of hearts. So why am I here? A ready answer didn’t come, but she figured a chance to see if there was anything left of a friendship over a glass of wine wasn’t a bad thing.

The sound of a vehicle coming down the street met her ears and she turned to see Paula’s small sedan approach. Lifting her hand to wave, she was surprised when Paula turned short of her street and parked off to the side. Climbing out, Paula jogged over to the side of the storage facility office and waited until a man came from around the corner. She reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope, folded it in half, and poked it through one of the openings in the chain-link fence. The man accepted the envelope and the two of them stood for a moment while he opened it and peered down, his fingers riffling through whatever was inside.

Eyes wide, Lucy wondered what she was seeing, and her active imagination went into overdrive. The man looked up at Paula and appeared to speak harshly. Lucy rolled her window down to see if she could hear what they were saying, but only a few words were discernible. From what she could tell, he didn’t think it was enough of whatever it was, and Paula was insisting it was all she had.

Sucking in her lips, she continued to watch as Paula whirled around and hustled to her car. Once inside, she drove the rest of the block and parked to the side of her townhome. Alighting, she walked quickly to her back door and disappeared.

Lucy sat for a moment, blinking as her gaze swung back to the man. He’d pulled out his phone and was talking as he walked back into the office. Lucy looked at the time on her phone. It was still fifteen minutes before they were supposed to meet, but she decided to find out what was happening. If Paula needed help, she wanted to know. If Paula was insistent on going her own way, then Lucy decided there was no reason to have dinner. Their friendship would truly have changed.

Throwing open her door, she marched to the front door and rang the bell. It took a moment, but Paula opened it, her chin jerking back slightly as Lucy stood on the front step, her hands on her hips.

“What’s going on, Paula?” Without waiting for an invitation, she pushed her way inside and turned to face her.

“What do you mean?” Paula’s gaze shot from Lucy to outside the still open front door, down to the floor, and back up to Lucy’s face again.

“You handing over something to that man at the storage facility.”

A gasp followed by Paula’s eyes widening gave Lucy all the information she needed to know that something was going on.

“It’s… I was just… I have a storage unit there.”

“And you make payments through the fence and then argue with the man?”

“Um… I was in a hurry and didn’t want to take the time to go inside to pay.”

“You’re lying.”

Paula opened her mouth but said nothing before she took a step backward, closed the door, and leaned against it. She dragged in a heavy breath before letting it out, her shoulders slumping at the same time. “Why are you here, Lucy? Why are you really here?”

A low, sad tenor was in Paula’s voice. Lucy’s posture mimicked hers as her shoulders slumped and her purse plopped onto the floor. Lifting her hands to the side, palms up, she shrugged. “Truthfully? I suppose I’m here to see if our friendship was real or just one of convenience. The past couple of years, we’ve enjoyed each other’s company at work, but when we went out, it was usually to do something you wanted to do. We never really just sat around and talked. I hadn’t thought about that until recently. You wanted to go bar hopping, I’d go along, which in hindsight makes no sense. While we enjoyed some of the same things, that was never my scene. But I let you convince me that I needed to loosen up and be more fun when in reality fun for me was working on my house, something you never understood. I don’t think it was until that night at Moose’s and then when you ditched me in Canada that I truly understood