about Emily.
“And you don’t want to go, do you?” There was a slight pause. “I wish we could take you with us. We’re taking my mother and it’s kind of a family trip, you know. Here, talk to Naomi. She’ll cheer you up.”
“Hey, Lex. What’s up?”
The picture she painted for her best friend made her eyes burn. “Can you imagine? Stuck in the car for hours and hours with my grandma and Emily blabbering in the front seat and Adam reading to me about UFOs or one-celled animals or plant moss the whole time? I’ll go crazy.”
“I wish you could go with us. I asked a couple days ago just ‘cause it would be way more fun with you there. My mom’s being weird.”
“This stinks for both of us.”
“Yeah. I’m downloading a ton of cool music. You should, too. You can plug in and shut them out.”
“I don’t want to shut out, I want to get out! How can I get out of going?”
“Get sick.”
The two words were prettier than any music she’d ever put on her iPod. “Yessss. That’s why you’re my BFF. You’re a genius.”
“I know.”
“What should I get? Bronchitis? Tonsilitis? Something I can fake good without making myself throw up.”
“It can’t be so bad that they want to take you the doctor, but something contagious. How about poison ivy? There’s tons of it down by the river.”
“Nah. I had that when I was ten. Mom put stuff on it and still made me go to school.”
“I faked a fever for a couple days by rubbing the thermometer on my bedspread really hard.”
“My grandma has the kind you stick in your ear. I got it to a hundred and three once by holding it on my lamp, but then Mom stuck it in my ear and I got grounded for trying to get out school.”
“When I was five I drank my grandpa’s prune juice and I couldn’t get off the toilet for a whole day. My stomach hurt so bad I couldn’t even stand up straight.”
“That might work.” A day of horrible stomach cramps would be way better than a week of Emily acting like she was part of the family. Then again, who would know if her stomach actually hurt? “Only I don’t think I need the prune juice.”
“Let me hear your best stomachache sound.”
Lexi groaned and flopped back on the bed. Pansy yowled and Naomi laughed. “Perfect, Lex. It’s gonna work.”
CHAPTER 26
Emily sat in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, her gaze volleying between the door and the clock. Ten minutes to wait. Maybe less, but not a minute longer. Dawn Anne was a stickler for staying on schedule. After their first girl trip, Emily and Susan had started calling her “Mom” right along with Sierra. Dawn Anne set their alarms, told them when to be quiet and go to sleep, and doused them with water if they refused to crawl out of bed.
Disney World, San Antonio, Las Vegas, the Black Hills, and Apostle Islands. They’d seen the country together. When Dawn Anne’s husband got a job in Denver, Emily and Susan had flown out for a skiing trip at least once a year.
They were an eclectic foursome, but their temperaments meshed. Dawn Anne got them to the next stop on time. Susan forced them out of indecision over maps and menus. Sierra provided their excuse for Magic Kingdom, M&M World, and the San Diego Zoo.
And Emily? She clamped her forearms over her churning stomach. Emily was the tension-tamer, the practical joker, the witty commentator, the one who sang her silly preschool songs and made them laugh. What would her role be now that laughter was inappropriate?
She’d awakened at six with a stress headache. Percocet dimmed the pain, but the stress found a new target in her belly. Perspiration dampened her top lip. One minute her skin was hot, the next cold and clammy. Did any of them think this was going to be just like old times?
Pushing to her feet, she pulled out her phone and found a number she’d put in her contacts list last night. A Realtor in St. Louis. While she was looking up information on Missouri, an ad for foreclosures had popped up. She’d found one dirt cheap that claimed to be structurally sound. St. Louis. One step closer to the Pacific.
Unless her talk with Jake turned out different from any scenario she’d envisioned yet.
The automatic front doors slid open. Three women she barely recognized walked through. One, hand on a