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  Greg felt the last bit of weight slide from his shoulders. Gretchen had been taking it away chunk by chunk all week long but—

  “Damn.”

  They all stared at him, waiting.

  He sighed, remembering Gretchen’s crestfallen expression as he’d walked out the door earlier. The fear returned with a vengeance, clawing up his throat. “I didn’t leave things well.”

  “So go fix it,” Ronny said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “We’ll take you on our way home, right?”

  Ronny lifted a brow at Thomas who nodded.

  “You’re sure we’re not moving too fast?”

  “Is she pregnant?” Beau quipped.

  “What? No. I don’t think so.” They’d used protection, but that of course was no guarantee. Suddenly his mind was going at warp speed, imagining Gretchen round and glowing, leafing through a baby magazine while they snuggled on the couch.

  “Then you’re not moving too fast,” Beau said.

  “You could name your first born son Peter,” Ronny chimed in. “That’d be cool. I’m going to make the best uncle.”

  Greg imagined their children with her big brown eyes and warm smile. She’d be one hell of a mom. Their home would be filled to the brim with craft projects, cookies, love, and plenty of laughter. A wave of yearning swept through him.

  “Aww, look at him going all dreamy eyed.” Beau practically hooted with glee.

  “Yep, he’s whipped,” Ryan added.

  So what, he wanted to say. There were far worse things in life than finding and loving a great woman. Now he just prayed to God that he hadn’t hurt her so badly that she wouldn’t trust him again.

  He took a deep breath, added another prayer and a quick message to Peter, wherever he was. “To Peter,” he said, lifting his glass.

  “To Peter,” the others agreed, glasses lifted in salute.

  The doorbell rang again and this time Gretchen left Baby in the kitchen to finish scooping ice cream while she went to answer it.

  “Come in,” she called as she opened the door.

  Joe ushered JJ in and left her in the entry with a stern look.

  “You should have your door locked,” he admonished Gretchen and she nodded.

  Not that she needed anymore conflict tonight; her insides were already tied up in knots. “You’re right.”

  “Mind if I have a look around?” he asked as he exited the living room.

  Trevor’s stalker must be back in action.

  “Of course not. Make yourself at home Joe. Can I get you anything?”

  “No ma’am.”

  If she were the type to like tall, dark and dangerous, that smooth Texas twang would probably melt her on the spot.

  Gretchen went and made sure he’d locked the front door, which he had, and then stood with JJ while Joe finished his search. “Another letter?” she whispered.

  JJ swallowed and nodded.

  “Someone’s with Trevor?”

  Another nod.

  “Baby’s in the kitchen, you don’t think he’ll pull a gun on her do you?”

  JJ rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t hurt her. Besides, I’m more concerned with you right now. Tell me everything.”

  They collapsed on one of the sofas just as Baby came in with a tray piled high with wine, goblets, ice cream, sprinkles, and a can of whipped cream.

  Gretchen sniffed. Her friends had gone all out.

  “I’ll be outside if you need me, JJ,” Joe said.

  “Thanks Joe.”

  He nodded, glancing at Gretchen and then Baby. His gaze seemed to linger on Baby for an extra beat and when Gretchen glanced over at her friend, Baby was sticking her tongue out at his retreating back.

  “What’s that all about?” JJ beat Gretchen to the question.

  “He just has a corn cob up his–”

  “I heard that,” he said and then the door clicked shut.

  For some reason, they all found that tremendously funny. They were wiping tears from their eyes when Cindy strode in. Taking in the elegantly casual attire and dazzling accessories, Gretchen wondered if she’d pulled Cindy away from a date. But then again, she was always put together, even for an emergency ice cream fest. Gretchen hadn’t even changed out of her black dress but Cindy was the epitome of comfortable and collected in her dark jeans, sparkling shirt and lovely plum colored waterfall sweater.

  The three of them jumped up and gave her hugs. And just like that, Gretchen knew everything would be okay. Gretchen poured the wine. Baby squirted whipped cream in everyone’s bowl and JJ doled out the sprinkles.

  Good friends were hard to come by. Great friends were the ones who dropped everything on a Saturday night to rush to your side. They gave you strength, wiped your tears and made you laugh.

  No matter what happened with Greg, whether he sorted himself out and came around or decided a weeklong fling was all he wanted from her, Gretchen realized she’d be okay. Whatever happened in her life, these friends were forever.

  “So, about my brother,” JJ began.

  Gretchen shook her head as she scooped up a spoon full of caramel ice cream. “I’m just being silly. He’ll either decide he wants to be with me or he won’t. I’ll admit I was a little shell shocked today, but I keep reminding myself, he wasn’t this way before the accident.”

  “I’m sure he feels guilty,” Cindy piped in, adding more sprinkles and chocolate syrup to her bowl.

  “Survivor’s guilt,” Baby agreed.

  “Yeah. That’s what I keep telling myself.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t figured out what he feels for you yet. You remember what happened with Trevor...”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just knock them over the head and have them magically come to their senses,” Baby mused. She picked up her wine glass and stared toward the front of the house.

  “Enough about me—” Gretchen said.

  “No. Not enough about you,” JJ said. “Now that you’ve told him, he has the information he needs.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t say anything. He left.”

  “I thought you told him to leave,” Cindy said, confusion pinching her perfectly plucked brows.

  “I did.”

  The three of them stared at her. “Yes, I know I’m being irrational. I just figured if he really was madly in love with me he would have shut me up. Romantic confessions only happen in the movies, don’t they?”

  Silence reigned for a dozen heartbeats. That’s when Baby pulled out the big guns. She pulled out a brand new bag of Cheetos.

  “Your meeting went well, though, right?” JJ asked, obviously moving the conversation to safer subjects.

  There may not be a real life fairy tale in her future, at least not right now. If only she hadn’t gotten her hopes up.

  Taking a deep breath, she nodded and filled her friends in on the meeting with Lillith, the celebratory dinner with Greg. Luckily she hadn’t heard back from her mother. Thank God for small graces, and Annie was happy as a clam without her cheating boyfriend and smarmy roommate. How had her sister gotten over her long time beau so easily? Perhaps the shock of seeing him in bed with another woman, a friend, had severed all feelings.

  Gretchen would keep that in mind in case worse came to worse.

  JJ filled them in on the latest about the stalker as they finished off the ice cream. Gretchen glanced at each of her friends, silently thanking the powers that be to have each of them in her life. And then they focused their attention on Cindy.

  “I’m going to move out there for six months,” Cindy was saying, “and we’ll see how things go.”

  She hadn’t finished speaking before they chimed in.

  But Gretchen understood. She knew that feeling where you wanted to be with someone more than anything; even your girlfriends. And she didn’t begrudge her friend a chance at love, no matter how unconventional the start of their relationship was.

  The conversation circled back to Baby.

  “So what’s made you
r week so rough?” Gretchen asked.

  “Someone’s not happy with my work.”

  “And that’s unusual how?” Cindy asked.

  “Oh, you know. The usual. Death threats.”

  “Have you called the cops?” JJ asked.

  “What are they going to do? These envelopes don’t come with–” The lights went out. “Return address labels,” Baby finished quietly.

  “Someone must have hit a power pole,” Gretchen said. But as she rose to find a flashlight she saw her neighbor’s porch light turn on.

  An uneasy feeling swept through her. That didn’t make any sense. Last year during the ice storm, a tree had fallen on the line and everyone on the street had lost power.

  “I don’t think so,” JJ whispered.

  Something slammed into the front door and they all screamed. Adrenaline shot through her and her flight response kicked in. A loud grunt echoed through the front hall and then something crashed outside the front window.

  Her friends were already on their feet and she reached for JJ’s hand. Trembling, she whispered for them to follow her. They got to the bedroom and Gretchen locked the door behind them. She stumbled over the edge of the rug and almost face planted but one of the others grabbed her arm.

  Shards of light filtered through the curtains and she felt her way to the bed where she’d dropped her purse earlier. Thank God it was still there.

  “Who do you think it is?” Cindy whispered.

  “We need to call 911,” JJ said.

  Baby didn’t utter a word.

  Gretchen dumped her purse on the bed and blindly filtered through the contents until her hand wrapped around the cool plastic and metal of her cell phone. She wanted to hide but something told her to stay on her feet in case they needed to dive out the window. With shaking fingers, she tried to unlock the phone but kept slipping.

  “Let me,” JJ whispered, her hands closing over Gretchen’s. Somehow JJ was able to hold her fear in check and dial 911.

  JJ’s voice whispered through the darkness. She recited Gretchen’s address from memory and begged them to send police officers as quickly as possible. There was another loud thud and this time they jumped and clung to each other. By tacit agreement, they were staying as quiet as possible. As still as possible. But Gretchen felt Baby’s body shaking like a leaf.

  She hugged her friends and prayed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Greg tipped his head back against the headrest of his brother’s Jeep and stared out the window.

  “So you guys don’t think I’m moving too fast?”

  “For the last time,” Thomas said, turning the key. “No.”

  “It’s in your head, little bro,” Ronny added.

  “Thanks for this. I really needed to get out. Get some perspective.”

  Not away from Gretchen, but out of the house. Around the men who knew him best and would slap him on the back and show him a good time. Just as he’d hoped, they’d helped him get his head screwed on straight.

  “Can’t believe we’re turning in at ten o’clock. What happened to the days where we shut down the joint?” Ronny teased.

  “You got old,” Thomas quipped, stopping at a red light.

  Greg pulled a hand down his face. He was tired and at the same time energized. Gretchen was right. When you loved someone, you told them. You didn’t wait around for the right time, the right circumstances. The right time was any time.

  He blew out a sigh, remembering the look on Gretchen’s face right before he’d left earlier. He’d been wrong; he didn’t need time. He didn’t need space or distance; in fact that was the last thing he wanted. But she didn’t know that yet and the delay was killing him. He needed to fix things. He needed to get his foot out of his mouth and start talking.

  “Step on it, would you?” he called to Thomas.

  “Look at little bro go,” Ronny said.

  “Decides he’s in love with the girl and goes all starry eyed,” Thomas teased.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m whipped. Snookered. Head over heels. I’ll be sure to raz you guys as soon as you find someone who’ll love you back.”

  “Yeouch. Little bro has claws,” Ronny said and laughed.

  “Wait, pull over to that grocery. I need flowers. Lots and lots of flowers.”

  Twelve minutes and half a dozen bouquets of roses later, they piled back into the Jeep. He had a lot of talking and grovelling to do. He knew that.

  They turned onto Gretchen’s street and a flicker of blue light cut through the night sky, lighting up the undersides of the tree branches. He’d been in and out of it as the cops had arrived on the scene a week ago but there were flashes of complete clarity and he remembered the bright blue strobe lights on the cop cars. They’d blistered his eyes and compounded the ache in his skull.

  “Do you see that?” he asked, wanting to make sure he could believe his eyes.

  “Yeah.” Thomas stepped on the accelerator a little harder.

  They rounded a corner and came to the straightaway where Gretchen’s little house sat just up the hill. Three cop cars blocked the street in front of her house, lights casting a sickening glow across the neighborhood.

  “What in the–” Ronny broke off as a cop flagged them down.

  Thomas rolled down the window as he slowed the vehicle to a stop. But Greg wasn’t waiting around for a chat. He reached for the door handle as an ambulance pulled in from the other direction. Greg’s heart stopped. Literally paused inside his chest as fear gripped him. But then it jumpstarted and he bailed out of the Jeep like it was on fire.

  “You can’t go up there,” the cop called. Another one, positioned at the end of Gretchen’s driveway, held up a hand.

  “My fiancé’s in there,” he called to the cop, the lie rolling off his tongue with unpractised ease. His heart crashed around inside his ribs as he barrelled past the officer. What the hell had happened? He’d only been gone a few hours. Dread and anxiety mixed inside him as he walk/jogged up the road. Fucking stiff knee. He was halfway up the walkway when Gretchen darted out the door, feet bare.

  Cindy, JJ, and Baby were hot on her heels. Joe followed closely, favoring his right leg. Blood dripped down his cheek but he watched over the girls like a pit bull.

  “Greg?” Gretchen’s voice had never sounded sweeter. The icy tendrils of fear melted ever so slightly.

  He reached for her and she reached for him. He held her so tight he worried he might break her ribs. She squeezed his waist just as tight, burying her face against his shoulder. Despite his fear and everything still unsaid between them, the world felt like it’d righted itself.

  “What happened?” He asked as Ronny zipped by him, pulling JJ and Cindy into a bear hug.

  “We caught him,” Joe said. He didn’t need to say more.

  They all knew about Trevor’s stalker. The relief he felt was mirrored on Ronny’s face. Thomas uttered a ‘thank God,’ and hugged JJ.

  “Sir, let us take care of that cut,” a paramedic said to Joe. The bodyguard didn’t argue, simply followed the guy to the back of the ambulance. Baby looked torn for a moment. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing heavily. She bypassed the group in the walkway and followed Joe.

  Gretchen pulled back and let out a shuddering sigh. Glancing around the once quiet neighborhood with her lower lip wedged between her teeth, and he could see the worry lines between her brows. They’d been scared.

  So had he. He would forever associate flashing blue lights with overwhelming fear and prayed he never had to see them again.

  He had no idea what all had gone on but he thanked God that Joe had been watching over them. Gretchen trembled in his arms.

  “He cut the power,” JJ said. “And then there was this loud bang against the front door.”

  “We hid in Gretchen’s room and called the police,” Cindy told Ronny.

  “Smart. You guys did good. Where is the bastard?” Thomas asked.

  JJ nodded toward one of the police cruisers where th
ree officers were standing. Joe had settled on the back of the ambulance, Baby hovering to the side.

  “Did you call Trevor?” Greg asked them.

  Gretchen shook her head.

  “Joe did as soon as he came inside and made sure we were okay,” JJ said.

  The warmth of the day had given way to a cool evening. Greg shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around Gretchen’s shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, pulling back enough that he could study her.

  She nodded. “I hope Joe’s okay.”

  She peered around him. After everything that had happened, she was still concerned about everyone else. His main concern was her. JJ was still tucked beneath Thomas’s arm and Cindy and Ronny were talking with a police officer.

  “Come on, let’s get you some shoes,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist, keeping her close.

  The inside of the house was dark, darker than he’d ever seen it. He missed the coziness that Gretchen had created with the softly lit lamps.

  After turning on the flashlight feature of his phone, he swept the beam of light across the entryway and living room. Four wine glasses, half full, sat atop a tray on the ottoman next to bowls of melted ice cream. There was a bag of Cheetos on the floor with half a dozen stray orange puffs scattered around like confetti.

  “I don’t understand,” Gretchen murmured. “Why come after JJ? Trevor wasn’t even here.”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure Joe will find out.”

  He glanced out the front door to where JJ and Thomas were speaking with an officer. Joe was still on the bumper of the ambulance, a worried looking Baby sitting next to him. Even in the poor lighting Greg could see that the bodyguard was pissed.

  “Let’s get you some shoes and get out of here. We’ll take care of all this in the morning. Things will look better then.” The platitude his mom had told him a dozen times over the years rolled off of his tongue. She’d been right. The dark monsters of night always looked more approachable in the daylight.

  Next to him, Gretchen nodded slowly. They started down the hall to her bedroom when she stopped and turned to him. “Why are you here, Greg?” She searched his face.