Page 85 of The Lucky Heart (Jamison Valley 3)
I smiled back. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Really good, actually. I’m glad I ran into you today. I’ve been meaning to call and say thanks.”
“Thanks for what?”
She took a long breath. “For coming over on New Year’s. You really helped me that day.”
“I did?” I’d only been there for five minutes.
She leaned forward and whispered, “I left Derrick that afternoon.”
“Oh.” I tried to sound shocked instead of elated.
She smiled and toyed with her keys on the table. “Our separation didn’t last long. He came and found me at the motel the next morning. He promised to go to counseling if I came home and that he’d stop drinking. He’s kept his promise and things have been good. I think our marriage will come out stronger because of it all.”
“Oh.” This time I tried to sound hopeful instead of disappointed. “How did my visit make a difference?”
“I hated that you saw me so low,” she said. “That you were judging me. I decided that day that I didn’t want to have Felicity Cleary’s pity ever again.”
Ouch. She didn’t think much of me at all, did she? What could I say that would convince her that I wasn’t the bratty adolescent that she had once known?
“Khloe, I never judged you,” I said, “or pitied you. I just wanted to help. I just wanted—want to be your friend. I hope you will believe that.”
She studied my face for a minute, then looked to her lap. “Maybe I needed to think you were judging me. Then I could judge myself.”
I could give her that.
“I never thought I’d be a woman whose husband abuses her. It just . . . happened. Derrick and I have been married for eleven years. Most of them have been great, and I don’t want to make excuses or anything, he shouldn’t have hurt me, but he only ever did it when he was drinking. These last couple of years have been hard. He turns into a different person when he’s drunk.”
I nodded but kept quiet. I knew what it felt like when a partner treated you differently when they were under the influence. Wes had turned into a different person when he’d been high. So I wouldn’t judge Khloe for forgiving her husband. I would, however, judge Derrick for being a rotten piece of shit that beat his wife.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have given him one last chance, but I love him.”
“I understand that.” I patted her hand.
“Anyway, enough of that. If you still want to be friends, I’d really like that.”
“Me too.”
We chatted over the next hour and gossiped a bit. When I told her that Andrea Merkuso had left town to marry my ex-boyfriend, she stood up and did a happy dance. Apparently, the teasing I’d done to her in high school paled in comparison to how Andrea had treated her behind my back.
“Thanks for letting me interrupt your work,” Khloe said, standing to leave. She smiled, maybe the most genuine smile she’d ever given me, and waved good-bye. “See you around.”
I waved back. “Bye.”
I wished Khloe the best with her marriage, and I truly hoped that we could become friends. She was sweet but had a hilariously dry sense of humor.
Derrick had just better watch himself. Nobody messed with my friends. If he stepped over the line again, I wouldn’t be quite as hesitant about my involvement or pulling my brother, the sheriff, into the loop.
I hurried to finish up my work so that I could leave the coffee shop and call Sabrina. She had promised me that she would be free all night long and we could have a long talk. Between Khloe, Paxon and Silas, we’d need at least an hour. That, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that tonight she’d finally spill on this super-secret story she had been investigating.
When I got her voicemail, my heart sank. I left her a quick message and held my phone tight, willing it to ring.
Something was wrong. I’d heard Sabrina’s voicemail more these last few months than I had in the past ten years combined. I was tempted to do something drastic, like fly to Seattle and track her ass down, but instead, I drove to the ranch to spend the night with Silas.
I kept my phone close all through dinner and the movie we watched together on the couch, but Sabrina never called.
It took her a week to finally return my message.
