“No. No,” Lisa interrupted hurriedly. “I shouldn’t have said it like that. Obviously, the timing isn’t good for me, either, not with the baby, and everything I have going on.”
Lauren battled the lump in her throat. “We’ll still make it happen. We’ll just wait until the time is right for both of us.”
Hanging up, she hastily wiped her lashes before the tears could fall. There would be a right time someday. There would. She didn’t know it, or see it, or feel it. But she had to believe it. Faith was all she had left.
* * *
Sarah needed to turn off her Facebook app on her iPhone and sleep. It was late, nearly midnight, after a very intense day. It felt good to be on Facebook, reading all of her friends’ updates. Made her feel almost normal again. As if life would one day be normal again.
She switched off her phone, put it on the bedside table, and slid down beneath the covers. She wasn’t sleepy. How could she sleep?
Meg’s life sucked. Jack was, as JJ so eloquently put it, a dick. And Boone’s birthday was coming up on the twelfth, which was just eleven days away, and she hadn’t bought him anything yet, or planned anything, either, because he’d be gone on his birthday, in Detroit on a ten-day road trip.
Ten days.
She wasn’t ready for him to be gone, nor was she looking forward to being left alone with the kids again. Ella was easy—clingy but easy—while Brennan was always a little bit out of control. Sarah suspected that her son might have ADHD, but every time she brought up her concerns to Boone, he shut her down, saying that Brennan was just a boy, and boys were active.
How about hyperactive?
Sarah flopped over onto her stomach, looked down on Brennan where he slept at the side of the bed. He’d started out at the foot but had wriggled closer to her side before finally passing out, exhausted.
She smiled down at him. He was so sweet when asleep. Almost angelic.
Gently, she reached down and pushed his mop of dirty-blond hair back from his forehead. Such a handsome boy. And sometimes a really good boy. And sometimes not good at all, but she knew he didn’t mean to get into trouble all the time. It just seemed as if sometimes he couldn’t stop himself. That’s the part that worried her most.
With a last tender pat on his head, Sarah settled back in bed, plumping the pillow behind her head, hoping that one day Brennan would be like his cousin JJ. JJ was a really good kid. A sweetheart. She loved him, and Tessa. Gabi, too, but Gabi was a handful. Kind of like Brianna.
And Brennan.
Oh God. Maybe it was genetic, and maybe Brennan’s wild side came from her family.
Good thing Boone loved her family. Like Jack, he’d been raised in a small family, but unlike Jack, Boone had taken to the boisterous Brennans right away. He liked her family so much, it was Boone who suggested they name their son Brennan, in honor of them.
Just thinking about Boone made Sarah restless. She missed him, was still crazy about him. Boone was hot. The hottest man she’d ever met, with a gorgeous face and an amazing body, and he continued to rock her world, even after twelve years together. At six four, Boone was all muscle, all man, and hung well . . . like a man. A big man.
She smiled in the dark, thinking about that body, and how he used it, and how it felt to be with him. Her skin loved his skin. Her body loved his body. It was more than the size of his dick, or the way he made love, it was something else . . . something deeper, less tangible.
His smell. His taste. The rightness of it all.
Pheromones. Hormones. Soul mate.
Sarah reached under the covers, touched herself, trying to see if she could possibly arouse herself. Wasn’t working. It was just her hand and her parts. Even waxed and trimmed, it was all rather boring. She didn’t need an O. She needed Boone. And there was no way she could come if her children were around her. Sarah left the bed, headed to the bathroom to find something that might help her sleep.
As she filled a glass with water, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
For thirty-five, she was still remarkably pretty. But it wasn’t a bragging kind of thing. Sarah wasn’t vain and saw no point in cultivating excessive ego since she’d done nothing to earn the bone structure that had made her a UCLA calendar girl. It was all genetics. She’d been born with good skin, great cheekbones, long arms and legs, a slim torso, great hair. They were gifts given to her as a baby and the only thing she did to maintain her looks was exercise and a decent moisturizer. Doing more would have felt wrong. And she didn’t want to tempt fate.
Rifling through her travel bag, Sarah dug out the bottle of Tylenol PM and popped one, needing to sleep. She returned to bed, hoping the sleeping aid would knock her out. It did.