“Love.” His voice softened. “I don’t like what I’m reading from you.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated, smiling into the empty room as though the act alone would help change her mood and console him. “I need to get to work. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
Miles waited a heartbeat and then responded, “I’ll be there at eleven. And then we talk.”
“Got it.”
•●•
Somehow Rebecca managed to put everything to the back of her mind and throw herself into her work. There was an increase in patients that evening due to the earthquake. Not many, but enough.
One child fell down the stairs she’d been descending at the wrong moment. An elderly woman had a heart attack thinking the world was coming to an end. A man suffered a severe laceration to his left arm when the wrench he was using under his car slipped and cut him. He was lucky the entire car hadn’t collapsed, crushing him.
Throughout the evening, Rebecca moved from one patient to the next, seeing to everyone’s needs and ignoring the jumble of thoughts in her head.
What she knew for sure was she needed time to sort out everything that had happened for the last week. She needed space away from her mates to do so, and she needed someone to talk to.
Melinda.
She sent her new sister-in-law a text midway through the day, asking her if she could pick her up at ten. Melinda quickly responded with an excited yes that included several silly emojis.
Rebecca felt bad it would be so late, but she couldn’t think of anyone else to call, and she needed a girlfriend, especially one who would understand at least the majority of what Rebecca was going through.
A twinge of guilt ate at her as she left work an hour early and climbed into Melinda’s car. She knew Miles and Griffen would be hurt when they found she wasn’t there, but by then she would be forty-five minutes away, tucked in Melinda’s house on the reservation.
“Girl, you look like you lost your best friend,” Melinda said as Rebecca folded herself into Melinda’s silver sports car.
“I feel worse.” She leaned back and closed her eyes, blowing out a long breath. She hadn’t breathed easily for days. She turned to face Melinda. “Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.”
“Any time.” She gave a conspiratorial grin. “I mean it. Any time you want to send my brother on the wild goose chase he’s going to be fuming about in one hour, I’m up to the task. I love goading him. It’s fun.” Melinda giggled as she pulled away from the curb.
“He called you.”
“Yep. Said he was picking you up at eleven.”
“You didn’t say anything?”
“Hell, no, girl.” Melinda glanced at her quizzically. “For one thing, I know you wouldn’t have asked me to do this if it weren’t important. For another thing, I’m dying to get to know you better. And lastly, oh God how I love to mess with Miles.”
Rebecca laughed. Hard. For the first time in days. “They’re both going to kill me.”
“That’s the fun part.” Melinda hit the gas and picked up the pace. “Now, what do you want to drink? We’ll need to stop at a liquor store on the way. I can tell without asking that we need alcohol and lots of it.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
By midnight, Rebecca was half drunk, and it felt good—carefree and relaxed like she hadn’t been in days.
Melinda’s condo was connected to several others on the reservation, but she had an end unit with relative privacy. They could be as loud as necessary, and no one would be the wiser.
There had been three heated discussions with Miles and Griffen, one over the phone out loud and two through telepathy. The more she drank, the harder it was to block them. So she cut herself off after four glasses of wine, partway through the second bottle, and started eating corn chips to soak up the alcohol.
Neither of those items had been on her food list for months as she trained. Considering her race was now a week away, she’d lost her mind, but it felt good.
“So, let me get this straight.” Melinda giggled, her own glass of Merlot sloshing up the sides. “You gave them the slip because you couldn’t stand another night of lusty testosterone?”
“Yeah. It sounds far more ridiculous when you put it like that. But yes.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I was with you and safe.”
“And they haven’t busted in here because…?”
“Because I told them I needed space and time.” She winced. “They might be a little frustrated. I can feel it. But they’re holding back to avoid pissing me off royally.”