Page 55 of Friends to WHAT?!

She didn’t, though. My daughter asked for a mother, and my starling told her she’d give her anything she could.

That’s not a deflection. That’s awhat if.

And one I’m going to make come true.

Chapter Twenty-Six

?

This chapter rocks.

Leora

I’ve barely been home an hour when a knock sounds at my door, stealing my attention away from the collection of rocks I’m sorting through for Amia.

When I left their apartment, belly full of sugary cereal and chick-shaped watermelon, I promised Amia that I would be back. If not today, then soon. She seemed… disbelieving. I didn’t get the feeling that she distrusted me, but the situation is certainly reading as too good to be true for her, and she’s wary. And who can blame her?

So I hatched a plan to show her that I intend to be in her life, returning to her over and over again.

I’m going to give her rocks. So many rocks. Not all at once, but one at a time, letting her tumble them like a musical round. I give, she tumbles, a week passes, the rock is still tumbling, but I give another, and she tumbles that in a different tumbler, and on and on so that she always has a rock going, even if a rock has just come out. This way, she will know that I will always be back, even if it’s only for the rocks. I hope, of course, that she’ll know I’m coming for her and her father, but if not…

Rocks.

So. Many. Rocks.

I set aside one that looks like it will take a particularly long time to tumble smooth, then stand, wipe my hands off on the skirt of the dress I put on yesterday and still haven’t changed outof, even though I’ve been home for an entire sixty minutes—sixty minutes I spent, reasonably, sorting rocks at my coffee table.

Whoever is at my door knocks again, more urgently.

“I’m coming!” I call, doing just that. Beyond my door window stands a tall, broad-shouldered man with a muss of white hair.

My brows furrow. Did I forget something?

I open the door quickly. “Wolfe?”

“Leora,” he greets, glancing at my dress-clad hips. “Are you wearing shorts?”

Uh… “Yes,” I answer. “I always wear cooling shorts under my dresses. They prevent chafing.”

“Perfect,” he mutters with a calculating look in his eyes. “That should make this pretty seamless, then. Foolproof.”

“Make what seamless?” I ask. “What foolproof?’

“And it should mark off the rest of my cons, too,” he continues, to himself.

Before I can askwhatshould mark off his few remaining cons—“few” meaning “zero,” in my opinion—he bends at the waist, shoves his shoulder into my belly, and lifts. He turns to the street and immediately starts marching away from my house, barely taking the time to pull my front door shut behind us.

He takes off down the sidewalk with sure, steady strides.

“Are you kidnapping me?” I ask, incredulous. “Again?” My heart can hardly take it, pitter-pattering her way around my chest.

“Yes,” he answers, readjusting his grip over my thighs.

“Thiscan’tbecome a habit,” I huff, though there’s no real heat behind it. This time, the kidnapping doesn’t bother me. Not on the tail of an evening spent with Wolfe and his daughter… on the tail of an evening where Wolfe’s lips pressed against mine, a tender shift into something more than friendship—somethingthat feels akin to what my heart has harbored for this man since his very first letter to me.

Something akin to love.

My view changes suddenly, and a blast of air conditioning makes me shiver. Wolfe’s studio passes by quickly, then I’m flying over his shoulder and down, a wall of memories blurring as I fall.