Concerned, Abby moved closer to her friend, a woman who rarely couldn’t find the words to express herself.
“Jenny, you aren’t making any sense,” she said softly.
“You’ve fallen in love with him,” Jenny blurted and Abby felt her eyes round.
“With who?” she asked stupidly.
“With Cash!” Jenny replied on a muted shriek then looked over her shoulder to see if anyone had heard to find that only Mrs. Truman had her eagle-eyes on them. Jenny turned back. “You’ve fallen in love with Cash.”
Abby felt her heart start beating faster but she went into denial. “Jenny, I’ve known him three weeks.”
“The night Ben brought you home from your first date you phoned me, woke me up and told me you were going to marry him. A year and a half later I was your maid of honour,” Jenny reminded her.
This was true.
It was also true that the minute she laid eyes on Cash in that pub, she’d had a feeling that she’d only felt once in her life. It was the same feeling she had when Ben’s eyes caught hers when she was standing at a coffee bar ordering her latte and Ben was standing at the end of it waiting for his.
Except with Cash that feeling was infinitely stronger.
Abby felt like someone threw a bag of bricks at her and it landed heavily against her belly.
“Jenny –” she started.
“Get out,” Jenny talked over Abby, her eyes reading Abby’s thoughts, her voice now urgent. “Get out now.” She came closer and her fingers curled around Abby’s. “Abby, honey, it kills me to tell you this but he doesn’t feel the same way.”
Abby felt her body jerk as if she’d been struck at the same time the room started spinning. She heard Jenny’s voice come at her from far away asking if she was okay. Abby blinked several times and with a good deal of effort, she focused on Jenny.
“How do you know?” she whispered.
Jenny got even closer and whispered back, “He all but told me, Abby. He cares about you, that’s obvious. He wants you to be happy, he even told me that. But he isn’t in this for the long run, he told me that too.”
Abby felt that bloom in her heart start to wither. “He mentioned something but –”
Jenny gave her fingers a squeeze, cutting off her words. “Then you’ve got to get out now, before it’s too late.”
Even though the hope she’d been feeling started to fade away, Abby still whispered, “I can’t.”
“You have to Abby,” Jenny’s other hand grabbed Abby’s and she held their hands tightly together between them. “He’s a… I don’t know. He’s a force of nature,” she said. “You’re going to… hell, you’re already caught in his magnetic field. When he cuts you loose, you’re not going to want to be let go but you won’t have any choice. Abby,” she shook their hands between them, “it’ll destroy you. You know it’ll destroy you,” she paused and her voice went low before she finished, “again.”
Abby closed her eyes and looked away.
She could try to fool herself that his behaviour meant they were developing something deeper.
What she couldn’t do was ignore the fact that Cash told her best friend of all people that their relationship was finite.
He would never do that.
Unless it was.
Even though she knew she was living on borrowed time, she’d been unconsciously holding onto that hope in her heart, wanting more, wishing the magic was real.
Instead of yet another path that led to heart wrenching despair.
But Abby knew better than that. She’d been taught that lesson time and again.
And every time Jenny had picked up the pieces.
She squeezed her eyes tight and clenched her teeth tighter as the pain of the dying dream of years filled with anguish ending in a life filled with magic seared through her soul.
She opened her eyes and looked at her friend’s concerned face.
“He told me earlier tonight we had to talk about our future,” she confided, her voice aching, her throat burning. “He’s very astute. I’m guessing he’s cottoned on to how I feel and wants to remind me where we stand.”
“Abby –” Jenny started but Abby kept talking as she squeezed their hands.
“Don’t worry Jenny,” she whispered. “Please, don’t worry.” Then she said out loud what she knew she had to do to guard her heart before, as Jenny surmised correctly, it was too late. “After tonight, it’s over.”
The word “over” came out in a croak as tears clawed their way up her throat and Jenny let go of their hands and got even closer.
Her friend put her cheek to Abby’s and in her ear, she murmured, “I’m sorry, Abby, so sorry. I started this and now here you are. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Abby replied, gulping back tears, succeeding, in an extreme effort of will, at fighting them back before a single one was shed.
Jenny leaned back and her fingers curled around Abby’s upper arm. “It is but we won’t argue that.” Her hand tightened and she looked deep into Abby’s eyes. “You’ll get through this, girlfriend. You always do. I don’t know anyone on this planet who’s stronger than you.”
At that Abby laughed but there was not even a hint of humour in it.
Before more could be said Mrs. Truman descended on their tête-à-tête.
“What are you two whispering about?” she demanded to know.
Jenny turned to Mrs. Truman but caught Abby’s hand. “Nothing.”
Mrs. Truman eyed Jenny then she looked at Abby assessingly. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
“It’s nothing,” Abby lied.
“Well,” she said on an angry-to-be-left-out humph, “you two were so absorbed, you haven’t noticed that something’s happening.”
Abby and Jenny looked into the room to see people were coming from all corners of the house, squeezing into the large space, making it small.
As she looked, Abby saw Cash arrive. His eyes scanned the room and for the first time in her life Abby wished both that she wasn’t so tall and that she wasn’t wearing a pair of elegant, expensive high-heeled shoes when Cash’s eyes easily found her.
She watched as his powerful body wended its way through the crush toward them and he arrived at the same time as Kieran.
Jenny dropped her hand as Cash got close, his arm moving along her waist, his chin dipped and she saw his brows draw together as he examined her face.