Lyra smiled as Savvy wrapped her arms around her and hugged. As much as she’d needed the time away at her in-laws, three weeks was a long time to go without lunch with her girlfriends. They’d gotten the scare of a lifetime when Savvy had come to the apartment in the middle of the night and found Lyra and the girls had disappeared suddenly.

“We missed you!” Tracy said, taking over the hug where Savvy had left off.

Lyra smiled. “I missed you guys, too.” She sat on the couch as Savvy took the other side of it and Tracy took the large chair beside it.

“So, tell us. How is the business going?”

Despite the fact that Joel’s business had survived, she had given her notice right away after the kidnapping. She realized she needed to grab life and go after her dreams. Dream Weavers for Women had been born two weeks ago.

“I’m booked for the next four months.” Lyra couldn’t believe her launch had gone so well. She offered branding and software solutions for women-owned businesses. Within days of her launch, several friends had posted about the business in a few Facebook groups for women-owned businesses, and things had grown from there. “Now I have to sustain it.”

“You will,” Tracy said with a wave of her hand. “Word will spread and you’ll be turning people away for years to come.”

Lyra grinned. Despite her happy expression, there was an emptiness she’d found she couldn’t get rid of. And its name was Luke. The man had left a gaping hole unlike anything she’d felt since she’d lost her husband years before.

“So, Billy took the plea?” Savvy asked.

“Yes. If my parents hadn’t stepped in and paid for a solid attorney, I don’t know if he would have gotten such a great deal. It helped, too, that Luke and Samantha told the FBI he worked to help them stop the auction.”

“How long will he serve?” Tracy put in.

“Three years in a minimum-security prison.” Her heart hurt just thinking about Billy in prison, but he’d known what he was doing was wrong. He had to face the consequences for the choices he’d made.

There was a pause and Lyra didn’t miss the look Tracy and Savvy exchanged. She raised her brows at them.

“Have you talked to Luke?”

Lyra shook her head, a tight knot forming in her throat.

“We were wrong.” Savvy was the one to speak but Tracy was nodding her head.

“What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t a hot quick lay to keep you busy while he was here,” Tracy said.

“What she said.” Savvy pointed and nodded. “He cared about you. We could see it as soon as we saw you guys together.”

Lyra shook her head and fought the rising tears in her eyes. “I was a job to him.” She felt the stab of warring emotions. Humiliation, anger. Want.

“That man had feelings for you. I don’t care what his job was or what brought him here.”

Tracy jumped back in. “He wouldn’t have gone to bat for Billy as much as he had if he didn’t care for you.”

Lyra bit her lip and looked back and forth at the girls. “I don’t even know where he is.”

Savvy let out an offended huff. “You have his phone number. Getting in touch shouldn’t be all that hard, even if he isn’t across the hall anymore.”

Lyra let her gaze fall where her feet rested on the coffee table.

“What are you afraid of?” Savvy asked her.

“Everything.”

“That’s a little vague.” Tracy swatted at Lyra’s feet with one of her own. “Explain.”

“I just don’t know if I can go through that again. I mean, I thought I could. I thought I was ready to open myself up again, you know? And then I found out he’s some undercover cop or something. In the end, I realized, it wasn’t betrayal that hurt so much at that moment, it was the thought that he was gone. That I didn’t really have this great new thing in my life.”

“This is one of those dance things.”

“Huh?” Lyra looked at Savvy and couldn’t help but smile.

“Sure, those dance things. That’s the song. Actually,” Savvy frowned. “It’s a lot of songs. I Hope You Dance, and that one by Garth Brooks about not having the dance even if there was loss that came with it. This is one of those dance things. And you, woman,” she pointed her finger at Lyra, “deserve to dance.”

Lyra nodded. She wished she could say she was feeling the confidence of a prized fighter, but the truth was, she wasn’t. When she thought of facing Luke and having him reject her, she froze up.

Which was silly, really. She’d just started her own business. She was raising her twins on her own. She was a strong woman.

Lyra took a breath and felt hope flicker in her chest. “I’ll call him.”

Her friends’ grins matched and they started to theorize about the reunion and how hot it would be. Lyra was laughing when she went to answer the door moments later.