Lori

 

 

Six months later…

“You sound great, Lori!”

“Thanks, Danny. I feel great,” I laugh, putting my feet up on my desk and leaning back to cradle the telephone against my shoulder while juggling coffee and a slice of cake.

It’s my last day with the firm, and Glen threw me a real shindig with balloons and a speech and the wailing of my office mates who don’t want me to leave.

But I am leaving because I need to. No, I want to. In the last months, I’ve wrestled with myself, gone to therapy, and progressed and regressed so much that some days I don’t know what to do with myself.

It’s been a long process of thinking about what I want out of my life and struggling to get there despite the issues I still carry around. I laughed, cried, and yelled at Dr. Morris that I shouldn’t have to pay her a cent if I have an attack because her therapy isn’t doing shit.

She told me she was worth every penny and kept pushing me to confront my stuff, so harshly at times that I’d cry and leave without a word, swearing never to go back.

I went back though, every single time, and I pushed myself harder than even the doctor, knowing that to get through I had to bleed a little. And I did. I finally resolved some of my stuff and admitted to myself that I was afraid, that I had been afraid, and that I have a right to feel betrayed by the men who took me.

I resolved to talk to Bear and put it all on the table, thanking him for saving me and needing his apologies for his role in my ordeal even when I know it was his way of saving me.

It sounds contrary, but I understand it all now, and to move forward, my mind needed someone to acknowledge their part in it all. Bear gave me that and held me when I cried, his demeanor rock steady, if slightly uncomfortable, through my tears and unburdening.

Doctor Morris wanted me to talk to Wolf, but healing and everything aside, I’d rather eat glass, take a toilet break, and wipe with pool acid than see that man again.

Oh, I totally understand that part of my issue was that I never came to terms with Wolf basically imprisoning me and keeping me in that cell. I know that. I should have spoken to him and made it all clear that I suffered ripping the cloth of my reality because it wasn’t normal for me to see him as only my savior.

He was my downfall too.

I’ve dealt with it alone though, and I’m okay with that. I now know that part of it was feeling betrayed by them. Wolf. Bear, who now knows that Wolf sent me away and that I didn’t betray anyone. Rain, who should have released me if she’d truly loved me. Danny, who didn’t think of me after I was taken away.

Lyon, who did Wolf’s dirty work.

Everyone I trusted had let me down, and I needed to come to terms with it and find a way to love them without melting down when I saw them. Or just thought of them, which, admittedly, I do, a lot.

I miss them all, but I am doing great. So great that I made this huge sale and used my commission to buy a place out in the mountains. It’s a cabin-style place on the outskirts of a town near Danny’s place. I finally buckled after she nagged enough, and I am moving closer, though not close enough to be living with them, thank God. Bear makes a lot of noise at night. The man is a screamer. Yuck.

So, yeah, I got a place.

It’s not…

Well, it’s not glamorous or anything like that, but it’s what I’ve always wanted, and I also managed to open a little grocery store too, just to keep myself in rags as I pursue my dream of building an Internet business that supplies grandmothers of this new century with knitted apparel for the grandbabies they’ll have.

You think I sound nuts, but hear me out. After I started knitting, a therapeutic task that Dr. Morris wouldn’t let me quit, I found that I liked it a lot. And I was good at it.

I’d always wanted to start my own business supplying things to people using the web and a delivery system, but I never had an idea of what I’d sell.

After Danny went into raptures about the simple booties I sent her and the little blanket I crocheted, I was sort of hooked. I went at it so hard I ended up with a stockpile of stuff in my spare bedroom.

I was obsessed, and I have to hand it to the good doc, the patience and focus required helped me through many a long night when the thought of sleeping gave me hives.

So, I kept working, and then one day, on a whim, I had my friend Lindi set up a site, just to see if it could work. I now have a decent business providing grannies who don’t know the first thing about knitting with little items that most pass off as their own creations, keeping the old traditions alive while laughing my ass off at the new modern era’s grandmotherly figures.

Most of these broads spend their days having lunch and discussing the Housewives shows, not on the porch in a rocker knitting one, purling one, for the next generation.

I provide a service; they lie through their dentures about being all grandmotherly. It’s a well-balanced deception that keeps me in trade.

So, yeah, I am moving soon, and thanks to my store and the assistant who will run it, I can focus on this new phase in my life. The store is more of a guarantee, just in case the demand stops one day.

For now, I’m just happy that I have something new and beautiful in my life.

“I can’t wait, Lori! You’ll come over and—”

“I’ll come over when I am not working, and we’ll talk on the phone daily like we have been, but I am not going to move in with you guys, and no, I won’t be over there every day. That’s why I moved to a town a little way away.”

“I get it. I get it. You want to be independent, and Bear’s being a douche,” she grunts, making me giggle.

Bear is worse than a real big brother, and I have to say, now that the man stopped pretending to be a mobster and finally set his life back on course, he’s a sweetheart.

Gone is the gruff—

Gotcha! The man is still a bear, pun intended, and he growls and snarls at people regularly. It’s just that he’s turned into a real worrywart where I am concerned and does not like me living on my own.

If he’d had his way, I would be living in a cottage on his property, taking handouts and not lifting a finger. I had to make him promise not to interfere when I started my business, because the man takes over without a thought wherever he goes.

“Bear is a darling, but he’s too protective. I want to build my life, my new life, not watch others build it for me and give me the keys to a perfect existence. Besides, what the heck would I do with myself if I listened to him and stopped working fully? I’d go nuts.”

“You could roam the gardens with me and go a little nuts,” she growls, making me giggle.

“You don’t have to stay at home, you know.”

“No, yeah, I know, but it’s stupid, getting a job now when I know I’ll just want to be home after Ben is born. Bear and I want our children to grow up with both parents present, so I have to accept that I won’t ever be a career woman. It’s just a little boring though since Bear started going into the city to work at the agency and Rain has started that bridge club. Jesus, I hate bridge.”

Another laugh, this one for Mama Rain, who’s found her passion in the form of fleecing little old women of their money, playing bridge of all things.

She’s the reigning champ at the moment, and she’s made enough cents to buy an ice cream cone.

But it keeps her busy, and for that, Alric is eternally grateful since he’s decided to manage Bear’s agency as a hobby—drives Bear nuts, of course, but hey…

“So, you’re still coming to the party?” Danny asks for the millionth time.

I roll my eyes because I’ve RSVP’d for a month straight, daily, and she still asks.

“Yes! I will be there. For the hundredth time, Danny Wylder, I will be at your party, and I’ll bring a gift. Geez,” I utter.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just that I know that you know that he’ll be there, and I get that you may not want to come because of him, but it would hurt me if you didn’t and—”

“Breathe! And calm down, okay? I know Wolf will be at the party, seeing as it’s his welcome home party and all,” I laugh, grunting when she sucks in a deep breath. “It did not escape me the first time I read the invitation, and it hasn’t in the last month whenever you call and remind me.”

“Sorry. I know, but I don’t want to surprise you with the big ass, and he’s…”

“Going to be present at his welcome home bash. I know that, Danny. And I will be there to welcome the great Wylder son back into the fold, okay? It’s all good.”

Which is not true, but it’s my last step in the program that Dr. Morris set out before agreeing to let me go without another referral. I know I am healthy and doing fine. I have the odd setback sometimes when something triggers a memory, but I’m rock solid on the mental front, and I can deal with it all.

I have spent months working through my stuff, and I don’t just cope, I kick ass. So, yeah, I will see Wolf, but according to the good doctor, it will be my last step.

If I can see him and not feel panic, then I know I will be okay. I think. I really have no idea other than to believe that I’m fine and that I got over him.

Which is not quite true, if I count the dreams…

“Okay, okay, this is great! And bring that guy. He was cute,” she trills.

Cute? Jackson Robechaux is not cute. He’s freaking phenomenal-looking, and we all know it! I met him through Lindi, my friend, and after she set us up and I got through a freak-out in the restaurant, I totally got a fuzzy feeling for the guy.

He didn’t once look embarrassed that I was breathing like a lung cancer patient when I forced myself to walk in there, and when the waiter tried to call 911, he told him to screw off and chill out.

By the time our first course arrived—ordered by Jack because I wasn’t capable of much else but trying to stay conscious—I knew I would love him.

He’s got a few bars down on Bourbon and a restaurant. Lindi set us up when she found out I was relocating, and it’s been four weeks of dating thus far, when he can get out to Texas.

I really do look forward to dating him full-time once I’m settled, starting with Wolf’s party, and no, no, don’t get all weird on me, okay? I’m not taking Jack because I’m hell bent on showing Wolf that I have moved on.

I have moved on, and I should be adult enough to show Jack off.

If the thought of sex with him is making me sweat a bit, well, I tell myself it’s because the man is hotter than an egg on a Texan sidewalk and I am just nervous because it’s only my second go-round at this whole love thing.

That’s all.

“Bye, Danny.”

I hang up with a chuckle and swing my feet off the desk, attacking the cake with a love of all things chocolate.

The phone rings again, and I answer around a mouthful of half-chewed dough, choking when I swallow the lump whole.

“‘Lo?”

Silence continues for a second or two, and I frown before I hear a throat clear and then…

“Lori?”

That voice stops everything for me, and when my heart starts racing, this time I don’t have to go all nuts with breathing techniques, because it’s not an attack. It’s this breathless cessation of all thought as his soft, dark drawl slides over me like a sinful caress.

“Wolf.”

It’s one word, and I am thankful that I sound firm when I greet the man I’ve been trying to forget for months. Six months. I’ve been without him for six months, and while I’ve progressed, I can’t lie and say I haven’t thought about Wolf or wondered…

“It’s good to hear your voice, Lori.”

Shit. Don’t go all hot and gooey.

“Cut the crap, Wylder. What’s up?”

He clears his throat at my stern no-nonsense reply, and I feel marginally better about how things may turn out in this conversation. To say I am floored and struck dumb at this call is not even…

I am flabbergasted but also a little confused. I haven’t heard anything about Wolf in three months, and after the way he left, without even saying goodbye, I never expected a thing.

I mean, damn, I envisioned going to his party next week and having him avoid me like the plague. Definitely not a phone call out of the blue.

“I, uh, wanted to talk to you, and I thought it would be a good idea to maybe ask you to dinner so we can, uh, yeah, talk.”

This guy sounds nothing like the Wolf I know. His voice is hesitant, and he’s stumbling over words whereas before Wolf would just tell me what he wanted and expect me to comply.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, I’m in Texas for my last debriefing, and I figured we could get together and talk about a few things?”

I’d say yes in a second at just the thought of seeing him, but thank God, I can’t, because, you know, it’s just better this way. I no longer want to talk to him and rehash things. I’ve worked it all out, slowly, with a lot of pain, and I don’t think going over things again will help.

I’ve moved on, truly.

“Uh, sorry, Wolf, but I can’t make it tonight.”

“What? Why not?”

Oh! There he is, I muse, snorting into the receiver. There’s the man who tells a woman what he wants and demands compliance.

“I have a date, and I’m not canceling to sit at a table with you and pretend to talk. You’re not going to say anything I haven’t already heard, and I don’t have anything to say back.”

That’s not completely true. A part of me would really like to tell him off, but I know that wouldn’t be healthy, and you know what, I don’t want to focus on the bad stuff anymore.

“We need to talk, Lori.”

“No, we needed to talk six months ago, Wolf, but you made it clear that wasn’t happening. So, I did what you told me to do and moved on,” I say shortly, flicking my pen in a nervous gesture that sets a staccato beat against my desk.

“I know, and I messed up, but I’d really like to sit down with you and explain. Please. Before we see each other next week,” he says gruffly.

“I can’t. I have a date tonight with someone I care too much about to blow off, and the next couple of days are going to be busy with my move. Let’s just do this now and get it over with if you’re so keen.”

Please, no! My coworkers love me, but they already think I’m nuts, and another meltdown won’t make things any better. I may be leaving, but no way do I want to walk away leaving an office full of people referring to me as crazy-eyed Lori who moved down to the swamp.

“I can’t do this over the phone.”

“Wolf—”

“It’s not a conversation that I can have over the phone, Lori. I need to see you,” he insists.

Something in his voice has me stilling, and I sigh as I feel my resistance crumble beneath the absolute need to get this done. And yeah, okay, it also bugs me to hear the big strong Wolf shit out of character.

“Fine. Look, come over to my place after ten, and I’ll see you.”

“Thank you, Lori.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Wolf Wylder. I may be letting you talk when you don’t deserve the time of day, but don’t think I won’t talk back,” I warn.

“God forbid,” he chuckles. “I’ll see you after ten.”