Rainy Day Friends Read online

  “Yes. In a few days,” Lanie said. “You didn’t know?”

  River closed her eyes as if pained. “I think he might’ve tried to tell me this morning, but I screwed up. I’ve wasted so much time and now he’s leaving to go back to hell. I’m so confused.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  River blew out a sigh and stared at the journal with her name on it. “Can you peek and tell me how bad it is?”

  Lanie cautiously opened the journal and froze.

  “Oh God, it is nude pics.”

  “No. No, it’s okay,” Lanie said and slid an arm around River because she was suddenly looking ill. “No, I mean really. It’s not like that,” she said.

  “So what is it like?”

  “Well . . .” She was having a hard time believing her own eyes. “He appears to have written about each of us, meticulously and . . . with love.”

  River stared at her and then grabbed the journal, opening it up to a random page dated about a year ago.

  I’ve never met anyone as sweet and loving and caring as River. She’d give a perfect stranger the shirt off her back. Life hasn’t been kind to her, but you wouldn’t know it because she treats everyone who crosses her path with sweet generosity.

  Including me.

  The day I met her, I’d just screwed up at work and in life, big time. I was tired, frustrated, and scared. She served me lunch. I’d been sick and had just gotten off the phone with my doctor. My heart condition worsened and I didn’t know what to do with that shit news other than keep it to myself. It would’ve destroyed the people in my life and I was weak, far too weak to be strong for them.

  Selfish.

  But River’s the opposite of selfish. She sees me as funny and smart and on top of my world, none of which is true. But God, I love seeing myself through her eyes . . .

  River looked up. “I don’t understand. He was sick? Did you know?”

  Lanie shook her head, stunned. “He never said a word.” She was flipping through her book too. “It looks like he only says nice things about us all. Maybe . . . maybe he really did love us in his own sick way, the two-timing, polygamist asshat.” She pulled something else from the box. A picture of a pretty young woman wearing an apron with a popular grocery store chain logo on it. Her little badge read: Carrie, store clerk and world optimist.

  Lanie turned the photo over. On the back was Kyle’s familiar scrawl: My next wife!

  River stared at it. “Can you kill a dead man?” She looked into the now empty box.

  No ring.

  Lanie squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry. I’d hoped it’d be here.”

  Looking numb, River nodded and tried unsuccessfully to get to her feet. Lanie helped her. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” River said. Clearly a big, fat lie.

  Five minutes and yet another quick pee stop later, they walked silently out to the car. Lanie could tell River was hurt and angry but she had no idea how to make it better. When they were on the highway, Lanie’s place miles behind them, she tried in the only way she knew how. “I’m writing you a check.”

  River turned from where she’d been staring out the window. “What?”

  Lanie inhaled a deep breath. “I’m serious. I’m writing you a check. I’m writing all of you a check. We’re splitting the life insurance money.”

  “Stop the car.”

  Lanie glanced over. “What? Why?”

  “Just stop the damn car!” River yelled.

  Lanie jerked the car to the side of the road. “What’s wrong, are you sick—”

  River wrenched the door open and stumbled out. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sick. And tired. I’m sick and tired of being a victim. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And most of all, I’m sick and tired of pregnancy hormones that make me sick and tired and . . .”

  “Crazy?” Lanie ventured, meaning only to tease her out of her mood.

  “Yes!” River grabbed her ratty backpack and glared at Lanie with shimmering eyes. “You’re not writing me a check. I’m not some charity case.” She grimaced. “Okay, so maybe I am, but I don’t want to be!” She slammed the door and turned and started walking down the road.

  Actually, it was more of a waddle, one hand holding the backpack, the other cradling her belly.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Lanie drove forward to catch her, which took all of two seconds. An eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant woman moved at the pace of a sleepy snail. She rolled down the passenger window. “Get back in the car, River.”

  “No. I’m taking the train back to Wildstone.”

  “Are you kidding me? And what am I supposed to do?”

  “Leave!”

  “I can’t just leave you out here!”

  “Sure, you can,” River said. “I’m absolving you from being responsible for me. You never asked for this headache and you certainly don’t want to be my friend now that you know who I am and what I did. And I get it. Believe me, I’d hate me too.”

  “River—”

  “I’m officially no longer your problem,” she said and kept walking. Slash waddling.

  Lanie checked traffic—none—and inched her car forward. “Seriously, River. I’m not leaving you here. I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You just use the long, skinny pedal on the right. It’s called the gas.”

  Lanie rolled her eyes, pulled the car over behind the stubborn pregnant chick, and parked. She started to get out of the car, but there was a very clear NO PARKING sign on the side of the road.

  Terrific.

  River left the road and walked along the edge of a parking lot toward a dive bar called Double Down Saloon. Lanie looked at the time. Four o’clock. The bar would be open. Dammit. She pulled in and parked just as River got to the door. Lanie turned off the engine and answered an incoming call from Mark.

  “How’s it going?” his deep baritone asked, just the sound of him providing a sense of comfort that she told herself she didn’t need.

  “Great,” she said. “Really great. Fantastic. Awesome.”

  He paused. “I’m going to ask that again. How’s it going?”

  How did he do that? Read her from a hundred miles away? “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said, eyes on River as the bar door shut behind her. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Just tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay.” Crazy for doing this, but okay. “I’ll see you later,” she said.

  “Promise?”

  Her heart did a happy little wiggle that should’ve set alarm bells off in her brain, but apparently her brain was on overload. “Promise.” She disconnected and went in after River.

  RIVER CROUCHED IN the bar bathroom and threw up everything she’d eaten that day. Which had been an unfortunate lot. Her throat burned, her eyes watered, her back hurt like a bitch, and . . . she was exhausted. So fucking exhausted . . .

  “Here.” Someone came in behind her and pressed a wad of damp paper towels in her hand.

  Lanie. Of course.

  “Go away,” she moaned miserably. “Please. I know you want to.”

  “Actually . . .” Lanie pulled River’s loose, sweat-dampened hair back from her face and fastened it with something. “I’d like to. But I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re . . .”

  River arched a brow, daring her to say crazy.

  Lanie wisely said nothing and helped her up.

  Together they stood at the sink and stared at their reflection. Lanie’s hair was loose and a little wild. She’d clearly given River her own hair tie. River wasn’t pale as a ghost. She was positively green.

  But there was something else, something River had never noticed before. They actually looked a bit alike. In fact, they could’ve been sisters. At this thought, her eyes filled again because she’d had many daydreams that they were sisters. That they were a real family.

  But that wasn’t ever going to happen. She’d screwed that up, and even worse than