Page 7 of The Wish List
She’d only had a few moments of lucidity since Freya arrived. She smiled, and tears had filled her eyes when Freya leaned over her frail frame in the bed. She’d tried to speak, although the words came out garbled.
To Freya, it sounded like a rudimentaryI love you. Three words she hadn’t heard spoken by her mother in years. She didn’t know what to make of it and was embarrassed that her first reaction was anger and mistrust. Was this simply May manipulating them again for some unknown goal?
Beth had seemed as shaken as Freya, and they hadn’t talked about it. Maybe when Trinity finally got there, the tension would ease. Their sweet and carefree baby sister always made things better.
The door to May’s room opened. Freya expected to see Beth or Trin. Instead, a man poked his head into the room. He looked familiar, although she didn’t think they’d met. She would have remembered a man who looked like him.
Tall, dark and handsome didn’t nearly do him justice although he was all those things.
“Freya,” he said, clearly not at a loss for her identity. “Is it okay if I come in?”
Recognition dawned as she nodded. When she’d first arrived at her mother’s house, she’d noticed a corkboard in the kitchen with photos pinned to it. Several of the three sisters when they were younger but more recent ones as well.
The man now entering the room was in a few of them, May’s slender arm around him as if they were close. A younger boyfriend, Freya assumed. It would be just like her mother to embrace her inner cougar.
She hadn’t thought to ask Beth about the stranger’s identity, but now he was here. Even more gorgeous than in the photographs, with his chestnut-colored hair cropped short and a shadow of fashionable stubble darkening his chiseled jaw. Her stomach tripped and dipped as he approached the foot of the bed. Oh, lord. She was lusting after her mother’s boyfriend.
“It’s strange to see her so still,” he said, echoing Freya’s earlier thought. She didn’t like this stranger possessing any sort of insight into her mother’s personality.
“My sisters will be here any minute,” she told him, letting tacit dismissal flood her tone.
“How are you all holding up?” he asked, turning toward her. He wore dark trousers and a gray sweater in some kind of expensive-looking wool. A chunky silver timepiece encircled his wrist. Freya had a decent sense of designer accessories from her time in LA, and she guessed the value of the man’s watch would be upwards of five figures. She doubted it was a knockoff, like the one she’d bought on a New York City street last summer.
This guy didn’t seem like her mother’s type, especially since he appeared to be only a few years older than Freya. She’d never pictured her mom as the type to go for a younger man. But what did Freya know at this point?
Well, she knew this moment felt too intimate for her taste.
“We’re fine,” she said, her voice clipped. “You can come back—”
“Greer, you’re here.”
They both looked toward the door as Beth entered. To Freya’s shock, her sister offered the stranger a quick hug. Freya hadn’t gotten a hug when she’d arrived home, not that she’d admit she wanted one.
“I got in this afternoon,” the man called Greer told Beth. “Any change?”
“No, which might be a good thing at this point. She’s resting and her body needs time to heal. You and Freya met?”
Freya felt her shoulders go rigid as the man’s inscrutable gaze moved over her. “Not officially,” he said. Was there a trace of a Boston accent in his voice?
“Trinity should be here soon,” Freya told her sister. “She called from a gas station about two hours ago.”
“We need to get her a cell phone,” Beth said to herself. “Why doesn’t she have one?” Freya could almost see the task being added to the mental list always running in her sister’s brain.
She stood. “It will be better if just family is here tonight.”
Beth blinked as if Freya were speaking a foreign language. So what if the three sisters hadn’t been close for years? She didn’t want her mother’s boyfriend as a witness to the uncomfortable reunion.
“Greer is like family.” Beth laughed without humor. “At this point, he’s closer to Mom than any of us.”
The man continued to study Freya.
“This is going to change the plans for her book tour and any sort of media appearances for the special,” Beth told Greer.
“What book tour?” Freya demanded.
“It’s the twentieth anniversary of the book,” Beth explained. “Mom updated it and wrote a new introduction.” She bit down on her lower lip. “Apparently, she added a couple of chapters. Didn’t she call and tell you about it?”
Freya shook her head, feeling heat rise to her face even as ice enveloped her heart. “Why would she?”
