Page 32 of Healing Hearts
“Opinionated,” Maggie scoffs. “I’m sure you meant to say very involved and caring sisters.”
“That’s what I heard,” I chime in. Maggie and I laugh.
“Anyone want some cookies?” My mother asks, standing up.
“I’ll help you,” Penny says, following my mom to the kitchen.
Maggie and Lila strike up a conversation about infrastructure in the town, and Mia turns to me.
“I didn’t want to put you on the spot, but I also think you’re brave for doing it on your own. I couldn’t imagine not having Tyler.”
“Sometimes life doesn’t work out how we expect,” I say. If I let my mind drift to losing Omar, I’ll question whether Iamdoing the right thing.
“You’d rather not get married again?” Mia asks, her tone gentle but quizzical.
“I haven’t really connected with anyone since Omar died,” I say. “I liked being married. I liked our relationship, and maybe something like that’ll be for me again one day. I don’t know. For now, my focus is on having another baby, and thankfully, I don’t need a man in my life to do that.” The half-truth rolls out surprisingly easily.
“Pasha lost his fiancée in Russia before my mom brought him over to America to be a bodyguard on the tour. I worry about him sometimes.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, glancing at the hulking man standing near the door.
“Maybe I’m projecting,” she says. “My therapist says I have to be careful that I don’t let my feelings overrule other people’s feelings. My mom did that all the time.” She takes a deep breath. “Anyway,Ithink it would be lonely to be him.”
“Has he told you that?” I ask.
“No.” She lets out a little laugh. “He says that Tyler, me, and Victoria are all he needs. That we’re like his American family.”
“Maybe you are,” I say.
“I think I just…” She twists her lips as though she’s debating what to say. “Now that I know how good it can be, how good arealrelationship can be, I want that for everyone.” She lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “And that’s definitely projecting, right? I can’t want things for someone that they don’t want for themselves.”
For some reason, Mia’s last comment bangs around in my head as though it’s a new idea that’s come knocking, even though it isn’t. I’m proof of that very sentiment. If wanting something for someone else was enough to achieve it, my mother would have willed me into a committed, long-term relationship, likely with Michael the dentist. She was noticeably sad when I told her I didn’t think that would work out, and sometimes I wonder if she’s missing dad and projecting that onto me and Omar.
The front door opens, and Tyler comes in with Victoria in her car seat. Mia jumps out of her chair and rushes over to him to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him, and then she crouches to draw Victoria out of her car seat, setting her onto her hip.
Watching them makes that familiar longing spring up. But I’ll have a baby again soon, and then I won’t have to wish for that feeling. I’ll have it.
While Mia and Tyler talk to Joanna and Penny, Grady comes in the door with his dogs. Amir will be delighted when he arrives with Trent that the dogs are here. He’ll spend most of his time in the backyard playing fetch with the two of them.
I don’t notice that Maggie has gone and I’m alone with Lila in the living room area until Lila speaks.
“Is Amir with Trent?”
“Yeah,” I say, dragging my gaze away from the happy family scene near the front entranceway. “They spend a lot of time together.”
Lila scans my expression for a beat, and a strange tension springs up that I’ve only ever felt between us when Trent’s name is mentioned. When we talk on the phone, I don’t bring him up on purpose. But now that I’ve made this deal with him, I have the first inkling that what we’ve decided might fracture my friendship with Lila. Even if I think she was naïve to have taken anything that happened with Trent seriously—and he swears it was only a few drunken kisses—she hasn’t moved past it.
Of course, having now kissed Trent, I can understand how the feelings he evokes could seep in, plant a seed that’s not quite real.
When Trent ushers Amir in the door, my heart kicks. There is something about his height, his broad shoulders, the short brown hair, the tattoos on his left arm, the ones that I know exist across his rippling muscles under his shirt, that have turned him into a package I never expected to find attractive.
Not that I didn’t think he was good looking—you’d have to be blind not to notice—but that certainty about his appeal used to be objective. And it doesn’t quite feel like that anymore.
It's not until we’re all sitting around the dinner table that Trent uses his fork to tap his glass, drawing everyone’s attention to him. Across the table, our gazes lock, and while I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to connect so clearly over what he’s going to say, I also can’t drag myself away from the happy intensity I see there.
“I have an announcement,” Trent says with a broad grin. “With the help of some investors, I’ve purchased Mullen Mechanics. I’ll be taking over at the end of March, reopening at the start of April.”
Penny lets out an audible gasp, and then she scrambles out of her chair to Trent’s seat, hauling him out and into her arms. I can’t hear what she’s saying to him, but I can see the expression on Trent’s face, how moved he is by whatever she’s whispering.
