Page 46 of The Wedding Ranch
Lorri nodded. “I know it’s a high percentage of drunk drivers who hurt someone else and get by unscathed, but that is so unfair. He didn’t even seem sorry, and I hated him for it.”
“Craig was a rock for you through all of that.”
“He was.” She still remembered the night Mom called to tell her about the accident. Solely focused on her son, Jeff, she nevermentioned that there’d been serious casualties in the other car. It was almost a week later before Lorri got that part of the story. Her parents were so angry when she later refused to testify on his behalf in the manslaughter case.
“Craig was there for that season of your life and maybe that’s all that he was supposed to be. One of these days you’re going to find your true love. There’s someone out there for everyone. Yours is waiting.”
“I don’t know. I’m not overly anxious to test those waters again.”
“You’ll find real love. You’ll know it when you experience it and Lorri, I don’t think you have yet.”
Lorri couldn’t argue with her, because for all the romance books she’d read it all sounded like fairy tales, and surely there had to be more to love than what she and Craig had shared. Because there was no happily-ever-after there.
“Can we change the subject?” Lorri could only handle so much of that kind of talk.
“I talked to Cody. He will be coming after his concert in Oklahoma, so it’ll be really late. He said Thursday early would work best for him,” Pam said.
“I can’t wait to see him. The three of us together is like a family reunion.” She dreaded time with her real family. They could never get through a visit without a fight. Cody and Pam were her chosen family, and she couldn’t wait for them to be back together again.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryder couldn’t believe he’d tried to sneak Lorri’s number from Diane’s office. It wasn’t like him to do something like that. He’d been so worried about what she’d think if he asked Diane for the number that he’d gone and made it worse.
He cursed himself all the way up the block.
Should’ve just waited. Bound to run into her eventually. Town isn’t that big. What was the hurry anyway?
Diane would never let this go. Her imagination was already running wild.
Spending the afternoon with Lorri had been more fun than he’d had in a long while, and he’d liked that she seemed like a strong woman.
There’d been a familiar comfort, like they’d known each other forever. She didn’t look anything like Valerie—it wasn’t anything like that. She wasn’t like Valerie at all. Or maybe she was in the ways you want friends to be. Pleasant. Kind. Unassuming.
He snickered.She’s definitely quick-witted, even with a bump to the head. I used to be known for my quick wit, but she’d got me a couple times. Yeah, I’d like to talk to her again. Nothing wrong with that.
He went inside and sat in his chair in the living room.
Everything seemed so complicated. Even his own home wouldn’t be his in a matter of days. The lock had already been installed so Reece could begin decluttering for their guests, as she’d so kindly put it.
Imagining anyone else in the home he’d once shared with Valerie and Ronnie Dwayne was difficult. He’d finally packed up his son’s room last year when it became hard to see all those little kid toys knowing he would’ve outgrown them by now. He would never have agreed to letting someone else stay here for anyone but Reece and Ross.
Reece was always saying, “You’re the best uncle in the world.”
It was the best job in the world if you couldn’t be a father, and ever since that wreck he’d made being the best uncle one of his priorities. They were teenagers when it happened, and it had been hard on them. They’d clung to him, and he’d needed that so much. They were his reason to go on.
He lifted the wooden frame holding the picture of Valerie and Ronnie Dwayne from the side table.
I miss you both so much.
He held the photograph to his heart and sat there for a good long while.
You were my one true love. Nothing will ever replace that. This isn’t that. I would never even try.
He pulled the pamphlet with the phone number from his pocket. He’d wasted half of his morning on this. He picked uphis phone and looked at the screen where he’d keyed the number in. His thumb hovered over the call button.
I can’t call her. There is no reason for me to interrupt her life. I don’t know what I was thinking.
He turned off his phone and crumpled the paper with her number on it into a tight ball, tossing it into the leather wastebasket across the room.
