The Best Friend (40 page)

Noah cleared his throat. “I can’t thank you all for coming today,” he said, looking around at his family, along with the many friends from around the community. Tony came over and took Gretchen’s hand with a smile that made her pulse skitter like a smitten teenager. “I am extremely honored to welcome Jessie Hendricks as my partner in my veterinary practice. She has been an integral factor in its continued success, and I waited a long time for this moment. Welcome aboard, Dr. Hendricks.”

Jessie stepped forward, her face all pink in embarrassment and smiled shyly as she shook Noah’s hand.

He cleared his throat. “I also hoped that, as my partner you’d cover for me for awhile…”

The entire room went silent. Gretchen glanced at Lindsey who was smiling and caught in an eye lock with Noah. He took in a breath, “We will be moving soon.”

Gretchen’s mouth dropped open and she turned to Lindsey. “Where? What?”

Noah continued, “Lindsey’s been asked by her party to run for state governor. So I don’t believe it’s premature to say we will be moving very soon, and when we do, I hoped, that you, Jessie, could take over for me for a little while.”

Jessie’s deep pride at Noah’s request showed in her face. She nodded slowly as Will came forward and shook Noah’s hand, slipping his other arm around Jessie.

Lindsey glanced at Gretchen with a small smile beaming on her face, “What do you think? Does a single, former soldier, former victim, have a chance of winning the governor’s office?”

Gretchen threw her arms around Lindsey. “You are finally taking my advice.”

Lindsey patted her back. “You mean wasting Elliot’s money? Yes, I am. I might lose, so we can’t be too sure.”

Gretchen shook her head and pulled back to smile at Lindsey. “I always said: you are a force to reckon with. You will not lose.”

Lindsey’s eyes filled with happy tears and she turned to Tony. “Will you write my speeches? I know you’re busy, but you’re the best in the business… and nepotism and everything…”

Tony grinned as he too hugged her, “I’ll do it. Happily.”

Tony spent five years with
Heros!Fund.
After the war ended, he still advocated for funds to help the country’s veterans in a multitude of levels and needs. He kept his website and blog running, which soon became a well known platform for his scathing editorials and opinion pieces. He worked for no one but himself. He wrote speeches for influential people, but all of whom he chose, and no one that he didn’t believe in. Years ago, he wrote a book about his experiences, and followed it up with several more that were all related to the status of veterans in modern society. Their success freed Tony up financially from ever having to work again, although both he and Gretchen did.

Tony wasn’t impressed in the least knowing they could own three separate houses free and clear if they chose to.

Tony and Gretchen stayed in D.C. until he was done with
Heros!Fund.
They moved Olivia back to Calliston when she was going into High School. They never had any kids of their own; although they contemplated it, but it never worked out. Olivia could not have been more their daughter if they actually biologically created her. She was formally adopted by both of them and now, at eighteen years old, was Olivia Lindstrom.

Olivia was deciding whether or not to leave next year and start college, so Gretchen was dreading an empty nest in her wake.

She had already started searching for a new hobby and kept trying to convince Tony they needed to go on a second honeymoon. She wanted somewhere tropical and warm, but he wasn’t much into beachwear. It still made him uncomfortable because of his one arm. But she was bound and determined to win that argument.

Jessie came over to them after winding her way through the congratulations of the crowd. Lindsey pulled her against her side. “I love you. I hope you know how proud I am of you. How proud Mom would be.”

Jessie smiled softly.  “A long, long time ago, Will told me I should become a vet, not just an assistant. I scoffed at him and never believed I could do it. But, I did. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.”

Gretchen nodded as Lindsey’s eyes filled with happy tears. “Yes, here we all are, still together, still sisters and friends, and even better… nothing is done or over. We survived and we still have everything ahead of us to do; we can still do or be anything we want…”

“Our life is just starting? Have you noticed how old we are?” Gretchen grimaced.

Lindsey linked her arm through hers, “Well, why the hell shouldn’t it? Jessie has a new career, I might actually finally have one too, and you and Tony will soon have all the time to explore the world. Why can’t life just be starting?”

###

Dear Reader,

As always, I would appreciate you taking a moment to leave a review of your opinion of this book.

If interested, please read on for more information on the next few
Sister
books. If you are interested in receiving notification of my current and future releases, please go to my
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I always love to hear from readers, please contact me at: [email protected].

Sincerely,

Leanne Davis

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The Sister Series:

The Other Sister (Book #1)

The Years Between (Book #1.5)

The Good Sister (Book #2)

The Best Friend (Book #3)

The Wrong Sister (Book #4)

The Years After (Book #5)

The Years Between: Jessie & Will ~ (companion to The Other Sister)

(Sister Series, 1.5): Targeted for September, 2014

The five years between when Jessie and Will Hendricks first get back together and when they have their daughter are unforgettable years that travel from one side of the country to the next, and deal with the issues that have for so long kept them separated. Their journey to get together has been anything but easy, but now they finally have the time and freedom to build a full and complete life together. The way they started, the life they lead in between, and the life they end up with, is a journey that tests the love they have found, and defines the love they are destined to share forever.

The Years Between- (unedited version)

Chapter One

~Year One~

“You know, I’m not really you wife.”

Will Hendricks glanced across the cab of his truck at Jessie. He held his arm against his body where he’d sustained a sprain after throwing himself too hard to the ground to avoid a passing bullet. Every time Jessie glanced at it the image made her stomach queasy. The oncoming traffic headlights flashed over his face every few seconds. “You’re not really…” he started to repeat and swore as he cut off his own sentence. “I did that, didn’t I? I signed the divorce papers. I mean, I know I did. It just never felt real to me. I never felt like you weren’t there waiting for me.”

Jessie nodded. “Yes, you thought it was time I moved on. It was time for me to date someone new…so I did. But now, I’m not legally your wife.”

“You’re my wife. I don’t care what any paper says.” His scowl was fierce enough to imagine him easily snapping a man’s neck…which she’d actually watched him do before.

She sighed and stretched her legs before her. “Well, that’s a nice sentiment my romantic almost-husband, but it doesn’t change that we are really not married. I mean, I guess it doesn’t really matter, but I thought I’d point out that technically we are not still married.”

He strummed his hand on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. You know? That I did that. That I made you divorce me. That I—”

“Instructed me to date other men?” She slid a glance his way, with a weary smile. “Yes, I was thinking this time around, we could skip the separations for my own good and dating other men for my own good. What do you think?”

He glanced her way, his expression pained. He finally smiled back just as wearily. “Yes, let’s skip you dating other men this time.”

She kept staring at his profile as he drove. She could not get enough of him. She wanted to breath him in, memorize his every feature. Tonight, she felt like she could make the purpose of her life to stare at Will Hendricks and relish the fact that he was alive.

“It didn’t occur to me you would be told I was missing. As you pointed out, you were no longer my wife. I didn’t think you’d be notified of what happened to me. I couldn’t know the general would tell Lindsey. I had decided
before
this last mission, as soon as I could I was coming for you. But I thought I needed to do it in person after being such a jackass. And even after I got stateside, I just kept chanting to myself a few more days, just a few more days, and I could see you in person. A friend passed it along to me that the general was dead, and you both were being notified. If I had any idea you were informed I was missing and thought I was dead, I would have called you, no matter what.”

They had been through this. He had spent hours at the army base telling her about his capture, captivity and escape. He had been ill with a stomach virus due to either bad water or food from being a prisoner, and what he claimed were minor scrapes and bruising he’d sustained while escaping and fleeing captivity to reach the closest village where he was then able to contact his base. She, however, didn’t think anything about his banged up face and arms and noticeably skinner body looked minor. He kept brushing it all off as if it were nothing. Each time she glanced at his face her pulse increased.
He could have died.
The thought made her want to sink her finger nails into the meaty part of her leg and then pull towards her knee and rip into the flesh. She imagined doing it. She imagined what it would feel like. But she was not actually doing it. So… progress.

She had to draw in a sharp breath and shut her eyes to stop imagining Will’s body dead, and her own bleeding flesh. It was so clear to her. The things he told her, the images he evoked, it could have happened any number of ways. There were any number of ways for Will to die while serving in the Army. And the thought of being strong, and living with Will going back to face it all sent her head spinning and reeling and she desperately wanted to simply cut her leg. As she used to.

Because it always worked. It always stopped her crazy head and emotions when everything was centered on her physical pain.

But no, no she wasn’t that Jessie anymore. She wasn’t crazy. She could control it. No matter how much her hand squeezed her leg. She wasn’t cutting it, and that was key. That’s what she could no longer do.

“Jessie?” he asked softly. He reached across the cab and took her hand. He had an uncanny ability to know when she was doing something to herself. He knew her head better than her own.

She turned her head and smiled for him, trying to reassure him she wasn’t crazy Jessie Bains any longer. “I just keep thinking…”

He suddenly swung the truck to the side of the road; as he pulled off the bandage that was suppose to hold his arm to his chest. “I know what you were thinking.”

Startled she squeaked in surprise when he slammed the gear shift into park and reached across the console, un-clicked her seatbelt, put his hands on her waist, lifted her up, despite his hurt arm, and brought her to him, plopping her onto his lap. She was inches from his chest, straddling him with the steering wheel cutting into her back.

“Will? What are you do—”

She stopped talking when she raised her eyes to meet his. They were drilling into her. They were full of such love, and such tenderness,
for her
, she nearly whimpered in shock. For no man besides Will had ever looked at her like that. And no man had ever loved her. Not like Will did.

“Will?” she finally asked unsure what was wrong. What had forced him to suddenly stop on the side of the road? Will didn’t stop on the sides of roads. Will didn’t normally impetuously do anything. Especially something that seemed to be driven by his emotions. He could control them better than anyone she had ever met. Unlike her.

He raised his hands from her waist to cup her face. “I was wrong. About all of it. To leave you
twice
. To make you think you had to be with someone else because you weren’t well enough to be with me. Or more, I guess we weren’t well enough to be with each other. I was so wrong, Jessie. I almost lost you. Yet, I had no one to blame but myself.”

He suddenly hugged her to his chest, squeezing her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. But she was too happy, relieved, in total shock to be there that she would rather die from lack of oxygen than admit to Will he was clasping her too tightly. That he was holding her at all, alive, and breathing was the miracle of her life. One she would never get used to or get over.