Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [855]
“God, I hate winter,” she murmured, leaning back in the creaky wooden chair and slanting a thoughtful look at the darkness that still pressed thick and deep against the windows at 8:00 AM. “Some days it feels like it’s never going to end.”
“It will,” Alex said, as she sat across from her friend and watched the haunted look grow deeper in Jenna’s eyes.
Of course, it wasn’t really the darkness or the cold that was weighing her down. Alex didn’t have to look at the calendar on the wall near the telephone to understand Jenna’s mounting gloom.
“Hey,” Alex said, forcing a brightness into her voice. “If the weather stays clear to the weekend, I was thinking about flying down to Anchorage. Maybe do some shopping, go to the movies. You game for a girls’ weekend in the city?”
Jenna glanced back at her and gave a weak shake of her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. Besides, you owe me now. I just made the last of my Red Goat coffee for you. I need to hit Kiladi Brothers and stock up again.”
Jenna smiled, a bit sadly. “The last of your beloved Red Goat? Wow, you must be worried about me. You think I’m in pretty bad shape, huh?”
“Are you?” Alex asked carefully, a direct question that required a direct answer. She reached across the table and placed her hand over Jenna’s. She watched her friend closely, listening to the instinct inside her that always seemed to know whether she was being given the truth or a lie. “Are you going to be all right this time?”
Jenna held her gaze as if locked there. She sighed quietly. “I really don’t know, Alex. I miss them. They gave me a reason to get up in the morning, you know? I felt needed, that my life had some higher purpose when Mitch and Libby were in it. I’m not sure I’m ever going to have that again.”
The truth, then, pained as it was. Alex acknowledged her friend’s admission with a tender squeeze of her hand. She blinked, releasing Jenna from the invisible hold of her truth-seeking stare. “Your life has purpose, Jenna. It has meaning. And you’re not alone. You have Zach and me for starters.”
Jenna shrugged. “My brother and I have been drifting apart for a while now, and my best friend has been talking a lot of nonsense lately about picking up and moving away.”
“Just talking,” Alex said, feeling a pang of guilt for both the cowardice that was making her think very hard about running again and for the half-truth she gave Jenna now, in the hope of making her feel better.
She got up and took their coffee mugs with her to the stove.
“So, what time did you end up leaving Pete’s last night?” Jenna asked as Alex poured fresh coffee and brought it back to the table.
“I left a little while after you did. Zach came by and gave me a ride home.”
Jenna took a sip from her mug and set it down. “Did he now?”
“Just a ride,” Alex said. “He offered to have a beer with me at Pete’s, but I was already on my way home.”
“Well, knowing my brother, he probably just wanted an excuse to get you in his truck. He’s had a thing for you since we were teenagers, you know. Maybe for all his tough-guy, married-to-his-job talk, he’s still secretly got his eye on you.”
Alex didn’t think so. Their one night together had been proof enough to both of them that whatever they had together would never go beyond friendship again. She’d known Zach for close to a decade, but he felt more like a stranger to her than Kade did after just a day.
Incredibly, despite the way Kade unsettled her emotionally, deep down, she felt more protected with him on a physical level than she did with Zach, a decorated officer of the law.
Good lord. Just what that said about her judgment, Alex was sure she didn’t want to know.
As she pondered that thought over a long drink of her coffee, the kitchen phone started to ring. Alex got up and answered the business line on automatic pilot. “Maguire Charters and Deliveries.”
“Hey.”
That one word—that deep, now intimately familiar growl