I look to my father for help, but he lets his shoulders sag and walks away.
I feel like yelling at the top of my lungs. I feel like punching through a wall. First I lost my mama and now my sister, my shadow. It hurts so much I don’t know what to do, and I think I might just go curl up in a corner and die, like a dog who knows its time is up.
I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can. I decide in that moment that nothing and no one is ever gonna hurt me this bad again, because I’m not gonna let ’em. Love sucks. It makes you feel like you got punched in the gut about a thousand times by Hulk Hogan.
I push down my feelings. Push down my memories. They’re too painful. So I forget.
I blinked as the recollection finished playing in my mind, like it was being projected onto a movie screen. I was truly astonished that I really had gone all these years without bringing it to mind, but now it was as clear as if it’d happened yesterday.
A connection zapped into place in my brain, and I suddenly recognized the delicate blonde young woman who’d been sitting in the back of the conference room. I’d noticed her when I’d walked in and assumed she was there to take notes or something, that she worked for the law firm. Honestly, I’d been so captivated by the other woman in the room, I’d barely given the blonde in the corner a second thought.
Until now. I turned to her then, and I saw that she was looking at me, too. Her face was filled with a mixture of hope and fear that made me instinctively want to wrap her up in my arms and protect her. That was when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, no pun intended, that I was right.
A slow grin spread across my face. “Well, hey there, Shadow.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she gave me a small wave.
Damn. Of all the things I’d expected to get today, my little sister back hadn’t been one of them.
I heard a clearing throat and turned forward, and my eyes lit on the sexy lady lawyer, who was shuffling through her paperwork again.
Hmmmm…now, there’s another unexpected gift.