Once Upon a Friendship by Tara Taylor Quinn

Author:Tara Taylor Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

LIAM DIDN’T UNDERSTAND how it was possible to feel so fiercely protective and to love someone so completely in such a short space of time, but by the time he and Gabrielle had finished breakfast with Tamara and her mother, he knew his little sister was going to have a place in his heart—and his life—forever.

She’d wanted to ride with them in the car he’d rented the night before for the short trip from the restaurant to her home—saying she could direct them if they got separated from Missy in traffic—and he was glad to have her there. Glad, too, that she’d chattered the whole way about the places they were passing—regaling him with her memories of having grown up in the Florida suburb—showing him a life that was at once completely different from his and relatively happy as well.

“She’s a great kid,” he said to Gabrielle as they stood together in the third bedroom—which served as a sewing room, with Walter’s desk and a filing cabinet on one end—in the small beach cottage his father had bought for his mistress and their daughter. Tamara had gone to help her mother get iced tea for them.

“She adores you.” The warm look in Gabi’s eyes stopped him for a moment. So he looked past her.

“I’m not sure why,” he said, though he couldn’t deny that Gabi’s words appeared to be true, judging by how many times he’d looked up to find Tamara watching him, smiling. “She doesn’t know me at all.”

“On the contrary, she knows you very well,” Missy said, carrying a tray with four glasses on it. Tamara was behind her with the pitcher of freshly brewed tea.

“Dad talked about you to Mom,” Tamara said, her eyes clouding as she set the pitcher down on her mother’s cutting table. “And she’d tell me things. When I asked. I didn’t blame you, by the way, even when I thought you didn’t want to know me. It had nothing to do with me. Mom made sure I understood that. It was just about you being your mom’s child and Dad not...”

She broke off. “Anyway,” she continued, her face reddening. “I just... Mom said that Gabrielle is your attorney, but it seems like you’re...friends...too. It’s cool that you’d bring her here to meet me.”

She was looking between him and Gabrielle as if there was something to see. And in that instant, he wanted there to be. Suddenly uncomfortable, Liam pulled at the collar on the sport shirt he’d paired with designer jeans that morning.

“We’re just friends,” Gabrielle piped up, helping herself to a glass of tea. Her formal attire reminded him that she was there on his payroll. Working. Because of the mess his father had made of his life.

Of all of their lives.

“We have a third friend, my roommate Marie, and we’ve all been hanging together since college. She would have come with us this weekend. She’s eager to meet you, too, but she owns a coffee shop and couldn’t get away.

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