About Face (Wolf Within) Read Free Page B

approve, to give sanctuary. I did those things ungrudgingly, but I wished sometimes our roles were reversed.
    I was also a little weirded out she’d spent the night with Jason Allerton. Thoughts of their naked bodies entwined in passion made me strangely uncomfortable. Lauren having sex didn’t bother me. No, Lauren having sex with Jason Allerton was the issue. What did he look like without his Armani suit and tie? Did he drop his authoritative, commanding personality in bed? Was he strictly a missionary position kind of guy, or did he like to experiment?
    I squeezed my eyes shut and banished that shit straight out of my mind.
    When I opened them, Lauren had tears in her eyes that turned them nearly purple. She looked so goddamn young and vulnerable in her lacy peach slip and bare feet, her hair twisted up into a breezily perfect updo that had taken at least an hour to arrange.
    My heart contracted the way it always did when she looked at me like that.
    “Silly, did you really think I’d miss your bonding ceremony?” When I hugged her, I dropped the three shopping bags in my hands. The first two contained a new dress for tonight and shoes to match. The third bag held my cocktail dress from last night. After I’d left Ron-or-Don’s apartment, I’d gone to the Providence Place mall, straight to Gap for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Then I’d gone to Victoria’s Secret.
    A new pair of Skechers had replaced the silver evening shoes, which were in the bag with the shoes that paired with my new dress.
    Shopping, especially for shoes, cleared my head of all the crap that haunted me since the moment I’d opened my eyes in Ron-or-Don’s bed.
    At least until I’d walked into the motel room and had to face everything again. That’s the problem with shopping. The stores eventually closed, and I had to go home.
    Now I needed a shower and time to pull myself together before the ceremony at seven, and Lauren would need me to reassure her and help with her makeup and…
    Breathless, I contemplated the depth and complexity of my selfishness. What did it matter what I looked like tonight? She was going to bond with Jason. They were going to start a new life together. And I ran out on them the night before.
    My cell phone was full of both voice and text messages, mostly from Lauren, although Scott and Faith both left a few. A notable exception was Jason Allerton. He was royally pissed at me, I guessed. Big deal. I was furious with him, so we were even.
    “You don’t want me to bond with him.” Lauren’s voice was subdued, and she walked away from me so she could look out the motel window at the shore beyond. I wanted to remind her she was in her slip, but I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t her mother, no matter how much she looked to me for support. She was fifty-eight years old, even if she didn’t look much past thirty. She could decide for herself if she wanted to stand in front of an open window in her damn underwear.
    “Lauren, are you sure this is what you want to do? You don’t have to, you know.”
    “Oh, but, Stanzie, I do !” She turned away from the window with such exquisite happiness on her face I took an involuntary step back. I had never seen Lauren Newcastle look like this before. “Jason is the kindest, gentlest and most understanding man I’ve ever met. I want to be with him. Every minute I spend with him I just keep thinking how much I like him. How much I want to show him who I am. I feel like I’m eighteen years old and back in Aspenmoon with my family. Happy.
    “Do you ever think about a time in your life when you were so happy you couldn’t even imagine what anything else felt like? When unhappiness was missing your favorite television show because you’d stayed outside in the twilight too long chasing lightning bugs with your twin sister?” She giggled. In that moment, she was heartbreakingly beautiful.
    “I know you don’t have a twin sister, but you know what I mean, don’t