Page 20 of Forever Yours

“We already talked on Monday. What else was there to talk about?”

Annabelle leaned in, the ice in her tumbler clinking. “But what did you talk about then? You didn’t turn and hightail it, did you?”

“No, he needed help, so I helped him. I wasn’t going to leave him stranded.” She didn’t mention that her first instinct had been to do just that. “We talked about his house and the remodel.”

“You had to have talked about more than that,” Annabelle said.

“Nope, nothing but business.” Devlin flicked her eyes between the two women. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I made it clear that I didn’t want anything to do with Gabe. I’m a grown woman and I don’t need or want you two interfering with my love life.”

Prudence reached out and laid her hand over Devlin’s. “I don’t know why I did it. I heard you loud and clear this fall when you said you wanted to let it go, but then New Year’s happened, and we found out that you didn’t tell us the whole truth. That’s been weighing on me all these months later, that you didn’t trust us. Or don’t trust us.”

“Oh, Pru, I do trust you.” She grabbed Prudence and Annabelle’s hands. “I trust both of you. I shouldn’t have lied, and I wish I hadn’t, but you must know how much I’ve come to rely on you both.” She pulled away and grinned to soften the tone of the conversation as she added, “Then you go and pull a stunt like that.”

“I don’t know what came over me.” Prudence shook her head. “I’d just gotten done planning the shopping trip with Gabe and you called right after, and I did it without thinking.”

Annabelle stood and went to the kitchen to refill her whiskey. “We may have known Gabe since we were all in diapers but—and I’m a broken record because I say it so much—friendships don’t come around like ours and I value them more every day. Pulling stunts like this notwithstanding.”

“You didn’t know Pru was going to do this?” Devlin held up her wine glass and Annabelle brought the bottle back to the living room.

“No, I would’ve either talked her out of the harebrained scheme or made it one thousand times better.”

“I’d like to know what would’ve been better, believe it or not,” Devlin admitted.

“Well—”

“Anyway,” Prudence interrupted, pulling out her phone and showing the screen to Annabelle. “He sent me pictures of what you picked out. You have a good eye. You might not need me when you renovate the new space.”

“IfI can renovate the new space. And yes, I’ll need you, Pru. I just helped pick out the flooring and paint. Your expertise is what makes it all come together.”

“Well, it won’t be an if, especially if you come to the cabin and we can have some solid time to prepare your proposal. It’s just for a few days.”

Annabelle sighed. “If I go, will you go? I wasn’t planning on it, but I could use a break from Sebastian and if this helps you out, it’ll be worth missing work.”

Devlin’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at her two friends who were willing to drop everything to help her out.

“Do I need to kick someone’s ass?” Annabelle asked.

Devlin wiped her eyes. “No, I’m just touched that you’d both help me like this.”

Prudence displayed genuine confusion at this statement. “Of course we would, Dev. We just got done saying all of this! I couldn’t imagine not doing whatever I could to get this done for you.”

“Gabe has been your friend for a very long time—neither of you knew he was going to, or wanted to, expand?”

Prudence and Annabelle exchanged looks before Prudence took the lead. “Gabe doesn’t clue people into his plans until they’re in motion or already done. Take Finnegan’s, for example. I was surprised when he wanted to open the bar, I figured he would do woodworking or something with more manual labor.”

Devlin had always thought Gabe had the look of someone who worked hard physically but was surprised by this last comment. “Manual labor and woodworking? He mentioned that he did his house renovations himself, but I didn’t know he was that into it.”

“Yeah, he rebuilt the stairs at the house, he did the bar top at Finnegan’s, and a bunch of other little projects.”

Prudence added to this list. “He made my kitchen table and let me tell you, he makes sturdy furniture.”

Annabelle gave Prudence a small shove. “I don’t want to know how you know that Pru.”

“You already know because we’ve talked about it.”

Devlin scrunched her nose. “We did already get all the details of that one, AB.”

“Anyway, that leads me to my next topic I want to talk to you two about,” Prudence said.