He wasn’t wrong.
With a groan, Julian leaned his arms on the linoleum tabletop. “I don’t know where she lives or works.” He knew where she’d resided last year, but she might have moved.
“Bullshit excuses.”
Julian could always count on Nick to call him out.
“All you probably need to do is check Facebook. Or put those tech skills of yours to good use. I’m sure you can catch up with her when her watchdog brother-in-law isn’t around.”
At the thought of seeing Kendall again, a mixture of heady anticipation combined with sheer nerves kicked in.
“I’ll consider it,” Julian promised.
And it was all he thought about for the next few days. Days he spent wrestling with his conscience. He hadn’t had much of one before Kendall, but his sense of morals was more developed now, as it should have been all along.
Apparently it had taken one brown-haired, blue-eyed vixen to get under his skin, make him look in the mirror and come to terms with the man he’d become.
He owed her an apology. Whether her family liked it or not.
* * *
With music playing in the background, Kendall Parker nodded her head to the beat as she counted out the brightly colored pills she took daily. She was careful as she filled the plastic holder that was labeled by individual days and divided by a.m. and p.m. doses, as prescribed by her therapist. In a separate vial, she included her daily antianxiety medication, also doctor-approved.
She clicked each case shut tight, then left the plastic containers next to the cookie jar in the kitchen, where they were visible so she wouldn’t forget. Not that she would. She hadn’t skipped a dose since she’d come home from her in-treatment stay at Maple Hill a little over a year ago.
Her dog, Waffles, a small terrier mix she’d adopted during one of her manic phases, jumped up and down, begging for a treat.
“No. You just had one, sweet girl,” Kendall said, bending to pat the tan fluffy dog on the head.
Waffles had turned into a fabulous emotional-support dog. She offered Kendall comfort and eased her anxiety. Petting the soft fur soothed her. A lick reassured her.
Kendall lived with bipolar II disorder and now that she was on the right medication, along with a steady diet of therapy, life was good and looking better every day, the mistakes and hurts of last year behind her. She was lucky her twin sister, Lexie, and brother-in-law, Kade, were kind enough to forgive and forget, because her family meant everything to Kendall.
She changed from her pajamas into an old pair of jeans and a gray tee shirt with her oldest pair of sneakers. Since she worked as a dog walker for a growing number of clients and held a steady job at For Paws, a not-for-profit animal shelter in Midtown Manhattan, it was guaranteed she’d be dealing with animal fur and poop. No reason for nice clothing in her day job.
She glanced at her watch, calculating her time before the next bus headed downtown. It was too warm to take the subway. She lived on the Upper East Side, courtesy of her father, who’d bought the apartment for Lexie and Kendall—when Lexie had all but been her twin’s caretaker. Kendall wasn’t earning enough to pay rent, but she was self-sufficient in many other ways.
All huge progress.
Lexie and Kade had married and Lexie moved into Kade’s place, and Kendall wanted her father to sell this two-bedroom so she could move into something smaller. He preferred that she stay here and have extra room. That was her father, always compensating. For Kendall’s illness. For her mother’s debilitating depression.
She pushed those thoughts away. Focused on the present. Reminded herself of all the good things in her life, of which there were many. Don’t dwell on the negative or the things she couldn’t change.
“Hey, Waffles. I’ll be back during lunch to walk you, okay?”
The pup looked up at Kendall with big brown eyes that said, Don’t leave me. In an attempt to make her feel worse, the dog then lay down, her head on her front paws, with a heavy sigh.
“Goofball. I always come back.” Kendall blew her a kiss and headed out the door for work.
A short while later, she walked into For Paws, the back of her neck damp from the unseasonable June heat, despite the fact that she’d tied her hair into a high ponytail to keep herself cool.
“Hi, Josie. What’s up this beautiful day?” Kendall tossed her backpack onto the floor beneath the desk she occupied when she wasn’t working in the back with the dogs in their crates or runs.
Josie Dawson, her boss, was a pretty brunette who’d taken a risk hiring a woman with no employment history. Josie had urgently needed to fill the paid position, and Kendall had been equally desperate for a job. Any job. Kendall had proven herself to be reliable, and the job fulfilled a very basic need of feeling self-sufficient. The other woman didn’t realize it, but Kendall owed Josie a lot for giving her a chance.
Josie was the first friend Kendall had made on her own in years. One that wasn’t connected to her sister. Kendall had a bad habit of pushing people away, her highs and lows too much for most to handle. The new and improved Kendall—the properly medicated Kendall—lived life on a more even keel, which enabled her to make and keep both her job and her friend.
“How’s Steve?” she asked of the pit mix that was small for his age and had been in the kennel for way too long. The one bad thing about Kendall’s position was that she couldn’t bring all the dogs home with her. Because she really wanted to.