Page 123 of Fierce-Matt

“He’s going to be so ornery when he wakes up. And then him getting around with a broken leg. Our bedroom is upstairs.”

“Mom, stop coming undone. One minute at a time. Not even a day, just a minute. We’ll figure it out. I’m willing to bet that he will have to go into rehab or something with his leg. That buystime. You’ve got the spare room downstairs. We can get a bed in there. There is a bathroom with a shower downstairs too.”

“You’re right,” her mother said. “I need to focus on something else.”

“Then plan that.” She knew what it was like to need something else to think of.

“Tell me about your trip with Matt. Things are going well there?”

It was not what she wanted to talk about, but anything to get her mother’s mind off of what was going on.

“It was great. He’s so nice and sweet. Not at all like I remembered him all those years ago. I guess that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t have given him the time of day if he was the same.”

Like she’d left him on the dance floor.

“I always saw the good in him,” her mother said. “He was young and foolish.”

“We both were.”

“You were. Do you love him?”

“I do. It was hard to get the words out, but we did say them. It’s funny, they came out in the car drive there.”

“Did he say it first or you?”

“He did,” she said. “But I felt it. I would have said it this past weekend, I was positive.”

“Though you’re glad you didn’t have to be the one to put it out there and fear the rejection?”

“Always that,” she mumbled.

“I want to say you have changed little, but you really have come into your own. You’ve turned out to be such a strong young lady. Any man would be proud to have you by his side.”

“I’m glad few thought of that before. I would have missed this chance with Matt if that was the case.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” her mother said. “You’ve never been one to settle.”

She forced a laugh. “That’s probably why I change my careers so much. I’m not sure it’s because I won’t settle as much as not being satisfied.”

“Put whatever pretty name on it you want, Anya, but I’ve never doubted you’d find your way and what you want. Is Matt what you want?”

She didn’t want to talk about this, but if it’d take her mother’s mind off of her father for a short time, she’d do it.

“He is,” she said. “But we aren’t rushing anything.”

Amber put her hand on top of hers. “Don’t put limitations on your life. Look at your father and me. Things happen beyond anything you can imagine. Take your control and don’t give it back. I mean it. Do what makes you happy and don’t tell yourself there is time yet for things. There may not be.”

Anya put her head on her mother’s shoulder and cried. They cried together.

There was no reason to hold it back. Her mother wasn’t talking only about her father’s accident but his dementia.

All those promises and plans her parents had for the future were long gone.

She wouldn’t make the same mistake.

34

NOT HORRIBLE