By the time she finished coaxing Mr. Cuddles Worth into his travel carrier and got him to the veterinarian, she was exhausted.
That cat would be the death of her, but she was beginning to like having the fur ball around.
She dropped the cat back off at her place and quickly changed into her scrubs.
She was planning on filing her divorce paperwork at the local courthouse, which happened to be about ten minutes from Gloria’s, so she decided that she was going to stop by and check on her.
Filing the paperwork was easier than she thought it would be.
She literally had to go through security, walk up to the county clerk’s window, hand him the papers, and he stamped them and handed her back a copy.
For some reason, she believed that it would be more involved to end her marriage.
And expecting that to be true, she felt a bit disappointed when she walked out of the courthouse.
Feeling as though she had failed in life didn’t help either.
By the time she walked back to her car, she realized that she had been crying.
“Shit,” she spat. The last thing she planned on doing was to cry over Jarrod. She had moved past her ex, but for some reason, making it permanent had her crying as though it had just happened yesterday.
“I’d love to meet Mr. Cuddles Worth someday,” Gloria admitted.
“Well, I’m sure that I can arrange for that to happen. Of course, you’ll have to come over to my place.” Brandi held out her arms to Gloria and she gasped.
“What happened to your arms?” she asked.
“Mr. Cuddles Worth isn’t a fan of his cat carrier, and he let me know it,” Brandi explained.
“Well, then, you’re right,” Gloria said, “I’ll have to come over to your place to meet him.”
“Anytime,” Brandi said, “my place isn’t very big, and I don’t have a lot of furniture, except for a great new couch, but it’s home for now.”
“You seem a little down today,” Gloria assessed. “Is everything okay?” It was nice of Gloria to ask, but honestly, she had only known the woman for just over a day, and sharing the fact that she had just filed her divorce papers wasn’t something that she wanted to do.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said. “So, what can I do to help you out around here?”
Gloria sighed as though giving up on being told anything more, and that worked for Brandi. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t have anything more to say on the topic of her awful day that had put her in a bad mood.
“Well, I need to go through my medication and get rid of any that are expired. I have to order some of the new meds that the doctor gave me during my last visit,” Gloria said.
“I can definitely help with that,” Brandi volunteered. “How about if you just relax and let me handle that for you?” Gloria hesitated and Brandi was sure that she was going to push her for more answers, but then, she nodded her head, agreeing to Brandi’s proposal.
“Great, I’ll get started and you find one of those reality television shows that you love,” Brandi offered.
Her intake form not only covered personal, and medical questions, but also questions about what her patients liked to eat, what they liked to do for fun, and about their family.
Gloria had listed Yonkers and his wife as her family, and surprisingly enough, she also said to put Reacher down too.
She explained that he had become family when he started helping Yonkers out with her care.
She said that her new granddaughter was taking up a lot of her son and daughter-in-law’s time, and Gloria agreeing to let Yonkers help her was the right thing to do.
Gaining another son wasn’t what she had expected, but she said that she wouldn’t trade her bonus son, Reacher, for the world.
That was when Brandi decided that Gloria was probably the sweetest woman that she had ever met.
She shared all her favorite foods with Brandi, and as for her favorite things to do, her eyes lit up when she started talking about reality television shows.
Gloria settled down on the sofa and pulled a blanket over her lap.
“You don’t have to stand here to babysit me,” Gloria assured.
She looked so frail, Brandi worried that she was in over her head with her new cancer treatment.
It was a somewhat experimental drug, but it was also the best hope that Gloria had for a full recovery.
Brandi had heard about the side effects, but seeing what they were doing to her patient, firsthand, really threw her off her game.
“I’m good, I promise,” she assured. Brandi nodded and walked back to Gloria’s bedroom, where she kept her medications on her nightstand.
Brandi carefully looked through Gloria’s meds and when she was almost done, she heard a vehicle pull up to the house.
Brandi crossed the room and looked out the bedroom window, pulling the curtains back to see who it was.
“Reacher,” she whispered to herself. She wasn’t sure if she should hide under Gloria’s bed or walk out to the family room and tell him that it was nice to see him again.
She watched as he walked to the front door and must have spotted Gloria because he waved and smiled like a loon.
Brandi couldn’t help her own smile just thinking about the whole scene.
The last thing she wanted was for Reacher to think that she was a coward, so she finished up, walked out to the family room, and nodded at Reacher.
God, he looked good in his tight jeans and a black T-shirt that did nothing to hide his bulging muscles.
And his tattoos had her mouth-watering. For some reason, all she could do was think about licking every one of them.
Brandi took a deep breath and walked from the bedroom into the family room, catching Gloria and Reacher talking about his new job. She wasn’t sure if she should interrupt or go back to Gloria’s bedroom. But it was too late to chicken out now—Reacher had spotted her, and she never played the coward.