Gloria shook her head and snatched a tissue out of the box next to the computer before she could completely dissolve. “No. I’ve never seen a sexier amputee. But he’s different.” Her biggest fear. She blew her nose and stared up at the overhead lights, willing the tears to evaporate like the hopes and dreams she’d stupidly hung on a man she barely knew. “He’s so angry. And hurt. I can tell he’s hurting. But he’s so…closed off. He didn’t want to see me.”

Claire shoved off of the stool and grabbed another tissue. “I command you to stop right there. You’re not to cry a single tear over whatever he said or didn’t say. I’m so sorry that happened, and I’m going to kill Ina for not telling me Aldo was struggling. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. Everyone heals differently.”

“Sometimes people don’t heal,” Gloria said, jabbing crescents into her palm with her fingernails. She would not cry. She would not feel like her chest had caved in. When had she built all these dreams around him? When had she decided that Aldo Moretta was the one man for her? God, she was still a silly, stupid little girl.

“You can go ahead and stop whatever vicious dialogue that’s happening in your head right now, missy,” Claire said sternly. “I can see that nasty little voice working its poison.”

Gloria took a deep breath, breathing in the scents of eucalyptus and rose. They soothed her immediately. She checked in with her body. No pain anymore. No soreness. She didn’t have injuries to tend to daily. She only had a small hole in her heart, and that she could survive.

“That’s better,” Claire said, observing the straightening of her shoulders. “Now, do you want to go home, or do you want to help me make a carnation blanket for Lou Turnbill’s old-ass horse in honor of the Belmont Stakes?”

“I want to make a damn carnation horse blanket.”

27