She knew then that Holly was only using her, yet she wasn’t strong enough to deny her. She’d been disgusted by it all the next morning. Holly had slithered back into her brother’s bed, and Abby had felt dirty and emotionally abused. She remembered sitting at the edge of the bed, wondering what had ever drawn her to Holly in the first place. She had a conceited air about her—condescending, really. How had she ever been attracted to that?

She turned to glance at Nic. She’d thought her conceited, too, hadn’t she? In a totally different way than Holly. Nic seemed sure of herself, comfortable with who she was. She certainly didn’t put on airs. She was quite the opposite of Holly in that regard. Shocking, really, but Nic had turned out to be a nice, normal, and unassuming person.

Well, if she ignored this little charade they were playing, that is. That, and the compensation she was expected to dole out as payment for Nic’s participation in this game. That thought made her close her eyes with a sigh. Oh, she could get into some predicaments, couldn’t she?

Chapter Fifteen

“Do you have a pet?”

Nic shook her head. “No. You?”

“No. Do you like pets?”

“I’ve never had one,” she lied.

Abby glanced over at her. “No pets growing up?”

She shook her head but didn’t elaborate. Yeah, there had been a cat. A stray that had hung around long enough for her to tame. She’d snuck food out to it in the back corner of the yard. She hadn’t worried that her mother would find out. Her mother never set foot out there. It was a big orange tabby, and she named her Sally. Every day when she came home from school, she’d go out there and Sally would be waiting. She’d sit and the cat would crawl into her lap, purring constantly. Then Sally started getting fat. Really fat. There would be babies soon. Then one day Sally wasn’t waiting for her anymore, no.

“We had a dog,” Abby said, interrupting her thoughts. “He was a Boston Terrier and he used to sleep with me. Buster.”

Nic could hear the smile in Abby’s voice, and she tried to picture the dog sleeping at the foot of a young Abby’s bed. She didn’t know what a Boston Terrier looked like, though.

“He died when I was a senior in high school. It was traumatic for us all and my mother couldn’t bring herself to replace him. She still has pictures of him displayed.” She laughed lightly. “There’ll be one on the mantel. He’s got a red Christmas bandana on and an elf hat. I remember the Christmas she took that picture. It was the year I got my first ‘big kids’ bike.”

“What was that?”