The sounds of construction reached her from outside. They’d only begun working on it, but already Leesa was anticipating the completion of the swimming pool.
“It’s a good thing that being an athlete has never been one of my dreams,” Rachel said.
“I hear you.” Leesa kept walking, but at a much slower pace than she’d used on the track. She took the time as a cool-down, stopping and throwing a few leg stretches in to keep it interesting.
By the time they made it to the workout room, Leesa had her breath back. She grabbed a towel and headed to her machine.
She followed her usual routine, starting out slow and building her pace. Beside her, Rachel appeared recovered from the walk. Conversation ended as the last ten minutes loomed.
“Oh, thank God.” Rachel bowed her head over her machine.
Leesa would have laughed at her friend’s outburst if she’d had the energy. A thought occurred to her as she was cleaning her machine. Leesa frowned, shot a covert look at her bff, then decided that instead of worrying, she’d just ask.
With clean machines and fresh water, they sat on the bench along the wall. No one else was in the room at the moment, but she knew that likely would change before long.
“So…I have a concern about you, my friend, and I’m just going to ask it straight out.” Leesa used her water bottle to indicate the equipment. “You’re not killing yourself over this because you think you have to in order to keep up with those husbands of yours, are you?”
Leesa couldn’t recall hearing Rachel lament the age difference between herself and her men, one of whom was more than a decade younger. But just because Rachel hadn’t said anything didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking—or feeling—an inadequacy. We women tend to do that from time to time.
“Not really.” Rachel sat, eyes closed, her head resting on the wall.
“‘Not really’ isn’t a no, girlfriend.” Leesa hadn’t thought that either Brandon Gillespie or Trace Langley would be the type of man who would make her friend feel she needed to improve herself for them. If I was wrong about them, there’s going to be hell to pay.
Rachel must have heard something in Leesa’s tone, because she opened her eyes and looked at her.
“All these years, before I met them, I just assumed I could never have another child, because, well, I’d only gotten pregnant once.” She sat up straighter. “But now I think that was bullshit thinking on my part. So, we’ve decided to try, even though they are perfectly okay with my not getting pregnant… It’s kind of one of those emotional mine fields, I guess. Once I considered that I could get pregnant, then, well, I really wanted to try.”
“And you wanted to get yourself in a bit better condition, physically, before you did?”
“Yeah.”
Leesa didn’t need to know anything more. The beauty of Rachel’s smile said it all.
“You really want to have another baby? Even though Libby is a teenager?”
“I want to have their baby—one that will have been conceived in love, real love. I’ve never regretted having Libby. She’s the one pure thing to come out of my first marriage, and I wouldn’t, even now, change a thing. But to believe there were limits for me, and now to know there aren’t? That my husbands love me absolutely no matter what the future brings? That’s powerful magic, my friend. Very powerful magic.”
“It is, indeed.” Leesa wouldn’t argue the point even if she could. She knew what Rachel had been through. If anyone deserves to be happy in this life, it’s her.
“What about you, girlfriend?”
“Me? What about me what?”
Leesa had heard the term, “like a doe caught in the headlights.” Now she knew what that facial expression felt like.
Rachel giggled. “Just look at you! You know, wanting to have the baby of a man you love isn’t weird science or anything.”
Oh, crap. Leesa had forgotten one of the principle tenets of life. Once you let someone in past your boundaries, they tended to settle down there and get comfy. Her mind scrambled for a throwaway line, or at least tried to find a way to change the subject. Then she met Rachel’s gaze and read the love there. Just as her concern for Rachel had been born from love, so, too, had Rachel’s question just now.
Rachel Cosgrove Gillespie-Langley was the first real, close female friend she’d had since high school. Though it made her uncomfortable, she understood that honesty was the only valid coin between them.
“I don’t know if I’m in love with those two Benedicts,” Leesa said. “I mean…yeah, great sex, but it’s really more than that. I just don’t…” Why she felt panic starting to rise within her, she had not a clue.
“Hey!” Rachel slid closer and slipped her arm around her. “Of course, you don’t know that yet. You three really haven’t been together all that long. I guess what they say is true, about a woman in love wanting to share that state with her besties.”
“The truth? The one I’ve barely actually acknowledged to myself? I want to be in love with them, and that makes me nervous that I might screw things up.” Leesa licked her lips and nodded. “And one more thing, just between us? I told them at the beginning that I wasn’t interested in a picket fence, kids, and a dog, but I think…I think that might have been a fib.”
“Not a fib,” Rachel said. “Just one of those things we tell ourselves when we believe what we really, deep down want is way out of reach and totally impossible.”
“I like your interpretation better. I hated to think that I was being a liar.”
“You’re just a woman faced with two very dynamic men.” Rachel grinned.
That smile inspired one of her
