Her nostrils flared. “You met her first and dated a few weeks before she threw you over and took up with Liam. You saw Liam maybe twice a year, but she usually wasn’t along.”
Then why did he feel this connection to her? Why was her name the first one on his lips in his initial coherent moment after the explosion? “I think I should see Dr. Phillips.”
“I’m sure he’d be glad to see you. He’s called several times.”
The psychiatrist’s messages were the only reason Jesse knew the name. “You have his number?”
She nodded. “By the phone in the kitchen.”
He went into the kitchen, found the number, and called the doctor’s office. There’d been a cancellation that afternoon, so he took it. Two hours later, he was in Dr. Phillips’s office sitting in a chair by a window that looked out on the Atlantic.
“I need you to tell me what my mental state was like before my injury.”
Dr. Phillips was in his sixties, and his expression of easy competence probably calmed his patients most of the time. His light brown eyes under sandy hair were shrewd as he looked Jesse over carefully. “Why?”
“Do you think I could have tried to kill myself? Put that bomb under my own car?”
The doctor pursed his lips. “We’d talked about doing a voluntary commitment the week before the bomb incident. Your depression was profound, and I feared you might try to harm yourself.”
Jesse slumped back in his chair. “And my best friend?”
“That question’s more difficult to answer.”
“So I really am going crazy,” he muttered.
Eight
The croak of bullfrogs from the swamp made the hair on the back of Alanna’s neck rise. The noise made her think of alligators and snakes, reptiles she knew inhabited the murky waters as well. She sat cross-legged on the bed with both windows open to the cooling night air. Though it was hard to call that moisture-laden breeze a cooling one.
Barry hadn’t appeared since he left her two hours ago. She tried to sleep, but the strange sounds in and around the house kept her eyes from drifting shut. A loud roar from outside sent her bolting from the bed. Running to the window, she stared into the dark yard. The moon glimmered on the water, but she didn’t see whatever had made that horrifying sound.
Reaching for her cell phone, she dialed Ciara’s number. Her friend answered almost immediately. Hearing Ciara’s voice calmed Alanna’s nervousness. “How are you, it’s me?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, not really. I miss my mates.”
Ciara’s voice softened. “We miss you too. How’s the new studio look?”
“It’s not done yet.”
“What? He said it was going to be ready for us to come next week.”
“A problem with the work crew. Now it will be a couple of weeks, so he says. But I’ll come to the city, and we’ll figure out where to practice,” she added before Ciara could explode into new objections.
“Barry did this on purpose,” Ciara said. “The eejit swooped in and took you over.”
“Ciara, stop. He’s done everything possible for us. The concerts he’s arranged for us this summer are deadly.”
“At the sacrifice of your voice!”
“I don’t miss it,” Alanna lied. If she told Ciara how she really felt about the loss of her singing voice, the argument would be full on. She rubbed her forehead. It wasn’t Barry’s fault, but her own. “You’re determined to dislike him, aren’t you, Ciara? What’s he ever done to you but try to help us? I know you’re jealous, but be giving me a little more credit than that. I’ll never walk away from any of you. Just knock off, okay?”
While it was true they had spent less time together in the month leading up the wedding than when she was married to Liam, it was only because Barry’s position demanded she attend a lot of dinners and events with him. “He likes you, all of you. He’s told me many times how lucky I am to have friends like the three of you. And he’s even building that studio for us to practice in. What more can he do to prove himself to you?”
Ciara sighed. “I’m feeling like he wants to separate us from you.”
“If that were true, he wouldn’t be inviting you out here to the studio, now would he? Or inviting you all out to stay at the summerhouse when it’s fixed up.”
There was a long pause before Ciara answered. “I don’t like all the changes. And everything has changed since Liam died.”
“Believe me, it’s something I’m aware of every day,” Alanna said softly.
“I need you to be telling me this one thing,” Ciara said. “Can you learn to love him?”
Alanna thought of Barry’s kind blue eyes. “I don’t know. But Barry makes me feel safe and protected. He’s giving up his freedom to help protect the baby from Thomas. That’s enough for now.”
“There is that,” Ciara said. “I’m worried about you. That’s all. You know the bloke loves you.”
Alanna hadn’t wanted to face what her heart knew, but she couldn’t evade Ciara’s bald statement. “I know. And he knows I still love Liam.”
“He’s hopeful you’ll forget him.”