More Than Friends by Erin Dutton Read Free Book Online Page A

shrugged and tilted his water bottle.
    Eight years ago, when she left her desk job to start her own business, Lucas was one of the first two men she hired. The other man had left within a year, but Lucas proved to be loyal and hardworking. Because he was twenty years old, she hadn’t expected a long-term commitment when she’d hired him. But he proved eager to learn and, with a new wife and a baby on the way, he needed the job. Now, she could confidently hand him the reins on almost any project.
    Since then she’d added nearly a dozen men to her landscape crews, as well as an office manager so she wouldn’t end up behind a desk full-time again. Still she spent at least two days a week in the small office she leased. Her office manager, Roberta, handled the billing and assigned crews to routine-maintenance accounts. But Melanie met with prospective clients and approved all new projects.
    “Everything okay, Boss?” Lucas asked.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “You’re not wearing your ring.” He nodded at her left hand. The light strip where her gold band used to rest stood out against her otherwise tanned skin.
    “No. I’m not.” She’d felt strange removing the ring and had worn it for several days after the breakup. But seeing it on her finger had only made her sad, so she’d tucked it away in her jewelry box.
    “What happened?”
    “We split up.”
    “If you want to talk…”
    She shook her head. “I just need to work.”
    She and Lucas couldn’t be more different, yet she considered him a friend. He was a country boy, raised on a farm with traditional Southern Christian values. He’d admitted shortly after she introduced him to Kendall that he’d never been around an openly gay person before. He struggled with how her lifestyle fit into his religion, but he accepted and respected her. Over the years, they’d worked closely together and she liked to think she’d broadened his view of how God created people. Conversely, he taught her a great deal about how strong faith could be.
    Last year, when he and his wife had divorced, she had supported him as best she could, letting him adjust his hours so he could pick up his son and listening when he needed to vent. She knew she would have his ear now if she needed it, and she trusted him to keep her business private. But she couldn’t talk yet, not without crying.
    She hated walking through the house and seeing Kendall’s things, but it just didn’t feel right to box them up, and Kendall hadn’t contacted her regarding what she would do with them. Instead, she found excuses to be out of the house, working late and running imaginary errands. But nothing completely distracted her from the mess her life had become.
    She still believed ending their relationship would eventually prove best for both of them. But knowing that didn’t change the fact that she was now in her mid-thirties, alone, and with all of her previous plans for her future blown to hell. Maybe eventually “starting over” would sound promising—full of positive possibilities—but for now, all she could think about was how much she missed her old life, her old routines, and their friends, specifically Evelyn.
     
    *
     
    Evelyn entered the courtroom and strode to the front. She pushed through the swinging gate and joined several other officers sitting behind the prosecutors’ table. One officer was engrossed in a paperback book, and two others appeared occupied with their phones. She dropped into a chair next to a familiar face.
    “Hey, Princess,” she said. On the outside, Jennifer Prince was all girl and made no secret of just how high-maintenance she could be, which was why she’d earned the nickname in the academy. The instructor had coined the not-so-imaginative take on her last name the very first day in his attempt to break her down. But she’d proved to also be extremely tough and had soared through the challenge of the police academy.
    “Hey, Fisher. How’ve you been, babe?”