Page 18 of Saving Her Curves

“Hello.” The smile she gave her two customers was tight, she knew, but it couldn’t be helped. How could she smile when her heart was slowly breaking?

“Hello.” The one with the stroller spoke first. “You must be Skye, right? Skye’s the Limit?”

“Yes.” This time the smile was a little more genuine. She heard that all the time, but found it amusing.

“Right, duh,” the woman laughed at herself. “Anyway, we’re Mary and Penny. We’ve heard so much about you from Hank.”

“What?” Skye almost froze at the sound of Hank’s name.

“Hank? He told us about you. He made you sound so intriguing that we had to come meet you.” The other woman spoke, giving Skye a strange look.

“You both know Hank?”

“Yes, he works with our husbands.” The other woman gave a little laugh. “Not that he would have mentioned us or them. He is so closed mouth sometimes.”

“No, no. He mentioned a few things about his job.” Skye concentrated for just a moment. The sudden appearance of the women had thrown her off balance. “Are you Mary and Penny?”

“Yep, that’s us.” The each offered their hands.

Skye laughed shyly. “And he mentioned me?”

“Oh, yes. Not readily,” Mary laughed. “But we got him to talk. Especially since he was so tight lipped about the rescue. We just knew something had happened.”

This time Skye blushed, remembering exactly what had happened.

“Stop it, Mary,” the other woman chided. “You’re embarrassing her.”

“Me? What about when you grilled Hank?”

“I was just concerned for her health.” She looked at Skye. “I’m a doctor. When he told us you’d wrecked your car, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Mary snorted. “Right. You’re as nosy as I am, but hide behind that white coat of yours. Anyway, we just wanted to stop by and say hi.”

“And invite you to dinner, in case Hank never gets around to it.”

Skye didn’t know how to tell these women that she and Hank hadn’t spoken in over a week, and that she doubted they ever would again.

Penny’s eyes narrowed at Skye’s expression. “What happened? Did he do something stupid?”

“No, not really. I, umm…” She drew in deep breath. “I just haven’t spoken to him in a week, that’s all.” She let them draw their own conclusions. Maybe this was his typical behavior.

Was he a love ‘em and leave em’ type of guy? He certainly hadn’t seemed that way.

Mary and Penny exchanged a look and rolled their eyes. “He did do something stupid. He didn’t tell you he had to go out of town, did he?”

“What? This week? No, he didn’t.” Skye couldn’t stop the speeding up of her heart. Maybe there truly was a specific reason he hadn’t contacted her. Had he wanted to, she wondered?

“And he didn’t think to facetime you or pick up the phone.” Mary’s comment made her heart plummet back down for a moment, before she realized they hadn’t shared any contact information. All Hank really knew about her was where she lived and where she worked. Which was really enough to contact her. But if he’d had to go out of town suddenly…

“He didn’t know any of that.”

“Mm, that makes sense then. He had to leave Monday afternoon. I’m not sure if he even had time to go home and pack.”

Mary nodded her head. “I don’t think he did. Clay said they basically threw an emergency pack at him and told him to go.” She turned to Skye and said, “Look, we don’t want to interfere, but you really need to go see him.”

Skye studied both of her unexpected visitors. They appeared genuine enough, and if what they said was true, maybe Hank hadn’t had time to come see her. Or, her other doubt riddled voice spoke up, maybe he didn’t want to see her?

She stood for a few moments, the sensations from the cabin flooding her senses. She felt positive that what they had shared was genuine and that it was worth pursuing. In order to do that, she had to know how Hank felt.

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