The Friendship Pact

This is a story for every woman who has a best friend...

Bailey Watters and Koralynn Mitchell consider themselves “sisters of the soul.” Their circumstances growing up couldn’t have been more different; Kora came from a wealthy, privileged family, while Bailey’s home life was hard. They’d do anything for each other. “I’d give you a kidney,” they always say. There are no secrets between them—until there’s one secret Bailey can’t share.

This is a story for every woman who’s been in love.

Danny Brown is the only man Kora’s ever wanted, ever loved, and her marriage seems as flawless as everything else in her life. Bailey, however, doesn’t want a husband. She does want a baby—but only by IVF. And the perfect donor, the perfect biological father, would be a man like...Danny.

What happens when love and friendship collide?

Kora might be willing to give Bailey a kidney. But what about a baby?

The Friendship Pact

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Reader,

I’ve written a lot of books. From thriller/suspense to romance, I’ve given you many kinds of stories. This one isn’t like any of them. It’s a story of heart. Of soul-searching. Of tough questions with no easy answers. It’s a story of relationships. Of friendship. It’s the story of two very different women who, as children, make a pact to travel life’s journey together.

I had a friend just like Koralynn has Bailey. Or Bailey has Koralynn. Like them, we met when we were just starting school. We were connected, Siamese twins of the soul, from the very beginning. Whenever I was with “J” my whole world lit up like Disneyland. I’ve never understood why she brought such magic to my life, but throughout our growing up and into adulthood, she was more special than anyone else. I can remember sitting on a dirt road with her when we were about fifteen talking about our futures. I was going to write for Harlequin. She wanted to go into the medical field. We were going to attend the University of Michigan together. Room together. We were going to be godmothers to each other’s babies. And be old ladies together.

We didn’t make it to college together; the reality of out-of-state tuition got in the way. But she studied nuclear medicine. And I write for Harlequin. She stood beside me for the christening of my daughter, becoming an official godmother, and I did the same for her. We ended up at different ends of the country, but her presence in the world was a star in my heart, giving me strength beyond anything I would’ve had alone. I could do whatever I had to because I knew “J” was there to pick up any pieces; I knew she could always put them back together.

Until life handed us something tragically unexpected. My “J” was killed in a car accident fourteen years ago this summer. But she was right here with me, speaking through my heart, a voice in my head, as Koralynn and Bailey came to life. And as this book comes to you, my goddaughter is bringing her firstborn, a daughter, MJ (the “J” is for her mother), into the world, a reminder that love—connection—never ends....

I’m delighted to hear from readers. You can reach me at www.tarataylorquinn.com. And I’d love to hear your stories of friendship!

Tara

Dedication

To Jeanine Lynn Hall Clayton, you are my wind and my stars. To Buzz and Tanya Gonzales, congratulations on that new little spirit who will fill up your hearts with more love than you can imagine. And to Megan Jeanine Gonzales, welcome, little one. I know your grandma sends you to us!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

About the Author

Copyright

Chapter One

May 1997

“You asleep?”

“No, are you?” I guess the question was kinda dumb, but Bailey and I...we had our own code. It meant she needed to talk, and I was ready to listen.

“Uh-uh.”

When she didn’t say anything else, I started in. “It’s going to be okay, you know.” Her mom, who was drunk a lot, was getting another divorce, but Bailey would be fine this time. Neither of us liked Stan, her stepfather.

And my mom and dad would make sure Bailey was okay. Just like always.

Too bad they weren’t Bailey’s parents, too.

My one dark spot in life.

“No, it’s not, Koralynn. It’s not going to be okay.” Bailey’s voice sounded stern, even in a whisper. Not like she was going to cry. That I could deal with. It sounded more like...foreboding. I’d just read that word and now I understood exactly what it meant.

“You said that when you found out Brian had cystic fibrosis,” I reminded her in a calming whisper. Bailey adored her older brother. Her only biological sibling. I did, too. Brian was cool. And doing pretty well now that they knew what was wrong with him.

She flipped over on her back next to me in my queen-size bed, holding down the covers on both sides of her so the cold gusts of air didn’t get in. “He’s never going to have a normal life,” she whispered back. “Or have kids, either.”

“He’s alive.” At first they’d thought he wasn’t going to make it. “You said it wasn’t ever going to be okay again when your mom and dad got divorced, too.” Five years ago. We’d been ten at the time.

“And I was right.”

“You survived.” And we’d had a lot of great times since then.

“Yeah, and my dad lives in Florida and I hardly ever see him.”

I wasn’t doing so hot here. So I tried again.

“Your life is harder than mine, Bail. Your mom, with her drinking... It’s not fair and sometimes I feel so guilty....”

“Why? It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but look at me.... My folks are the greatest. We have a nice house and...” Wait, I was supposed to be making my best friend in the whole world feel better, not worse.

“It’s just...I don’t know why I get all the luck,” I told her. “You deserve it way more than I do.” All our lives it had been like that. And it wasn’t fair.

“It’s how life is, Kor. Different things happen to different people and we don’t know why. I mean, look at Brian. Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease, and both our parents were carriers so either of us could’ve gotten it. I didn’t. He did. Go figure.”

I shuddered, remembering those weeks when Brian had been so sick and they’d found out what was wrong and Bailey had to go through testing, too. We didn’t know if she was going to turn out to be sick and maybe die, and I could hardly stand it while we waited for the news. Bailey’s mom and dad were already not getting along, her mom was drunk all the time, it seemed, and they’d just found out about Brian. So no one really had time for Bailey. That was when Bailey had first started staying with us—more than for just a sleepover—and that night before we got the test results, Mom stayed up with us, sitting on my bed, one arm around each of us.

“Your folks were great, weren’t they?”

They’d promised Bailey they’d make sure that if she was sick, she’d get the best care available. They’d promised her they’d be there with her, every step of the way.

Mom was a stay-at-home mother, so she was always there—and Daddy, who worked in top management at a software firm, made enough to take care of one more if he had to. Besides, there was the money he’d inherited from his own father.

Bailey was fine, thank God. And now she had three drawers in my dresser and a lot of her clothes officially hung with mine in the big walk-in closet that used to hold shelves for all my toys.

We’d carted those up to the attic for my babies—when I was married and everything—to play with someday.

“I can’t believe my mom did this,” Bailey said now. “I mean I get why. Stan’s a jerk and she should’ve left him a long time ago, but for her to go and have an affair...”

I couldn’t believe that part, either. Not even with Bailey’s mom. Why make Stan madder? He’d found out a couple of days before and now Bailey’s mom had a black eye she wouldn’t go to the cops about and Stan was threatening to leave her high and dry with no alimony or furniture or car or anything.

“Stan seemed so nice in the beginning,” I said, shivering a little as I pictured the bearded man who scared the shit out of me.

“He’s fine until he starts drinking.”

“It sucks that he hid the whole recovering alcoholic thing until after they were married.” At least Bailey’s mom had been upfront about her own relationship with the bottle.

“And the hitting thing, too.” Bailey’s whisper changed.

Sitting up in bed, I stared down at my friend, my sister, the other half of my soul. “He didn’t hit you, did he?” I asked, ready to hit back. Funny, most times Bailey was the stronger one of us—the one who fought our battles. My job was to tend our wounds.

Or go to my parents to do it for us.

“No,” Bailey said. But she turned her head toward the wall and I was mad and scared all at once.

“Bail?”

I thought I saw a tear slide down the side of her face into the pillow. Leaning over her, I pushed her dark hair away from her eyes and said, “Bailey, tell me what he did to you.”

“It was nothing.”

My heart was pounding. “Bailey, tell me.” And then I was going straight to Mom. She’d know what to do. Where to go for help, even if Bailey’s mom wouldn’t call the cops.

“He...tried to kiss me.”

I could hardly breathe. I was freezing and frightened and... “Tried?”

“He was drunk and I kneed him in the you-know-where and ran.”

“When was this?” And why hadn’t she told me?

“This afternoon.”

Oh, God. And I’d been thinking her dark mood all night was because her mother had been caught having an affair with her boss—a partner in the law firm where she worked as a paralegal—and was getting a divorce as a result. We didn’t know if she was also going to lose her job.

“You were only home for a few minutes,” I said now, trying to wrap my mind around a world that had just completely changed.

“He came into my room when I was getting the red dress from my closet,” Bailey said. I’d been running errands with my mom after school and we were picking Bailey up to spend the weekend with us on our way home. My folks were taking us to a dinner theater in Pittsburgh the next night to celebrate the end of the school year. Bailey and I had both made the honor roll; I had straight As and she had all As and one B.

And we’d decided to wear the red dresses Mom had bought us for a Christmas dinner show we’d gone to last winter.

None of that mattered now. But it was what I wanted to think about.

She sniffed and I rubbed her shoulder. “Tell me everything,” I said. We stuck together. No matter what.

Bailey sniffled again. I swallowed, trying to hold everything in for her sake, but then I started to cry, too.

“The dress was on the top bar...” Her words were kind of hard to understand, all clogged up with tears, and still in a whisper. But she wasn’t sobbing. I almost wished she was. Sobbing came and went. These tears, they seemed like they could just keep coming and never stop.

I’d never seen Bailey like this before. Should I go get Mom now?

“I reached up for it....”

I could picture her there, inside the opened closet door—a single, pressboard thing, not like the solid wood double doors on my closet—her arm raised.

“I didn’t hear him come in....”

I rubbed her shoulder some more. I wanted to cover my ears like I’d done as a kid when Mom was telling me my grandmother had died. If I didn’t hear, I didn’t have to know and it wouldn’t be real.

“He came up behind me....”

I couldn’t stand the pain I heard in her voice. “It’s okay, Bail. It’s okay.” But it wasn’t. I had a feeling things weren’t ever going to be okay again, just like she’d said.

“He grabbed my breast....” She began to sob then, and I reached down for her, pulling her into my lap. I cradled her, rocking back and forth, whispering to her.

Neither of us had ever been touched sexually before.

We’d talked about what our first times would be like. A lot, lately. She’d heard it might hurt and asked me what I thought. So I asked Mom and she’d said it often does hurt the first time, but not always. And that it also could feel incredibly good if the man and woman were in love and took care with each other.

Bailey and I had talked about that a lot, too. About what “took care with each other” meant.

We hadn’t reached a conclusion yet, but one thing I knew for sure—the moments she was describing had nothing to do with “taking care.”

“I’m here,” I said, running my fingers through her long dark hair, hating a world that would allow such a horrible thing to happen to such a sweet, beautiful girl. “I’m here.”

We were a pair. What happened to her happened to me. We’d made that promise when we were kids, when we’d still been young enough to believe the world was fair and good.

I listened to her tell me how her drunk stepfather had groped her, shoving a hand inside the waistband of her jeans and down, slobbering all over her neck while he fingered her, before he’d turned her around to kiss her fully and she’d jabbed her knee into his dick and run.

He was a dick. And he was going to pay.

* * *

“No. No. Can’t do it,” Papa Bill stood in the Mitchells’ fancy tiled foyer as Bailey and Koralynn came downstairs together just before five on Saturday evening.

“Can’t do what, Bill?” Mama Di, Koralynn’s mom, sleek and slim and gorgeously blonde, her spiked heels clicking on the tile, walked up behind him. With him in his black tux and her in the body-hugging red silk dress, they looked like Bailey’s perception of Hollywood and they were her welcoming committee. Hers and Koralynn’s.

“I can’t possibly take these two out in public with us,” he said, his face serious. Koralynn paused. Papa Bill’s eyes had that look in them like they got when he was teasing.

Bailey stopped for a second before continuing her princess descent, her high heels sinking into the plush carpet on the stairs. After crying half the night and arguing the other half, she’d finally gotten Koralynn to promise not to say anything about what her stepfather had done the day before. But Koralynn had agreed, only because she knew it would be his word against Bailey’s and that Bailey would be dragged through humiliating shit for probably nothing, and because Bailey’s mom was leaving the jerk, anyway, so Bailey wouldn’t have to deal with him after this.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Koralynn was right beside her again, lacing her arm through Bailey’s, like she’d carry the world for both of them. And smiling down at her father.

Koralynn had said they weren’t going to let Stan ruin this night. But it was too late. Koralynn was still Koralynn, all pure and innocent and wondering about the mysteries of life. Bailey wasn’t. Not anymore.

And that was just one more thing separating her from the best friend she loved more than anyone else on earth.

“Look at you two,” Papa Bill said, not a hint of smile in his voice. “You’re far too beautiful! An old man like me can’t be fending off all the guys who’ll be trying to get your attention.”

“You aren’t old, Daddy.”

“And you won’t have to fend them off, either,” Bailey said, grinning even though it hurt, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “’Cause Koralynn and I will just turn our noses up at them.”

If Bailey had her way, she and Koralynn wouldn’t even look at guys until they were in college. Or later. Guys were just...well, more trouble than they were worth.

But Koralynn was already falling into the trench. And falling hard. For a guy in their sophomore biology class. Danny Brown. He had the hots for her, too. Bailey could tell. It was only a matter of time before the two of them hooked up. By her guess, it would happen during the summer.

And maybe, if Koralynn was lucky, she wouldn’t get hurt. Maybe she’d find out that she didn’t really like Danny as much as she thought before he moved on to the next girl.

Or got too possessive.

Or made her have sex with him.

Bailey shuddered. She didn’t want any guy touching her. Not when it left you feeling dirty and gross.

“We’re more interested in getting our driver’s licenses, Daddy,” Koralynn was saying as she leaned forward to kiss her father’s cheek.

Koralynn had been working on her old man since Christmas, getting him ready to accept the fact that she was growing up. And going to need a car soon.

Lord knew, Bailey wouldn’t be getting one, so they really needed Koralynn to.

“It’s still four months before you turn sixteen, Kor,” Mama Di said. “Give your father a break for the night. I’m not sure he can handle looking at you in heels and makeup and thinking of you behind the wheel of a car.” Mama Di was smiling at the husband she still obviously adored.

And Bailey wondered how they did it, how they’d stayed married for twenty years and didn’t hate each other.

But then, she wondered a lot of things. Like why someone as cool as Koralynn Mitchell wanted her, Bailey Watters, for a sister.

Chapter Two

October 2001

“Come on, Bail, wear the black sweater we got last weekend. You know you look too hot to touch in it.” I held it out to her. The very expensive long, thin sweater was one of a number of garments we shared. We’d both chipped in for it—me from my allowance, and her from the money she made working in the college agricultural building three days a week.

“It’ll be perfect with those new jeans. They’re tight all the way down to your ankles. And with your wedge sandals...” I put my free hand to my lips and made a kissing gesture in the air.

“You wanted to wear it for homecoming.” Arms crossed, Bailey faced me in the middle of our dorm room.

“Yeah, but then I remembered this.” I grabbed a tie-dyed gauze number Mom had sent home with us the last time we visited.

“Danny’s already seen it.”

“Danny’s already seen everything underneath it, too,” I reminded her with a wicked grin. “Besides, he’s going to be paying more attention to a leather ball a bunch of guys are passing around than he is to me.”

I didn’t really believe that. Danny Brown might love the game of football enough that we’d decided to attend Wesley, a smaller college about an hour from home, rather than Penn State, when he got the Wesley football scholarship. But I always came first with him.

I had no worries there.

Bailey eyed the sweater. “You want to wear it tonight,” I said, handing it to her. “You know you do.”

“You just want me to wear it because Jake’s here,” she said.

That was the problem when your best friend had been your best friend since you were five and you lived with her and shared all your secrets, too. I didn’t even have to say a word and Bailey knew what was on my mind.

“You like him, Bailey.” That was the flip side; I knew her just as well.

“And you want me to marry him. Regardless of what I want.” Her tone was accusatory.

If I didn’t love Bailey so much, I’d have grown weary of this topic long ago. I’d have given up. But I did love her, more than almost anybody, so...

“I want you to have what you’ve always wanted, Bail. A home of your own, with a family who loves you and stays together.”

I had that family, had the promise of it continuing in my future, too, with Danny, and hadn’t done anything to get it or deserve it. Hadn’t had to work for it. Bailey, on the other hand, spent half her life watching her mother’s back, texting her brother, Brian, every hour to keep his spirits up, keeping in touch with stepsiblings and making sure she was part of her father’s life—and the other half watching out for me and trying to please my mom and dad. And I sensed that she still felt alone a lot of the time. No matter how connected my heart was to hers.

“You want me to have what you want,” she said softly, implying that she didn’t want what I wanted or what I had. But I knew her.

She did want what I had—a secure and loving family. Parents she could count on. A nice house, one that wasn’t filled with chaos and fraught with tension. Not only did she used to tell me that, it was why she’d practically moved in with me when we were kids.

I wanted to tell her that actions spoke louder than words, but I didn’t. Bailey was well aware of what I was thinking. And I felt convinced that I was right about her deep-down craving for a family of her own.

Letting the sweater dangle toward the ground, I gently squeezed Bailey’s shoulder with my free hand, looking deeply into those striking brown eyes, letting her look into my eyes—my soul—too.

“All I want is for you to be happy, Bail. And sometimes, you put up roadblocks.” I chose my words carefully. No matter how deeply you knew someone, sometimes words could hurt. Sometimes you reacted to them, got defensive and lost the truth along the way.

“I can’t help it.” Those brown eyes were wide open to me and my heart just about burst. Bailey’s hurt was my own. Like we were Siamese twins of the soul. “Your life...your heart...it’s always been protected, Kora. Mine hasn’t.”

In a flash I remembered Bailey’s whisper in the night five years ago, when she told me what Stan had done to her. And then had an instant replay of the day, our freshman year, when the sorority we’d pledged chose me and not her because my mother was an alumna, and hers hadn’t even attended college. They hadn’t said so, of course. Nor had they commented on the roughness around Bailey’s edges—a natural defensiveness—but I knew that was the real reason they’d shut their door in her face.

Mom, an active alumna, had called our advisor, of course, and Bailey was in, too. And now in our junior year, she chaired the Charitable Works Committee, which was so Bailey. But those protective walls around her heart had thickened and sometimes that scared me.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. Other people didn’t know Bailey like I did.

Not even Danny. He didn’t get why I was so close with someone who seemed so cold.

But in some ways he was like Bailey. Needing a family to call his own. His folks were divorced, too, and Danny was kind of forgotten sometimes.

I’d tried to explain things to him. Over and over again. And Danny’s and Bailey’s inability to become real friends was all that kept me from accepting the secret proposal my high school lover had issued over the summer. Up on my special mountain, just outside town—the place I went when I needed to think. I wanted to marry Danny. Even more, probably, than he wanted to marry me, which was saying a lot based on how many times a week he begged me to make it official so all the other guys would know I was permanently taken.