Free All of Me by Lori Wilde

mate.”
    “Pfttt.”
    Rachael came around the side of the moving van to where Jillian and Delaney were standing. “What happened to you?”
    “Jilly made a wish on the veil,” Delaney said gleefully. “And she saw her guy.”
    Oh great, tell the romanceaholic
.
    “There was no guy. I saw no guy,” Jillian lied.
    Rachael rubbed her palms together. “So what did he look like? Handsome? Hot?”
    “There’s no guy.”
    “You put on the veil,” Tish joined in. “Made the wish and absolutely
nothing
happened?”
    Dammit. She knew she should have just thrown the stupid veil in the trash. “That’s right. I just fell asleep.”
    “With the veil on?” Tish quizzed.
    “Um … yeah. So what?”
    Tish and Delaney and Rachael all exchanged meaningful glances as if they were party to something significant that Jillian
     could never understand.
    “What?” Jillian demanded.
    “Did you have some kind of dream?” Delaney raised her eyebrows.
    “I don’t remember,” Jillian lied.
    “She dreamed about him.” Tish nodded her head knowingly. “She dreamed about him, and it scared the underpants off her.”
    “Why does everyone keep accusing me of losing my underpants?” Jillian sighed in exasperation. “I’m not Britney Spears.”
    “I bet it was a sex dream. Was it a sex dream, Jilly?” Rachael leaned in closer. “Tell us all about your sex dream.”
    “Geez, you people …”
    “It was a sex dream,” Tish said.
    Jillian rolled her eyes. “And you wonder why I’m moving a thousand miles away from you lunatics.”
    “Fourteen hundred away from me.” Rachael made a sad face.
    “We’re just teasing you, Jilly.” Delaney touched her forearm. “If you really don’t want the veil, I’ll take it.”
    “Good. Thank you.” Jillian sighed again, this time with relief as Delaney accepted the bag. “It’s all I ever wanted.”
    “That and the hot guy from your sexy dream.” Rachael giggled, her eyes crinkling merrily.
    Despite their good-natured ribbing about the veil, Jillian knew her friends truly cared about her. She was closing a chapter
     in her life. She could see the significance of it reflected in their faces, and she knew they could see it on hers. These
     three women were the closest thing she had to a family.
    “I’m gonna miss you guys,” she said earnestly.
    “Group hug.” Rachael held her arms open wide.
    Normally, Rachael’s insistence on group hugs got on Jillian’s nerves, but this time, she let it happen and didn’t even blink
     away the mist of tears.

Chapter Five
    T wo days later, at five forty-five in the morning, Jillian drove into Salvation.
    She’d made poor time, what with the drag of the U-Haul on her Sebring’s bumper hitch and having to make frequent pit stops
     for Mutt. But since no one was expecting her, the time of her arrival wasn’t much of an issue. The weariness of two days on
     the road clouded her brain. Yellow asphalt stripes disappearing beneath strumming tires. Eighteen-wheelers jockeying for position.
     The dry flat taste of too-strong coffee. The sitting-too-long ache in her knees and tailbone.
    Jillian rounded the last curve in the road, and there it lay dead ahead. Through the damp windshield, she watched the streetlamps
     wink off as the orange wash of morning scrubbed the horizon a hazy blue.
    Salvation.
    Small, sleepy, and so adorably cute she almost turned the car around and headed straight back to Houston. Jillian didn’t do
     adorable or cute, but Rachael would have loved the place.
    The first thing that came into view was the picturesque town square. Decorated quaintly with festive pumpkins and hay bales
     and scarecrows. There was a faint dusting of snow on the ground mingling with the fallen autumn leaves—orange, yellow, red.
    The architecture was a mix of Swiss Chalet, French farmhouse, and Queen Victoria. There were carved window boxes and wrought-iron
     streetlamps and quirkily painted wooden park benches positioned outside the