Free Need You Now (Love in Unknown) by Taylor M. Lunsford Page A

end of the deal.”
    “Lord knows she’s had the patience of a saint with that man.” Tiffany chuckled. “What’ll it be, Doc? And none of that healthy crap here. You need some meat on those bones of yours.”
    “When you put it like that.” Mel studied the menu quickly. “Cheeseburger with mustard and ketchup and some of those yummy Cajun fries. And a Coke to drink.”
    Gage ordered a jalapeño and onion ring burger with extra fries and Mel shook her head. "I'm going to go ahead and book your future doctor's appointments right now. Ten years and your arteries are going to be seriously nasty."
    “Back off, Doc Mel-bell. I plan to enjoy life, not worry about the future.”
    They talked for a few minutes until their food arrived, then conversation lulled a bit. "How's your mom doing?"
    “Mama?” Mel dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Better, health wise at least. Not sure about the rest. You know how she is. So hard to tell.”
    Gage nodded, mouth turned down in a frown. “I know what you mean. Even before your dad passed, trying to get her to slow down was like trying to budge Mount Rushmore. Glad you and Micah got through to her.”
    “Don’t tell her she’s slowed down or she’ll catch on. Right now we've got her thinking she's just switched her focus to Jax. Thankfully, Micah says she's sleeping most nights and remembering to eat and relax a bit. Jax being surgically attached to his Nintendo games certainly helps keep her relaxed."
    He fiddled with a fry, not quite meeting her eyes. "She's been real lonely, Mel-bell. I saw her when I could, but she misses your dad something fierce. Everyone in town's done what they can, but she shut down."
    Shut down. Yeah, that sounded about right. Sadly, a trait she and her mother shared. She knew that when life got hard, she buried herself in her work. For crisis management, it wasn't a bad coping mechanism. She’d had the 4.0 GPA after she transferred to UNC for the last two years of undergrad to prove it following her split from Caine. And the overtime hours her intern year after the Daniel fiasco. And the six papers published in medical journals in the four months since she’d ended things with Andrew. Some people might not think it was healthy emotionally, but it'd helped more than crying and wallowing on a couch ever had.
    “Micah worried that she'd lost the will to live for a while there," Mel said. "I told him he was being dramatic. She was mourning for Daddy and she had every right to, but Mama is way too independent to curl up and stop living just because her husband died. She just needs time to work it through."
    Gage raised an eyebrow, taking a drink from his soda. "Mel, there's working it through and there's working herself to the bone."
    “Okay, so she’s taken it a bit far." Mel couldn't fight back the wave of guilt. She knew she should have been here for her mom. She’d wanted to stay in town after the funeral but Andrew had told her she couldn't. He’d said she would be an idiot to miss any more than two days of her residency, even for her father's death. He wouldn't hear of her coming back to town to check on Mama, either. Said he'd miss her too much. What a crock. If she'd stayed or come to visit more, she might have seen how lost her mother was, how much she needed her family.
    She squared her shoulders. "The most important thing is that she's doing better and she's got her family around her now."
    “We'll keep her with us for as long as we can. You know we'd all be lost without our Mama Em." Gage squeezed her hand, a rare show of affection from him. To offset the gesture, he picked up a French fry and threw it at her. With aim he’d perfected during their middle school lunches together, the potato projectile landed in the hint of cleavage revealed by her shirt.
    Staring down, Mel broke into helpless laughter. Digging the fry out, she threw it back at him. “Ass.”
    “Twerp,” Gage said. The fry landed in her hair this time.
    “Jerk