Free Finding Forever (Living Again #4) by L. L. Collins Page A

a model, Sam. He travels, he appears in magazines and he’s really going to make it…” She trailed off, looking down at Kerri so she didn’t have to see Sam’s eyes.
    “I get it,” she answered finally. “You’re scared shitless because of what has happened with me, and that you fear you aren’t good enough for him.” Sam leaned back against the couch. “Lacey, you have to give someone a chance. Who’s to say that this guy is a player? You’re stereotyping him. Like you said, he has women falling at his feet all the time. But it’s apparent he doesn’t want them. He asked you to dinner, Lacey. He asked for your phone number. Doesn’t that count for something?”
    “That doesn’t mean I’m the only one he has done that with,” Lacey argued. “He could have a different girl every night.” The problem was, she kind of didn’t believe that.
    “I think you’re looking for any excuse not to give him a chance,” Sam said. “It’s coming up, isn’t it?”
    “What?”
    “Your doctor’s appointment. The time every year when you go into panic mode.”
    That was the thing about best friends. They called you on your shit whether you were ready for it or not. “Sam…”
    “Lacey, come on. Just because your mom had cancer doesn’t mean it’s ever going to happen to you! You can’t live your life shut off from the possibility of being happy just because there’s a threat there that you could get sick. The threat is the same for all of us. I could get sick, so could Ellis, or Mason, or even little Kerri. It happens every day. But I can’t walk around all day pushing them all away because I’m afraid to lose them.”
    One solitary tear dropped from her eye and hit Kerri’s arm. Lacey wiped it away, staring at the small wrinkles in her newborn skin. Did she want this? To be loved, like Ellis loved Sam? To hold her own newborn baby in her arms? To risk it all?
    “What your dad did doesn’t have to define you anymore, Lacey. Look at my friend Kayley. Her husband died when she was pregnant with her daughter. Alexis is now ten years old, and Kayley and Ben have three more children together. She’s happier than she has ever been in her life. What if she had never given herself a chance to fall in love again? What if she was too afraid because she has lost too much? Where would she be now?”
    Lacey thought of beautiful Kayley and her husband Ben. If there was ever a couple, other than Sam and Ellis, that she thought belonged together, it was those two. And Kayley had been a widow at a very young age. Younger than her dad. She had not only survived, she had thrived. By letting Ben in. “I just don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m so scared. Of everything. Of loving someone, then losing them, or having a family and them losing me. I’m afraid that one of these times I go to the doctor, it isn’t going to be good news. That I’m going to be one more person that leaves behind shattered people. It would be bad enough to leave you and Aubrey.”
    “Lacey,” Sam took her hands. “You can’t live your life this way, in a constant state of what-if. Maybe you should talk to someone, have you thought of that?”
    Lacey thought about her words. She had seen a counselor for years after her mom passed away, but she had felt in control for the last several years. But maybe instead of being in control she was really just shutting all of her feelings off.
    “Let’s not spend our night together being sad,” Sam said when Lacey didn’t answer. “But do me a favor. Call him. You need to extend the olive branch here, show him that you are thinking about him. Offer to take him a meal or to take his dog home with you and take care of him. You have such a big heart, Lacey. Show more than just me and Aubrey that you do. The guy has gone through hell this week. Even if it turns out to be nothing between you two, you can at least be a friend.”
    “Babe!” Ellis’ voice boomed from the French doors out to the