Be Your Everything [All for Love] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) by Peri Elizabeth Scott

move, either.
    “Heather! For Christ’s sake. Pay attention. We’re gonna lose our place!”
    She turned back to Moesha with a Herculean effort and her friend abruptly stopped yammering. “What’s wrong? Heather? Jesus, girl.”
    Moesha grabbed Heather’s arm and shoved her against one of the pillars in the lobby. The cool plaster against her spine and the solid strength of it stiffened Heather’s knees. She mutely shook her head against her friend’s concern and Moesha fumbled in her enormous purse, yanking out a bottle of water. Heather took it and managed to crack the cap. She raised it to her lips and let the liquid flow over her tongue and down her throat. Her swallowing sounded loud in her ears and the sandwich threatened to reappear.
    “You’re next, Moesha. Get it done.” Heather’s voice didn’t sound like her. She didn’t feel like her. She had to get out of here.
    Moesha gave her a harried glance, eyes shifting back and forth over Heather’s face, but she stepped up to the window, shoving the form through the opening at the bottom. The woman behind the safety glass ran the edge of her pen down the page and asked a few questions, noted something on the paper, and pushed it back for Moesha to sign. Heather catalogued all of this with remarkable clarity, despite the flickers of gray around the edges of her sanity. Things had taken on a weird overlay, soft and muzzy.
    “C’mon.” Moesha slipped an arm around her waist and Heather welcomed the support and warmth. “You need a doctor? You look like you’re gonna pass out.”
    “No,” she managed. “A place to sit.”
    They made their way out of the station, down the broad steps, and Heather wondered that her knees could hold her. Moesha steered her to a bench on the boulevard and she sank down onto it, still clutching the bottle of water, the cap imprinted in the palm of her other hand, her purse hanging like a handicap from her right arm. It was hot in the sun, the young shade tree planted beside their bench years away from doing its job. Heather welcomed the heat, her insides quaking with cold.
    “Tell me what’s wrong. Are you sick? Did you have an episode or something?”
    Heather snorted in surprise. Hardly feminine, but fitting in this drama.
    “Matthew’s a cop. I just saw him.”
    Moesha’s eyes popped like a cartoon character’s. Her mouth dropped open, then closed. A few seconds later, an eternity in Moesha time, she said, “ Your Matthew?”
    “Probably not my Matthew. My Matthew’s a tech guy, remember? He’s been coming to Jameson and Company for nearly a month now, on and off. Meeting with my boss, romancing me. Going back east, coming back here. Probably someone else’s Matthew in the real world. Mine when he’s undercover.”
    Moesha’s nimble brain processed the information quicker than Heather’s shell-shocked one had. “You weren’t mistaken? You really saw him? Here? And he’s a cop?”
    “He had a badge on his belt, he was with another guy who had cop written all over him and they went through the security door at the back. With a key card. It was Matthew, Moesha. No doubt.” Come to think of it, Matthew had cop written all over him, too. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid.
    They sat in silence. Traffic noises swirled around them, other pedestrians hurried or strolled as they passed by, various forms of footwear tapping out a chaotic beat on the pavement. The bass and treble sounds echoed in Heather’s head.
    “I guess when you think about it, he kinda does look like a cop. You know, built, short hair, that ‘in charge personality,’ confident.” Moesha sneaked a sideways glance.
    Right, nothing like the stereotypical techie, although Mr. Grayson seemed thoroughly convinced, too. Except he hadn’t slept with the man. Yay. It hardly excused her stupidity.
    “I feel as though I’m in somebody else’s life, or a movie. If he’s a cop, then he’s investigating, undercover.” Matthew investigated her pretty