Girls' Night Out (Bad Boys) Read Online Free PDF Page A

enough. I’m not going to turn into a shrieking banshee.”
    “Corinth, don’t you think I know that?” His voice thinned. “I’m the one who needs a place to sit down.”
    She jerked her head upward and stared at him. “What?”
    He kept his hand on her arm as they crossed the street. Her father’s dually pickup was parked at the curb. He fiddled with the key fob and double clicked the button. The locks popped and he opened the passenger door. “Don’t let your imagination get the better of you.”
    “I wouldn’t have to if you’d just tell me.”
    He smiled. “Still impatient as the day you were born.”
    “Guilty,” she said, raising her hand. He shut the door and walked by the hood of his car. Her father was tall, as were all her brothers. Broad-shouldered with a spine straightened by hard work and a ton of pride. He’d always been her rock. That would never change.
    The driver’s side door opened and a rush of chilly November air filled the front seat. She shivered from the drop in temperature and the look on her father’s face. “Corinth, your mama is exhausted.”
    “Exhausted? Since when?” Her mother wasn’t the type to be spent.
    “Since the doctor put her on some medicine. Now, you need to hear me out. Promise me that.”
    Cory gripped the console. “Daddy, you’re not making this easy. Please stop going round and round. Just tell me.”
    He exhaled a sharp breath. “The doctors found a lump. Here.” Her father pointed to the side of his neck. “In your mama’s lymph nodes.”
    “What type of lump?”
    “A tumor. More than one. Pre-carcinogenic.”
    “ Cancer!” The word reverberated in the interior of the car, clattering within her mind.
    “Not cancer!” he said tersely. “That’s why the doctor acted fast.” The expression on Daddy’s face stopped her from rapid-fire questions. He looked older and worn thin.
    Softly, she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
    Daddy pushed up his hat. A dark brown Stetson she’d bought him for his birthday. “We only found out two weeks ago. The doctors put your mother on a dose of strong medicine to shrink the tumors. They are fully confident this method will work. Her test results have come back real good.”
    “Are you talking about chemo?” Her voice hiked way up.
    The only other person Cory knew to have gone through chemo was Nina Hunter. An older girl in high school, from Brandon’s class. She’d lost all of her long red hair because of chemo and by the end, she’d weighed not but ninety pounds. Nina had passed away before May, never graduating from high school. The memory of Nina’s pain laced expression filled Cory as she recalled the last time she’d seen her being pushed down the church aisle in a wheelchair.
    Cory shut her eyes and pressed her hand to her mouth to keep from crumbling in front of her father.
    “Yes. And the outlook is good. Do you hear? Very good.” Daddy shook her by the shoulder. “The doctor says your Mama is going to make a full recovery. Takes time. She’ll be on this medicine for four more doses.”
    She gazed back at her father, taking in the furrows in his forehead that had gotten a lot deeper since he’d visited her in October. “Then what?”
    “The doctor will check the tumors and see if they’ve shrunk and the problem cells have stopped growing.”
    Multiplying. Isn’t that what cancer—pre-carcinogenic—cells did? “So by Christmas?”
    “Yes. By Christmas.”
    “Mama should be taking it easy. Who is helping her?”
    “Who do you think?”
    “Miss Louisa for sure. And the regulars.” Carolina, plus, the crew of Gillian, Lauren, and her aunts. A team of close-knit women who’d helped pack her up and move from Annona to L.A. Her closest family and friends. “I don’t suspect she’d allow anyone else near her if she wasn’t feeling good.”
    Cory shook head when Daddy got out of the car as Stephen and Rory approached with her luggage. She closed her eyes, thinking