The Friends We Keep (Mischief Bay) Read Online Free PDF Page A

munchkins.”
    “Makayla!” Both girls greeted her happily.
    “We think Boomer and Jasmine should get married,” Kennedy added. “In a white dress.”
    “Huh. I don’t think Boomer would look good in a white dress, do you?”
    The twins laughed. Gabby smiled, imagining their basset hound draped in white tulle.
    “Not Boomer,” Kenzie corrected. “Jasmine.”
    “Oh, that’s different.”
    The knot in Gabby’s stomach loosened. Makayla was okay. There wouldn’t be shouting or door slamming this week. No sullen silences. She would get herself ready to visit her mother and then she would be gone for forty-eight hours. Odds were Sunday night would be awful—it usually was—but that was for then.
    The highs and lows that came with being a fifteen-year-old were amplified by Makayla’s relationship with her mother. It was erratic at best. Sometimes Candace wanted to be all in and other times she saw her daughter as little more than an inconvenience. Sadly, she didn’t mind sharing that factoid with Makayla.
    Gabby tried to understand that the resulting fits of rage and depression weren’t about her. Makayla needed to blame someone and Gabby was a safe target. When things got tough, there was always chocolate, and the knowledge that whatever else was going on, Makayla loved her half sisters.
    Gabby drove through Friday-afternoon traffic. The three blocks on Pacific Coast Highway took nearly fifteen minutes, but once they made it into their neighborhood, the number of cars lessened.
    Gabby had grown up not five blocks from here. She and her siblings had gone to the same elementary school as Kenzie and Kennedy. She’d attended the same high school as Makayla. She knew where the kids liked to hang out, the exact amount of time it took to walk home and the quickest way to get from their house to the beach.
    Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to have moved here from somewhere else. To discover Mischief Bay as an adult. For her there was only complete familiarity.
    She pulled into their driveway. Makayla got out of the SUV, then opened the back door to help the twins. Gabby went to unlock the front door. She could already hear Boomer baying his greeting and scratching to get out. The only thing preventing him from going through the door was the metal plate Andrew had screwed into place.
    As soon as she opened the door, Boomer raced past her to get to his girls. Because while Boomer loved his whole pack, Makayla and the twins were his girls. He followed them around, did his best to keep them in line and when they disobeyed his list of rules, he ratted on them.
    Now he ran in circles, looping around all three kids, baying his pleasure at seeing them again, as if it had been weeks instead of a few hours. Gabby thought about pointing out that she’d been home much of the afternoon, but doubted that information would impress Boomer.
    Makayla and the twins stopped to pet him before heading toward the house. Once they were moving, Boomer wiggled his way to the front and darted through the open door. The girls followed. Gabby made sure that Jasmine hadn’t bolted for freedom, then stepped into the foyer and pushed the door closed behind her.
    It was nearly four. By her calculations she had less than two hours to get the twins settled in for the evening, dinner started, the pets fed and herself turned from frumpy mom to glamorous, charming wife to successful Andrew Schaefer. It was going to be a push.
    She went directly to the kitchen and dropped her handbag on the built-in desk that was her catchall for crap. Next she looked at the calendar posted on the wall, the one with all their activities color coded by person. Makayla’s mom was picking her up at six, Gabby and Andrew were due to leave at six-fifteen and Cecelia, their go-to sitter, was due at five forty-five.
    “Mommy, can I wear my purple hat to dinner tonight?” Kenzie asked as she ran into the kitchen. “Kennedy wants to wear her green one. I like my