The Best Friend — Leanne Davis

Gretchen Hendricks spent half her life in love with a man who ended up more dedicated to his job than her. After a divorce that left her devastated she put all her energies into building up her career as a psychologist. Now, well into her thirties she has achieved professional success, and leads a model life. She has tried to let go of her girlhood dreams of a marriage and kids to complement her career. After being burned so thoroughly by the boy she'd given her young, girlish heart to, she is happier alone.Until one day she runs into her adolescent friend, Tony Lindstrom and realizes the catastrophic circumstances that have ended his service in the United States Army. It has been two years since the end of Tony's professional career, and life as he knew it. But he has done nothing to accept what happened to him, or even begun to learn how to live with it. He is holed up in his parents' house, without a job or prospects of any kind, and the thing is: he's just fine with that. He figures he's paid his dues to society more than the average person; doesn't he deserve to be left alone to deal with things how he wants?But then he runs into the one woman he always loved, and could never have, because she was always his best friend's girl. Gretchen will not accept who Tony has become, or that he has completely given up on living a worthwhile life. But Tony can't contemplate anything with Gretchen because to him, what good is a man who is incomplete on the outside, but completely broken inside?