Mallory’s testimony tried to pin John as the mastermind, but her little cohorts ratted her out immediately. Mallory was awaiting her trial, and I hoped she’d be away for a very long while.
Cal parked his truck, throwing my door open before I finished unbuckling my seat belt. I felt like a whale wrestling a fish net, and Cal chuckled as he helped me get out of the truck. At least it was easier to get out of than my car. I had practically given up driving all together a couple of months before when adjusting the steering wheel became a pain.
Cal exhaled heavily as he pulled the door open for me and a barrage of cheers and “Surprise” were yelled out. Seeing The Freckled Maiden decorated with signs of “Congratulations,” I also noticed another sign saying “Welcome, Baby!” I paused quizzically, taking in the whole scene. What was supposed to be a quiet dinner with friends to celebrate my divorce was now a baby shower. I laughed, seeing Lana bounce over to me beaming as if she had hidden the world’s biggest surprise. For her, it probably was.
Cal laughed and pulled me to him for a quick hug before Lana stole me away. Tugging my hand, she continued to bounce up and down, placing me in front of a crowd of our friends. The mass of people parted and there stood a woman I had seen numerous times in pictures, but never in person. We had only spoken one other time aside from the first phone call, and seeing her stand before me created a huge emotional havoc that had nothing to do with my hormones.
“Sarina!” I gasped as my hand flew to my mouth. “You’re here!”
She nodded, pulling me in for a tight hug, and I realized in that moment how wonderful it felt to have my best friend back in my life.
“I missed you so much,” she whispered, and when I pulled back, tears were streaming down her face. “Lana filled me in on everything.” She reached over and grabbed Cal’s hand and pulled him to her for a hug too. “Thank you so much for taking care of my best friend.”
All Cal could do was chuckle and nod.
After that surprise, I didn’t think anything could top that—ever. Except one huge one from Cal. After opening all the baby shower presents, I sat back, exhausted and overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity and love.
“Our baby will want for absolutely nothing,” I exclaimed, peering at all the opened gifts.
“Well, one last thing I’m sure she would appreciate.”
I hooked my eyebrow up, laughing at Cal, who was holding one huge box in front of me. He was determined to taunt me with the sex of our baby. Even though Cal hadn’t been to the first ultrasound, I wanted him to have some excitement through my pregnancy. When it was time to learn the baby’s sex, I asked the doctor to tell only Cal. The baby’s sex was his secret to keep. It had been difficult to keep my head turned during my checkups and every visit thereafter. Since then, he had done nothing but tease me about him or her. Even now I wasn’t going to respond to his insinuation. He flipped daily on if our baby was a boy or girl.
He placed the huge box in front of me, which I assumed would be a car seat—the only thing I realized I hadn’t received yet—but I was sure that would be Cal’s thing, to make sure our baby was in the highest-performing safety seat he could find. I was positive a bubble would surround our child for the rest of their life.
“Well, open it.” He placed his hands on his hips as if the gift were the holy grail.
Unable to keep from rolling my eyes, I reached over as best as I could and tugged at the wrapping paper. Sure enough, the box was that of a car seat. I opened the box to peek in, hoping the color would give it away, but it didn’t. The basic brown piped with light green wouldn’t tell me anything. Except there was a small box sitting on top of the Styrofoam packaging.
Smiling, I gingerly picked up the small box and held it up, knowing how proud and excited he was. “Oh, what’s this?” I mocked him, hoping to torture him as much as he had done to me.
He plucked it from my hand and laughed. “Well, I guess you don’t want to see what’s inside do you?”
“Tease!”
That’s when Cal got down on one knee and took my hand. “Andi, I have loved you since the moment I ran into you.” He smiled. “Literally.” He opened the box and plucked out a beautiful solitaire diamond with smaller diamonds encrusted in the band. He held it up, and I noticed a small blue ribbon attached to it. Cal was beaming and my mouth gaped open.
“A boy? Really?” I laughed as he nodded his head and took my hand.
Slipping the ring on my finger, he asked, “Andi, I will never believe that it was really an accident that brought us together. There are some forces that are far too powerful that bring two people together. How we met will never be considered an accident to me. It was fate. Andi, will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye, and I swiped it quickly as I nodded and patted my belly. “Yes. Absolutely, yes!”
I hugged him tightly despite the swell of my belly, and the whole bar cheered as we kissed. “I love you. So, so much.”
“I love you too, Andi. Whatever happens to come our way, I’ll always love you.”
Read the next story in the Forever Happens Series—Trust Me Forever. Alex finds his childhood sweetheart, Sarah (or is it Cory?). After years of thinking about each other, and growing up in all the right places, their attraction is hotter than ever! She’s on the run and he’s willing to catch her.
Trust Me Forever—Available for pre-order now!
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Acknowledgments
This was a very difficult novel to write. It evolved from a simple story to one so much more complicated. After four rewrites (gah!), I’m finally happy with it, and I hope you enjoyed it too.
I want to thank so many people for their help shaping Accidents Happen to what it is today.
Trenda is definitely a story saver. After going back and forth with you, trying to defend some of my story points (which I failed, thankfully), this story is what it is because of your persistence to make me take a long hard look at what was driving my characters. Thank you so much!
Vanessa and Jenni. Thank you so much for being my betas, my sounding boards, my shoulder to cry on and helping me stay sane during all of my rewrites. I love our friendship and our conversations and wouldn’t have kept at it if it weren’t for you two. Love you both!
Stratton! I love you, your books, and your crazy mind. Thank you for being my beta and helping me with a number of excellent points. I really appreciate it.
Dee, just listening to me whine about how many times I had to rewrite this one book allowed me to vent and get back to work on it. I love getting our feet pretty together and our long, chatty lunches. Just getting out of the house and away from the story sometimes helps more than you think. I love you so much and how much you’ve always been there for me in general and especially on my writing journey. Thank you!
> Amy Jackson. Your sarcasm and explanations made editing fun. Thank you so much for making it a less tedious process!
A huge thank you to Lia Fairchild for final proofing on this and catching all the little mistakes! You’ve got a great eye! Thank you so much!
My cover. Ahhh, I love it so much, and that is all because of Amy at Amy Q Designs. Thank you so much for ALL of my changes. You have incredible talent, and I’m so happy for you that you started making covers too! Did I mention I love you?
To my husband and my little girls who aren’t so little anymore. Thank you for putting up with a cranky mom when I grumbled about rewriting my book—Again!
To my Writing Retreat group—I loved our getaway. A cabin full of writers for a weekend away? What’s not to love! Thank you to Rebecca Brooke and Alexis Noelle for organizing and cooking (especially since I can’t stand cooking!).
To my awesome groups - AA, BFF, 101, Club and so many others - thank you for all your advice!
And finally—to my readers. Thank you SO much for reading my words. For those in my After Hours group—making up names is hard! I cannot thank you enough for all the names you commented with and have them all written down. If I didn’t use one of them in this book, I promise you they’ll be in another one! And…thank you for putting up with all my “!” throughout this Acknowledgement! ;-)
♥️ Josie
Accidents Happen (Forever Happens Book 1) Page 23
