All for This

by Lexi Ryan

  “She loves you too. You know that. You can’t tell me you can spend two seconds around her without feeling it.”

  “But?”

  Maggie shrugs. “The choice isn’t mine.”

  I strum a chord on the guitar—the opening chord to the song with the elusive lyrics. In my mind, it’s always been “Hanna’s song,” but I never called it that. The first chord, then the second.

  “I never believed she’d choose him,” I say softly. “Maybe I didn’t realize it at the time, but in retrospect, I know I thought I was the easy choice.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she fits me. Because life was this crazy, chaotic disappointment and then Hanna came along and everything got quiet. Everything slowed down. It’s like I spent my whole life only half filling my lungs because I was too busy running to the next thing. She makes me take a deep breath. She silences the bullshit and washes away my ambivalence.” I drag a hand through my hair. “And I assumed that I did all of that for her too.”

  Maggie studies me for a quiet minute. “You’re not so bad, Nate Crane.”

  “I’m a fuck-up,” I mutter. “A fuck-up who can’t keep his promise.”

  “What promise is that?”

  “I promised that, if she chose him, I’d let her go. I promised that I wouldn’t make her second-guess her decision.”

  “You think you broke that promise?”

  I shake my head, grinning now. “No. But I plan to.”

  “SOMEBODY HAD a late night,” I call when Liz pushes into the bakery.

  She looks like hell warmed over this morning. Her blond curls are pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes are barely open. And thank God she’s here. Mom showed up twenty minutes ago and has been quizzing me about my plans for the twins. It’s not even seven a.m. and my brain is spinning with information on breastfeeding and the dangers of co-sleeping as well as her opinions about the attachment parenting movement.

  “It’s not the late night that’s the problem,” Liz mutters. “It’s the early morning.”

  Mom frowns at her and clears her throat. “Claudia Bauer saw you leaving Sam Bradshaw’s apartment the other day. Sam’s a nice boy, but if you give him what he wants now, he’s never going to marry you.”

  Liz narrows her puffy eyes at Mom. “I don’t want to marry Sam,” she growls, heading for the coffee. “I just want to fuck him.”

  Mom gasps, and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Seriously, the woman should know better than to pick a fight with Liz this early in the morning. Liz and mornings are mortal enemies, and she takes her loathing out on everyone stupid enough to get too close.

  Mom huffs. “I’ll say an extra prayer for you at church, Elizabeth. Your sister Maggie went through this phase too. And now Hanna’s having babies out of wedlock. Heaven help me, you’d think I didn’t bring my girls up in the Church.”

  Liz mutters something unintelligible under her breath. Probably for the best that Mom couldn’t hear.

  I pack up an assortment of pastries and see Mom to the door. “Take these for your Bible study group,” I say. When she’s gone, I turn to Liz. “I cannot believe you just told our mother you were using Sam Bradshaw for sex.”

  She chugs half her cup of creamer-and-sugar-filled coffee before replying. “I didn’t say I was using him for sex. I said I don’t want to marry him. I want to fuck him. And the look on her face was totally worth it.”

  “You’re going to burn in hell.” I giggle.

  “Well, I’ll have the best company.” She laughs, but then her face goes serious again. “I have to tell you something.”

  “I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”

  Sighing, she avoids my gaze. “You know how much I appreciate my job, don’t you? I mean, you took me in and gave me work when you were pissed at me for the whole Max thing. Even though I totally wish you would have told me that’s why you were pissed, I still think it’s pretty awesome that you did that for me.”

  “Are you quitting?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Kind of. Do you hate me?”

  “Of course not! Did you get a new job? That’s great!” I hug her, and when I draw back, she’s grinning.

  “I’m so excited. One of the girls who graduated from the El Ed program with me is starting a preschool, and she wants me to be her partner. Isn’t that awesome?”

  “Oh, Liz! That’s great! I’m so happy for you!”

  She frowns. “But you already work too much, and now that you’re pregnant, I really hate leaving.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I insist. “I never intended to have you here forever. You were helping me with my dream, and now it’s time for you to go after yours.”

  “Best. Sister. Ever,” she whispers.

  “Just tell me what I can do to help.”

  “How about you start by planning to enroll those babies of yours in my preschool when the time comes. I’ll hold their spot.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face. “I never realized how many decisions and plans are required when you’re a new mother. It’s just overwhelming. I know I won’t be doing it alone, and I know Max would help me with anything I wanted, but I feel guilty because it’s all I ever talk about and they’re not even his babies.” I take a breath and then another. Then I go to the kitchen to get a cold washcloth for my face because that’s the best thing I’ve found for these nausea spells.

  Liz follows me and beats me to the sink, wetting a towel and handing it to me.

  The bell in the front rings, letting us know someone just arrived.

  “I’ll get it,” she says.

  “Thanks.” I drape the washcloth across my forehead and close my eyes, listening to Liz talk to the customer.

  “Oh,” she says. “Hmm. Um. How are you?”

  “Where’s Hanna?” I know the voice, and an unwelcome thrill dances up my spine as Nate pushes into my kitchen and stalks toward me.

  “Customers aren’t allowed back here,” Liz says behind him.

  “Don’t do it,” he says, and those dark, broody eyes are all over me like he’s trying to take me in, memorize me.

  I take a deep breath and look to my sister. “You should probably go.” Then I turn to Nate. “Don’t do what?”

  “Um…” Liz looks Nate up and down. “Are you sure? Because I can stay to protect you. Or…try.” God bless her, she’s standing behind Nate with her hands on her hips, ready to swing on my behalf.

  “Why don’t you give us a minute?”

  She narrows her eyes at Nate. “Hurt her and I’ll cut off your balls in your sleep.” Then she pushes out of the kitchen, the door swinging wildly behind her.

  “Don’t move in with him,” Nate says.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “I thought you said you weren’t moving forward with Max until after the babies were born. Don’t you think moving in is moving forward?”

  “I don’t know where you get your information, but I’m not moving in with him.”

  “You’re not?”

  I shake my head. “He asked me to, and I said no.”

  He must have been expecting a fight, because his shoulders relax and he drags a hand through his hair. “Thank you.”

  I toss my washcloth into the sink. “Is that all?”

  “No.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “I need to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For this.”

  In two long strides, he closes the space between us and presses his mouth to mine. His lips are hot and hungry as his tongue sweeps inside—coaxing and demanding all at once. And it’s so good. So sweet and easy and safe that, for a breath, I forget how wrong it is. I’m back in the hotel in St. Louis, finding myself in the fire between us. For a breath, I forget that I’m wearing Max’s ring.

  I shove at his shoulder and push him away. “Don’t do that again.” My stomach squeezes, and my heart is so battered and beaten that it’s unrecognizable.

  HER EYES flash wi
th anger, disappointment, and heat. “Do you think you can win me with a kiss? Did you think I’m so fickle that your mouth on mine is enough to convince me to break Max’s heart?”

  I step forward, blocking her between me and the counter as I lower my mouth to her ear. “I thought maybe you needed a reminder.”

  “What do you want from me? You want me to admit that I want you? You know I do. You want me to tell you I’m still in love with you? It’s true.”

  My heart swells and hammers at her words. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel worthy of Hanna’s love, but that doesn’t change that I want it, need it like I need air.

  “Isn’t that enough? Is it like this with him? When he’s whispering in your ear, does your body hum with need? We both know I could kiss you again and make you forget him. I could kiss you until you wanted me so badly you climbed onto that counter and let me touch you everywhere, let me do anything I wanted with your body.”

  “You won’t,” she says, her voice shaking slightly.

  “Are you so sure?”

  “You won’t,” she repeats, “because I’m asking you not to. You won’t because you’re too good not to respect that.”

  “I don’t want to be good,” I growl. I step back so I can see her face—her parted lips, her smoky eyes. “I want you.”

  “I’m taken.”

  “What happened?” I ask, scanning her face, trying to read her shielding expression. “Between when I left LA and when I came back to New Hope, what happened to make you take him back?”

  She’s silent for a minute, and I wonder if she’s going to tell me the truth. “I found out he bought me the bakery—that all my worries and insecurities about our relationship were totally unfounded.”

  “I’ll buy you a hundred bakeries.”

  “But I don’t want a hundred bakeries. I only want this one.”

  Here. In New Hope. I close my eyes because I can’t deny that geography still stands between us.

  “Please don’t kiss me again.”

  “What if you ask me to?”

  She swallows. “I won’t ask.”

  THE WIND is cool as it rolls off the river and through the changing leaves. Autumn in New Hope has to be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The leaves turn orange, red, brown, even purple¸ fall from the trees, and float by on the river. I’ll always associate the sound of leaves crunching underfoot with my childhood, with home.

  But today, it doesn’t bring me the comfort I need. My conversation with Nate demands too much of my attention for anything to comfort me.

  “Between when I left LA and when I came back to New Hope, what happened to make you take him back?”

  You died. They were the words I didn’t say, but they’ve been there, in my mind and on my tongue, since he asked the question. Are they true? Did I only go back to Max because I thought Nate was dead?

  “How are you holding up?”

  I look up to see Maggie pulling a chair up to the patio set behind William’s art gallery. She asked me to meet her here, and something about my carefree sister scheduling a conversation has left butterflies in my stomach.

  “I’m okay,” I answer. “Emotional, but I blame the hormones.”

  “Yeah,” she says, “not the fact that you’re in love with two men, wearing one’s ring, and carrying the other’s babies?”

  “Well, that sums it up rather nicely.” I’ve been trying to convince myself that nothing between Max and me has changed, but I don’t invite him to stay over anymore, and every time he kisses me, I feel ashamed and confused.

  “Sorry.” She shrugs. “I know something about loving two men at once. Listen,” she says after studying me for a minute. “Before you dig your heels in about staying with Max, I want you to think about it.”

  I stiffen. I know Maggie loves me and has my best interests at heart, but after today, when I can still feel Nate’s lips press against mine, when his scent lingers on my skin, this is the last thing I need.

  “I have thought about it, and I made my decision—weeks ago, before the accident. I put on his ring.”

  “I’m saying don’t blindly trust a decision you can’t remember making. Ask yourself if you would choose Max again today—at this very moment—if you had to make your decision again.”

  “I don’t know.” If I’d known that my night with Nate left me pregnant, who knows what my choice would have been? “No matter what I do, someone gets hurt.”

  “Stop trying to figure out why you made the choice then and start trying to figure out what choice is right for you now. You’re trying to protect Max, and as much as he wants to marry you, I don’t think that’s where he would want your decision to come from.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” I whisper. “He’s too good. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”

  “I know, sweetie.”

  I watch a young couple jog by along the river. “How did you know? When you decided to be with Asher, to move in with him, how did you know it was the right decision?”

  “Hanna.” She waits until I look at her. “I knew because I didn’t have to ask myself if I was making the right decision. When I was engaged to Will, I kept asking myself over and over again if I was doing the right thing. I would mentally tally all the reasons I should marry him and feel guilty for questioning it, and then the next day, the next hour, sometimes even the next minute, I’d do it all over again. But that should have been my first hint.” She smiles then takes my hands in hers. “I know you’re a grown woman and you have your head on your shoulders better than I probably ever will, so it seems ridiculous for me to give you advice, but I’m going to anyway. Give Max his ring back.”

  “Maggie—”

  “Hear me out. Please?”

  “Okay.” But my stomach twists into a painful knot because I’m scared that I won’t want to hear what she has to say.

  “Maybe you’re meant to be with Max. Maybe you two will work this out and you’ll have these babies and find that all you want is to spend your life with Max at your side. Maybe there will come a day that he’ll tell you all he needs is you and you’ll be as sure as I am with Asher.” She cocks her head and gives me a sad smile. “But, sweetie, it’s all over your face that you’re not there now. I’m not saying this because I’m Nate’s friend and trying to give him a foot-up. I’m saying this because you’re my sister and I love you, and I refuse to see you make the mistake that Krystal and I almost made. You owe it to yourself and to Max to give back that ring until you know for sure what you want.”

  A tear splashes onto the glass tabletop, and I stand up and walk down the stairs to the lawn. Maggie’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. But I’ve been putting off the inevitable.

  Maggie wraps an arm around me. I lean my head against her shoulder as she smooths my hair and we watch the wind play in the leaves and the blue evening sky turn to the pink and orange of the setting sun.

  It’s been ten hours since the kiss, but when I open the door to meet Max at his new rental house, I can still feel the pressure of Nate’s lips against mine. I can still smell his clean scent as if it’s been branded to my clothing.

  The house is nice. Nothing fancy, but it’s clean and functional. The table is set, the candles are lit, and the wine is chilling in a bucket of ice on the island.

  Max is at the stove, cooking dinner, with Claire strapped to his chest in a baby carrier. He’s humming softly as he stirs chicken and vegetables in a sauté pan, and Claire’s eyes open and float closed again and again.

  I’m slammed with a vision of our future together, raising Claire and the twins side by side. Max is the kind of guy who would treat them all as his own, and he’ll be the kind of husband who cooks dinner when I have to work late or just because. I’ll have my bakery and he’ll have his health club. Once we’re married, I’ll have access to my trust fund, so money won’t be so tight, and even if it were, we’d make it work. He’d hold my hand when I worried about something, kiss my forehead
and reassure me. He’ll be an amazing husband and father. Everything I could have ever wanted or dreamed.

  But he’ll never be Nate Crane, and every day we’re together, I will hate myself for being so completely and painfully aware of that.

  Max shouldn’t have to be Nate. Because he’s an amazing and wonderful guy just as he is.

  I press my hand to my lips and stumble back a few steps because things could have been different. If I’d figured out how to accept myself, my body, before he asked me out, they would have been different. I’d be looking at a future with an amazing man holding my hand rather than bracing myself for one where I raise my children alone.

  Max wouldn’t want me to marry him if he knew the decision was motivated by my desire to protect him.

  He takes the pan off the stove and turns to pour its contents into a bowl on the island. When he spots me, his face lights up, and that makes me feel even worse.

  Maggie’s right. Whatever I decided before the accident and why I made that decision is irrelevant.

  “LET ME put her down.” Hanna reaches her arms out for Claire, and I gently remove her from the carrier.

  She is going to make an amazing mother. She snuggles Claire against her chest and hums softly as she paces around the living room. The two people in this world I would do anything for. My woman. Holding my daughter.

  “Goodnight, Claire,” she whispers, carefully lowering her into the crib in the corner. “You sleep well knowing you have the best daddy ever.”

  “Come over here,” I murmur.

  She’s in a red, strapless sundress tonight, and the sight of her legs and the bare, soft skin of her shoulders is slowly making me lose my mind.

  She scans the table and then meets my eyes as the music kicks on. “Max…”

  “I wanted to do something nice for you.” I take her hands and squeeze her fingers. “Someday, I’ll be able to take you to fancy restaurants in Indianapolis and Chicago instead of cooking for you. Someday, I’ll be able to buy you the kind of gifts you deserve and surprise you with weekends away at luxurious spas. You deserve it, and I’ll make it happen.”