by Lyla Payne
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Also By Lyla Payne
Title Page Two
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Thank You
Also By Lyla Payne
About the Author
Copyright 2018 by Lyla Payne
Cover by Lyla Payne, Complete Pixels
Developmental Editing: Angela Polidoro
Copyediting: Shannon Page
Proofreading: Mary Ziegenhorn, Diane Thede
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Also by LYLA PAYNE
WHITMAN UNIVERSITY
Broken at Love
By Referral Only
Be My Downfall
Staying On Top
Living the Dream
Going for Broke (published in Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology)
LOWCOUNTRY MYSTERIES
Not Quite Dead
Not Quite Cold
Not Quite True
Quite Curious
Not Quite Gone
Not Quite Clear
Quite Precarious
Not Quite Right
Not Quite Mine
Not Quite Alive
Not Quite Free
Quite Dubious
Not Quite Fixed
THE PIACERE PRINCES
The Playboy Prince
A Royal Wedding
The Dutiful Prince
The Crooked Prince
Mistletoe & Mr. Right
Sleigh Bells & Second Chances
SECRETS DON’T MAKE FRIENDS
Secrets Don’t Make Friends
Secrets Don’t Make Survivors
Secrets Don’t Make Lovers
Young Adult Novels Written as TRISHA LEIGH
THE LAST YEAR
Whispers in Autumn
Winter Omens
Betrayals in Spring
Summer Ruins
THE CAVY FILES
Gypsy
Alliance
Buried
THE HISTORIANS
Return Once More
Exist Once More
For my friend and proofreader extraordinaire, Diane Thede. It’s been a pleasure knowing you - both my books and myself are better for it.
Chapter One
The chairs at the hospital haven’t gotten any more comfortable. A bit surprising, really—what with all of the time I’ve spent sitting in them over the past six months, at least one of them should have molded to the shape of my butt.
My sore rear only serves to increase my worry. We’ve been waiting for news about Mel and Mary for what seems like days, even though that can’t be true, since Mel’s only been in labor for a little over thirty hours.
I mean…I can say only because it’s not me who’s been trying to squeeze a human out of my nethers for more than a day. They finally took her back for a C-section about twenty minutes ago, which means we should be hearing something soon. I understand that in emergency situations it only takes five or so minutes to get the baby out, but I know Will won’t leave the room until he’s positive Mel’s going to be fine, too.
Please let her be fine, please let her be fine.
I chant the request for good juju over and over in my head while my cousin Amelia prays silently beside me, her lips moving and her eyes closed while her forehead rests in her hands. Mine isn’t a prayer, exactly…but it’s not not a prayer, either. If I were sure it would help, I’d pray to every god and goddess whose name lodged in my brain during my years of schooling. Even Loki, and he’s the worst kind of ass—the kind that thinks he’s hilarious.
Baby Jack is lying beside Millie on the sofa, his eyes shut. Sleeping, but it almost looks like he’s praying, too, if babies were inclined to do such things.
My cousin looks up a minute or two later, one hand traveling over to grasp mine. “How long has it been?”
I press my lips together in what tries to be a smile and check my watch. “Two minutes.”
“Seems like a year.”
“You’re out of practice with praying.”
“I know. I don’t think God will hold that against a tiny little baby, though.”
Another two minutes pass, and then five more. I pick up my phone, absently scrolling through emails to keep my mind moving. There are too many potential monsters to face if I sit still.
There’s a new email from Clara Larsen, my friend at the University of Iowa who’s been translating my ancestors’ journals for me. I click it open, momentarily distracted, but feel the brief balloon of excitement deflate at the message. She’s swamped with dissertation reviews and under the gun from the department head who will be making tenure recommendations soon. She sounds sorry about the fact that she won’t be able to get me any more translations for a few weeks, at least.
Jack wakes up and fusses until Amelia snuggles him close and starts to feed him. I put down my phone and go back to staring at the clock, every click of the second hand louder than a nail being hammered into a coffin. My eyes are so focused on it that it takes me a moment to register when Will finally appears in the entrance to the waiting room.
It’s been almost two hours.
“Mary’s fine. Great. Mel’s in recovery, but she’s going to be okay, too.” He’s breathless, there’s no color in his cheeks, and his fingers are clenched into fists, like he’s afraid something unthinkable will happen if he lets his guard down. “They’re going to watch her closely, and she’ll have to stay longer because of a heightened risk of cardiac complications, but they’re optimistic.”
“Is she awake?” Amelia stands, holding Jack closer than ever. “Can we see her?”
“Yes. She wants to see y’all, too.”
I go to him without a second thought, wrapping my arms around his neck. He needs help relaxing, realizing that he can take a breath without everything falling apart. Will the worrier.
The tension leaves him one limb at a time, until finally his arms squeeze me back and a long, shuddering breath fills the otherwise silent room. When he clears his throat and steps away, there are tears in his eyes. It’s so Will, to only now allow himself the right to show fear.
“You two go on back,” he says gruffly. “Mel asked for Grant, too, so I’m going to go grab him from my mom. I’m sure she can use the break.”
He tells us where to find Mel’s room, then leaves before we can get any mushier. Amelia looks at me, her own relief written all over her face as she sets Jack down for a moment to straighten her clothes, then buckles on a harness and settles him against her chest. When she looks at me again, she’s smiling for real.
We step into the hallway, our shoes squeaky on the clean linoleum. The smell of bleach and antiseptic turns my stomach even after inhaling it for hours. I don’t know
how anyone can eat in this place, but it helps a bit to remind myself that Mel and Mary are fine. They’re just fine.
“Mel’s lucky,” my cousin observes, pulling me out of my head. “Will really is a great guy.”
“We’ve always known that,” I reply. “Even when we were kids and I was taking him for granted on the regular, we knew he was special.”
“I know, but it’s like…he’s really great.”
“So is Brick,” I point out as we make our way down the hall to Mel’s room.
Her cheeks flush but she doesn’t reply. There’s something off about her reaction—the way she’s avoiding my gaze, the lack of the immediate smile that usually appears when talking about Brick. There’s no chance to ask her about it, though, because we reach the doorway to Mel’s room. She brightens, though her smile is barely able to push through her exhaustion and she looks like she’s been through the wringer. I guess she has.
The baby is a bundle of pink blankets and pinker skin asleep in one of those warmer things beside the bed, and Mel puts a shaky finger to her lips.
“You wake her, you take her. Girl has been showing off her lungs pretty much since she was born, and she just decided to take a break.”
“Mel, she’s beautiful,” Millie breathes quietly, her expression rapt as she takes in the small baby.
She is awfully cute for someone who just terrorized her way into the world, but I can’t stop looking at Mel. Maybe I need my own reassurance that she’s still here with us. That our group of friends is intact, the way it has to stay.
“I’m okay, Gracie,” Mel says softly, reaching out for my hand. Reading my mind, as usual. “You can’t get rid of me that easy easily.”
I grasp her fingers, careful not to disturb the I.V. line, heart rate monitor, and the cord trailing from her blood pressure cuff in the process. I’ll feel a lot better once they tell her she’s fit to go home, but seeing her awake and aware is doing a lot to unwrap the dread that has been coiled tight around my heart since last night.
I give her a lopsided smile. “Duh. Besides, I know you’d just haunt me.”
“And you thought I was annoying when I could talk,” she jokes. Her eyes are serious, though. Mel doesn’t believe in letting people off hooks—and that goes for herself, too.
She knows how badly today could have gone. What everyone in this room, including tiny Mary Read Gayle, could have lost.
We’re all tearing up, laughing a little at our own sappiness, when Mel nods toward the flowers sticking out of Amelia’s diaper bag. “What are those?”
“Oh, they’re for you.” My cousin drags them free, looking a little sheepish as a couple of blossoms snag on the zipper and fall to the floor, and slides a wary glance my direction before handing them over. “They’re from Beau.”
My heart speeds up at both the mention of his name and the startling reminder that he was here, at the hospital, a few hours ago. It hardly registered in the moment, or in all of the moments since, but now there are a lot of questions about why, exactly, he’s in town unannounced.
Had he wanted to see me?
Millie starts talking before a single one of those questions finds its way out of my brain and onto my tongue. “He said he was in town for a family thing and heard you were in labor, Mel, so he stopped by to see the baby. That’s it.”
“But he left?” Mel asks, frowning as the blood pressure cuff whirrs to life.
“I, uh…” Amelia licks her lips, her expression full-on sheepish now. “…may have told him to beat it.”
“Amelia!” I say, but my own voice can’t decide whether to be thankful or horrified. Having Beau hanging around would have made a hard day that much worse, but damn. No one asked her to turn into my own personal pit bull.
“What? I mean, come on, Grace, you would have done the same thing for me.” Millie rolls her eyes, and in that second, we’re back in middle school and she’s giving the town bully—Madison Pram—the what-for on behalf of Mel. “He can’t just do…what he did and then show up whenever he damn well pleases.”
“She’s right,” Mel chimes in. “You decided to move on, and you’ve made that clear to Beau. He needs to do a better job thinking about you and your feelings rather than his own.”
I’m not sure whether they’re right—Heron Creek is at least as much Beau’s turf as mine—but it still feels good to have them so firmly on my side. When I think about Beau, I feel…I don’t know what I feel. Sad? Sure. Devastated, wrecked, or something else along those lines?
Not so much. Not anymore.
I think I’m on the road to being able to handle being in the same town as the former mayor without wanting to hide out in the corners. I think we’ll eventually make it to being able to be in the same room together. But a little more space and time, first, will help me get there.
“Maybe,” I agree, sitting on the small, uncomfortable couch that will probably serve as Will’s bed for the next several nights. Poor bastard.
Thankfully, my friends drop the talk about Beau and move on to baby things. As much as I love them and the people who have come out of them, the chatter is easier to tune out. I love helping out with Jack, but I’m not at that point in my life yet.
Sometimes ignorance is definitely bliss.
Well that, and if you don’t have anything to add to a conversation about poop, best to keep your mouth shut, they say…
Do people say that? They definitely should.
My mind wanders, returning to Amelia’s odd reaction to my comment about Brick being a good guy. I make a mental note to probe further about how her date went the other night, since she really didn’t go into detail the first time I asked.
I thought at the time it was just Millie being Millie—she’s always been private about her love life—but the little sinking feeling in my gut tells me it’s something more.
She may not want to talk about it, but after everything we’ve been through over the past year, I don’t plan on giving her the option. The secrets she kept while she was with Jake literally almost killed her, which would have destroyed me in the process.
A yawn catches me off guard, and it quickly leaps to Mel. Will returns with a half-worried, half-excited-looking Grant, and no one has to prod Amelia and me to our feet.
We might be kin in every real sense of the word, but Grant, Mel, and Will—along with the sleepy little pink bundle—are a family. They should have some time alone.
“Love you, Mel Belle.” I kiss the side of her head, thankfulness flooding me hard for the tenth time since Will came out and told us they were both okay. “Not saying you wouldn’t be a fun ghost, but this is better.”
“You definitely wouldn’t have wanted to go to your ghostliness smelling like that,” Amelia points out, her nose wrinkled. “I mean, I’ve had a baby now so I get it. But you’d smell like bodily fluids and sweat for eternity. No bueno.”
Will rolls his eyes toward the heavens and keeps them there for several seconds. We all know him well enough to guess that he’s saying a prayer, probably for the strength to be able to continue to handle the three of us without losing his ever-loving mind.
His reaction, and the most likely interpretation, must hit all of us at once because Mel, Amelia, and I crack up simultaneously. Somehow it only makes it funnier that Grant, snuggled up to his mother, is staring at us all like we’re loons. The laughter releases tension from deep within my bones, and when Will joins in a moment or two later, it’s hard to believe anything could be wrong in the entire world.
I don’t realize how tired I am until I get behind the wheel of my car and start toward home. Amelia’s behind me by a couple of blocks since she had to get Jack buckled in; we had separate cars because of where we were when Mel went into labor. It’s been a long two days, full of big emotions, and by the time I pull into the driveway I can hardly see straight. I barely manage to climb the porch steps without tripping.
Which is why I second guess myself when I see a man standing in the shado
ws of the front porch, taking a moment to process it as an oddity before landing on a proper reaction.
A shriek slips out and my heel skids, sending me crashing into the front door. The handle digs into my flank hard enough to bruise, but I manage to right myself before falling straight onto my face.
By the time I’ve recovered enough to take another peek into the shadows, there’s no one there—not even a person-shaped object or shadow. Given the way my life has gone recently, it’s just as likely to be a crazed murderer as a ghost or a figment of my imagination. I’m tired, my emotional wringer is bone dry, and honestly, I haven’t taken my contacts out to clean them for heaven knows how long. Which is perhaps why it’s only now that I realize there was something familiar about the figure. In my current state there’s no way to put my finger on exactly what, but my gut seems to favor the ghost explanation.
Regardless of what it was or wasn’t, there’s nothing there now, and Amelia’s pulling into the driveway. Standing out here in the chilly night won’t do us any good, so I unlock the door. There’s no reason to bother Amelia—or myself, for that matter—with something I might have seen. If I’m wrong and it is an actual crazy person, I’d like to see them get past the ever-growing security system we put into place after Millie’s kidnapping.
“Hey,” my cousin says in a soft voice, shimmying past me as I hold the door open wide enough to accommodate her and the carseat she’s carrying. “You okay?”
I nod, not wanting to be the one to wake the sleeping baby.
“You must be as tired as I am.” She sets Jack down and shrugs out of her coat, holding her hand out for mine before hanging them both in the hall closet. “I’m going to pray he stays asleep and then head to bed myself, unless you need something.”
It’s so Amelia, to ask me whether I need something when she hasn’t slept through the night in almost three months and already has one human being completely dependent on her. For some reason, tonight it makes my eyes well with tears.
