The Forever Girl

by Jill Shalvis

  Everything else—the other people, the low music, the talking and laughing around her, even Walker—all faded away as she drew a deep breath and moved like she was walking to her own execution. Because this was going to be hard. Shelly had been the first positive female role model in her life. She’d made Maze cookies, let her use every freaking sheet and blanket in the house to build forts for Michael and Heather, coaxed her into participating in family events, and expected her to be civilized, all while cocooning her in safety and unconditional love. She’d single-handedly turned Maze from a feral, lost kid into a real person.

  And just like that, her feet stopped working. Just stopped, as if she’d stepped into a vat of cement. It’d sucked her in, drying around her, making movement impossible. In contrast, her heart pounded in her ears and she couldn’t get enough air.

  Nodding her understanding of the situation, Shelly took the last few steps for her, closing the distance between them. “Maze.” Her voice was the same as it’d been all those years ago: soft, warm, genuine. “I’m so happy to see you. I was worried you wouldn’t come because of me.”

  Maze’s stomach twisted, and all she could do was hope she wouldn’t be sick until after. She figured she’d smile, bear the hugs, look Shelly and Jim in the eyes and give a genuine apology for basically pretending they didn’t exist, then move off. Instead, her eyes filled, and she heard herself whisper, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”

  “No, darling, no.” Shaking her head, her eyes shiny, Shelly said, “No apologies necessary.” She smiled through unshed tears and cupped Maze’s face. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Maze nodded, because words were beyond her now, and she hoped Shelly knew she meant she’d missed her too.

  Caitlin had come close, and she snorted at Maze not repeating the words, but she didn’t interfere. Which meant that Maze stood there feeling like an idiot. A frozen-in-anxiety idiot. Looking into Shelly’s damp eyes made it impossible to pretend everything was fine. Everything was not fine, and she was tired of the pretense. “Please let me say I’m sorry,” she managed.

  “Honey, we’re the ones who are sorry. There were things we could have handled better. When we lost Michael, we were so devastated that we were barely hanging on by a thread. We weren’t thinking clearly. But the truth was, between losing him and the house, it wasn’t just that we couldn’t have taken on the extra responsibility; they actually wouldn’t allow it. And by the time we were ready, you’d already been settled with another family.”

  Shelly was by now somehow holding both of Maze’s hands, which Maze felt really bad about because her hands were sweaty. And shaking. She could also feel the weight of Caitlin’s gaze, along with Heather’s and Walker’s, who’d made their way over and stood close to her, at her back, aligned with her. She took a deep breath. “I understand. No, wait.” She grimaced because she needed to tell the truth, needed to get it all out once and for all. “It took me a while to really understand, to get that it wasn’t about you not wanting to fight for me but that your hands were tied. I was terrible to you both, and I’m . . .” She had to swallow hard, but she still felt like she was choking on unshed tears. “I’m so sorry for that.”

  Shelly lost the battle with her own tears as well. “Oh, honey, we did fight for you. But by the time we jumped through all the system’s hoops and got the paperwork handled, a year had gone by and you were already settled in a new school. We didn’t want to uproot you again. I couldn’t do that to you after all you’d been through.”

  “You . . . fought for me?”

  “So hard.” She squeezed Maze’s hands. “That’s what family does, they fight for each other.”

  “But I didn’t even come into your lives until I was a teenager.”

  Shelly hugged her tight. “You don’t need to be in the beginning of a child’s story to change the ending.”

  Maze felt Walker’s hand on her shoulder, could feel Caitlin and Heather by her side. Her heart swelled until it felt too big for her chest. Pulling back, she searched her pockets for a tissue, which was ridiculous because she never kept tissues on her. Heather came up with a few spare napkins from her bag.

  “It’s a mommy thing,” Heather said. “I also have crayons and crackers if you need.”

  They all laughed and cried and hugged again.

  Maze swiped at her tears and suddenly her senses kicked in again. She became aware of the fact that they stood in the middle of the wedding rehearsal and that there were others around, a lot of others. “I’m sorry.” She squeezed Caitlin’s hand. “I’m so sorry. Tonight’s supposed to be about you.”

  “It is about me,” Caitlin said, wiping her own tears away and hugging Maze hard. “You’re my family. And this is all I’ve wanted—everything out in the open so we can move on.”

  “We’re doing just that,” Maze assured her. “Now let’s shift this over to you and Dillon. Please.”

  “Yes,” Shelly said, giving her daughter a sweet, soggy smile. “Let’s move on to getting you married.”

  “Right,” Caitlin said with a nod. “Sure. Yep.” She suddenly looked a little . . . green?

  Maze squeezed her hand. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Of course.” Caitlin waved her concern off. “Just a little headache. I’ve had it for weeks, but I’m fine. Totally fine. Like completely, totally, one hundred percent fine.”

  “One more ‘fine’ and we just might believe you,” Walker said dryly.

  Caitlin tossed up her hands. “Look, I’m just tired, okay? I mean, what else could it be?”

  “The roses?” Walker asked.

  Maze looked around and caught sight of Dillon’s mom placing a vase of roses at her table.

  “It’s the groom’s family who plans the actual dinner part of the rehearsal dinner,” Caitlin said tightly. “I have no control over that, nor do I have any illusions of ever having control over her.”

  Shelly turned to the table just behind them, the bride’s family table, and pointed to the gorgeous bouquet of wildflowers in the center. “I wrapped the stems with the ribbons from the gifts you got at your work friends’ shower last month. Thought you could walk down the aisle with that as your bouquet tonight.”

  “Mom,” Caitlin said, looking undone, “how did you know?”

  Shelly looked at Maze. “A little birdie told me.”

  Caitlin’s eyes filled again as she looked at Maze. “You called her?”

  “Texted,” Maze admitted, and found herself in another tight Caitlin hug. She thumped dramatically on Caitlin’s back. “Can’t. Breathe.”

  “Shut up and love me.”

  “I do,” Maze said, and sighed when Caitlin laughed.

  “Can we do the run-through now?” Maze asked, desperate to get out of more hugs.

  Thankfully, the wedding officiant waved her hands for everyone to gather around.

  Walker pulled Maze back by the hand and looked into her eyes. “Proud of you,” he said quietly. “I know that was hard.”

  “Almost as hard as letting you win the swim race to shore a few days ago.”

  He laughed. “I won that fair and square and you know it. Which reminds me, you still owe me twenty-four hours of servitude.”

  “Dream on,” she said, even as her body quivered. “And haven’t you learned by now a woman’s always right?”

  He smiled. “You are right.” He lowered his head and kissed her. “Actually, you’re more than right. You’re perfect.”

  She’d never been anything close to perfect a single day in her life. But hell if she was going to be the one to fill him in, so she tugged his face down for another kiss.

  “We need the maid of honor at the back of the aisle to line everyone up in the bride’s preferred order,” the officiant said.

  “Give them another minute,” Shelly said. “This was a long time coming.”

  Maze jumped back guiltily, but Walker was much slower to drop his hands from her, not seeming guilty in the slightest. He smiled at Shelly.r />
  Shelly beamed back. Everyone beamed at them, and while Maze was not ashamed of what she’d found with Walker this week, she’d barely just admitted to herself that they had something at all, so she sure as hell wasn’t exactly ready to have the whole world know about it.

  And yet . . . no one was looking shocked. Instead, they all seemed happy. She tried not to panic about that, about knowing they now all had expectations, when the truth was no relationship had ever worked out for her, not once. Panic later, she decided, and she pulled out her iPad to access her notes. “Okay,” she called out. “Heather lines up with Walker, and I line up with . . . Dillon’s childhood BFF, Eddie.”

  Caitlin gasped. “Oh no! I forgot! He got sick and missed his flight.” She turned in horror to Dillon. “I didn’t even think about how that’d affect the wedding processional.”

  Dillon shrugged. “Maybe Maze can walk by herself?”

  “Of course not!” Caitlin whipped around and surveyed her group of friends and family. “You,” she said, pointing to Jace. “You’ve just been upgraded from Maze’s plus-one to someone Dillon can’t live without in his group of groomsmen. You’ll walk Heather down the aisle.”

  “But Walker’s walking Heather down the aisle,” Maze said, staring at her screen.

  “No, Walker’s walking you down the aisle,” Caitlin said. “It’s perfect.”

  There was that word again.

  “Remember,” Dillon’s mom said from the sidelines. “Step, pause, step, pause. Rushing is undignified.”

  Maze thought undignified was trying to stage a coup and take over the wedding, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Not successfully, apparently, because at her side, Walker laughed low in his throat. “Easy,” he said. “Too many witnesses.”

  Her heart fluttered, because he not only knew her to the very depths of her soul, he also understood her. Two minutes later, she walked down the aisle with the evening’s wind blowing in her hair and Walker at her side, sure and strong and steady, looking like the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  Sammie was next. She had a little basket of flower petals. She started to run down the aisle, but Jace laughingly intercepted her, crouching down to her level. “Okay, so remember last weekend on the TV when we were watching a little football?” he asked. “Here’s our play. You’re going to take the ball—in this case the basket—and walk it straight up the field to make the touchdown. Got it?”

  Sammie grinned and nodded.

  They started the music again, and Sammie turned to Cat.

  Cat smiled tentatively, obviously prepared to be rebuked by the toddler, but Sammie didn’t do her usual deadpan stare. Instead she threw her short little arms around Caitlin’s legs.

  Cat’s eyes filled and she squatted down and hugged Sammie. “Thank you, baby.”

  “I three.” But she grinned, wriggled free, then did just as Jace told her. She walked the basket up the aisle . . . and slammed it down to the grass. Then she executed a sweet little touchdown dance, complete with a case of the giggles.

  “Thank God she wasn’t the ring bearer,” Walker said with a smile.

  AT DINNER, MAZE somehow ended up sitting next to Walker.

  “We aren’t seated together on the seating chart,” she said, checking her notes again.

  Walker took her iPad and set it facedown on the table. “I switched with Jace so he could sit next to Heather.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  “Nice had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I wanted to sit next to you.”

  She squirmed in her chair and his smile faded.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She sighed. “Earlier you said I was perfect, which has me thinking that you’ve lost your marbles and don’t know what you’re doing.”

  His smile came back. “You’re still freaking out about that?”

  “Among other things.”

  He shook his head. “Maze, I meant it. You’re perfect—for me.”

  Something deep inside her warmed, but she also felt . . . worried.

  He tipped up her face to his. “What else?”

  She squirmed again. “I just don’t think we need to be shoving this down people’s throats.”

  “This?”

  She looked away. “You know what I mean.”

  He waited until her eyes met his again. “I’ve got no intentions of being your dirty little secret, Maze. I’m not hiding us. If that’s what you’re hoping for, tell me now.”

  “I’m trying to be logical,” she said. “What happens after tomorrow? We go back to not speaking for years?” She had no idea why she said that. Maybe because she knew what she secretly wanted to hear—that no, they would not be going back to not speaking for years.

  But Walker just looked at her for a long moment. “That’s entirely up to you.”

  “Great,” she said with a soft, sarcastic snort, because when she self-detonated her life, she usually jumped in with both feet. “And let’s be clear—you did more than your fair share of avoiding me as well. At least own that much.”

  He brought their joined hands up to his mouth and brushed a kiss to her palm, his eyes dark and solemn. “I do own it. I’ve been with you, and I’ve been without you. And I learned one thing with absolute certainty: my life’s better with you. You know where I stand. I love you, Maze. There are no doubts for me. All that’s left is for you to get off the fence, on one side or the other.”

  Chapter 24

  Caitlin’s to-do list:

  —Survive the day.

  Caitlin stood in front of the mirror in the bridal dressing room staring at herself. Her wedding dress was admittedly beautiful, her hair and makeup were done up to perfection, and she was confident enough to know she looked like she had walked off the cover of any of the million wedding magazines she’d read over the past few months.

  But . . .

  She sighed. So many buts. First, it’d rained heavily earlier, a huge sign if she needed one. Second . . . well, everything else was tied for second. All the worries, concerns, doubts . . . “What are you even doing?” she whispered to herself.

  Herself didn’t answer.

  Her gaze drifted to the earrings she was wearing. They were simple sapphire studs and not even real. But Michael had given them to her on her sixteenth birthday. He’d been seven at the time, which meant her mom or dad had helped him, and they weren’t worth any sort of money. But they were still one of the most valuable things she possessed.

  He should be here today.

  She drew a deep breath. Through all the feverish planning these past months, she’d been so sure it would all work out. She’d just kept thinking if she buried herself into things 100 percent, she’d outrun the doubts chasing her and the doubts that kept trying to tell her this wasn’t right.

  But she hadn’t outrun them at all. They were right here in the room with her.

  Everyone had just left to make their way to their places for the ceremony. Her mom. Heather, Maze. For this one last minute she was alone while Maze and Walker made sure everyone was ready to go for the processional.

  It was quiet. So quiet she could hear those doubts incredibly clearly now, and they’d multiplied. Exponentially. In fact, they were screaming at her.

  But she wasn’t a quitter. She didn’t back out of things. She didn’t flake. She came through on her promises, and she’d made one to Dillon when she’d accepted his ring.

  Yes, her doubts whispered, but he’d made promises too, and he’d changed his mind on a few key things, which in turn changed everything for her.

  The light knock at the door nearly had her leaping out of her skin. It was Maze, who stuck her head in the door. “Walker’s got everyone lined up, good to go. Your dad’s waiting for you.” She smiled. “You look gorgeous. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Caitlin’s mouth said, but at the same time her body—acting independently from her brain—shook her head in an emphatic no.

  Maze paused, studied her, then slip
ped inside the room and shut the door behind her. “We running for the hills?”

  Caitlin stared at the sister of her heart and bit her lower lip.

  Maze blinked. “Oh shit. I was just kidding. Okay. Okay, talk to me. What’s the plan? Out the window?”

  Caitlin felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in her throat, but she couldn’t draw a deep enough breath for it because the dress was too tight. “No. I’m just kidding too.” She tried to smile.

  Maze narrowed her eyes. “Okay, now I’m even more worried.” She came closer, the peach floor-length bridesmaid dress she was wearing looking more like a dull orange beneath the lights.

  How had Caitlin missed that? The color was awful. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I . . . just need a minute.”

  “Sure,” Maze said. “Use it to talk.”

  Caitlin shook her head. Because suddenly she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. “It’s this dress.” She pulled at it, or tried, but there was no give in the fabric. It was fitted within an inch of her life. But she couldn’t breathe, at all, and she turned her back to Maze. “Unzip me.”

  “Um . . .”

  “I can’t breathe!” She tried tugging her little cap sleeves down and couldn’t get them to budge either. “Oh my God, Maze, I’m going to die in this dress!”

  “I’m trying to get to the zipper behind all these damn buttons, give me a sec!”

  “Second’s up!” Caitlin tugged harder. There was a tearing sound, but who cared because suddenly she had room to breathe. Gasping for air, she let out a sigh of relief.

  “Oh my God, Cat.”

  “I just needed a minute.”

  “Well, I don’t know how many minutes we have, but there’s sure as hell not enough of them to fix this dress.”

  Caitlin looked down. She’d ripped the dress wide open in the front. Her breasts were barely contained in her pretty white lace demi bra.

  Maze eyed the damage. “Looks like your girls are making a run for it whether you’re with them or not.”

  Caitlin laughed and cried at the same time.

  Maze narrowed her eyes. “Are you drunk?”