The Forever Girl Page 30
Dignity wasn’t needed here. Walker loved her as is. And with that knowledge warming her heart, she kicked off her heels, grasped the hem of her dress, and ran down the aisle toward the rest of her life.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
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Meet Jill Shalvis
About the Book
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Reading Group Guide
Read On
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A Peek at Love for Beginners
About the Author
Meet Jill Shalvis
New York Times bestselling author JILL SHALVIS lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning novels wherever books are sold and visit her website, jillshalvis.com, for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
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About the Book
Reading Group Guide
Before reading The Forever Girl, how much did you know about the foster system? Did you learn anything new or anything that challenged a previous assumption?
Maze, Caitlin, Walker, and Heather prove that a found family is a real family. Are you or do you know anyone who is part of a found family? How did the family come together?
Maze carries an enormous amount of guilt over Michael’s death and the actions that followed it. Do you think any of her guilt was justified?
Does guilt motivate you to do better next time, or does it prevent you from moving forward, like Maze?
Like Maze and Walker, have you ever made a rash decision that you thought was a mistake but realized years later was a great decision? If yes, what happened to change your mind?
Many women feel like Caitlin, always giving help but so rarely asking for it themselves, even when they desperately need it. What are some ways this habit can be broken? Is this a habit you’ve had to break?
Did Dillon being there for Caitlin during such a difficult time make it easier for her to dismiss her doubts about their relationship?
If Maze and Walker had decided to continue their relationship after Vegas, how might it have been different from the one they have now that they are older?
Read On
A Peek at Love for Beginners
Chapter 1
Alive was still better than dead.
Mostly.
She hurt from head to toe. Even her hair hurt. But the funny thing about spending a month in a coma and then the rest of the year in a rehab facility reacquainting herself with where her limbs were is that it’d given her some hard-earned perspective.
Yes, she felt like ninety instead of thirty. And yes, her right arm thought it was a useless club that hung from her shoulder, not to mention the rest of her body, pretending it didn’t have to listen to her brain.
Alive was still better than dead.
Mostly.
Her name was Emma Harris, and her physical therapist had taught her that mantra—the hard way. The man was diabolical with what he’d put her body through. She’d lost track of how many meltdowns she’d had on his table. He’d taken each in stride with a kind but steady professional touch, patiently waiting her out, letting her calm down before going at her again. It wasn’t like she could argue with his results. She was doing things the doctors said she never would. Like walk.
But she still hated her hard-ass PT with the passion of a thousand suns.
And yet there was something she hated even more. Stairs. “Seven,” she grated out, jaw locked. “Eight . . .” The exhaustion was insidious, running in her veins instead of blood, but the stairs were part of her penance. Because she, unlike some of the others in her accident, was breathing and not six feet under. “Nine. Ten.”
There were fourteen stairs in total, so silver lining—she was in the home stretch. Each step brought her closer to adulting on her own for the first time in a year. A year of having everything she did, every single thing, supervised.
“Ten.”
“You already said ten,” Cindy said in her annoying-as-shit teacher voice. Like Emma was a child. Or worse, an idiot. “So it’s eleven.”
Okay, so ever since she’d woken up from the coma, sometimes she got her words mixed up. Whatever. “Eleven,” she corrected. Her left foot got there, but nope, her right foot refused to join it. Her right foot was done.
A year ago she’d been a runner, a PE teacher, and a dance instructor. Her whole existence defined by fitness. It matched the outdoor lifestyle of Wildstone she’d grown up with and loved so much here in Sunrise Cove.
“Should you even be taking the stairs?” Cindy asked, hovering at her side.
Emma swiped the sweat out of her eyes and ignored the question from her former best friend.
“Careful,” Ned, her ex-fiancé, warned from her other side. “You’re really pale.”
Pretending he didn’t exist either, she took another step. “Twelve.”
“Emma.” Ned put a hand to her elbow. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”
It took every ounce of control she had not to throw his hand off. “How else am I supposed to get up to my new apartment?”
Ned and Cindy exchanged a look that she knew all too well. A mix of pity and sweet patience that made her want to scream. If she’d had anyone else, anyone at all, to help her move out of their place, she would have been free of them.
“We’re not sure you’re okay to be alone,” Ned said gently.
If you murder him in his sleep, you’ll go to prison, and that might just be worse than a coma . . .
A soft whine came from just behind Emma, and then a cool, wet dog nose nudged into her palm. Her emotional support dog, because yeah, that was a thing for her now. After one too many nightmares in rehab, one of her occupational therapists had given her a two-year-old, one-hundred-ten-pound St. Bernard. Hog was supposed to watch out for Emma’s emotional well-being and protect her as needed, but as it turned out, he was named Hog—short for Ground Hog—for a good reason. He’d flunked out of service dog school for being afraid of his own shadow. Didn’t matter to Emma. He drooled, he ate anything not tied down, but she loved him ridiculously anyway, even if, as it turned out, she was his emotional support. “Good boy,” she told him.
He licked her hand.
“This is ridiculous,” Ned said. “Just come back to our place. I’ll stop complaining about Hog’s . . . intestinal issues. It’s not necessary for you to move out.”
Oh, but it was. Deathly necessary. And not her death, but his. And possibly Cindy’s too. “Hog only has gas issues because you make him anxious.”
Ned looked at Cindy. “Tell her. Tell her she shouldn’t leave.”
“She shouldn’t leave.” Cindy gave Emma another smile, this one tinged with guilt and remorse. “Roomies forever, remember?”
Emma looked her old best friend right in the eyes. The truth was, Emma understood how guilt and remorse could screw up a person. Thanks to her own, she was just about as screwed up as one could get.
But Cindy had been Emma’s best friend for twenty years, right up until Emma had been hit by a car, punted fifty feet and straight into a coma. At one point during one of those late nights her BFF and fiancé had spent in the hospital waiting room, they’d somehow decided that it’d be a good idea to sleep together. Granted, they’d been told Emma’s chances of survival weren’t good, but she’d proven the doctors wrong. Her mom said it was because she was too stubborn to die. Probably a true story.
In either case, all these months later Ned and Cindy were still at it. In fact, Ned had moved into Cindy’s bed—in the apartment Emma and Cindy had shared for years. The two of them planned to get married. Romantic, right?
“And we have an elevator,” Cindy said.
Like Emma didn’t know that. She might be foggy on a lot of things—a common side effect of
being in a coma, apparently. But she remembered the basics of her life. Well, mostly. And yeah, right about now an elevator would be even better than the nap she desperately wanted. But she’d live in hell before going back to her old apartment. And anyway, after losing her fiancé, her best friend, and all her jobs, she was already in hell. “Our place is no longer ‘our’ place,” she said.
“But it could still be.” Ned looked to Cindy for confirmation.
Cindy nodded. “Yes, it could totally still be.”
Ned opened his mouth to say more, but Emma cut him off. “Let me save you some time, okay? I appreciate the help after I was finally sprung from the rehab facility. But there’s no way I’m going to keep staying where my ex-fiancé and ex-BFF are sleeping together. Loudly, by the way. You guys do realize how thin the walls are in that place, right?”
Cindy smacked Ned in the gut and turned into him to whisper-hiss clearly for his ears alone, “I told you we should’ve done it in the car last night before we went inside.”
“Yeah, but we got a ticket for indecent exposure.”
“Oh my God,” Emma said. Tired of the bullshit attempts to hide their relationship out of some misguided sense of protecting her, and also tired of the hovering, the attempts to help when really they were just hindering, Emma tackled steps thirteen and fourteen, Hog with her, panting hotly on the backs of her legs. “I don’t want to be involved in your sex lives. I don’t want to know that Cindy howls like a banshee, or that you do her up against a wall.” She whipped around and glared at Ned. “Especially since you once told me you couldn’t do it that way because it would hurt your back.”
He opened his mouth, but she turned away, staggering up the last step, breathing like a lunatic. The good news was that she’d done it. The bad news was that she’d just come face-to-face with a man leaning against the wall, a set of keys in his hand.
She might’ve yelped in surprise, but frankly, she was too tired. Besides, she knew him. He was over six feet tall, broad shoulders, and nicely muscled. His unruly hair was the color of a doe’s fur, which was to say every color under the sun; all shades of brown, mahogany, even some red and blond, cut short and clearly only finger tousled, like he didn’t have time to be bothered. He had a poker face she’d kill for, not to mention dark lashes over eyes that were as hard to name the color of his hair. Greens and browns swirled together in what was technically hazel, but that seemed too tame of a word. Those see-all eyes of his could express a wide gamut of emotions, from banked anger to an intensity that burned. At the moment though, he seemed amused as he stood there, clearly waiting for her. He was her hard-ass PT, aka Simon Armstrong.
“Sounds like you need a moment,” he said.
Oh perfect. He’d heard everything. The old Emma would’ve died of embarrassment. But Emma 2.0 didn’t do embarrassment. She no longer gave a shit what people thought. Or so she reminded herself as she lifted her chin. Pride before the fall and all that.
Her exes squared came up behind her with their faux worry. Or maybe it was real worry. That was the beauty of her new attitude—she didn’t care.
“How did you find this place anyway?” Ned asked, not yet seeing Simon. “Thought you couldn’t find an apartment anywhere in Sunrise Cove that would take you with your lapse in income for the past year.”
“This is a nice building,” Cindy said, bringing up the rear. “Nicer than ours even. Maybe there’s another available apartment.”
“There’s not,” Emma said flatly, her eyes still locked on the man watching her. “The building’s all filled up.” She had no idea if this was true. All she knew was that he’d told her about the available apartment and that he could get her approval.
She’d gratefully jumped on it.
Maybe he wasn’t all hard-ass . . .
The building had once been a single Victorian home, but somewhere in the 1950s it’d been separated into four apartments: two up, two down. She was moving into apartment 2A, because unfortunately, nothing had been available on the bottom floor. It was actually lovely and she was beyond grateful for it, because as it turned out, Ned was right—nobody wanted to rent to a woman with no current source of income other than a few part-time hours at Paw Pals, the local doggy daycare. And she only had that job because she’d worked there once a week before her accident.
Simon smiled at Hog. “Hey, big guy.”
Hog was afraid of most men. Emma had tried to get his history, but it was sketchy at best. Her guess was that he’d been abused, most likely by a male. Now there was only one man whom Hog melted for, and that was Simon.
He crouched low to Hog’s level. Her big doofus of a dog let his legs slide out from beneath him, which shook the foundation like an earthquake.
With a rough laugh, Simon used both hands to rub up and down Hog’s belly, where he melted into a puddle of goo.
Emma understood. Those big, warm hands of Simon’s had mostly brought her pain. They’d also brought her back to life.
It was odd to see him outside of a physical therapy session. She’d never seen him in anything but what she considered his PT uniform of a form-fitted performance T-shirt and basketball shorts. Today he was in Levi’s with a hole across one knee; an army-green, long- sleeve Henley; and battered sneakers. He had a few days of scruff going and she could see a few tats sticking out from where he had his sleeves shoved up to his elbows. He looked . . . real. Still crouched low, balanced on the balls of his feet, he stroked her dog and met her gaze.
Ned locked eyes on Simon before turning to Emma. “Who’s this?”
“A friend,” Simon said.
Ned didn’t take his eyes off Emma. “I didn’t know you were dating already.”
“I’m not,” Emma said. “Simon, this is Ted.”
“Ned,” said Ned.
Simon rose to his full height and smiled at Emma, clearly enjoying her using her temporary disability to her benefit.
Ignoring the very slight flutter in her belly at the unexpected smile—very slight!—she rolled her eyes.
Ned held a hand out to Simon. “I’m Emma’s fiancé.”
“Ex-fiancé,” Cindy said easily, as if not at all bothered by the slip, Freudian or otherwise. “And I’m Cindy, Emma’s best friend.”
“Also an ex,” Emma said, reaching out for the keys, belatedly realizing her fingers were trembling from getting up the stairs on her own steam.
Simon looked at those fingers, then into her eyes and . . . didn’t hand over the keys.
And here was the thing. Emma had gone from the hospital to the rehab facility to the apartment she and Cindy had shared, the one that Ned now lived in, so she literally hadn’t been alone in nearly a year. At the moment, she was holding on by a bare, raggedy thread. If she wasn’t alone in the next sixty seconds, she was going to completely lose it.
“Seriously, Emma,” Ned said, coming up behind her. “You can’t do those stairs every single day. It’s too much for you.”
“Agreed,” Cindy said. “Come back home where you belong.”
What she needed was to get inside. Alone. Well, alone with Hog anyway, where she could collapse in shaky sweatiness in complete privacy.
“You good, Slim?” Simon asked her in a quiet, just-for-her voice.
Ned looked at her and frowned. “You really are pale, Emmie. Are you okay?”
“She’s fine,” Cindy said.
Okay, so the fiancé comment had gotten to her, probably every bit as much as Ned’s overly familiar “Emmie” had. “Yep,” she said. “I’m great.” She felt the weight of Simon’s gaze as he assessed her well-being for himself, which really pissed her off. She was a normal person now. Well, as normal as she got anyway, with her brain playing loosey-goosey with her memories and words, and her body apparently having its own mind. “Look, if you really want to be helpful, go down to the car and unload my boxes onto the sidewalk. Simon and I just have to finish up some paperwork.”
Simon lifted a brow, but didn’t contradict her.
> Thankfully, the exes squared went back down the stairs.
Hog lumbered to his paws and shook. Fur flew around him like a halo. So did drool. Both were all over Simon’s jeans. He’d said her dog wouldn’t be a problem, but . . . “He doesn’t usually shed so badly.”
“That’s a big fib,” Simon said, sounding amused. He had a way of looking and sounding like a laid-back, easygoing guy without a care in the world. But she knew that wasn’t true because she’d seen exactly how much he cared about his work as a PT.
“Don’t worry, Emma,” he said quietly, breaking into her burning thoughts. “Four-legged fur-babies are always welcome here. Even the giant ones.”
She let out a relieved breath and nodded. “And I know we don’t have any more paperwork to do.”
“Just like you were messing with him when you called him the wrong name?”
She grimaced.
“Hey, I’m all for self-preservation,” he said.
Grateful for his nonjudgment, she leaned on the wall for support. “I hate that I’m breathing like I just practiced for the half marathon I’d been planning to run BA.”
“BA?”
“Before Accident. And thanks for not calling me out in front of them. I just needed to get rid of them for a minute.”
“Understandable.” He shifted a little closer, smart-ass smile gone, no sign of Hard-Ass PT. “You really okay?”
“I’m fine. The key?”
He inserted it into the lock for her and opened the door. “Do you need help with your stuff?”
“Nope, I’ve got it. Or, rather, the exes squared got it. There’s no way they’re going to leave me in peace until I’m settled.”
His mouth curved slightly. “Nice to see your attitude is permanent, and not just for me in PT.”