The Forever Girl Read online

  Since he couldn’t do any of that, he shook his head at Caitlin. “This weekend’s about you, not us.”

  “That’s right,” Maze chimed in, backing him up. Which, for the record, she’d never done before. Typically, she’d argue with him even if he said the sky was blue. He was pretty sure she enjoyed it.

  And once upon a time, he’d enjoyed it too.

  A lot.

  Maze hopped off the counter and headed to the door. “I’ll just go check on the others—oomph,” she said as she ran into Jace. Heather was right on his heels, holding Sammie.

  Jace caught Maze and used the excuse to wrap his arms around her. Not surprising, since the guy was her boyfriend. But what was surprising was that Maze jumped, like she wasn’t used to being touched by him.

  Interesting.

  “Aw,” Heather said to Maze. “You two are a cute couple. Have you been together long?”

  “A year,” Maze said, at the exact same time Jace said, “A week.”

  Awkward silence.

  “He means a year,” Maze said, her nose wrinkling.

  Jace smiled easily. “Right. How time flies . . .”

  Sammie let out a stream of cheerful baby garble, and Walker suddenly felt almost cheerful too. Because if Jace was really Maze’s boyfriend, Walker would eat his own shorts.

  Dillon came into the kitchen, followed by a parade of Roly and Poly trotting along behind him, all three looking surprised to find the room full.

  Roly and Poly immediately circled Sammie, sniffing at her—probably because she smelled like banana and had Cheerios stuck to her pants.

  “What’s for dinner?” Dillon asked.

  “Whatever you’re cooking yourself,” Walker said.

  Dillon laughed. “Like Caitlin would let me cook in her kitchen.”

  “Piz!” Sammie yelled.

  Roly and Poly both squealed in terror, eyes bugging out as they turned tail and ran out of the room as fast as they could, which, due to the fact that they couldn’t get purchase on the linoleum floor with their paws, wasn’t all that fast. Roly—or was it Poly?—fell over like a tipped cow, legs straight up in the air.

  Walker scooped up and righted the little guy and got a snort for a thank-you.

  “She means pizza,” Heather translated for Sammie. “It’s the only food she approves of. Nobody judge me, all right? You’ll see when you have kids, this gig is not for the faint of heart.”

  Dillon took in Sammie with her wild hair, banana-streaked face, and sticky hands and grimaced. Walker was surprised he didn’t go running out of the room like his “babies” had.

  “You’re not going to have kids?” Heather asked Dillon.

  “Of course we are,” Caitlin said. “We can’t wait. It’s on our life list.”

  “Maybe just not any time soon,” Dillon said.

  Caitlin blinked in surprise, and the silence fell as hard as Roly just had.

  Heather turned awkwardly to Maze. “What about you and Jace?”

  Maze looked like she might be allergic to the question, but Jace came through for her, giving an easy laugh as he gently squeezed her in a one-armed hug. “She’s shy about it because she’s been to one of my family dinners. Five siblings, lots of bickering. It’d send anyone running screaming into the night.”

  The thing about getting to know someone when you were kids was that you got to know them on a level you couldn’t easily achieve as adults. Add in ugly childhoods and a shockingly traumatic event that forever changed your lives, and the connection deepened whether you liked it or not. Walker knew Maze. She was as tough as they came. Nothing scared her.

  “I’m sorry,” Caitlin said, shaking her head. “But . . .” She looked at Dillon. “‘Not any time soon’?”

  “We’re a little busy right now, don’t you think?”

  “Only until the wedding.”

  Dillon looked pained. “Maybe this is a topic for another time. Without an audience.”

  Caitlin nodded, but looked deeply unsettled. She tried to recover, though, Walker could tell. She turned to Sammie, smiled, and opened her arms.

  Sammie ran right at her, and Caitlin beamed—until Sammie passed her by and leaped at Walker, crashing into his legs, giving him a fiercely intense command in baby speak, using both her voice and gimme hands.

  Caitlin sighed.

  “She’ll come around,” Heather promised.

  Walker gave in to the demands of the cutest little tyrant on the planet and scooped her into his arms.

  Sammie sweetly patted his cheeks with her sticky hands.

  Two-plus years ago he’d stopped in on Heather and found her pregnant, exhausted, and clearly at the end of her rope. He’d ended up staying a few days, filling her fridge and cabinets with food, taking care of things while she caught up on sleep. He’d continued to visit whenever he could, sometimes just being an extra adult in a very tiny and very overwhelmed apartment.

  So yeah, Sammie felt comfortable around him and vice versa. She gave a sigh and laid her head on his shoulder, smelling like bananas and hopes and dreams. He rarely allowed himself the luxury of hopes and dreams—hadn’t for a long, long time. But he found himself pulling her tiny body to his, dropping his jaw to the top of her head, and closing his eyes just for a beat, wondering what it might be like to have kids of his own and be a positive force in their lives in a way he’d never had himself.

  MAZE WATCHED SAMMIE completely melt against Walker and felt herself react to the look on his face, a soft expression she’d never seen on him before. “She knows you,” she said, doing her best to keep the jealously out of her voice.

  He didn’t respond. Maybe because Sammie had gone back to playfully patting his face with her chubby hands, specifically his mouth. Maze would bet her last dollar that little Sammie was enjoying the feel of his scruffy jaw, or maybe the game he made out of pretending to bite her fingers so she’d squeal in delight.

  Tired of waiting for the answer he was clearly not going to give her, Maze turned to Heather for an explanation.

  “I couldn’t have made it these past few years without him,” Heather said. “He’d somehow just magically show up when I needed something. Money, a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk me off the ledge.”

  Caitlin looked as devastated as Maze felt. “But . . . I called, I texted, I emailed . . . you’d gone dark and I couldn’t reach you at all. I finally got the gist—you didn’t want contact. But I swear, if I’d known, I’d have been there in a heartbeat, no matter what.”

  Maze took Heather’s hand. “I didn’t call, text, or email, and that’s on me. But if I’d been able to get out of my own way enough to hear what was going on in your life, I’d have been there too.”

  “It’s not on you, not on either of you.” Heather shook her head. “I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t tell either of you. I’d made a huge mess out of my life, and it all fell apart, completely. I was ashamed and needed to handle it on my own. But the truth is, I wasn’t handling it. I was sinking. And then Walker just showed up one day and did his usual strong, silent thing, taking care of whatever needed to be taken care of, whether I wanted help or not.”

  Cat looked at Walker. “You should’ve told me.”

  “No,” Heather said quickly. “I made him promise on Michael’s grave that he wouldn’t. I’m sorry, I really am, but I needed to grow up—without you guys at my back, fixing my mistakes.”

  Maze hated that Heather had been so alone. Hated even more that it had happened because she had been selfishly down her own rabbit hole. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I failed you. I won’t let that happen again.”

  “We won’t let that happen again,” Caitlin said firmly.

  Heather nodded, eyes suspiciously bright. “Me either.”

  Cat turned on Walker and punched him in the arm. “Ow!” she said, shaking out her hand. “Dammit. You’re a brick wall.”

  “I taught you how to hit,” he told her. “You can’t tuck your thumb in like that. And set your
feet and put your weight into it.”

  Cat hit him again, the right way. “That’s for not telling me what Heather was going through.”

  “Not my story to tell.”

  Sammie was squirming to be free, so Walker set her down. Again Cat held out her arms to the little girl, but Sammie shook her head and yelled, “I’m this many!” She held up three fingers, dropping a small stuffed giraffe she’d just picked up.

  Heather shook her head. “She’s not three, she just likes to say it. She’s two and a half, and yeah, the math adds up to me being pregnant at Michael’s gravesite. I planned on telling all of you there, but everything blew up so quickly, and before I knew it, so much time had gone by that I was too embarrassed.”

  Maze picked up the giraffe off the floor. “So there was one last secret,” Maze murmured.

  “Yes.” Heather winced. “I’m sorry.”

  Maze shook her head. “No. You don’t owe me an apology. Ever. This was on all of us.”

  Sammie was staring up at Maze with Heather’s pretty brown eyes. She had her mama’s expressive smile too.

  “She’s so sweet, and she looks just like you.” Maze didn’t know much about kids, but this one drew her in, probably because she was Heather’s and therefore all of theirs. She held out the giraffe to Sammie.

  The little girl looked at her very seriously, clearly not a fan of strangers. But this was something Maze understood all too well, so she just smiled.

  “It’s okay. Whenever you’re ready.”

  And like melting butter, Sammie shifted close and took the giraffe with a shy smile.

  Caitlin sighed. “Seriously? Everyone always likes me. What am I doing wrong?”

  “You’re trying too hard. And you,” Maze said to Sammie, “are as pretty as your mama, you know that?”

  Sammie nodded, making them all laugh.

  Dillon headed to the fridge. “So glad Caitlin wasn’t the only one holding a secret. For the record, I was totally against hers. I told her she needed to tell you guys that the wedding’s not this weekend but next weekend.”

  Everyone froze—except Caitlin, that is. She swiveled her head so fast that Maze got dizzy just looking at her as she glared at her fiancé. “Oh my God. Are you kidding me?”

  Dillon looked around at their shocked faces and gave a low laugh. “You didn’t tell them yet? Babe, they need to know for their jobs if they’re going to stay all of next week like you want.”

  “Wow,” Caitlin said. “You suck at apologies.”

  “Wait.” Maze shook her head. “What?”

  “She wanted you guys here for the whole week,” Dillon said. “Her hope was to”—he used air quotes here—“‘re-create the good old days.’”

  “Do you want to know my hope for you?” Cat asked him with venom dripping off her overly sweet tone. “It’s that you’ll be uncomfortable on the couch tonight.”

  With a drawn-out sigh, Dillon grabbed a container of something from the fridge, then a fork from a drawer, and walked out.

  “He’s kidding, right?” Heather asked.

  Caitlin drew a deep breath. “No. Look, I’m sorry. I know it’s selfish and a big ask, but I wanted time with you guys before the wedding insanity began. Just us, like it used to be, for the whole week before the circus.”

  “Circus?” Heather asked. “You mean your wedding?”

  “That,” Cat said.

  Huh. Interesting word choice for supposedly the best day of a woman’s life, Maze thought, and from the look on Walker’s face, he felt the same.

  “But it’s not just us,” he said. “You’ve got Dillon, Heather has Sammie, and Maze has . . . Joe.”

  “Jace,” Jace said.

  Maze glared at Walker. “And what about who you brought—your bad attitude.”

  “Huh,” he said, nodding. “You know what? It really is suddenly starting to feel like the good old days.”

  Maze shook her head at Caitlin. “You should’ve told us.”

  “Really?” Cat asked. “Look me in the eye and say you’d have come for a whole week, Ms. Apparently Has Forgotten How to Use Her Phone.”

  Maze shifted guiltily. “You could’ve tried it anyway.”

  “You do realize you never come home anymore, right?”

  “Yes, because I’m the one who blew us all up.”

  “Wrong.” Caitlin grabbed her hands and squeezed until Maze looked at her. “But if you’re so intent on taking blame, fine. Take the blame for starting the fight at Michael’s grave. But it was a highly emotional day, Maze. Someone was bound to light the fire. And whatever, we’ve had a million fights. It never mattered because we’re always still a unit. But you used it as an excuse to back off. So yeah, I did what I had to in order to get you here, and now you’re staying and that’s that.”

  “I can’t just stay, Cat. I’ve got to work this next week.”

  “But your boss is right here.” Caitlin pointed at Jace. “You don’t even have to call him since he’s also your boyfriend.”

  Maze squelched her grimace. “How did you get the week off?” she asked, misdirecting. “Your boss is the Grinch.”

  “Yes, and she’s calling every hour on the hour asking for stuff, even though this is personal leave, not paid leave. I’m dealing with it.”

  Heather bit her lower lip. “I work two part-time jobs, one waitressing, one doing some accounting under the table for a bookie.” She was a tech genius. Even back at nine years old, she could hack into anything. She was a wiz . . . with very little actual drive. “I could maybe get the time off, but Sammie . . . well, she’s not nearly as easy as she is cute. I couldn’t burden you all with her for a whole week.”

  “Neither of you is a burden,” Caitlin said. She looked at Walker.

  He shook his head. “I can’t stay either.”

  He didn’t give a reason. While Maze wondered about that, Caitlin threw herself at the back door, arms spread wide to keep them inside. “Okay, now you all listen to me. I’m having a bad bridal moment here. I can’t find shoes for my wedding dress. Dillon’s aunt threw me a bridal shower and all the gifts are at Dillon’s mom’s house, which means I have to go over there and see her to get them. She’s going to ask me if I’m stress eating. And yes, FYI, I’m definitely stress eating. In fact, I ate all the things and I’m not sure I’ll fit into my wedding dress, and I’ve got a zit on the end of my nose making me look like the Wicked Witch of the West.” She paused. “Or is it the east?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter! None of it matters if you guys are with me. You’re all damn well staying because I’m already doing this without Michael. I won’t do it without you too, you hear me? I can’t do this without you. I can’t!” She exhaled deeply, smoothed her hair, and straightened her shoulders. “Now. Who besides me needs a drink?” She turned to the bottles lined up on the counter.

  Heather looked at Walker, eyes wide, brows up.

  He shook his head. The man could say more with a head shake than anyone Maze had ever met. It could mean don’t worry, or it’s not worth the argument, or I’ve got this. Maze was pretty sure that this particular head shake meant the last one, because he stepped closer to Caitlin and took her hand. “Hey,” he said to her softly. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “No, it’s not!”

  It wasn’t like she was screaming, but . . . it was definitely an outside voice, which was shocking. Caitlin never used her outside voice and was always the epitome of calm and in control.

  “Oh my God,” Caitlin said when they all just stared at her. “I’m allowed to lose my shit, you know! I’m allowed the bridal moment that all the books say I’m entitled to!”

  Walker put his hands on her shoulders. “First,” he said, “breathe.”

  Wrapping her hands around his wrists, Caitlin stared into his eyes. “One, two, three, four, five . . . Nope.” She shook her head. “I can’t go on unless you’re staying. All of you. We used to be BFFs, remember? Because I do. I remember everything.” Her eyes filled. �
��But at the moment, I don’t feel like I have any BFFs at all, and I hate that. I miss you guys, dammit. And the least you could do is pretend to miss me just as much.”

  Maze’s chest went tight and she stepped to Walker’s side to face the woman she wanted back as her BFF as well, even though she didn’t deserve her after failing her so badly. “We’re staying,” she said, ignoring the feel of Walker’s surprised gaze on her. “We’ll stay as long as you need.”

  “We will?” Heather asked.

  “Yes,” Maze said.

  “Okay,” Heather agreed, nodding like a bobblehead. “We will.”

  Maze looked at Walker.

  The man wasn’t afraid of much. Maybe nothing, and certainly not her. But she gave him her hardest do this gaze, and apparently even he knew when to go up against her and when to let the tide take him. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re staying.”

  Maze nodded at him. Then she turned back to Caitlin.

  “Do I still have the crazy eyes?” Caitlin asked.

  “No,” Maze said.

  A total lie. Caitlin definitely still had the crazy eyes, and Maze got it. Cat was afraid they’d all take off on her, as if any of them could. She’d held them together all these years single-handedly, and Maze knew they’d be nothing without Caitlin Walsh.

  Which meant whatever the bride wanted, whatever she needed, Maze would do. She’d make this right; she’d give everything she had, which admittedly wasn’t much. “Where’s your lip gloss? You’re never without lip gloss.”

  “In my pocket,” Caitlin whispered.

  Maze pulled it from Cat’s pocket and handed it to her. “Time to get it together, babe. We’re all right here and not going anywhere.”

  Caitlin gripped Maze’s arms, eyes a little wild. “Promise?”

  “Promise on Michael’s grave,” she whispered.

  “Okay then.” Caitlin let out a shaky breath and nodded. “We’re going to need more wine from the cellar.”

  Of that, Maze had no doubt.

  Chapter 4

  Caitlin’s to-do list:

  —Get Sammie to love me.

  —Stop going to the kitchen in the middle of the night to forage.