Once I had thought Maggie must have been an angel God had sent to me when I was facing the darkest days of my life. Now Iknewshe was. She was the reason I woke up every morning. Since the first time she opened her mouth and spoke to me, I had been hers. I hadn’t known it back then, but I had been. She’d owned me before I even realized it.
Tonight had been something I’d been planning for months. The diamond I’d worked and saved to buy had been burning a hole in my pocket. Every time she smiled at me, I had fought the urge to drop to my knee and ask her to marry me. I had been going to get that moment tonight. I had made sure it would be perfect. That she would remember it and tell our grandchildren about it one day.
My eyes dropped to the phone in my hand, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen now. The phone call I had received three hours ago from my mother had changed everything. Somehow she had managed to hit me with yet another blow, reminding me she was no longer the mother from my youth. She wasn’t the woman my dad had adored.
Her last name was no longer Ashby. I flinched as the pain sliced through me. The memories of a childhood that felt as if it were another lifetime now all flooded me. Theway my mother had loved my father so fiercely and the way he had cherished her. My parents’ love had been the reason I believed in it.
Facing the fact that the mother I knew had also died that day when my father took his last breath wasn’t easy, but with Maggie in my arms I had been able to accept it. Or at least I had thought I had accepted it. It had been over a year since I had seen my mother, but only because she canceled plans, not me. Thanksgiving she’d been on a cruise with friends. Christmas she had gone skiing in Colorado.
Now I knew the truth. It hadn’t been friends she had been with. It hadn’t been plural at all. She’d been with a man. A man I had never met. A man she had married last week in Hawaii. I knew nothing more because I had simply ended the call while she was still talking. I couldn’t listen to her happy voice talking about this man she kept praising and how much I would like him. How could she do this? Who was she? How did someone change so completely? She had loved my dad. That was not something anyone could fake. I’d witnessed it and lived in the security of my parents’ love until the day he left this earth.
My phone rang, and Maggie’s name lit up the screen. She was who I went to when I needed strength. Holding her in my arms always fixed all my problems. Nothing mattered if I had her with me. But this…
Not this.
And not now.
I couldn’t tell her how I’d been going to ask her to marry me. I couldn’t tell her about my mother. Because the truth was I no longer believed love was forever. People changed, and I had watched it with my mother now for years. Marriage no longer felt like something full of promise and a future.
It fucking terrified me.
Losing my mom to this person she had become was one thing.
But if Maggie changed. If I lost Maggie like that, how would I keep on living? Maggie was my heart. How did one go on when they lost their heart?
I pressed ignore on the phone and slipped it into my pocket.
Right now I needed space. Even from her.
CHAPTER TWO
MAGGIE
I dropped my phone back onto the table and finished nibbling the saltine cracker in my hand, hoping to ease the turmoil in my stomach. Aunt Coralee was gone to the grocery store, and I was thankful she went early so that I had time alone to deal with my nausea. This was only the third day that I’d been sick. I had hoped before I started feeling bad that I’d get the chance to tell West.
The positive pregnancy test I’d gotten two weeks ago had been a shock. I’d been taking birth control for years, and I had never had one late period. So when my period was a full seven days late, I had taken a test, not truly expecting it to be positive.
Then I had taken three more, different kinds, only to get the exact same answer. We were going to have a baby. This wasn’t planned, but the more it had sunk in, the more excited I had become. We had graduated with our bachelor’s degrees, both found jobs, and were moving from Atlanta to Savannah next month to begin our new life there.
We often spoke about our future, and I wasn’t insecure about West’s feelings for me. However, every time the diamond ring on Riley’s hand flashed in the light, I felt a pang of envy. I hated that too. I shouldn’t feel anything but happiness for her and Brady. I loved them both. I wanted that for them.
I studied my bare ring finger and felt tears sting my eyes. I was being silly, and I knew it. West didn’t have to put a ring on my finger. Not now, at least. Maybe one day. When he was ready.
I dropped a hand to my stomach and thought of the life inside me. As much as I wanted this baby, I did not want it to be the reason he asked me to marry him. I wanted that to be something he did because he was ready for me to have his last name. We talked about our future all the time, and I knew he planned on ours being together. Deep down, I had always thought once we graduated college he’d propose.
When he didn’t, I was fine with it and didn’t think about it too much. Until now. Riley and Brady were planning awedding, and I was sneaking around eating saltine crackers and sipping Sprite. My hormones were doing crazy things right now. That had to be why I was on the verge of tears and insecure all of a sudden.
I stood up from the table and cleared away the evidence of my meager meal, then stood there a moment as another wave of nausea went through me. It was worse today than it had been yesterday. I wasn’t sure I could hide this much longer. Not if it got worse every day. I hadn’t thrown up yet, but this morning had been the first time I thought I was going to. I’d turned on the water in the bathroom and stared at myself for several minutes, waiting for it to happen, hoping the running water would cover up the sound of my heaving.
It never came, and I eventually went back to my room and lay down. The doorbell rang, and I took a deep breath, hoping the crackers were going to stay down, before I walked to the living room to answer the door. I was home alone for now, with Aunt Coralee grocery shopping and West being gone. I had no idea where he was because he wasn’t answering his cell phone. I’d worry about that if I didn’t hear from him in another hour or so.
I opened the door, not checking to see who it was. Lawton was small and safe. Checking to see who was on the other side of the door was never something anyone thought to do here. It was something I missed about living here. Imay not have grown up here, but Lawton was my home. This house was the first home I had felt safe in. My father had made it impossible to feel safe.
A started to say hello, but no words came when the guy whose back had been all I could see since he was looking out toward the street turned to face me. It took me a moment. The face was familiar, yet I wasn’t sure why. I studied him a moment, unsure if I should know him. Was he someone that Brady knew?
“Maggie.” He said my name, and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. The way his eyes twinkled when he did so was something I did recognize. My mouth fell open in surprise as I stared back at the boy from my childhood. The kid next door that I couldn’t remember ever meeting because I had just always known him. He was in every memory I had as a kid and in most all of them until the day I left that house and never returned.
“Tate?” I said in a whisper, almost unsure that this was who I thought it was.