Forever Starts Now

by London, Stefanie

  “Why are you doing this? I can’t believe you’re being so difficult.”

  “And I can’t believe you’re expecting me to bend over backwards after everything you’ve done.” She sucked in a breath. For some reason, giving her ex the metaphorical finger was surprisingly empowering.

  She hadn’t done this once through the failed-divorce proceedings. She’d been quiet and shaken, agreeing to everything so it would be over as quickly as possible. Emotions like grief and regret and sadness had overwhelmed her, blotting out her spark. Now, after enough time had passed, Monroe had regained that sense of her own backbone.

  And she would never let a man walk all over her again.

  “What did you say to me after I caught you with her? Oh, that’s right. You said that I was too sweet and too nice and a little boring. You said I needed more bite in order to be ‘interesting’ to a partner long-term. So consider this me taking your advice, Brendan. I’m biting down, hard.”

  She hung up the phone and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. He wouldn’t call back, not right away. She knew him better than that. The chances of him turning up in Forever Falls now was high, but maybe she wanted him to do that. Maybe she wanted him to see her with a big, hunky Australian man and realize that she had moved on and that she didn’t miss him at all.

  Feeling buoyed that she’d finally had a moment where she could get one back, Monroe headed into the Sunshine Diner. Her desire to get creative and save the place from sale was even stronger than ever.

  …

  The following day, Ethan went to see Brian McPhee at the ghost tours office. He arrived a few minutes earlier than the time he’d given Monroe to meet him, because he wanted to get a feel for the man before she showed up. He definitely appreciated her willingness to help him, but also wanted to get a bead on the man without any outside influences.

  Ethan pushed open the door to the office and a small bell tinkled overhead. Inside was simple, to say the least. A single desk with an old-looking laptop perched on one corner, and behind it a mid-height shelf with neat rows of binders. There was a poster on one wall stating that this was a “National Best Ghost Tour finalist” eight years ago.

  “Be there in a second!” a voice called from the back.

  “No worries.”

  Ethan waited and a moment later, a man who looked to be in his late fifties appeared. He was tall and wiry, and his thin face had a slightly skeletal appearance about it. Ethan wondered if it added to the ghostly feeling of his tours. He looked like the kind of man who’d had a rough life. His dark goatee was heavily peppered with gray, and the hair on his head—which was the same salt and pepper mix—was drawn back into a ponytail.

  The man set a cup down on his desk and the smell of instant coffee wafted into the air. “Can I help you?”

  “You’re Brian McPhee, right?”

  He eyed Ethan warily. “That’s right.”

  “Interesting business you’ve got here,” Ethan said.

  Brian settled into the seat behind the desk. There wasn’t a lot of warmth to him, though he wasn’t rude. He didn’t smile readily, not even for a potential customer.

  “Forever Falls has a long history of hauntings. We’ve got the Krick Mansion on the edge of town that’s our biggest attraction, formerly owned by the Krick family but now stands empty.” Brian took a sip of his coffee, his voice almost monotone like he was reading off a script. “There’s also the graveyard hop where we explore three of our local historic grave sites. This time of year we only do tours on Saturday nights, though.”

  Ethan studied the man, wondering what he might be able to glean about his father from those he hung out with. He’d stared at a lot of faces over the past year, wondering this same thing.

  The bell tinkled at the front of the shop and Monroe walked in. She was wearing her coat over jeans and boots, the same scarf she’d worn on the weekend a stark contrast to the ginger hair tumbling down around her shoulders.

  “You’re early,” she said with a smile. She walked right up to Ethan and looped her arm through his. “Hi Brian, how’s things?”

  Ethan watched the cold reservation melt away from the older man’s face and the corner of his eyes crinkle as he smiled in response. “Not bad at all, Ms. Roberts. Not bad at all.”

  There was a charming old-school politeness to him now and it was clear he held a lot of affection for Monroe.

  “Brian is one of my regulars,” Monroe explained to Ethan, as if sensing his surprise. “I think he’s been coming to the diner ever since I was in high school and working there after school and on weekends.”

  “That’s right.” Brian nodded. “I stand by it still, best eggs on the East coast.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Ethan chimed in.

  “So…” Brian looked at him, his barely concealed surprise creating a wrinkle in his forehead. “How can I help you? I’m guessing you’re not looking to book a tour, then? I know your family has been through it all more than once.”

  “Not for a long time,” Monroe replied. “But you’re right, we came here for another kind of business.”

  Brian raised an eyebrow and cradled his mug between both hands. It looked like a promotional item, with the logo of another company stamped on the side, though it was difficult to make out, since half of the letters had rubbed off.

  “Why don’t you tell him, Ethan?” Monroe released his arm and nodded encouragingly.

  “I, uh…I’m looking for some information on a man named Matthew Brewer.”

  It was almost like someone had poured concrete into Brian McPhee’s veins. Ethan watched the man slowly harden, so much that he couldn’t even tell if there was still breath flowing between his lips. He was damn sure at that point, that if Monroe wasn’t at his side, Brian McPhee would have ordered him out of his office.

  “Haven’t heard that name in a while,” he replied stiffly. He set the mug down on the desk. “And I’d be happy never to hear it again.”

  Interesting. Given the owner of the funeral home had made it sound like they were buddies, Ethan wasn’t expecting him to say something like that.

  “I think he may have had a romantic relationship with my mother,” Ethan pressed. “She passed away a year ago and I found a series of letters from a man named Matthew Brewer. I’ve been trying to find the letters she wrote him, since they’ll be all I have left of her.”

  The lie stuck in his throat a little more every time. It grated against Ethan’s nature to deceive people, but in this instance, his need to find his father overrode that particular part of his moral center, especially since he was sure he wasn’t hurting anyone.

  “Mike’s dead,” Brian said flatly.

  “I know. But I’m hoping someone might have ended up with his belongings or that someone may be able to confirm whether or not he had a relationship with a Marcie Jenkins.”

  For a moment after his mother died, Ethan thought about changing his name back to Ethan Jenkins. It was the name he’d been born with. But before he was one year old it had been changed to Hammersmith, when Marcie married the man who’d raised him.

  “I don’t have nothin’ to do with Matthew Brewer or any of his associates anymore.” Brian’s expression remained hard. “I have no idea who ended up with his stuff.”

  “Do you know anything about a relationship he might have had?” Ethan pressed. “Please, man, I’ve been trying to find this out for almost a year. I just want to know if he knew my mother.”

  Brian’s eyes flicked to Monroe and something in him seemed to soften a little. “This your boyfriend?”

  Monroe cleared her throat. “Yessir.”

  “Look, I don’t want to get dragged into any of Mike’s shit, okay? I spent too many years doing exactly that and all it got me was a rap sheet and some jail time.” He let out a breath. “But Mike used to talk about some woman who broke
his heart. He left Forever Falls to go and chase some grand scheme up in the Cape. Apparently he met someone there and they were supposed to get married, but it turned sour. I don’t know what her name was…but he was different after he came back.”

  Ethan felt a stir in his gut, like a flicker of intuition. “The Cape, as in Cape Cod?”

  “Yeah.” Brian nodded.

  His mother had been to Cape Cod. He’d seen old photos of her when she was twenty-one, having her first legal drink in the U.S., because the drinking age was different there to Australia, and she’d complained about how in the first part of her holiday, right before her birthday, she’d have to make herself look older to be able to order a beer even though she’d been drinking legally in Australia since she was eighteen.

  Ethan had been to Cape Cod a few months back, thinking that maybe someone there might know something. He’d gone to the bar where she’d worked for a summer, but the owners had turned over a dozen times and nobody recognized her name.

  “What year would he have been in Cape Cod?” Ethan asked, already bracing himself for the answer.

  “He would have been twenty-five or so, which woulda made it…” Brian scratched his head. “1988 or 1989, something like that.”

  His mother had spent the summer of 1989 at Cape Cod.

  “And you have no idea who ended up with his stuff after he died?” Ethan asked.

  “No idea and I don’t want to know.”

  “Thanks, Brian,” Monroe said. “Sorry to go digging around in stuff you want to forget. I promise we won’t bring it up again.”

  The older man huffed. “You can make it up to me by booking a tour. Business is slow right now.”

  Monroe looked up at Ethan and raised both eyebrows as if to say how about it?

  “Sure,” Ethan said. “Why not?”

  Right now he would have agreed to just about anything, because he was feeling a spark of hope for the first time in months. This was a solid lead, a connection. And while he knew not to get his hopes up too much—he’d had leads before that didn’t pan out—something told him that this one was worth investigating.

  If that meant forking over some cash to thank the guy who’d pointed him in the right direction, then Ethan was more than happy to do it. Besides, he thought, looking down at Monroe’s smiling face and her pretty brown eyes, being somewhere dark and intimate with her wouldn’t exactly be a chore.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monroe spent the rest of her Tuesday feeling like a bag of squirming kittens. She had all this twisty, turny energy that she couldn’t seem to rid herself of, despite an unusually busy shift at the Sunshine Diner. They’d filled a reasonable amount of tables—some of the women Monroe had noticed first come in to gawk at Ethan had returned, and ordered more than muffins! Plus they’d had issues with an order from one of the local farms.

  And yet…Monroe felt like she was a firecracker about to go off.

  Helping Ethan out that morning had given her warm fuzzy feelings, because she could see the happiness it brought him. But then tonight was the “big introduction” and that was making her hellishly anxious.

  Having Ethan meet her family was…gosh, she didn’t even know.

  On one hand, it felt awful and like she’d totally jumped into this situation without thinking through the ramifications…which she hadn’t really. She hated lying to her family. Yet on the other hand, she knew it would ease some of their worries around Monroe’s life.

  Both her sisters had fussed around her like mother hens after the divorce, trying to shove her back out into the dating world, like throwing herself into another relationship was the only way to “get over” a bad breakup. Monroe was perfectly happy on her own, thank you very much.

  Is that why you changed your outfit three times before you came over? Because you’re happier alone and you don’t actually care what your fake boyfriend thinks about how you look?

  Monroe caught sight of herself in the big-mirrored doors on Loren’s coat closet by the front door. She was wearing all black—jeans and a fine-knit sweater that hugged her body. Plus the ankle boots she’d discarded when she came into the house. Twin gold hoops hung in her ears and a delicate chain encircled the base of her neck, a single clear crystal hanging from it.

  She felt…elegant. Which was something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. And while she wouldn’t tell Loren, it was nice to dress up. Not for Ethan, but for herself. It had felt nice to invest a little extra time in getting ready, beyond her usual throw everything on without looking in the mirror approach to things.

  “Where’s my favorite girl?” Her father ambled through the doorway, and Monroe rushed over to take his arm so he could leave the cane by the front door.

  “I know you don’t play favorites,” she teased. “You just say that to make us feel special.”

  “You should feel special,” he replied. “And don’t you look lovely.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She pecked him on the cheek and saw he’d shaved. Or maybe he’d popped into the barber and had Mr. Donovic do it for him. “You’re looking very handsome yourself.”

  “I tried to put a tie on but…” He let out a frustrated huff. “You know your mother always used to do that for me. I can’t ever seem to figure the damn things out on my own.”

  For some reason, the image of her father trying to put a tie on made something stick in the back of her throat.

  “You don’t have to wear a tie, Dad. It’s only dinner.” She helped him navigate the hallway, stopping to pick up one of her niece’s toys from the floor so her father didn’t trip. “Not a black-tie gala.”

  “If you’ve deemed a man important enough to bring him home, then I want to make sure I look the part.” He nodded. “It’s a big deal.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “That’s my Monroe, always the contrarian.” He laughed. “You used to think I knew everything when you were a little girl. I had more trouble with Loren always asking questions, but you were agreeable.”

  “Well, being agreeable never got me anywhere, did it?” She walked her dad into the dining room. “Wouldn’t you rather I have my own opinion on things?”

  “Yes…so long as you agree with me.” Her father gave a cheeky grin and Monroe couldn’t help but laugh.

  She squeezed his shoulders and then left him for a second to pull out his chair at the head of the table. Within seconds, Loren’s little ones were all over their grandpa. Luckily for the family, Olly Roberts wasn’t short on love to share around.

  “Careful of Grandpa’s leg, Kiara,” Monroe admonished her niece gently as she climbed up into his lap like he was a jungle gym.

  “Ki!” Loren called out as she came into the room, carrying a tray of cold cuts, vegetables and dip. Taylor followed behind. “What have I told you about being rough with people?”

  “Sorry, Mom.” Kiara, who was six, didn’t quite know her own strength sometimes. She was a very active, energizer bunny of a girl and wore her hair in curly black bunches. It was impossible to stay mad at her and she knew it.

  “Ah don’t listen to your mom,” Olly said to her. “That’s what grandpas are for. Now tell me, what did you do in school today?”

  Loren shook her head and rolled her eyes affectionately, placing the platter into the center of the table. Monroe and Taylor followed her back into the kitchen to help with the rest of the food and drink prep.

  “It’s fine for him to say that,” Loren said once they were out of earshot. “But then when Tornado Kiara breaks something, I’m the one who has to teach her the lesson.”

  Monroe and Taylor exchanged looks. It was very much a tradition in their family that the men were all big softies and the women were the ones who kept things in order. Their mom had been the disciplinarian when she was alive, and their grandparents had fit that mold as well. Even Loren’s husband, who was a colle
ge football star and as confident as they came, was very much the softie when it came to his kids, leaving Loren to enforce some order on their noisy, chaotic household.

  “You look like you’re taking a leaf out of my stylebook,” Taylor said to Monroe. “I’m digging the all black. Makes your hair pop.”

  “Thanks.” Monroe grinned. “Although, don’t get any ideas about me coming into the shop. I’m going to keep my virgin skin away from your needles.”

  Taylor shook her head. “One day I’ll convince you. You should see the piece I started work on yesterday for a new customer. She’s sixty-four years old and she’s always wanted to get a tattoo, but she was too afraid of what people would think. Then she was in a terrible car accident and ended up walking away with barely a scratch on her—but the car was totaled. She figured it was a sign to start living her life.”

  “What kind of design did she choose?” Monroe asked. As much as she wasn’t a fan of the idea of getting a tattoo herself, she really enjoyed hearing the stories of all the people who walked into Taylor’s shop to get themselves inked up.

  “It’s a floral piece that’s going to hopefully turn into a full sleeve. We’re incorporating her kids’ names as well. She was a real trooper, didn’t complain about the pain at all when we did the outline.”

  “How many kids has she had?” Loren asked, her voice slightly muffled as she had her head in the refrigerator.

  “Seven.”

  “Seven?” Monroe’s eyes went wide.

  “That’ll do it. Seven rounds of childbirth would mean she could take just about anything.” Loren grabbed a bottle of champagne and another of a pinot grigio from the fridge and placed them on the kitchen island. “Who wants to play bartender?”

  “I’ll do it.” Monroe grabbed the chilled bottles and headed out to the dining room to start getting everyone their drinks.

  Loren’s husband Rudy was sitting at the table now, chatting with Olly while he held baby Harlow in his arms. The little girl sucked eagerly on a bottle. She had a head of tight black curls and light brown skin, just like her dad. Monroe went past and squeezed his shoulder in greeting and then raised a hand as Taylor’s fiancé, Tim, walked in.