Praise for Shann McPherson
“Devoured this captivating romance in one evening without coming up for air … Addictive”
“I was sucked in from the first chapter. I laughed, cried, and held my breath a lot”
“Emotional depth, drama, romance, comedy, and witty banter … A delightfully entertaining debut romantic tale that romance fans will certainly enjoy!”
“A great read”
“A hilarious, heartfelt story … A perfect beach, feel-good read”
“Loved this book … So enjoyable”
“Moved me to laughter and tears”
About the Author
With big dreams of being a published author since she was an eleven-year-old girl writing Beverly Hills 90210 fan fiction before fan fiction was even a thing, SHANN MCPHERSON has been writing angsty, contemporary romances for most of her thirty-something years.
Living in sunny Queensland, Australia, when she’s not writing Shann enjoys making memories with her husband and cheeky toddler son, drinking wine, and singing completely off-key to One Direction’s entire discography.
Also by Shann McPherson
Where We Belong
Sweet Home Montana
The Long Way Home
SHANN MCPHERSON
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Dublin 4, Ireland
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021
Copyright © Shann McPherson 2021
Shann McPherson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © July 2021 ISBN: 9780008471347
Version: 2021-06-04
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise for Shann McPherson
About the Author
Also by Shann McPherson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Extract
Acknowledgements
Dear Reader …
Keep Reading …
About the Publisher
To those who have ever lost themselves
Chapter 1
The atmosphere at the field was electric. The baseball diamond was illuminated by the bright glow of floodlights, the giant bulbs humming loudly. The bleachers were packed to capacity with excited parents and overzealous fans waving clappers, blowing hooters, their horns ringing through the air. This was accompanied by the lingering smell of corn dogs and other deep-fried foods hanging heavily in the night air.
March had brought with it a newfound warmth after the shrill cold of the winter months, but a chill persisted, which caused Maggie to tuck her hands between her knees as she searched the crowded stands.
She checked her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, shaking her head to herself. Where is he? He wasn’t just late; he was half an hour late. She pulled her cell phone from her handbag, but it only added to her frustrations to find the screen void of contact from him. No call, no text, no email, and God knows that man couldn’t tear himself away from his inbox for longer than a few minutes. Her jaw clenched with annoyance.
“Dad’s gonna miss it!”
Maggie glanced down to where her son, TJ, was devouring his hot dog with gusto, ketchup smeared all over his chin. His big blue eyes met hers and when he offered a cheeky grin, she couldn’t help but smile despite the anger roiling deep inside her.
“He’ll be here,” she managed with as much confidence as she could muster. But deep down, that confidence was waning. Tom had called her earlier to say he’d been caught up in an unexpected and last-minute meeting, and that he would come straight to the high school from his office. He’d also told her that he was on his way. But that was forty minutes ago.
Maggie’s gaze shifted in the direction of the main entry gate, the view shrouded by people waiting in line at the concession stands. Her knees bounced up and down as anxiety stirred low in her belly.
Tom had been missing moments like these more and more lately. For the last six months, at least, his work had managed to take priority over his children. Sure, he was a big-shot lawyer at one of the most prestigious firms in the city, but he’d promised. He’d promised, no matter what, he would be here tonight. It was his son’s very first varsity baseball game. He’d been selected from the junior varsity team due to an injury. If Tom missed Jack’s varsity debut, she could only imagine how devastated her teenage son would be.
A sudden flurry of excitement followed a thunderous roar, pulling Maggie from her thoughts. TJ jumped up onto the metal bench, screaming his big brother’s name as the team ran out from the dugout. Maggie zeroed in on number four—her handsome son—and a proud smile spread over her face as she stood up, clapping and cheering with vigor. But then she saw Jack turn, taking in the bleachers from the pitcher’s mound, his gaze almost instinctively settling upon her, and she could pinpoint the very moment he realized his father hadn’t shown. That heartbreaking look of disappointment on his face was painfully obvious, even from high up in the stands.
But Jack was strong. Resilient. He always had been. Stoic. So much like his father. And his despondency was replaced by a tight-lipped smile that he quickly hid by pulling the brim of his ball cap ever lower, shielding the sadness in his eyes before joining the rest of his team. But Maggie knew her son better than anyone, and she could see it in the way his shoulders remained slightly hunched in defeat, the way his cleats dragged ever so slightly over the grass. He was crushed.
Maggie could handle Tom’s neglect, she’d been putting up with it for a little while, she was almost used to his work taking precedence over her. But she refused to sit by and watch her husband neglect their sons. She refused to watch either of her sons cry tears Tom had caused.
You’d better have a damn good excuse this time,
she thought with gritted teeth.
***
“You were so good, Jack!” TJ jumped up and down, praising his brother as they walked through the dimly lit parking lot.
Maggie bit back her smile as she glanced sideways at Jack, but her smile fell the moment her gaze landed upon him. He didn’t look like a fifteen-year-old who’d just won his very first varsity baseball game. His head was bowed, shoulders hunched like he had more than just the weight of his gym bag resting on them. He kicked at a loose pebble on the pavement before glancing up at his mother as they arrived at the car. “Have you heard from Dad?”
Pressing her lips together, Maggie shook her head. She tried calling Tom a few times, but each call went straight to voicemail. “He probably just got caught up at the office.” She continued with a little more conviction, “He landed a big case at work.”
Jack rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath, which she couldn’t quite hear, but she decided not to press him. He was upset. And he had every right to be. He had been so excited since being selected to start on third for the varsity team at only fifteen: the youngest player in the school’s history. All he wanted was to show off a little in front of his father, make him proud. And yet Tom wasn’t there to see him hit his very first home run, propelling the team to an unexpected victory at the bottom of the seventh.
Maggie sighed as Jack got into the front passenger seat without so much as another word, but she forced a smile onto her face as she waited for TJ to climb up into the back. He was ten with a solid build, but short for his age, like a little pit bull. While he insisted he no longer needed his mother’s help getting into the car, she always stood guard, making sure he buckled up safely much to his dramatic dismay.
The mood in the car was low as Maggie settled into the driver’s seat. With caution, she glanced at Jack, finding him staring out the window, his eyes empty, face long. When she checked the rear-view mirror, she saw TJ staring at her in the reflection, and she offered him a wink which made him smile, causing her heart to warm.
“Who wants to go home and make ice cream sundaes?” She knew her cheery tone sounded forced as it rang through the uncomfortable silence, but she had to try to lighten the mood somehow.
“I do! I do!” TJ hollered, his hand held in the air for effect.
Maggie flashed her youngest son a knowing smile. Of course he did, that much was a given. She turned to Jack. “Jack?”
“Whatever,” he murmured without looking at her.
***
Belmont was a small hamlet in Middlesex County, twenty minutes outside of Boston. And the drive from the high school through the village to their home took all of about eight minutes. Maggie tapped her hand against the steering wheel to the tune of the song playing across the radio, temporarily lost in the moment. But when she made the turn onto the immaculate, tree-lined street, where nearly identical colonial homes sat atop manicured frontages, her brows knitted together at the glare of flashing lights illuminating the night’s darkness.
“Is that the cops?” Jack shifted in his seat, leaning closer to the windshield.
Maggie’s heart sank into the pit of her stomach and she didn’t know why. She eased her foot off the gas, rolling to a stop when she noticed two police cruisers parked outside their home. She felt a painful pinch in her chest, but somehow managed to unfasten her seatbelt with shaking hands.
“You boys wait here,” she whispered under a rushed breath.
The night air was cool, the breeze whipping against her heated cheeks as she walked past one of the police vehicles, eyeing it dubiously. She continued up the steep driveway to the front porch where two uniformed officers were standing in the shadows.
“Can I h-help you?” Her words wavered, caught in the back of her throat, and her voice trembled.
The officers turned, the older of the two speaking first. “Mrs. Morris?”
She nodded once, tentatively glancing between them. “Yes, I’m Maggie Morris.”
When they stepped down off the porch, the glow of the curbside lamppost illuminated their faces, highlighting the blatant look of sorrow in their eyes as they stopped just shy of her on the flagstone path.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid we have some bad news,” the other officer began, his voice gruff and full of strained discomfort as if this were the last place he wanted to be on a Friday night. “Your … husband, Thomas?”
Maggie nodded again. “Tom.” He always hated Thomas; it reminded him of his father.
“He’s um … I’m afraid he’s been involved in a car accident.”
With her heart racing painfully in her chest, Maggie searched the man’s face for something, anything, but she came up blank. “W-where is he? I-is he … is he okay?” Her voice was hoarse, suddenly incredulous and desperate. She’d spoken to Tom less than two hours ago. He was fine then. Of course he was okay. He had to be.
The officers glanced at one another, and she watched as they shared some kind of silent understanding. Why were they stalling? What were they not telling her? She clutched at her chest, and could feel her heart beating so hard, so fast she could barely breathe through the rapid thundering.
“No, ma’am.” The first officer reluctantly shook his head, his eyes sincere when they met hers. “I’m afraid he’s not okay.”
Burning tears pricked Maggie’s eyes. An overwhelming panic she could hardly contain consumed her from the inside. When her knees went weak, she almost fell to the ground, but one of the officers swooped in just in time, collecting her, holding her upright.
She turned, looking over her shoulder to find TJ and Jack being assisted out of the car by two other uniformed police officers. TJ was inconsolable, tears streamed down his beet-red cheeks. Jack was yelling out for her, screaming for her. She tried to call out to them, to tell them that everything was fine, that everything was going to be fine. She tried to scream but she had nothing. No voice, no air, no breath, nothing. She’d been rendered entirely useless and uncomfortably numb. And then, when it all became far too much, the world around her turned darker than it had ever been before as the blackness consumed her.
Chapter 2
Maggie had signed her name so many times over the last month, the signature she’d had since marrying Tom in the District Courthouse of Rhode Island sixteen years ago was now almost unrecognizable. Nothing more than an inconsistent scribble that would unlikely hold up in a court of law, if it ever got to that. But she continued signing, regardless. Paper after paper, desperate to get everything finalized in the hope that it might help her start to move on.
Her husband was dead. At thirty-six years old she was a widow. Even now, a whole month later, she couldn’t believe he was gone.
She dropped the pen once she’d finished scrawling on the final form, giving her cramping wrist a vigorous shake. Sliding the stack of documents across the shiny walnut table, she met James’s sad eyes, finding him smiling at her. He was just trying to be kind—she knew that—but that smile flared her anger and resentment.
She’d known James more than ten years. He and Tom had gone through law school together. They’d started as interns at the same questionable strip mall ambulance-chaser firm. They went on to top their class and then make junior associates at one of Boston’s most prestigious law firms six months after one another. But James was still here. Tom was not. And that smile James now wore, the one laced with pity and sadness, didn’t help one bit despite whatever good intentions were behind it.
“How are you?”
Maggie heaved a sigh, her eyes flitting to the legal papers on the table. “I’m okay,” she lied. It was a lie she’d perfected over the last few weeks.
“You should come over for dinner sometime. Bring the kids,” James suggested with a shrug of one of his broad shoulders. “Marissa would love to see you.”
She swallowed the lump that seemed to have permanently wedged itself at the back of her throat over the last month. With a noncommittal nod, she offered the sincerest smile s
he could manage as silence thick with tension settled in the air between them.
“It gets easier, Mags. I promise,” James said after a few beats, his words tentative, like he wasn’t sure he should say them.
Maggie almost laughed. She couldn’t even begin to count the number of times she’d heard those exact words over the last month. If she had to hazard a guess, it would’ve been at least a thousand. Neighbors, parents she hardly knew and rarely talked to while waiting at school pick-up, people at the grocery store. It was ridiculous how many times she’d been forced to listen to that exact same shell of a promise from people who only said those words just to say them. Filling the uncomfortable void of silence that hung around her wherever she went.
“When?” Maggie asked.
Of course she didn’t expect James to be able to give her an answer. God, she didn’t want an answer. Frankly, she was terrified of whatever it might be. The truth was it hadn’t gotten better yet. Not even a little bit. And it’d been a month. So, when was it supposed to get better? Tomorrow? A year from now? Ten years? When would she finally be able to wake up in the morning and not spend the first fifteen minutes of her day smothering herself with a pillow so her sons couldn’t hear her cry?
James scrubbed a hand over his angled jaw, his shoulders falling as he glanced down at the fancy gold pen resting on the table between them, clearly avoiding Maggie’s eyes.
That was something else she was becoming accustomed to: people’s sudden inability to meet her gaze, as if looking into her eyes was too difficult for them.
“I should go.” Maggie stood, hitching the strap of her handbag onto her shoulder. “TJ has a therapist appointment.”
“Little guy’s still not sleeping, huh?” James asked, buttoning his suit jacket as he rose to his feet.
“He sleeps,” she muttered with a shrug. “He just wakes up screaming at least three times a night.”
“Poor kid.” James shook his head, joining Maggie at the end of the long board table. With a comforting hand placed upon her shoulder, he walked her out of the room. “You know, I can always stop by and pick him up. Maybe take him to get a bite to eat, or to a Sox game?”
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