The Forever Girl

by Jill Shalvis

  —Buy wedding shoes that will make me look gorgeous and confident.

  For the first time in weeks, Caitlin woke up without heartburn. This was due to two reasons. First, her house was full of her people. Sure, she’d had to trick them into being here, and Dillon had almost blown everything by outing her the way he had, but everyone had called off work for the next week.

  Surprisingly, Dillon was reason number two. Last night, he’d started off on the couch, but somewhere around the time she’d brewed Sleepytime tea to help get sleepy, and which she might’ve added her last swig of brandy to, he’d shown up in the kitchen, said, “The couch sucks because you’re not on it,” and then promised to go to the store and buy her more alcohol in the morning. He’d probably buy the wrong stuff, but he was trying and that meant something. So had the way he’d kissed her as if he could do that for the rest of his life.

  Nights like that reminded her of why she loved him.

  She tried to roll over but couldn’t. Opening her eyes, she realized the answer for that. Roly was on her chest and Poly on her legs. She couldn’t feel her toes. She tried to move the dogs, but somehow they’d turned themselves into tiny sacks of cement, as always refusing to budge until their master, Lord Dillon, awoke and told them it was time to eat. “Dillon,” she said. “Help, I’m trapped.”

  Dillon stretched and opened his dark eyes, taking in the problem in an instant. He chuckled warmly, and the tender amusement in his gaze made her toes curl. With a kiss to her nose, he said, “Time for breakfast, babies.”

  The pugs replied with snuffles and snorts, wriggling in sheer pleasure as he scooped them off of Caitlin and gently plopped them on the floor.

  “That should buy us a few minutes,” he said, and pulled her to him. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  With a sexy smile she’d never managed to resist, he pinned her beneath him. “I liked that look in your eyes,” he murmured. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Wishing that we could live our life right here in bed, since it’s where we get along the best.”

  She smiled to soften the words, but he didn’t smile back. In fact, he rolled off her onto his back with a heavy sigh.

  “I’m not still mad at you,” she said.

  “Maybe I’m still mad at you.”

  She blinked and came up on an elbow. “What? Why? You’re the one who almost screwed everything up.”

  “And you never do?”

  “Hey, I’m a delight. Ask anyone.”

  He snorted and sat up too, shoving his fingers through his hair. “My mom said you haven’t called her back. She’s left three messages for you.”

  “She wants to talk about the wedding, Dillon. Specifically the flowers, the food, and the fact that I didn’t ask your cousin to be a bridesmaid. The cousin who hates me almost as much as your mom does.”

  “Neither of them hates you.”

  “Your mom thinks this is her wedding and wants to do what she wants, not what I want.”

  He sighed. “Maybe you could just give in on something? Anything?”

  She gaped at him. “She wants roses at the ceremony, which I’m allergic to. She also wants an open bar—something we can’t afford because we both decided on an expensive honeymoon to Bali instead. And your cousin is not going to be in the wedding. Hello, she tried to set you up with her best friend.”

  “That was before she knew I was serious about you.”

  “It was last month!” Caitlin took a deep breath. The two of them had been bickering so much lately, and here they were, doing it again before they’d even brushed their teeth. She exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry, but your mom finds fault with everything I do, and then she tells you about it and it puts a strain on us. She hasn’t liked me from day one, when she learned I didn’t finish college.”

  “Okay, so maybe she thought you were looking for your M.R.S. degree at first,” he admitted.

  “My what?”

  He grimaced, like he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “She thought your career goals were to be Mrs. Dillon Beckman.”

  Caitlin stared at him. “Is that what you think?”

  “No.” He sighed. “But I wish you’d find a career job, so you’re happy with your work like I am.”

  Needing to be not naked for this conversation, she got out of bed and pulled on the pj’s he’d stripped her out of last night. “I love what I do, Dillon.”

  He snorted. “You love making sandwiches?”

  “Wow. Okay,” she said slowly, suddenly mad all over again. “First of all, I make a lot more than sandwiches. And second, I get that it’s nothing high-powered like what you do, but cooking fulfills me. You know that.”

  “You’re managing a deli and have a boss who micromanages you, even when you’re not at work. You complain about that job all the time. We both know you could do better for yourself. I thought you wanted to do better.”

  She paused, unable to deny a lot of that. “Is that why you told everyone you don’t want kids right now, because I don’t have the right job to please your family? Because you’ve never said that before. Kids are on your list, and you led me to believe it’s something you wanted too.”

  “We’re just not in a place to have kids yet.”

  Her heart sank. “Since when? We have dogs. How much harder can a baby be?”

  “Babe . . . babies are expensive and require planning. We haven’t even started. First we need to create our retirement fund, build an education fund, beef up our savings accounts, and buy a house. And with me the only one bringing in any substantial money, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.”

  Okay, don’t overreact. You’ve jumped on him and it’s early. He hates early. He hates anything before his requisite five-mile run, shower, and coffee. But apparently, she couldn’t help herself. “My parents had me early and they never regretted a thing.”

  “I’m not sure I want a big, crazy houseful like you had. Kids coming and going, and don’t even try to tell me that your parents prioritizing saving all the foster kids in the land didn’t affect you. You’re upending your life for them—still.”

  She chewed on that for a moment. “I know you don’t understand this, but my parents felt they had enough love and resources to make a difference, and they did. And I’d hoped to do the same.”

  “You can’t save the world, Cat.”

  Maybe not, but she could save the people in her orbit. “So is that list of yours just generic then, or specific to me?” she asked.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “A huge difference,” she said.

  He got out of the bed and pulled on sweats.

  “Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

  “I need caffeine to deal with you. Lots of it.”

  “Dillon.”

  With a sigh, he turned back.

  “We’re getting married in eight days,” she said softly. “Now would be a good time to tell me that you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” he said. “On anything.”

  She looked into his eyes and had to admit, he was right. It was her. She was the one who’d pushed the relationship into serious territory, then further pushed for a ring. She was the one who’d pushed for all of it, and yet somehow she felt like she was the one just being carried downstream for this wedding. Yes, she’d wanted to be Dillon’s wife, but she’d also wanted to elope to Bali, not just honeymoon there. Just the two of them, without his family’s influence. But his mother, a widow, had had very different plans for her only son.

  And then, instead of using her backbone, or even slowing down the momentum, she’d jumped into the wedding plans with both feet, focusing on how it would reunite her with Maze and Heather and get them back into her life. No one could refuse a wedding, right?

  And here she was . . .

  “Look,” Dillon said, not unkindly, “I don’t want to argue. We’re both under a lot of stress with the wedding, and the full house here is a
dding even more pressure. I think it’s just too early for this. It’s too early for anything, unless”—his face softened—“you’re feeling like a repeat of last night?”

  She gave him an are you kidding me? look, and he gave a low, mirthless laugh.

  “Right. No way in hell.” He headed for the door. “Need to clear my head, babe. Going on a run.”

  Chapter 5

  Walker’s man of honor to-do list:

  —Don’t kill the groom. Or the maid of honor.

  At breakfast, Walker watched—and found himself reluctantly impressed by—Maze. She’d made Caitlin hand over the wedding to-do list, saying that as the maid of honor, she’d make sure everything got done. He was even more impressed when Caitlin did, with only one demand of her own: that they all take this one day for fun first and go on a family hike.

  Which was exactly what Caitlin’s parents had done with the lot of them that summer. Walker hadn’t appreciated the outing then, the one that had forced them into acting like a family. In fact, he’d resented the hell out of it.

  At first.

  But it’d taken a shockingly short amount of time for him to fall for Caitlin’s parents and want them as his own. Shelly had fed him home-cooked meals and Jim had taken him to ball games with Michael, and for the first time in his life, he’d belonged. He’d spent the best year of his life with them up until the house had burned to the ground . . .

  . . . killing Michael in the process.

  All of their lives had been plunged into chaos. The Walshes had to relocate and needed time to grieve and put their lives back together. Because that had involved staying in a hotel at first, then renting a smaller place until they could get back on their feet, CPS had taken the fosters. That had scattered him and Heather and Maze far and wide. Under normal circumstances, they probably wouldn’t have seen one another again. But Caitlin and her parents had treated them as part of the family, taking them everywhere, ensuring that they knew they were important, even vital, to the core group, each of them, and as a result, they’d become important and vital to each other. Going through the tragedy of the fire together had only deepened that unbreakable bond, and the ragtag motley crew had fought to stay in one another’s lives.

  Until three years ago at Michael’s grave.

  Now, for better or worse, Caitlin had gathered them together again. After breakfast, they all stood on the back porch applying sunscreen. February in California had the potential to be the best weather for the whole year. Today was no exception at a sunny seventy-eight degrees. Cat came at Walker with a can of sunscreen and sprayed him until he felt like a greased-up pig. “Stop.”

  “You never protect yourself.”

  Actually, he always protected himself. Grabbing the can, he returned the favor, laughing when she squealed at the icy coldness of the spray. “Payback’s a bitch,” he said, and turned to help Heather with Sammie, but Jace was already there. Stepping off the porch, Walker found Maze staring at him. “What?”

  She shook her head.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’m giving you a free pass here. Talk.”

  “Wow, a free pass. Those used to be sacred.”

  When he’d first landed in the Walsh home at age sixteen, a fifteen-year-old Maze had already been there for a few weeks. She’d been feisty and mouthy, and he’d been drawn to that from the start. Then one night he’d heard whimpering and had followed the heartbreaking sounds to Maze’s bedroom. He’d flipped on the light, but her bed had been empty. Another soft whimper had led him to the closet, where he’d found her cowering in a laundry basket. He’d coaxed her out by offering her a free pass—anything she wanted—if she’d tell him what was wrong.

  She’d taken the free pass and given him some bullshit story about being afraid of storms. She wasn’t afraid of storms—she loved storms—but he’d let her have the lie, and in return she’d given him all of her chores for the week.

  There’d been many more “free passes” over that year, mostly relating to covering each other’s asses when they’d found trouble, which they’d done readily enough.

  But she’d never told him what really haunted her. Truth was, she hadn’t had to. He’d found her in the midst of enough nightmares to put her broken words together with what he knew of her past—that she’d been removed from her mom’s custody because of a string of abusive boyfriends.

  Maze had learned to hide in closets for a damn good reason. It’d killed him then, and still did.

  “A free pass,” he said again now. “Whatever you want. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “All right.” She drew a deep breath. “I want to know why you clearly managed to keep in touch with Caitlin and Heather and not . . .” Breaking off, she looked away.

  He shifted to see her face. “And not you?”

  “You know what? Never mind.” She turned to move off, but he pulled her back around to face him.

  “Do you remember what your last words were to me?” he asked.

  “‘Fuck you’?” she asked sweetly.

  He smiled grimly. “Close. You told me to stay the hell away from you.”

  “I didn’t mean literally.”

  He arched a brow. “Noted. But you need to be very careful what you say to me, Maze. We’re grown-ups now. I’m going to always take you at your word.”

  She looked away. “What if only one of us is an actual grown-up?”

  He smiled. “You missed me.”

  She snorted. “You’re about to get a repeat of my so-called last words to you.”

  “You missed me,” he said again. “And for the record, I missed you too. And now I get a question.”

  “That was not part of the bargain. I’d never be stupid enough to give you a free pass.”

  “Humor me. Please?”

  The “please” seemed to boggle her, and he got it. He rarely allowed himself to show vulnerability. There were only a few people who could expose that side of him, and they were all here, stuck together at the lake for a week. “Fine,” she said. “One question.”

  “Why did you stay away from Caitlin and Heather so long?”

  “I discovered I’m easier taken in small doses.”

  That gave him a pang for her. “Maze—”

  “Hey, let’s go,” Caitlin called out. She headed across the front yard to the small trail that wound around the lake.

  And like good little minions, everyone followed.

  A light breeze had chased away all the clouds so that nothing marred the eye-popping blue sky. The trail was rocky but flat, and dry foliage crunched beneath their feet as they moved along the water’s edge. Maze was in front of Walker in a pair of black shorts that showed off her sexy long legs, every single inch of which he’d once taken his mouth on a tour of. She wore a tight white tank top and an oversized plaid button-down tied at the waist, exposing some skin between that and the waistband of her shorts every time she moved, which was all the time because Maze was in constant motion. She was frying his brain cells left and right, and he’d like to not think about her at all, but apparently that was beyond his control.

  It helped that Jace walked alongside her. Whether he was her boyfriend or not, she wasn’t available, and that was absolutely the best thing for both of them.

  Caitlin was wearing a huge backpack like she was going on a five-day wilderness excursion. There was a weight to her shoulders that spoke of more than just the weight of whatever she was carrying. Dillon walked at her side, coaxing Roly and Poly along, both of whom were lagging on their leashes.

  “Come on, babies. I know you guys can get your little booties up to this beach,” he said when they stopped, refusing to walk farther. He crouched down and looked them in the eyes. “We talked about this. I can’t carry you around all the time.”

  They snorted and whined, and with a laugh, he scooped them up, tucking one beneath each arm. “Roly, man, you’re getting . . . roly.”

  The pug wheezed and licked his face.

  Walker lifted the bac
kpack from Caitlin’s shoulders. “What the hell’s in here? Rocks?”

  “It’s everything but the kitchen sink,” Dillon said. “But she likes to be prepared, and God help anyone who wants to help her.”

  “Because I can do it myself,” Caitlin said, playing tug-of-war with Walker for the pack.

  “But you don’t have to,” Walker said.

  “Dude, don’t even try.” Dillon sighed, set the dogs down, and swooped up the backpack from both of them. “I’ve got it.”

  Caitlin huffed out a breath, took the leashes from Dillon’s hand, and marched off in front of them.

  “She’s stubborn,” Walker said.

  “You think?”

  The lake was a deep blue, dotted with whitecaps flashing with each swell. A few boats were scattered across the water. Winter fishing was a big sport here. Halfway around the lake, they came to a place Walker remembered well: a small cove, complete with a tire swing hanging from an ancient, gnarled, beautiful oak.

  “Wa-wa!” Sammie yelled, pointing to the lake.

  “Yes, baby, water,” Heather said, “but we’re not going swimming today. The water’s chilly.”

  Sammie nodded sagely.

  Roly plopped onto the sand and stared at the water lapping about ten feet from him. Poly barked once and ran straight for the water, not stopping when he hit it, plowing into it.

  And vanished.

  Everyone gasped. Dillon stood at the water’s edge. “Poly!” he yelled.

  Nothing.

  Walker started for the water, but Maze was already there, running past Dillon. In up to her thighs, she looked down, reached beneath the water, and came up with Poly.

  “Oh my God,” Caitlin said as Maze strode out of the water, drenched. “Thank you! Dillon, she saved Poly!”

  Dillon took Poly from Maze and, in a move that seemed to shock everyone, hugged Maze tight with his free arm. “Thank you,” he said, and kissed her on top of her head.

  Maze, never comfortable with affection, not to mention feelings, didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. Walker might have laughed, except she was now shrugging out of the damp plaid overshirt, leaving her in that equally damp white tank top, which had him feeling things no one should be feeling at a family picnic. Stripping out of his sweatshirt, he tossed it to her and got a few seconds of enjoyment watching her try to decide between her pride and freezing her ass off. In the end, she pulled on his sweatshirt, and damn, she looked good in it.