The Forever Girl (Wildstone, #6)(101)

Maze, Caitlin, Walker, and Heather prove that a found family is a real family. Are you or do you know anyone who is part of a found family? How did the family come together?

Maze carries an enormous amount of guilt over Michael’s death and the actions that followed it. Do you think any of her guilt was justified?

Does guilt motivate you to do better next time, or does it prevent you from moving forward, like Maze?

Like Maze and Walker, have you ever made a rash decision that you thought was a mistake but realized years later was a great decision? If yes, what happened to change your mind?

Many women feel like Caitlin, always giving help but so rarely asking for it themselves, even when they desperately need it. What are some ways this habit can be broken? Is this a habit you’ve had to break?

Did Dillon being there for Caitlin during such a difficult time make it easier for her to dismiss her doubts about their relationship?

If Maze and Walker had decided to continue their relationship after Vegas, how might it have been different from the one they have now that they are older?





Read On


A Peek at Love for Beginners





Chapter 1


Alive was still better than dead.

Mostly.

She hurt from head to toe. Even her hair hurt. But the funny thing about spending a month in a coma and then the rest of the year in a rehab facility reacquainting herself with where her limbs were is that it’d given her some hard-earned perspective.

Yes, she felt like ninety instead of thirty. And yes, her right arm thought it was a useless club that hung from her shoulder, not to mention the rest of her body, pretending it didn’t have to listen to her brain.

Alive was still better than dead.

Mostly.

Her name was Emma Harris, and her physical therapist had taught her that mantra—the hard way. The man was diabolical with what he’d put her body through. She’d lost track of how many meltdowns she’d had on his table. He’d taken each in stride with a kind but steady professional touch, patiently waiting her out, letting her calm down before going at her again. It wasn’t like she could argue with his results. She was doing things the doctors said she never would. Like walk.

But she still hated her hard-ass PT with the passion of a thousand suns.

And yet there was something she hated even more. Stairs. “Seven,” she grated out, jaw locked. “Eight . . .” The exhaustion was insidious, running in her veins instead of blood, but the stairs were part of her penance. Because she, unlike some of the others in her accident, was breathing and not six feet under. “Nine. Ten.”

There were fourteen stairs in total, so silver lining—she was in the home stretch. Each step brought her closer to adulting on her own for the first time in a year. A year of having everything she did, every single thing, supervised.

“Ten.”

“You already said ten,” Cindy said in her annoying-as-shit teacher voice. Like Emma was a child. Or worse, an idiot. “So it’s eleven.”

Okay, so ever since she’d woken up from the coma, sometimes she got her words mixed up. Whatever. “Eleven,” she corrected. Her left foot got there, but nope, her right foot refused to join it. Her right foot was done.

A year ago she’d been a runner, a PE teacher, and a dance instructor. Her whole existence defined by fitness. It matched the outdoor lifestyle of Wildstone she’d grown up with and loved so much here in Sunrise Cove.

“Should you even be taking the stairs?” Cindy asked, hovering at her side.

Emma swiped the sweat out of her eyes and ignored the question from her former best friend.

“Careful,” Ned, her ex-fiancé, warned from her other side. “You’re really pale.”

Pretending he didn’t exist either, she took another step. “Twelve.”

“Emma.” Ned put a hand to her elbow. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

It took every ounce of control she had not to throw his hand off. “How else am I supposed to get up to my new apartment?”

Ned and Cindy exchanged a look that she knew all too well. A mix of pity and sweet patience that made her want to scream. If she’d had anyone else, anyone at all, to help her move out of their place, she would have been free of them.

“We’re not sure you’re okay to be alone,” Ned said gently.

If you murder him in his sleep, you’ll go to prison, and that might just be worse than a coma . . .

A soft whine came from just behind Emma, and then a cool, wet dog nose nudged into her palm. Her emotional support dog, because yeah, that was a thing for her now. After one too many nightmares in rehab, one of her occupational therapists had given her a two-year-old, one-hundred-ten-pound St. Bernard. Hog was supposed to watch out for Emma’s emotional well-being and protect her as needed, but as it turned out, he was named Hog—short for Ground Hog—for a good reason. He’d flunked out of service dog school for being afraid of his own shadow. Didn’t matter to Emma. He drooled, he ate anything not tied down, but she loved him ridiculously anyway, even if, as it turned out, she was his emotional support. “Good boy,” she told him.

He licked her hand.

“This is ridiculous,” Ned said. “Just come back to our place. I’ll stop complaining about Hog’s . . . intestinal issues. It’s not necessary for you to move out.”