The Forever Girl (Wildstone, #6)(19)

“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 adding 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.