After Forever by Jasinda Wilder

  Baby steps, I told myself. I smiled, thinking about What About Bob? Bill Murray, shuffling to the elevator, chanting, "Baby steps to the elevator." Baby steps to Traverse City. Baby steps to being okay.

  Baby steps.

  I choked on the sudden glut of tears and had to pull onto the shoulder as my vision blurred and my chest heaved with hyperventilating sobs.

  I was pregnant.

  the end

  A sneak peek

  at

  Saving Forever

  The third and final book of

  The Ever Trilogy

  jumping off the dock

  Carter

  I dove into the water, slicing neatly into the cold blue. Four long frog-kick strokes under the surface, and then I came up and took a deep breath. My muscles immediately settled into a steady crawl stroke, carrying me toward the peninsula mainland. I had a waterproof scuba diving bag on my back, holding the essentials: wallet, keys, phone, a T-shirt, flip-flops. I kept the steady pace until I felt my feet brush the sandy bottom, and then I stood up, flinging my hair back and smoothing it down. I trudged ashore, breathing hard.

  My beach was empty, this early in the morning. It wasn't really technically my beach, since I didn't own it, but I thought of it as my beach. Very few people came here, not this far north on the peninsula. It was a secluded spot, away from the bustle of downtown Traverse City, and it was out of the way even for the constant flow of winery traffic on the peninsula itself. It suited me. I could leave my car parked at the post office nearby, stocked with a towel and a change of clothes, lock it, and swim out to the island that was my home. I had a boat, of course, but I preferred to swim when the weather allowed.

  I scrubbed my hand over my wet hair, sluicing water down my chest and back, and then stretched, yawning and squeezing my eyes closed, rolling my shoulders. When I came out of the stretch, I saw her.

  Five-eight. Long blonde hair with dark roots. A body that made my mouth go dry. Curvy, solid, luxurious expanses of flesh. She wore a pair of cut-off jean shorts and an orange bikini top. God in heaven, who was this? I'd never seen her before. There was no way on earth I could ever forget seeing this girl. She was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous creature I'd ever seen.

  I stood, frozen, thigh deep in the water. Staring. Blatantly staring. I needed to know her name. I needed to hear the sound of her voice. She'd have a voice like music, to match the symphony that was her body. The need to move closer was an automatic response. My feet carried me through the water, toward the girl.

  She was sitting on the beach about thirty feet away from me. A towel was spread beneath her, and she had her nose buried in a book. I couldn't make out the title, but it didn't matter. My attention was on her. On the way her hair fell in a loose braid over her bare shoulder. On her arm, the way it flexed as she scratched her knee. She looked up from her book, saw me. Our eyes met for the briefest of instants. In that instant, something inside me shivered and burned. And then she looked back to her book. Almost too quickly. Too intently.

  And I? I couldn't make my body stop. I walked straight past the girl. Why? Why couldn't I get myself to talk? It had been almost a year now. I should be over what had happened. But I wasn't. Obviously. I couldn't even get a simple "hello" past my lips.

  My feet carried me to my car, and I didn't look back. I wanted to. I needed to. Her skin had been fair, flawless, looking satin-smooth and needing touch. My touch. I dug my keys from the dry-bag, unlocked my truck, and toweled myself off. I drove to the winery, thinking about her. About the expression on her face. It had been...tortured. Conflicted. As if the beach itself held as much pain as it did promise. That was a ridiculous, nonsensical thought. I couldn't possibly know that about her. But it was what I'd seen when I looked at her. And it made me want to know her even more. What could have caused her such pain? How could a beach cause such conflicted emotion?

  I needed to push her from my thoughts while I tended to the grapes. I couldn't afford thoughts of a girl. Not now. This would be the best harvest yet, and we couldn't afford any distractions. My brothers and I had to get this winery turning a profit if we were going to make it up here.

  Yet, as I walked out into the vineyard, pruning and weeding, my thoughts kept returning to the girl. To the heavy weight of her breasts held up by the orange fabric, which almost hadn't been equal to the task. She'd almost spilled out of the top, and that overflow of flesh kept cropping up in my brain. As did her long legs, shining with sunscreen and flexing with thick muscle. Her eyes, god, I'd only gotten a fragmentary glimpse of her eyes, but I thought they might be green. Deep, jade green. Those eyes had held, in that momentary meeting, so many things. Curiosity, intelligence. Vibrancy. Pain. God, such pain.

  I wondered if I'd see her again. I hoped I would, feared I would.

  Eden

  He'd come out of nowhere.

  I'd sat down on the empty beach, glad for the solitude. As long as no one was around, I could leave my cover-up off and let the sun soak me. If I was alone, I was okay, because there was no one to see when I remembered what I carried inside me, and the ruin it represented. At which point I was given to bursting into tears. So I'd gone to the beach early, right after breakfast. Not even eight o'clock. It was already a warm day, promising to be hot. I had my well-worn copy of my favorite romance novel in hand, and a bottle of water. The cottage was only a short walk away, in case I got hot. Or overwhelmed and needing the solace of four walls and closed blinds.

  I'd been deeply immersed in the scene in which the heroine realizes the hero has been keeping one significant truth from her and runs away from her true love, only to have him follow her, explaining that he was only protecting her. She forgives him, at which point they clasp together and begin kissing, and that turns into mad, passionate lovemaking. It was my favorite scene, and I'd read it at least half a dozen times, but I never got tired of it.

  I'd looked up, surveying the lapping water of Grand Traverse Bay's east arm, the golden sand, the sun rising just above the horizon. And him. Thigh-deep in the water, appearing from nowhere. Six feet tall, lean and wiry, corded with muscles so defined they might as well have been cut into his body by a razor. His hair was black as a crow's wing, dripping wet, thick. I couldn't help watching as he stretched his body. Couldn't take my eyes off his long, hard biceps as they flexed, his abs as they hardened and shifted. He wasn't huge, wasn't a burly beast. But he was clearly in incredible shape. He was breathing hard, his chest swelling as he sucked in a deep breath and let it out, rolling his shoulders. He'd swum from somewhere far away, clearly, but where? There were a few sailboats anchored off in the distance, but they'd been there for days, no one coming or going that I'd seen. There was a small island a couple of miles out, but surely he hadn't come from that far.

  He'd literally just...appeared. A mouth-watering vision of male beauty. His face...god, his features were perfection, sculpted into a face that I couldn't look away from.

  When our eyes met, I felt a jolt in my soul, an electric shock. I forced my eyes down to my book, but I didn't see the words on the page. They wavered and blurred as I tried to keep from looking up, from meeting his gaze. His eyes, lord, they were a pale blue, so pale they were like sunlit chips of sky-blue ice. They gripped me, even as I kept my attention on my book. Or, pretended to. In reality, I was watching him through my peripheral vision as he strode up out of the water.

  He was a work of art from head to toe.

  Fucking hell. How could I be thinking that way? What the hell was wrong with me?

  I dug my fingernails into my thigh. I desperately wanted to look up, to see if he was watching me. What if he stopped? What if he spoke to me? On the way up here I'd stopped for gas at a Speedway. I'd gone in to buy some Gatorade and snacks, and the clerk had asked me, in a very bored and uninterested tone of voice, how I was doing. The way people do out of habit, as a greeting, rather than actually caring if you respond.

  "I'm pregnant," I'd blurted, my credit card held out
in front of me.

  The clerk stared at me in confusion as he swiped the card. "Oooh...kay. Congratulations." He'd handed me my card back.

  I took my card and left, embarrassed. It had just popped out, an admission to a total stranger. The need to tell someone had been overwhelming. No, I'd wanted to say. Not "congratulations." "W-T-F, you stupid whore?" That was more like it. That was what I deserved.

  What if this model-beautiful angel of a man approached me, and I blurted out the truth to him, too? I'd die. Just...die. So I gripped my thigh and my book, praying he wouldn't stop and try to talk to me, and also wishing, hoping desperately that he would, because shit, he was gorgeous.

  His step faltered as he passed me, and I thought he might stop, but he didn't. He regained his equilibrium and kept walking, out of range of my peripheral vision.

  A few minutes later, I heard--and felt--the stomach-shaking rumble of a throaty engine. Was it his? I wondered what kind of car would make that noise, and almost turned to look. But what if he was watching? He'd see me turning around to look, and then maybe he'd stop, and my wayward tongue would get me in trouble. I pictured a classic car, something low and sleek. Lean and powerful, like him.

  He'd moved with easy, predatory grace. He'd drive a car like that, something that would prowl, rumble.

  I wondered what his voice was like. Would it be deep? Rough? Smooth? I leaned back on my elbows, staring up at the blue sky. Now that he was gone, I could relax. I'd picked a spot not visible from the road, so I rolled to my stomach, untied the strap of my top, and let the sun bake my back. I'd slathered on a thick layer of sunscreen, of course. Maybe too much sun wasn't good. For me. For...the baby.

  I wasn't even sure what I was doing. People talked blithely in books and TV shows and movies about "options." About "keeping it," or "getting rid of it." Those phrases weren't things to toss about so easily. Not for me. Keep it? Be a mother? Single, without a degree, without a family? I wouldn't, couldn't ask Cade for anything. He had Ever to take care of. There was no way to tell how she'd heal, how she'd recover. If she recovered. She might not recover completely, Dr. Overton had said. She could progress to a certain point, and then just...stop. Never recover all of her speech, or movement. There was just no way to tell. And if she did recover completely, it would be a long time before she was able to start any kind of life. It wasn't "resume life," really. It was more starting over. She'd have to relearn how to walk. How to use her hands. Fine motor skills. How to write, how to draw, how to paint. Jesus, her painting. That was her life. How would she cope without that? Especially if she found out about Cade and me.

  I knew that would happen someday. I'd turned off my cell phone. It was still active, still connected in case I needed it, but I had it off. There was no one I wanted to talk to. I'd been gone for just less than a week. Five days. Cade would probably suspect something by now. I'd never missed a day with Ever. Not in the entire eighteen months of her coma. And now I just...disappeared?

  How cruel of me. To him. To Ever, most of all. Just vanishing, no explanation? But I didn't know how else to handle it. Anything else would lead to the truth, and I just couldn't, wouldn't lay that on Cade. Not now. Especially not on Ever. And so I was here.

  I'd spent the first few days cleaning the cottage. Tom--Mr. Callahan, the caretaker--had pulled the sheets off the furniture and turned on the water and such, but that was it. The whole place was coated in a layer of dust. There were decade-old canned goods in some of the cabinets. I emptied everything, dusted, vacuumed, scrubbed sinks and toilets and mirrors and counters. Mopped floors and cleaned windows. Bought a few cheap pieces of art from downtown Traverse, just to make it homey. Replaced the twenty-year-old couch with something newer. Bought new bed sheets, towels, new dishes, cooking utensils, silverware. Stocked the cabinets with healthy food. No junk--except for a few treats, as a reward for eating healthier than usual--no caffeine. That was hard. No soda, no coffee. Good thing I was alone, because I'd be a raging bitch without caffeine in the morning. No alcohol. That was the worst. Nothing to take the edge off. Nothing to help me forget. Just...my own undiluted thoughts, all the time.

  And I ran. There was no gym here, not close at least, so I ran. I started with two miles first thing in the morning. Finished it with pushups and crunches. I couldn't afford to let my weight go, not now. I'd noticed I was hungrier, except midmorning, when the nausea would hit. I usually puked a few times around ten or eleven, and I'd eat some saltines--a tip learned from the Internet. It'd pass, and I'd be fine the rest of the day.

  I also played Apollo. Ceaselessly, I played. There was little else to do, now that I wasn't in school anymore. I worked on my solo. I played through the entirety of Bach's suites within the first three days. And then started again. I hadn't dared bring Apollo to the beach yet, but I would. Someday. It was Mom's beach. Mom's cello. I had to play there, for her. For her memory.

  I hadn't thought of Mom in a long time. Years. I'd put her out of my mind, my way of healing. I'd bleached my hair to look like hers six months after she'd died, and I'd kept it that color ever since, out of habit. I liked not looking identical to Ever. She was already more beautiful than I was, skinnier, glossy black hair, slimmer hips, svelte waist, delicate shoulders. I'd gotten so obsessed with keeping my weight down that I'd grown to need the gym. Need the rush of a killer workout. It wasn't about Mom, not anymore.

  And now, here, at her family's cottage, I found myself thinking of her for the first time in years. Missing her. Needing her. Wondering what she'd say if she knew the mess I'd gotten myself into. Scold me? Yell? Scream? Refuse to talk to me? I didn't have any idea how she would have been as a parent to me in my later years. She'd been fairly even-tempered until she died. I got my temper from her, though, while Ever was more like Dad, inward-focused, quiet, slow to anger. Mom would get irritated with me and Ever. We'd get into trouble, and we'd play the twin-confusion card. She'd get fed up, and she'd yell. We always knew we'd pushed the game far enough when Mom got really mad. We knew we'd crossed the line when she stopped yelling and got scary-quiet. With me as an adult, would she sit me down and lecture? Be a support? She would be disappointed. I knew that much.

  After letting the sun roast me for a while, I retied my top, slid off my shorts, got up, and moved toward the water. I walked in, toes, ankles, knees, then up to my thighs. I stayed thigh-depth for several feet. I hit the rope delineating the swim area, and ducked under. Now it was up to my waist, and then my boobs went buoyant. Finally, I had to duck under, swimming submerged in the cold depths. Down, down, following the bottom until the pressure hurt my ears and the cold was too sharp, aching my bones. I let myself float upward, break the surface. I saw in the distance a platform, bobbing gently in the little waves. The dock. It was still there. As a little girl I remembered it being so far out. Swimming out there had seemed so grown-up, so daring and adventurous. Now I realized it was maybe twenty feet from the roped-off section. The water was well over my head, though, and I felt an absurd moment of panic as I did a sloppy crawl stroke toward it. I'd been swimming in pools, of course, but I hadn't been in a lake in...years. Not since the last time here with Mom, well over ten years ago. How long? I thought, distracting myself. She'd died when I was thirteen, almost fourteen. It had been...two years before her death that we'd come up here. I was twenty-two now. So yeah, just about ten years.

  By the time I'd figured that out, I was at the dock, rounding it to find the ladder. I held on to the metal bar, feet kicking in the dark water. Swimming in the open like this wasn't the same as in a pool. If you faltered in a pool, you could kick over to the edge and climb out. In a lake, there was no edge. If you swam out too far, there was no escape, no easy edge to save you. It wasn't actual fear of that happening I felt; rather, it was more the potential, the knowledge of the possibility. I kicked and pulled myself up onto the dock, lay on my back, staring up at the sky. The morning air chilled my wet body, but the sun warmed me.

  I had a memory of being here, on t
his dock, with Mom. Ever had been on the beach, tanning. She didn't like swimming as much as I did. So Mom swam out with me, held the ladder and waited till I climbed up. Followed me, sat beside me on the rocking platform. The beach had seemed so far away, miles distant. I was out of breath from the swim, elated, excited, a little scared. I was going to jump off. I'd been out here with Mom the day before, but I'd chickened out of jumping off. That day, Mom and I had lain side by side on the gently bobbing dock, watching the clouds shift overhead. We'd lain until we were hot, and then Mom had climbed to her feet, slicked her hair back, and tugged on the elastic leg band of her swimsuit. I remember thinking, She's so beautiful, wishing and hoping I'd grow up to be as beautiful as she was, with her long blonde hair and green eyes and high cheekbones and easy, lovely smile. She'd glanced at me, smiling, winked, and then dove in, slicing perfectly. I'd stood, scared stiff, and watched the deep blue water shift and curl, imagined things lurking in the depths, imagined diving too deep and not being able to make the surface in time. Mom had just treaded water and waited. I shuffled to the edge of the platform, peering over the edge.

  "Stop thinking and jump, Edie!" Mom had laughed. "You're freaking yourself out. I'm right here, honey."

  I was eleven. Way, way too old to be scared of jumping off some stupid dock. I'd closed my eyes and jumped. Feet first, arms flailing. I was immediately swallowed by darkness and achingly cold water. I'd fought the panic and kicked to the surface, felt the air on my face and sucked in a deep breath, spluttering, laughing. Mom had laughed with me, given me a high-five, and then we climbed back up and jumped off together, sending the dock rocking. Again and again we jumped off, laughing and making a game of who could jump farther. Finally, drawn by our laughter, Ever had swum out to join us. She'd acted brave as she climbed up and peered off the edge, the way I'd done, but I'd seen the fear. I remember admiring her so much for how she just jumped off, no hesitation, despite her fear. That day, watching Ever do with seeming ease what I'd been scared of, I determined to never let fear get the best of me. I'd always been the first after that. The first to try something, no matter how scared I was. It may have turned into a slight case of impulsivity, risk simply for the sake of not letting fear get the better of me.