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Coming soon . . . An Excerpt from The Forever Girl
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next heartwarming novel from
JILL SHALVIS
The Forever Girl
Available January 2021
Prologue
Three years ago . . .
MAZE PARKER WAS good at playing a role, so good she’d have sworn she couldn’t access a real emotion even if she wanted to. So she was shocked to find herself stopping twenty-five yards short of her goal, unable to so much as swallow past the lump stuck in her throat.
For ten years now, since she’d been fifteen, she’d made this annual pilgrimage, but her legs refused to go another step. As far as her eyes could see, green grass spread out in front of her like a blanket over gently rolling hills, dotted with aged sweeping oaks.
And a myriad of gravestones.
Above her, the sky above churned moodily. Thunder crackled, and a part of her heart smiled because Michael had always loved a good storm.
Buoyed by the idea of her onetime foster sibling sitting on a cloud creating weather to amuse her, she managed to coax herself closer and let the strap of her beach chair slip off her shoulder. She tried to open it, but it was more stubborn than . . . well, her. “Not today, Satan,” she muttered. She’d paid too much for this damn chair at the touristy general store in Wildstone for it not to work, and finally, after a two-minute battle of wills, swearing the air blue the whole time, she got the thing open. Feeling righteous, she plopped down—only to have the chair jerk beneath her weight, making her gasp dramatically and throw her hands out, braced to fall to her ass.
She didn’t.
Letting out a long breath, she pulled a can of soda from her purse, cracked it open, and toasted to the grave. “Happy birthday. Hope that was entertaining.”
“Oh, hugely,” said an amused female voice behind her. “And you beat us here.”
“Of course she did,” a second female voice said. “Maze’s far too perfect to be late. There’s a reason I always wanted to be her when I grew up.”
Maze snorted. Perfect. Right. Just one of many roles she’d played. She looked up as Caitlin and Heather moved into her view, two of the only people on earth who could both make her laugh and drive her insane—almost as if they were a real family.
Which they weren’t. Caitlin and Michael had been the only actual blood siblings. Maze and Heather, and a whole bunch of others, had been just the foster kids.
Caitlin and Heather began taking things from a big bag: HAPPY BIRTHDAY streamer, balloons, and a small cake—all superhero themed, of course.
Tradition for Michael’s birthday.
Maze stood, pulled a Deadpool action figure from her pocket, and set it on Michael’s headstone.
Heather smiled at her and produced a Thor.
Cat had—no big surprise—Catwoman. She and Heather got their beach chairs open without incident, setting them up in an informal semicircle facing Michael’s grave. Maze noted Caitlin had left space between them for a fourth chair.
The last member of their ragtag group hadn’t yet arrived. Hell, maybe he’d be a no-show this year. The thought made her chest go tight. She’d thought about not showing up either, but guilt was a huge burden, and no one felt the weight of it more than she—seeing as she was the one responsible for Michael’s death.
“Stop,” Caitlin said, cutting the cake in her lap into three pieces. “I can hear your self-destructive thoughts from here.”
A lot Caitlin knew about self-destructive thoughts; she’d never had a moment of doubt in her life. Caitlin was the perfect one, the real deal perfect. Two years older than Maze, Cat had her shit together. She’d been born with her shit together. Her hair was a long, shiny, blond silk that never frizzed, her smile could draw in even the most hardened soul, and she had the sort of willowy body that looked good in every damn thing—even though her idea of exercise was lifting her Starbucks coffee cup to her lips. Maze could hate her for that alone, except . . . Cat was one of the most intensely loyal and fiercely protective, caring people that had ever come into her life.
“You can’t just tell someone to stop angsting,” Heather said, taking a piece of cake. Heather was petite, barely coming up to Maze’s chin. But what she lacked in height, she made up for in grit. Today her black hair had bright magenta highlights that gave her an implied attitude to mask the fact that she was the sweetheart kitten of the group, one who never used her claws.
She didn’t have to. Maze used hers enough for everyone. People said it was her red hair. It wasn’t red, it was auburn, thank you very much, but still, there was no getting around the fact that her hair—a bunch of uncontrollable waves and the bane of her existence—did tend to match her bad ’tude. She hadn’t needed the shrinks that CPS had sent her to to tell her that because she’d never really had a sense of belonging. That’s what happened when you were raised to be a wild tumbleweed in the wind, tossed in directions against your will. Whatever. She was long over it, and took another long pull of her soda to hide all the feels annoyingly bombarding her.
Caitlin handed her a piece of cake. She’d just taken her first bite when she felt it, awareness tingling at the back of her neck. Her body knew what that meant even if her brain pretended not to, and the frosting went down the wrong pipe. While she went about choking up a lung, Heather pounded her on the back until she could suck in air again.
Walker Scott hadn’t made a sound in his approach. No footsteps, no rustling, nothing. The man was silent as the night.
Walker the boy hadn’t been silent. He’d been feral, and there’d been nothing calm or quiet about him.
But things changed, and so had he. She watched as he set out his chair. It didn’t dare misbehave, opening for him with a flick of a forearm. He then set a Batman action figure next to the others on the gravestone, and with a hand braced on the stone, stood still for a moment, staring down at Michael’s name.
When he finally turned to them, both Caitlin and Heather lifted their arms in greeting, and he obligingly bent to hug them one at a time, murmuring something too low for Maze to hear. Whatever it was seemed to comfort them both, and it did something deep inside Maze to see their honest emotion, something she herself had a hard time revealing on the best of days—of which this wasn’t. Didn’t stop her from soaking up the sight of Walker. He wore dark jeans, work boots, an untucked blue button-down stretched taught over broad shoulders, and . . . a sling holding his left arm tight to his body. Dark aviator sunglasses covered his eyes, but she didn’t need to see them. That sky-blue gaze of his was burned onto her soul.
There’d been a time when he’d smiled at her with warmth, affection, and hunger. There’d been even more times when he’d made her laugh, made her feel—back in the days when she still could. All of it was long gone now as around them the air went thick with memories, some of the best and worst memories of her life.
Maze did not lift her arms in invitation.
And he did not reach for her.
“Maze,” he said simply and gave her a single curt nod. She got it, but even after all that had happened between them, a little tiny part of her yearned to see that old spark of pure trouble in his eyes, accompanied by that bad boy smile, the one that promised a thrill and had never failed to deliver.
Caitlin pulled something from her bag.
A bran muffin.
Walker didn’t do cake, or any junk food for that matter, never had. He ate to fuel his body, which of course showed since he looked like a lean, hard-muscled fighting machine. Food wasn’t a pleasure button for him like it was for her. Nope, Walker had other pleasure buttons, something she sometimes relived in the deep dark of the night.
Taking the muffin, he let out an almost inaudible sound of amusement before turning to stare at the gravestone while slowly, and clearly painfully, lowering himself to the chair.
“What happened to you?” Maze asked him softly.
He shrugged with his good shoulder and took a bite of the muffin.
She turned to look at Heather and Caitlin.
Caitlin looked pained, but said nothing.
Heather was biting her lower lip like she was trying to hold back, but finally burst out with “He got shot.” Then she slapped her hand over her mouth.
Maze sucked in air. “Shot?”
“On the job,” Heather said from between her fingers. “He’s on leave.”
Walker sent Heather a long look, and she tossed up her hands. “Whatever, Walk. You all know I don’t keep secrets anymore, not for anyone.” She began to chew on her fingernails, painted black and already bitten down to the nubs. She switched to waving a hand in front of her face. “And now I’m sweating.”
Maze, Heather, and Walker had all come from vastly different but equally troubled backgrounds by the time they’d landed in the same foster home—run by Caitlin and Michael’s parents—that long-ago summer. After The Event, the one that had unintentionally scattered them all far and wide, Maze and Heather had been fostered into new, fairly decent families within a few months of each other. Walker had ended up in a group home, ageing out of the system less than a year later. From there, he’d gone into the military and then the FBI. The rigorous discipline had molded him, given him a sense of purpose and a way to channel his demons. It’d toughened and hardened the already toughened, hardened kid.
But Maze knew him better than most, or at least she had. Very few understood that beneath the edgy shell he wore like armor beat a heart that would lay itself down for the people it beat for. Once upon a time, she’d been one of those people.
“The leave is temporary,” Walker said. “I’m going back next week.”
Heather’s eyes filled. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t.”
Maze’s gut clenched. As kids, they’d all had hopes and visions of what they wanted to be when they grew up. Walker had wanted to run a bar or restaurant. He’d wanted to be surrounded by friends and be able to take care of them by feeding them. Simple dream, really, but it spoke of his deep-seated need to have those few trusted people in his life close to him. That was all that mattered.
He’d ended up going in a very different direction. Maze wasn’t sure why exactly, but her working theory had always been that he figured giving a shit had never gotten him anywhere, so why try.
“You almost died?” she asked softly.
He looked pained as he swallowed the last of his muffin. “I’m fine.”
“But—”
“Drop it, Maze,” he said in a warning tone that she imagined probably had all the bad guys’ gonads retreating north.
Good thing she didn’t have gonads. She opened her mouth to tell him that very thing, but Heather pointed to the carefully tended gravesite and said quietly, “I love the wildflowers you planted last year, they’re all blooming now.” Ever their peacemaker. At nineteen, Heather was the youngest, and therefore remembered the least about that long-ago night. She’d never been able to process bad stuff, and the rest of them always shielded her the best they could.
Caitlin smiled her thanks at Heather, but it wasn’t her usual two hundred watt. If Heather was the group’s soul, Caitlin was their heart. “I was out here last week to pull the weeds.” She paused. “Without using Daddy’s tractor.”
Everyone looked at Maze, who sighed. “One time. Jeez. You borrow”—still holding her fork in one hand and the paper plate in the other, she managed to use air quotes for the word borrow—“a guy’s tractor one time, and no one lets you forget it.”
“That’s because thanks to you, it’s now illegal to drive a tractor without a permit in the state of California,” Walker said.
Eyes narrowed, Maze searched his gaze, because she’d have sworn she’d heard amusement in his tone, but his expression was completely blank. “That’s a total exaggeration. I didn’t even get arrested.” Not that the implication that she’d been wild and impulsive was wrong. Still wasn’t. She’d merely learned how to fake being mature.
Caitlin smiled and reached out for Heather’s and Maze’s hands, waiting for Heather to take Walker’s so they were all connected. “I love you guys.”
“I love you too,” Heather said.
“Love you,” Walker said quietly in his low baritone without a single beat of hesitation.
There came a beat of silence, and when it wasn’t filled, once again everyone looked at Maze.
“Me too,” she said.
Heather shook her head.
Caitlin rolled her eyes.
Walker didn’t react at all.
“What,” Maze said defensively.
“You never say the actual words,” Caitlin said.
“Of course I do.”
“Never,” Heather said.
Okay, so they were right. But as far as she was concerned, those three little words held way too much power.
Caitlin had been eyeing her watch and craning her neck to look behind them at the parking lot a good hundred yards back.
“What are you looking for?” Maze asked.
“Mom and Dad should’ve been here by now.”
Maze’s stomach dropped. “You invited them?”
Heather raised her hand. “Actually, that was me. I was checking in with them the other day and I mentioned our annual thing.”
“You mean our secret annual thing?” Maze asked.
“Again,” Heather said slowly and clearly. “I don’t keep secrets anymore. And you know why.”
The cake soured in Maze’s belly. Yeah, she certainly did know why Heather no longer kept secrets. She turned to Caitlin. “Why didn’t you tell me Jim and Shelly were coming?”
At the use of her parents’ first names, annoyance flickered over Caitlin’s face. She probably thought Maze was trying to get back at them for the last time they’d spoken, which hadn’t gone well to say the least. But that wasn’t it. Well, at least not all of it. It was more that Maze felt like she didn’t deserve to call them Mom and Dad.
“Today would’ve been Michael’s nineteenth birthday,” Caitlin said quietly, and Maze’s heart clutched. Michael had loved birthdays. And he’d only gotten nine of them.
“I didn’t tell you they were coming,” Cat went on, “because I knew you then wouldn’t.”
“It should’ve been my choice to make, not yours.” And great, now Maze’s voice was trembling. “You don’t get to make choices for me anymore.” It was a low blow and she knew it. But she wasn’t sweet like Heather, and she sure as hell couldn’t be rational like Caitlin.
“Michael was their son, their baby,” Caitlin said.
See? Rational. “Believe me,” Maze said tightly. “I get that.”
Disappointment joined annoyance on Caitlin’s face. “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m just saying that they have every right to be here at their son’s grave.”
While Maze did not. Right. She started to stand up, but Caitlin tugged on her arm. “Don’t go. They’ll want you to be here. And Michael would want that too.”
“Did you ask them?” Maze met her gaze. “Or is this a complete surprise for them as well?”
Caitlin winced, giving herself away. Dammit. Maze shook her head. “See, this is why it’s easier to not be part of a family.”
“A family?” Caitlin asked. “Or this family?”
Contrary to popular belief, Maze did have a few social skills and could read a room. She knew she was treading in dangerous territory here, and was about to seriously piss off the only people who’d ever remained at her back. But a funny thing happened to her when she felt cornered. It made her . . . feel, which also made her even more stubborn than usual, and that was saying something.
Heather was already crying. But to be fair, Heather cried at the drop of a hat.
Maze closed her eyes. “Heather . . . don’t.”
But then Caitlin sniffed too, and when a tear ran down her perfect cheek, it shook Maze because Caitlin almost never cried. “Stop that. You’re all just proving my point.”
Caitlin swiped angrily at her face. “Let me guess. You suck at meaningful relationships, so why bother, right?”
“Something like that.” But the real truth was, Maze didn’t just suck at them, she destroyed them. That was what she did, self-destructed her happiness. And she was good at it.
“Bullshit,” Caitlin snapped. “You just don’t like needing anyone.”
Maze drew a deep breath. “Look, I didn’t come here to ruin this for you guys. But we all know that we’re here because of me. I’m the one. This is all my fault.”
Caitlin stood, vibrating with fury. “No. You don’t get to own this, Maze.” She began shoving everything back into her bag, her movements jerky with anger. “We all made decisions we regret that night.”
Maze was vibrating too, with sorrow and angst. “I’m not a kid anymore, Cat. You don’t have to protect me, and I don’t need your misplaced sympathy. You should hate me.”
Heather was still crying and Caitlin put her hand on her shoulder as she stared at Maze. “Is that what you want? Us to hate you?”
Okay, so she’d backed herself into a corner, and as always she was going to start swinging, taking out only herself. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I want.”
Everyone stared at her in shock. Except Walker. He was still showing nothing.
“I refuse to believe that,” Caitlin finally said. “You’re part of this family, whether you like it or not. You can’t just run away. Love doesn’t work like that and I thought you knew it.” She nodded to Heather. “Come on, honey, let’s go wait for Mom and Dad in the parking lot.”
Maze didn’t watch them go. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something else. The ocean. Puppies. Thai takeout. But it didn’t work. She strained to hear their retreat, but they must’ve been already gone because all that came to her was the rumble of not-too-distant thunder.
Good to know she could still clear an area without even trying. Feeling sick that she’d just destroyed everything—once again—she opened her eyes and stared up at the churning, turbulent sky, which was in exact accord with her mood. Telling herself to get over it, she swiped her own tears on the hem of her shirt before reaching for her chair to try to close it. When it fought back and pinched her finger, she gave it a good kick.
A low male snort came from behind her and she froze. Why was it that Walker of all people always got to witness her most humiliating moments? Was it karma? Had she once forgotten to say thank you, or maybe very slightly cheated on her taxes? Lied about not wanting to be a part of the only family she’d ever wanted as her own?
Walker gave her a slow clap.
“Well done, Mayhem Maze.”
Rolling her eyes at the old nickname, she glared down at her chair, now upside-down on the grass but still fully opened.
When Walker reached for it, she stopped him. “No, I’ve got it,” she said, practically choking on her stubborn pride. The theme of her life, of course: being stupidly, doggedly stubborn, because being perceived as helpless or needy made her nuts.
Walker pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and eyed her. “You going to kick it again?”
“Probably.”
There was a small smile on his mouth, but not in his eyes, those sharp blue orbs that saw everything and revealed nothing. “You never change.”
Aware that this wasn’t exactly a compliment, she looked away, because facing Caitlin’s parents was nothing compared to facing Walker. Forget the chair. She needed to be anywhere but here. Even a root canal without meds would be preferable.
“Walking off for the win,” he said to her back. “Shocking.”
She whirled around. “You’re the one who’s always gone.”
“For work. Not because I’m running scared.”
A direct hit. She barely managed to get the words out. “Your work doesn’t deserve your dedication. It nearly killed you.”
“What do you care? These days all I see you is once a year, here, and you ignore me.”
“Well, I’m trying,” she said, tossing up her hands. “For all the good it’s done since you’re still right here.”
He just looked at her for a long moment, then folded her chair with annoying ease—one handed—and set the strap on her shoulder. “Always good know I still irritate the shit out of you, Maze.”
He was favoring his shoulder, and her heart hurt. “It’s time for a new job,” she said quietly. “You know that, right? At some point, you’re going to run out of your nine lives.”
He just shook his head, either at the truth of her statement or because he just didn’t want to hear her opinion. Both were entirely possible. “There are lots of other jobs,” she said. “You don’t have to put your life on the line for a paycheck.”
His smile was grim as another rumble of thunder sounded. Ignoring the rain as it started, he shook his head. “It’s what I know. I can’t jump around like you do. What is it this week, business school?”
The rain cooled her skin, but not her anger. Yes, she’d jumped around, doing a huge variety of jobs before landing on bartending while working her way through business school, but she felt she finally had it right. Not that that was any of his beeswax. “Still a total asshole, I see.”
“Maybe I just care.”
And maybe once upon a time, she’d believed that to be true. “Screw you, Walker.”
“You already did that. Didn’t work out so well for me.”
Since that was the shameful truth, she should’ve been wise and kept her mouth shut. But when had she ever been wise? “Just . . . stay the hell away from me.” Then, as she had the morning after they’d gotten hitched by an Elvis impersonator on one shockingly memorable drunken night in Vegas a few years ago, she turned and walked away. 