All for This (12 page)

“Have you thought any more about how the accident may have happened?” Nix asks.

Liz tenses. “What do you mean by that?”

Nix just studies me, so finally I say, “Nix thinks my injuries were too severe to be from just a fall. She suspects that some of them were…inflicted intentionally.”

“What? By whom?” Liz asks. “How?”

I nod at Nix, silently giving her permission to talk about it, and she takes a breath. “I think maybe there was foul play—a fight with punches thrown, that kind of thing. I’m not excluding the possibility that Hanna took an accidental fall down the stairs, but given the state of her injuries, I suspected there might be more to it than that. Not knowing Max very well, I immediately asked about him.”

“We can rule out that possibility,” I say softly. “Max would lay down his life for me.”

“What about Meredith?” Maggie says. “You were stealing her man.”

Cally snorts. “I’m no defender of Meredith, but a fistfight? That doesn’t seem her style.”

“True,” Liz says. “She might break a nail.”

“I’m not convinced there was anything more than a fall,” I say. “I wasn’t eating and I could have passed out and fallen.”

“Even if that’s true, that doesn’t answer the question about how you came to choose Max,” Liz says. “I think it’s reasonable to want to know, even if you aren’t marrying him.”

Maggie’s frowning into her wine. “Am I the only one who thinks it seems unlikely that Hanna would give her virginity to Nate and, less than a week later, decide to marry someone else?”

“Maybe,” I say softly. Nix, who was about to chime in, shuts her mouth. “Maybe I wanted to make love to Nate for the same reasons any woman wants to have sex with a man she loves. I know that might be hard to understand, but I do love them both.” I look at my friends’ and sisters’ faces. “Letting go of either one of them seemed impossible the day Nate told me I needed to make a choice.”
It still seems impossible
, but I don’t say that aloud.

Liz refills her wine. “Maybe it came down to which guy could give you the future that you want.”

“Probably.” I thought of that too.

I don’t want to leave New Hope for LA or anywhere. How would a real relationship with Nate even work? Would he want me to move to LA or would our life be a series of two- or three-day visits here and there? Him coming to New Hope when he didn’t have performances or need to put time in at the studio, me flying out to see him perform when I could get away from the bakery?

“Max looks better on paper,” Cally says. “Except for Meredith, of course.”

“Maybe Hanna found out about the bakery,” Liz suggests. “I mean, the guy sacrificed his house just so she could have her dream.”

“I did,” I admit, thinking of my most recent memory. “I was at Max’s apartment and I saw a letter from the law firm that handles the arrangement with the bakery. But would that be enough to make me choose to marry him?”

Maggie cocks her head. “So you believe you chose Max over Nate before the accident, and you want to know what finally brought you to your final decision.”

I nod. “Wouldn’t you?”

Liz opens a drawer and removes a pad of paper and a pen. “Okay, let’s figure out what we do know.” She writes
HANNA’S MISSING DAYS
at the top and draws a line under it. Down the side, she writes the days of the week through Thursday, and next to Thursday, she writes
Accident on stairs.

“Can we assume that’s when I put on the ring too?” I ask. “Did anyone see it on me before that?”

Liz shakes her head. “That was the day. I would have noticed if you’d had it on sooner.” She adds
Puts on ring
to Thursday.

“When did you sleep with Nate?” Maggie asks.

“Saturday,” I say, pointing. “And that’s when he told me I had to make a choice. Then, later, we…” I swallow. “We got caught up in the moment and had unprotected sex in the shower.”

“And hello, twins,” Nix says.

“Hello, horribly timed baby conversation,” I reply. The girls all stare at me expectantly, so I explain, “It’s a new memory. And not a good one.”

“How can shower sex with Nate Crane be a
bad
memory?” Nix asks.

My cheeks burn. “Well,
that
part isn’t bad.”

“I hate you a little right now,” Nix says.

“It was the after,” I say, “when we realized what we’d done and I…” I swallow hard. “I pushed him about what would happen if I got pregnant, and we had this terrible fight because he didn’t want to talk about it and I insisted. I needed to know.”

“Of course you did,” Liz says. “And you were right to ask.”

“I guess,” I say. “But think about it from Nate’s point of view. He’s been commitment-averse since his son was born. He didn’t want a long-term relationship, marriage, kids, none of that. Collin comes first. Then, just hours after he said that he’d change his rules
for me
, that he’d find a way to make it work for me, there I am, talking about babies and the future.”

“Not for nothing,” Maggie says, eyes dropping meaningfully to my stomach. “Turns out it was a conversation you needed to have.”

Liz writes
Baby fight
on the chart. “What else?”

I shrug. “I remember going to Max’s and finding out about the bakery and then waking up in the hospital.”

Cally leans forward. “What if we could help? I mean, we all see you almost every day, right? What do
we
remember about those days before the accident?”

Liz huffs. “She was hardly talking to me. I’m sure I don’t know anything of any use.”

Maggie chews on her bottom lip, thoughtful. “What was going on that week? I need a frame of reference for my memory.”

Cally taps on her phone and studies the screen.

Liz looks over her shoulder. “That would have been the week of Abby’s birthday,” she says, referring to our youngest sister. She straightens a little. “We had a party at Mom’s.”

Maggie nods and her face brightens. “You were there, Hanna. And something happened, because you were upset.”

“I remember that,” Liz says. “She took Abby aside after we sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ and when you two returned to the party, you both looked happier. Like you’d settled something.”

Next to Monday, Liz writes
Abby’s party
.

“What else do we remember?” Maggie says.

The girls look to each other, and after several beats of silence, I sigh. “It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

Cally yawns. “I’m so flipping tired. You guys mind if we call it a night?”

Liz raises a brow. “It’s seven thirty.”

Cally shrugs. “I’m pregnant.”

“So,” Maggie says, crossing her arms, “am I the only one who wants to know how
that
happened?”

“Yeah,” Liz says. “I thought Will couldn’t have kids. Weren’t you guys looking into adopting?”

Nix frowns. “Does someone want to fill me in?”

Cally’s cheeks turn pink. “William had a football injury in high school that made it highly unlikely he’d ever be able to father children.”

Nix inclines her chin. “Yes, but medically speaking,
highly unlikely
is not the same as
impossible
.”

Liz smirks. “Especially if you’re fucking like monkeys.”

Cally puts her hand on her stomach and smiles. “As it turns out.”

When the girls leave, I stare at the notes Liz left behind. My eyes skim over
Abby’s party
and land on all the blank spots. Something filled my time and my head during those days, and something led me to put on Max’s ring when I knew that would mean saying goodbye to Nate.
Something.
But what?

I’m climbing into bed when my phone vibrates on my bedside table.

Nate:
Meet me at the park for lunch tomorrow. I promise I won’t kiss you unless you ask me to.

T
HE LEAVES
crunch under my feet as I pace in front of the swings, waiting for Hanna to meet me.

I texted her the invitation last night, but she didn’t reply until this morning, and when she did, all it said was
1:30.

My watch says it’s twenty-five after, and my empty stomach is yelling at me about the breakfast I was too nervous to eat. Whether Hanna can understand it or not, today is a big day for me.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

I spin around at the sound of her voice, and for a moment, I can only stare at her. She’s in jeans and a pink T-shirt that says
Coffee, Cakes, & Confections
, and she looks so damn beautiful with the autumn sun shining on her skin that I want to break my second promise this week. I want to kiss her.

My gaze drops to her left hand and her bare ring finger.

“Who told you?” she asks.

“Asher.”

He found me out back late last night, after I’d put Collin to bed. He told me that they broke up and warned me to be careful. When I promised I wouldn’t hurt her, Asher grunted and said, “Maybe it’s not her I’m worried about.”

Hanna sighs. “This doesn’t change things between us. The babies are my priority right now. I don’t need any additional confusion in my life.”

And that’s pretty much what Maggie told me this morning. I don’t know much about fighting for women—it’s never been something I’ve wanted to do. But with Hanna, I know that fighting for her is going to mean equal parts patience and persistence. I’ll give her the space she needs.

“I know,” I say. “That’s not why I asked you here.”

“It isn’t?”

“Collin,” I call to my son. “Come meet my friend.”

Collin hops off his swing and runs over to us, his dark mop of hair falling in his face.

“Hi.” Hanna looks stunned. “You look so much like your daddy.”

“Hi!” Collin replies. “I’m Collin, and you’re very pretty.”

“I’m Hanna,” she says, dropping to her knees. “You’re charming like him too.”

Collin grins. He loves it when people tell him he’s like me in any way, so Hanna’s just outdone herself without knowing it.

“When I get big, I’m going to get a Hulk tattoo just like his, but he said I have to wait because it hurts a lot.”

Hanna nods. “That’s a good plan. Do you like the Hulk like your dad?”

“Of course,” he says. “Don’t you?”

Hanna smiles and stands. “I guess I don’t really know enough about the Hulk to feel one way or another about him.”

“We’ll teach you.” Collin looks up at me. “Won’t we, Daddy?”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nod. “If she wants us to.”

“She wants us to,” Collin says. “Don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Hanna’s the friend I was telling you about, Collin. She’s very special to me. Do you know why?”

Collin studies Hanna for a minute then looks up at me. “Because she knows Spider-Man?”

Hanna bites back a grin. “I’m sorry. I don’t know Spider-Man or any of the superheroes, actually.”

“Hmm,” Collin says thoughtfully. “Then it must just be because you’re so pretty.”

I have to bite back a grin of my own. She’s going to think I told him what to say. The truth is, my kid just has really good taste.

“Hanna’s pregnant,” I finally say. This is going to affect Collin’s life, and I have no intention of keeping it from him. “She and Daddy made babies, and those babies will be your little siblings.”