This time I laughed as another tear slipped free. I nodded and walked over to the tree where I had gotten my first kiss. That night I had been so lonely until West had shown up. He’d brightened my world, and he didn’t even realize it. He thought he needed to do it over.

  I disagreed. But I went along with it.

  West gave me a thumbs-up when I was standing exactly where he’d seen me that first night. As he walked over just like he’d done then, I wanted to giggle. It seemed silly, but it was sweet. I’d give him that.

  “Why are you out here all alone? The party’s in there.” He nodded toward the clearing in the woods.

  I bit back my grin. “Am I supposed to talk or be silent? I wasn’t talking back then,” I said quietly, trying to keep a straight face.

  West cocked an eyebrow at me and lowered his head until his lips were very close to mine. “You’re not very good at do-overs, are you?” he asked me.

  I giggled. “You didn’t make that part clear!”

  He kissed the corner of my mouth. “Let’s just get to the good part. I excel at this scene,” he whispered, then covered my mouth with his.

  That first night I’d been so unsure. So much had changed since then. I knew exactly what to do now. I slid my hands up his arms, loving the way they flexed under my touch, before holding on to his shoulders.

  Our tongues danced and teased while West’s hands moved just under the bottom of my shirt and brushed against my skin. That definitely hadn’t happened that night. But tonight I wanted it to. I lifted my hands higher and locked them around his neck, making my shirt rise and tempting West to touch more.

  He did.

  Both his hands moved up and cupped my breasts as a small cry that I couldn’t help escaped me. I loved his hands on me and the way they made me feel.

  Too suddenly he pulled back. “If I’d done this that night I would have expected you to knee me in the balls,” he said, breathing hard.

  “I probably would have fainted.”

  He kept his hands on me and brushed his thumb over my nipples through the satin of my bra. I shivered and squirmed, trying to get more.

  “We aren’t ready for this part of our night. I have a plan,” he said, his eyes full of the same arousal I was feeling.

  “I thought this was your plan,” I said, closing my eyes as he moved his fingertips just inside the satin of my bra. “No, but it is a helluva lot better.”

  Take All the Time You Need

  CHAPTER 48

  WEST

  Two weeks later. . .

  I held Maggie’s hand as we stood at her mother’s grave. Last night after the game we hadn’t gone to the field to celebrate. Instead we’d packed our bags. Maggie hadn’t been to her mother’s grave since the funeral she barely remembered. When she’d shared that with me, I had wanted to get her there.

  I visited my dad’s grave every Saturday morning to tell him about the game the night before. It helped me cope. It made me feel like he was close even if he wasn’t there. I wanted that for Maggie.

  Her small hand slipped out of mine as she turned to look up at me. Brady was waiting in the truck for us. His being there was the only way her aunt and uncle would approve of an overnight trip.

  “I want to talk to her alone,” Maggie said softly.

  I bent down and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Take all the time you need.” Then I turned and left her there to face her past and her pain. I wanted to hold her hand while she did it, but I wasn’t going to force her. I just wanted to be there when she needed me.

  Brady glanced over at me and frowned when I opened the passenger door. “You leave her there all alone?”

  “She asked to be alone.”

  He sighed and picked up his phone and then handed it to me. “Just got this text from my dad. He didn’t call because he was afraid Maggie would hear him. They want to tell her.”

  I read the text several times as my stomach twisted and my heart felt heavy.

  Her father had hanged himself in his cell this morning. There were no details on how he’d managed to do that. Maggie acted as if he was already dead, but how would this affect her? I turned to look at her as she stood by her mother’s grave.

  She had faced so much that I hated adding more to it. I wished I could keep this from her, but I knew she deserved to know. Seeing her hurt was hard.

  “I called Dad. He said her dad left her a letter. Dad is going to get it and read it first. We don’t know if she should see it. She just started talking and living life again.”

  “Don’t tell her without me there,” I told him.

  “We won’t,” he replied.

  One day we would look back at this time, and the pain wouldn’t be so fresh. I wanted that day to get here.

  I Cried for Me

  CHAPTER 49

  MAGGIE

  I’d fallen asleep at some point on the drive home. My head was tucked against West, and his arm was around me. I could feel his fingers gently playing in my hair. He made me feel warm and safe. I’d needed that after visiting my mother.

  I hadn’t been prepared. Knowing her body was underground was one thing. Seeing the actual grave was another. West’s hand in mine had given me the strength I needed to face it. Once I had been sure I wasn’t about to fall to the ground in a sobbing mess, I’d let him go so I could talk to her.

  I’d told her all about life with Uncle Boone, Aunt Coralee, and Brady. I’d started from the day I’d arrived, and I’d tried to tell her all the important things. Especially about West and his dad. When I’d finished, I’d realized West was right. Talking to her had made it feel as if she were close to me somehow.

  “Dad’s texting me. He wants to tell her tonight,” Brady’s voice said in a whisper.

  Her, as in me? What were they talking about?

  West tensed underneath me, and I stayed still, my eyes closed. “She needs a little time after seeing her mom today,” he said so softly, I wondered if Brady could hear him.

  Brady sighed. “I agree. I’ll talk to Dad. Your mom’s home again? Right? Didn’t she come home last week?”

  West’s mom was home, but she was acting strange. I knew he was worried about her. She had left so abruptly after his father’s death and had gone to stay with her own mother, leaving West to deal with things alone. It didn’t seem like her at all. Now that she was back, she was acting odd. Forgetting things, burning food, sleeping half the day.

  “Yeah, she’s home,” he replied. The worry in his voice was obvious. I wanted to hold him and promise him it would all be okay. But I couldn’t do that because I didn’t know for sure that it would be.

  I waited to see if they said anything more about what my uncle wanted to tell me. When they didn’t after several minutes, I stretched and slowly sat up.

  “About time you woke up. You’ve slept most of the drive,” Brady said in a teasing tone.

  West chuckled and pulled me to him as he kissed the top of my head. “Leave my girl alone. She’s had a long day.”

  West knew what my uncle Boone was going to tell me. If I asked him, he’d tell me. He wouldn’t keep it from me. I tilted my head up to look at him. He tilted his head down to meet my gaze.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Anything,” he replied. He didn’t have to say more, because I knew what he meant. He’d do anything I needed. Anything I asked of him.

  “Can we stop it with the sweet shit, please? Y’all aren’t alone,” Brady said.

  West smirked. I loved that smirk.

  I waited until West went home to check on his mother before going downstairs to confront my uncle Boone. Brady and West knew something I needed to know, but they both wanted to protect me. As much as I appreciated that, I wanted to know what it was.

  Uncle Boone was sitting in his recliner, a book in his hands. He looked up at me over his reading glasses. I saw a brief flicker of concern before he masked it and smiled at me.

  “Did you have a good trip?” he asked.

  “I needed that. To see her,” I told him. “But I also need to know what it is that Brady and West don’t want me to know yet.”

  Uncle Boone frowned and then put his book down before taking off his glasses. “You’ve been through a lot today, Maggie.”

  I had. He was right. But that didn’t change the fact I had a right to know this secret that affected me. “I want to know.”

  He motioned for me to sit down across from him on the sofa. I considered telling him I would just stand, but I walked over to the sofa and took a seat. He clearly didn’t want to tell me whatever it was, and I knew it had to be something to do with my father.

  I gripped my hands tightly in my lap and waited.

  Uncle Boone studied me a moment before speaking. “It’s your father . . . ,” he began. The dread and fear that came with those few words sank in. “He’s dead, Maggie. They found him this morning.”

  He’s dead.

  Two words that should mean sadness, devastation, pain, but that only gave me a sense of emptiness. I wanted to feel relief, but I couldn’t. He’d taken my mother from me. Cut short her life and ruined everything. I wanted to cheer that he was gone. That I’d never see his face again.

  But I couldn’t.

  Instead I just sat there, repeating those two words over and over in my head. It was over. He’s dead.

  The good memories I had of him didn’t outweigh the bad. There were too many bad. Too many sad memories. Too many regrets.

  My mother had been a beautiful object he’d wanted to own. In the end he had owned her, then thrown her away as if she were nothing. She’d loved him. I had seen it in her eyes and in the way she wanted to please him. Yet nothing she did was ever good enough. She wasn’t what he’d hoped for, yet he hadn’t been able to release her and let her live her life. He had kept her only to destroy her in the end. To destroy us all.

  I always believed he loved me. I had moments where he made me feel cherished and precious. I wondered if my mother had had the same. If that was why she’d loved him so much. But he hadn’t been worthy of our love.

  I had hated him. I had wished he were dead.

  And now he was.

  But there was only emptiness. A void inside me.

  “Maggie, I know he was your father. No matter what—”

  “No,” I said, stopping Uncle Boone from saying more. “No. He wasn’t my father. He stopped being my father the day he took my mother from me. Don’t tell me you’re sorry for my loss. Don’t say that it’s okay for me to grieve for him, because he’s been dead to me for two years. This just finalizes it.”

  Uncle Boone didn’t try to say more. I stood up and hurried back to my room. Where I could be alone. Where I wouldn’t have to talk.

  Aunt Coralee came and knocked on my door a few minutes later. I assured her I was okay and wanted to be alone and didn’t want to talk about it.

  She didn’t argue with me.

  An hour later my bedroom window slid open, and West stepped inside. His face was etched with worry and concern. I stared up at him from my spot on the bed where I was sitting with my knees folded under me. The hollowness where the pain should be shattered, and the first tears broke free.

  He was on the bed, pulling me into his arms, before the sobbing started. While I was safely tucked against him, I cried for all I’d lost. All I’d never have. I cried for my mother and how tragically she’d died. I cried for West and his dad. And I cried for me.

  Epilogue

  WEST

  It wasn’t until we were sitting at Brady’s, looking through old photo albums several weeks later, that I realized who she was.

  It was the Christmas that Brady and I were in seventh grade. He’d had to go to Tennessee for his family’s Christmas party, and he begged his mom to take me with him. I had been before and I knew how boring it was, but he was my best friend. So I went.

  We always took our football and tossed it outside, even in the snow, while the party went on. The only time we went in with everyone was to eat. There weren’t any other kids but a girl. I had seen her a few years ago, the last time I came to this thing, but I hadn’t seen her this visit. Not that I was looking.

  Brady had gone inside to help his dad, and I’d decided to explore the house. I didn’t get far before I heard someone crying. I debated going inside the room, hoping whoever it was didn’t notice me standing there in the doorway. But she lifted her head, and the prettiest green eyes I’d ever seen looked directly at me. Long dark hair framed her face. The pink-and-silver bedroom reminded me of something from a fairy tale. It fit her.

  She sniffled and continued to look at me. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to leave her alone or to ask her if I could do something. My momma hadn’t raised me to run off and leave a girl crying, so I’d walked over and sat down beside her.

  “It can’t be all that bad. It’s Christmas,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood. I didn’t mention the fact she reminded me of a princess and I’d never seen one of those cry on television.

  She sniffed again and wiped at her face. “It doesn’t feel like it,” she’d whispered back.

  “What with all the Christmas music and the way this house is decked out with more decorations than the entire town of Lawton? How can it not feel like Christmas?”

  The girl looked away from me. Her face remained sad. “Not everything is what it seems. Not everyone is what they should be or appear to be.”

  How old was this girl? She talked like she was grown. But she didn’t look any older than Brady and me. “One of your friends do you wrong?” I asked. I knew about girl drama. Happened at school all the time.

  “I wish,” she whispered, not looking back at me.

  She wasn’t a real open book. I was getting tired of trying to cheer her up, because I obviously sucked at it. “Whoever it is isn’t worth your time if they’re making you sad like this.”

  Finally she glanced back at me. “We don’t always get to choose who we give our time to. We don’t get to choose our parents, for example. And we don’t get to make their decisions for them. So it’s not that simple. He’s my dad. I love him. I have to love him. But he hurts her. She tries so hard to make him happy, but he’s always off with someone else. Like tonight. He’s supposed to be here. He promised her he would be.”

  I didn’t know what that felt like. My parents loved each other and I could never imagine my dad hurting my mom. But it sounded like this girl had a very different life. One I wasn’t envious of. Even if her house was bigger than the church I went to on Sunday. It was even bigger than Gunner Lawton’s house, and that was big.

  “Then yeah, that sucks,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Yeah, it does,” had been her only response.

  Brady had called my name then, and because I didn’t know what to do or what to say, I left her there. When she’d come to eat, I couldn’t make eye contact with her because I felt guilty for not being able to help her. And for knowing her secrets.

  We were both in the photo that they’d taken that night. When I saw her little girl face, the memories came flooding back. I’d completely forgotten about that girl and what she’d told me. But that Christmas I remembered thanking God for my parents. I realized I’d been blessed with good ones.

  “That was you,” I said, looking at her as my heart broke for the little girl I wanted to go back and hold. She’d shared her secrets with a stupid boy who’d done nothing to make her feel better.

  She frowned as if she didn’t know what I was talking about, and then her eyes lit with understanding. “Oh my God. I forgot. . . . I was so upset that night. But it was just one of many nights I felt that way,” she said as her fingertip gently brushed over my face in the photo.

  “You were the only person I ever told that to. I regret that. Not telling anyone my secrets. I might have saved her if I had,” she whispered, lost in her thoughts.

  I pulled her against me. I wasn’t going to let her dwell on her regrets. “You were a kid. We both were. Confused kids who didn’t know the right answer to anything. He was your father. You loved him. Don’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t control.”

  Maggie laid her head on my shoulder and her hand on my chest. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I kissed her head. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she replied.

  I had always been told my future was on the field and I could be somebody great. And I had wanted that. Until I found somebody who needed me. And I realized the only person I wanted to be great for was her.

  Acknowledgments

  Going back to high school Friday nights, football games, first loves, first heartbreaks, and, of course, field parties has been something I wanted to do since I closed the Vincent Boys series in 2012. The story of West and Maggie has been building in my head for a very long time. I’m thankful that I was given the chance to write it. I loved every minute of it.

  A big thank-you to my editor, Sara Sargent. She put up with my intensity while writing this story. She listened to me, and I believe with her help, this book has become the best it can be. Also I want to mention Mara Anastas, Jodie Hockensmith, Carolyn Swerdloff, and the rest of the Simon Pulse team, for all their hard work in getting my books out there.

  My agent, Jane Dystel. She’s there for me when I’m having a hard time working on a story, when I need to vent, and even if I just need a recommendation on a good place to eat in New York City. I’m thankful to have her on my side.

  When I started writing, I never imagined having a group of readers come together for the sole purpose of supporting me. Abbi’s Army, led by Danielle Lagasse, humbles me and gives me a place of refuge. When I need my spirits lifted, these ladies are there. I love every one of you.

  Natasha Tomic and Autumn Hull for beta reading my books and helping me make each story better. Without them, I would be lost. I love you both.