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Chapter
One
KNOX
Holding my newly born niece is magical. She’s tiny and maybe the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
“I’m your Uncle Knox, sweetheart. I’m the one you come to if you ever need anything, no questions asked. If anyone ever makes you sad, you tell me, and I’ll make them pay.”
Her eyes open a bit and I know that anything this little angel wants from me, she’ll get. She already has me wrapped around her finger. I once thought I would be the first in our family to settle down and have a family. That dream died a long time ago. I’m satisfied to just be Uncle Knox to this angel and any others who follow.
It seems like years since I’ve thought about the one who got away. It was a bad time for me, and I’ve completely changed for the better in the years since. I still wonder what would’ve happened if things had been different, but there’s no changing the past.
As I stare out of the window holding this tiny new human, I sense something old and familiar in the parking lot. A woman is walking across, like déjà vu. What are the odds that after thinking about her for the first time in years, she magically appears? It’s probably just my mind playing tricks on me, but what if?
“Hey Knox, you okay?” my brother asks.
I jump, scaring the baby and she starts to cry. Looking from the baby to my new sister-in-law, Ivy, I panic. Quickly, I make my way over to the hospital bed where Ivy is still recovering from delivery.
“Ivy, I’m so sorry I made her cry. I didn’t mean to startle her. She’s gorgeous. You did amazing.” I kiss Jovie’s head and then Ivy’s before looking over at my sister, Clara. “I have to go. Can you get a ride home?”
I hear her say something, but I’m already out the door. I still don’t think that the woman I saw was Scarlett Hunter, one-time love of my life. But I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t check it out. I rush to the elevator, only to find it on the bottom floor and I’m too impatient to wait for it to make its way up to the third. I quickly locate the door for the stairs and begin to jog down to the bottom floor.
The Scarlett look-a-like was walking through the parking lot toward the doctor’s office building, so she should still be in there.
What if something’s wrong with her and that’s why she’s back?
I still don’t understand why she left all those years ago, but if it’s really her, there’s nothing that’s going to keep her from being mine again.
On the first floor, I find the map that leads me to the door she was walking toward.
Why are hospitals always a maze of hallways and hard to navigate?
Most people aren’t there on their best day. Maybe St. James C&D needs to design and build a non-confusing hospital. I shake off the thought, caused by my inability to focus on one thing at a time, and walk into the lobby of the office building annex where I saw the woman enter. I study the parking lot from corner to corner, but don’t see her.
Striding up to the front desk, I smile at the receptionist. One advantage of a small town is knowing the people who live here. “Janie, did a woman just come in here?”
Janie, who Scarlett and I both went to high school with, laughs. “Knox St. James, lots of women come in here, there are three OB-GYNs in this office.”
“I know that. I meant a particular woman. A woman who used to go to high school with us?”
“Oh, you mean the woman you were crazy about, didn’t follow when she left town, and therefore you have acted like an asshole to every woman in town since?” It’s delivered with such sweetness that the insult doesn’t exactly sting. Plus, she’s not wrong. That’s what happened.
“Yes, did Scarlett Hunter come into this office?”
I’m sweating and itchy under the collar of my shirt. I’ve always said to my friends and family that I’m over Scarlett, but the truth is that I don’t think I’ll ever be over her. I feel shame for not looking for her in the last fifteen years. If she’s come back to Star Mountain this is my chance.
Janie looks me up and down. She motions me forward and leans across her desk. “I can get in a lot of trouble for giving out information about patients. Luckily for me, and you, she isn’t a patient.” Leaning back, she looks around, but no one else is there. “Yes, it was Scarlett.”
A shiver goes through my whole body. It’s true. She’s back on Star Mountain.
What could have brought her back after all these years?
“I can see those wheels turning in that big brain of yours, Knox. You didn’t get this information from me and I’m not telling you that she was dropping off some insurance stuff. She’s working for the new guy in town, Archer Huxley.”
I know Archer. He’s new to town but a good guy. He’s been trying to set up a poker game. I guess you can’t leave Vegas completely. I said I’d think about it. If he’s been working with my Scarlett, you bet I’ll be playing and learning everything he knows about her.
I walk out of the hospital, feeling lighter than I have in years. I don’t know exactly where she is or how I’m going to make her mine, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll get to the bottom of what happened back then and then we can get right to making our own babies and living happily ever after.
