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PROLOGUE
Brinley
I wassick to my stomach.
When people said no news was good news, they were dead wrong.
The phone had been silent for a couple of days and when my eyes landed on the military vehicle that pulled into my driveway, I squeezed them shut and tried to wash away the image. But when the repeated raps at my door echoed through the house, my heart plummeted to the ground.
He’s gone.
It was impossible to hope that it was all a bad dream. One that had been playing on repeat in my mind during those days of utter silence. If I opened the door I couldn’t pretend any longer that things would be okay.
The knock came again and my pulse raced with an abundance of dread, fear, and sorrow. And I hadn’t even heard the words yet.
I couldn’t imagine our lives without Luke.
Zander let out a whimper from his bassinet that I’d set up in the living room so he was close by when he napped. He was just a baby and wouldn’t understand anything. For that, I was thankful because I didn’t want him to feel an ounce of pain or sadness.
The soul-gripping kind I was feeling right then.
My gaze landed on the window, the sun setting, darkness slowly creeping in and a shiver ran through me as more knocks had come. On autopilot, my bare feet slowly shuffled across the hardwood floor toward the door and I reached for the knob with a trembling hand.
Pausing, I vowed that no matter what Zander would know what a remarkable man Luke was, as well as how much he loved him.
God, how the hell am I going to do this?
Luke always took care of me and was there for me since the day we met when I was just sixteen. He also promised that he would take care of Zander too.
He was the only man I’d ever been able to count on. Luke was selfless, honorable, and the nicest person in the whole world.
Even when he knew I wasn’t in love with him.
So many times I’d wished I could’ve been. But we don’t get to pick the way we feel deep down. Guilt was an awful feeling and that was what I felt knowing I’d never been able to be the woman Luke needed.
Someone else had held my heart back then and had never given it back.
My husband was my best friend. And while he had another best friend already at the time I showed up in town, he never faltered to make room for me in his life. But thinking about the other part of our trio brought more emotions I couldn’t bear to think about.
Shutting my thoughts down, I took a deep breath and pulled open the door. I tried to tell myself to be strong. That I had a baby to take care of and I needed to keep it together for him. But the moment my eyes landed on the military officer and the chaplain, all that flew out the window.
And my knees hit the ground with a hard thud, as a life-altering howl broke from my lips.
ChapterOne
BRINLEY
What had I been thinking?
I should have never come. At a desperate moment, I hadn’t thought things through. Who in their right mind grabs their four-year-old, jumps in a car, and drives to another state on a whim with no plan in place?
Oh, that would be me.
But in all fairness, I didn’t know that I would walk into a party and I also never in my life had imagined that I would encounter the one man I didn’t want to see there. And yet, he was hanging out with Gyth, who Ihadcome to see. He clearly knew him well too. A pang of sadness jolted my heart as I took in the whole group of friends who looked to be enjoying themselves.
Until I walked in.
After exchanging a few words, I panicked. I turned on my heel and took back off the way I’d come, headed toward my car as fast as my feet would take me.
