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Who needs a happily ever after?
Right now, I’d settle for an ending that wasn’t pulled straight from a Stephen King novel.
Two
Carly
Withasigh,Ibury my face in my arms, trying to protect my nose from frostbite. Call me vain, but I’d like to keep it where it belongs—right in the middle of my face—and it currently feels in danger of snapping off.
I think of Millie and Lauren, hoping that their holiday plans are going better than mine. After growing up in foster care, I hadn’t thought I’d ever have a family. But then I met them in college, and we became as close as sisters.
For a long time, they were all the family I needed.
But lately, I’ve found myself yearning for a family of my own.
For ababyof my own.
If it’s true that your biological clock starts to tick in your early thirties, by forty, it’s a death knell. I can practically hear the bells clanging in my head as my ovaries shrivel up and die.
I’ve considered fostering or adopting. I’ve even visited fancy sperm banks. Places where you can choose a donor based on everything from his IQ to his body type, hair and eye color, spirit animal, and which Hogwarts house he’d be sorted in. Some even offer handwriting samples.
Just punch in your selections and voilà!One green-eyed Gryffindor with lovely penmanship and an Ivy League education coming right up!
It's not for me. Call me old-fashioned, but I want the babyandthe father. Unfortunately, I’m running out of time, and Mr. Right is nowhere to be found.
So, when I cracked open that stupid fortune cookie and read the words printed on the paper, I felt a sudden surge of…hope.
A deal’s a deal.
And William Jonesdidpromise to marry me if we were both single at forty.
It only took a few minutes of internet sleuthing, to discover that William still lives in Mercury Ridge. Neither he nor his brothers have social media profiles, and his sister’s are locked down tighter than Fort Knox. But I struck gold with The Mercury Ridge Gazette, which has article after article dedicated to his work with Mercury Ridge Search and Rescue.
None of the articles mentioned a wife.
Finally, I found an article from last year, highlighting William as one of the town’s most eligible bachelors. There was a photo, a closeup of his beautiful, bearded face. His expression was serious—just as it had been when he made the vow to marry me at forty.
A local hero, beloved by the community, with CPR training and first-aid skills…how’sthatfor husband—andfather—material?
A few minutes later, I’d discovered his address and added it to my phone’s contacts—just in case I ever had a reason to return to Mercury Ridge. It wouldn’t hurt to pay an old friend a visit, right?
Then I pushed the thought aside, recognizing it as nothing short of lunacy. I couldn’t just show up at his door out of the blue and propose marriage…could I?
No. Of course not. It was out of the question. Especially since I wantmorethan marriage.
I want the baby in the baby carriage.
How do you explainthatto a man?
But when my plane landed in Charlotte, just a few hours’ drive from Mercury Ridge, visiting William suddenly didn’t feel so preposterous. It seemedinevitable. Like it was meant to be.
Only now, I’m stuck in a tree, on the verge of dying of exposure, and he’s nowhere to be seen. When my frozen corpse falls from the tree, will he be the one to find me? Or will the dogs drag my body into the woods?No one knows I’m here. Maybe I’ll just disappear forever, never to be seen again.
Finally, I hear the crunch of gravel under tires, the telltale sound of a car coming up the driveway. A minute later, a large pickup truck with an extended cab pulls up next to my rental car. Through the windshield, I can see that at least two people are inside.
He’s not alone…
Dread settles in the pit of my stomach. I flatten myself against the tree branch, no longer in a hurry to be discovered.
