“Hey, Liz?”
Silence.
“Yeah?”
More silence.
“Nothing. Tell Elizabeth Ann that her uncles love her very much.”
I immediately choke up. “I will.”
Tucking my phone back inside my bag, I sit forward. “It’s the house on the right at the end of the cul-de-sac.” Xander pulls into the driveway behind Jayson’s rental. “Be right back,” I say and get out before he has a chance to open my door for me. As soon as I get to the walkway, I stop and look up when the branches on the oak tree shake. Coming closer, I spot the sole of a tennis shoe. “Jayson?”
A familiar chuckle floats down through the foliage. “Hey, Princess.”
The nickname hits like a soft stone to the chest. I tilt back my head and shield my eyes against the morning sun as I squint upward. Perched on a thick branch, arms draped over his knees, Jayson grins down at me.
“You’re a little old to be hiding out from your mom,” I say with a teasing lilt in my voice. I glance down at my sandals. Not exactly tree-climbing material, but the bark is worn in all the right places, and my hands remember every groove. “Make a place,” I call up, already reaching for the lower limb. I hoist myself up, climbing the tree with the kind of muscle memory that never quite fades.
Jayson shifts to make room for me to sit. “Still got it,” he says, eyes twinkling.
“Barely.” I pick a leaf from my hair and twirl it between my fingers. “What are you doing up here?”
He shrugs. “Thinking. Remembering.”
A breeze creates a gentle rustle around us, like the soft melody of nature’s wind chimes that echo the ballad of what weused to be. For a moment, we just sit there in the quiet, our legs swinging on either side of the branch.
“You know what I remembered the other day?” I ask him. He lifts his chin for me to continue. “Our first date.” The fairy lights he strung up still flicker in my memory—tiny warm glows like suspended fireflies. “I remember thinking no one had ever done something so perfect for me before. That night meant a lot to me.”
He doesn’t say anything at first. “You were my first everything, you know.”
I swallow hard and reach for his hand. “I’m glad you came back.”
There’s a momentary flicker of…something…that passes over his expression when our palms meet, and for one shattered second, I hold my breath, wondering if he noticed the absence of my wedding rings.
His callus-roughened fingers curl around mine. “Me too, Liz.”
Sitting here beside him, surrounded by the scent of oak and summer and the soft creak of aging wood, it’s impossible not to feel it—what we used to be and the love we shared that was so huge, it transformed my life.
“Ready to go see our daughter?”
“More than ready,” he replies.
He climbs down first, making sure I know the way but staying right below me in case I fall.
Just like he’s always done.
Chapter Forty-Nine
JAYSON
Seattle
Walking up the grassy hill,the little sculpted fairy princess comes into view, her arm outstretched as she reaches for a butterfly. As soon as I see it, a soul-crushing heartache grips me. I’ll never come to terms with losing her, this beautiful baby girl Liz and I created. I feel the cruelty of her absence every fucking day. I never got to meet her or hold her or kiss her sweet cheek and tell her that Daddy loves her. All the cute laughs and gap-toothed smiles, all the milestones created as she grew up, were stolen from us. Elizabeth Ann never got a chance to take her first breath. Never got to live the life she was supposed to have because a psychopath decided to steal her soul.
The man responsible for so much death and pain was never caught. I still look for him—look for his heterochromatic eyes, one blue and one brown, Liz had told us—in every face I see. I willneverstop looking.
“Hey. You okay?”
