There was a pause, and then Charlie pushed back from the table, his chair legs scraping.“Well,” he said, adjusting the cuff of his shirt, “I’ll let y’all have your mornin’.”
“You don’t have to rush off,” Margie said.
He smiled at her, eyes crinkling.“Oh, I think the two of you got some catchin’ up to do.’Sides, I got plenty of work ’round the house—you know how it is.”
Margie walked him into the hall, where Charlie leaned in for a soft kiss.“I’ll see you tonight,” he whispered, giving her hand a squeeze before disappearing, the screen door banging shut behind him.
Margie turned back to Cassie, cheeks pink.“Well,” she said, heading for the counter, “now don’t you start.”
Cassie raised a brow.“I didn’t say anything.”
“Uh-huh.”Margie grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lit one.“But you was thinkin’ it.Hell, everyone in this damn town is thinkin’ it.Guess I was s’posed to go to the grave with him?”
Him—the elder Nathanial Walker, road name: Maverick.Nash’s dad, former club president, and Margie’s biggest mistake.
When Connor had called with the news of Maverick’s death some years back, Cassie’s first thought hadn’t been for Nash, or even his mama.It had been for Margie.Because once upon a time, Margie and Maverick had been high school sweethearts…turned something far messier.He’d left her for Nash’s mother, only he never could seem to stay gone, and Margie…she never could seem to turn him away.
“I’m sorry about Mav,” Cassie said quietly.“I wanted to call—I really did.I just…”
She’d already been gone five years by then.She’d told herself too much time had passed, that Margie wouldn’t want to hear from her after so long.But the truth was uglier: she’d been scared.Scared of the sound of Margie’s voice on the other end.Scared of what Maverick’s death might stir up if she let herself feel it.Scared, most of all, that if she called, Margie wouldn’t have anything left to say to her.
Margie watched her for a moment.“Nothin’ to be sorry about,” she said at last.“We’ve all got our paths to take.And, hell, if I’m bein’ honest, him dyin’ was probably the best thing that coulda happened to me.”
Pausing, Margie drew deep on her cigarette and let the smoke drift out slow.“Probably the only goddamn thing he ever did quiet, too.”
She leaned back against the counter, lips twitching into something that wasn’t quite a smile.“Some men you mourn, Cassie-girl.And some you just outlive.”Another pause.“Ain’t always easy tellin’ the difference, neither.”
Her words hit somewhere unhealed in Cassie.Bitterness surfaced first, before something quieter stirred—something she didn’t dare name.Clearing her throat, she groped for something—anything—else to hold onto.
“I met…” Her brow furrowed as she searched for the name.“Nash and Addison’s daughter.Yesterday—I mean, the other day.Well—met is probably the wrong word.I was on my way out.They were on their way in.”
Margie snorted.“Don’t I know it.It was Addy screamin’ that woke me—clued me in you’d run off.”
Cassie hesitated.“So…Nash and Addy…I guess that’s over with?”
Margie barked a laugh.“Good gracious, yes.That disaster fell apart ’fore it even started.Long story short, Nash gave it a go for Junie’s sake.Didn’t take.”
“Junie,” she repeated, tasting the strange, foreign shape of it.
“Juniper Rae Walker,” Margie said, her voice full of pride.“Ten goin’ on twenty-five.Smart as a whip; got her daddy’s mouth and her mama’s beauty—but don’t hold that last part against her.Girl can’t help where she come from.”
Cassie swallowed hard, tracing the rim of her mug.
Juniper Rae Walker, Nash’s…daughter.
—and for a second, she was somewhere else entirely—
Pacing her bedroom, counting back the days.
Nash was lounging on her bed, a motorcycle magazine spread out beside him.
“I think I’m late,” she blurted out.
He didn’t even look up, just flipped a page and said, “Then we’ll get married.Ain’t nothin’ else to it.”
“Ain’t nothin’ else to it?”she shrieked.She was barely eighteen; no way in hell was she getting married.No way in hell was she having a baby.She was supposed to be starting classes at West Liberty that fall, and—
Cassie blinked, and the memory went with it.
