For the past three years, my parents have held a graduation party at their property to celebrate my most recent batch of students heading off on their next grand adventure. I’m usually a big participant in the planning and orchestrating of the event, but this year I’ve had my mind on other things. I wouldn’t say I’ve developed as advanced a case of senioritis as many of my kids have, but I was getting close.
Every moment I wasn’t in the classroom or Mallory wasn’t at the florist, we were together. Grocery shopping. Doing yard work at her place. Taking Corbin to his baby music class at their church. It had been almost a month since we’d reunited. Our relationship was progressing in the way I’d always wanted, but there were still the things of our past that we kept to ourselves. I knew that, in order to ever take things to the next level, we’d have to empty our closets of our secrets. You could only go so far on the path of a new relationship without studying the roads in life that led you there.
“You going to ask her about him?” Mom threw down the last bale of straw from the rusted bed of my truck, then stepped back to analyze its positioning. We’d created a semicircle of bales in a seating arrangement with the logs for tonight’s bonfire stacked high in the center like a teepee of sticks. “I think it’s time you both opened up a bit more.”
“We’re open.” I slammed the tailgate shut and walked around to the front of the cab. My boots were caked with thick mud and it dusted along the hem of my blue jeans. Mom followed on the passenger side and climbed in. “We talk about stuff.”
“He needs to stop being a ghost in her past, Cliffy. It’s romantic to think there was just a temporary pause in your relationship, but the truth is, you both went separate ways. Had different lives. Sooner or later, that gap is going to catch up with you, or swallow you whole.”
I hated that she was right. Mom had an annoying habit of always being that: dead on when it came to relationship advice. I admired my parents’ marriage, though, how they fought to protect it, nurture it, and keep it fresh and alive. She could impart her wisdom with authority, and though it was easier to believe Mallory and I could coast along like this, when it came down to it, I knew my mother was speaking the truth. As always.
“Speak of the devil.” Mom smirked. Her eyes were cast up ahead, at the long bend in the red road that curved into their tree-lined property. “I have to admit, Cliffy, I’m a little nervous.”
“You’ve met her before, Mom.” I pulled my truck off the grass where we’d set up the bales and parked it in the dirt ruts that my tires settled into like a mold made for them. “She’s the same Mallory. Just even more incredible. More gorgeous. More motherly.”
“That’s the part I’m nervous about. It’s been so long since we’ve had a baby around here. What if I forget what to do? How to hold him?” Mom was stammering. “Or maybe I shouldn’t ask to hold him. That would be really presumptuous of me. Why would I expect her to trust me with her baby?”
“Mom, you were a pediatric nurse for over thirty years. She’s going to let you hold him.”
My mom’s hands came to her chest, clasped together. “Oh, I sure hope so.” Then she shoved me hard against my shoulder as she said, “Go get over there and help her out! I raised a gentleman, not a slouch.”
Smiling, I shrugged away from Mom, got out of the truck, and jogged down the drive. Mallory had her head ducked into the backseat, reaching into the infant carrier, and when I came up behind her, my arms wrapping around her slender waist, she let out the faintest gasp.
“Heath!” She spun around in my arms and smacked my chest. The women were sure handsy today. “You scared me!”
“I gotta sneak this in before my parents steal you from me.” I leaned over her, my fingers falling lightly on her spine, and I lowered my mouth to hers. Is was slow and sweet and only when Corbin let out a squawk from his car seat did we pull away. “To be continued.”
“You are insatiable, Heath.”
“You have no idea.” Reaching around her, I unhooked the buckle on Corbin’s carrier and scooped him into my arms. “By the way, my mom’s unreasonably nervous to meet you again. It’s sort of endearing, sort of obnoxious.”
“I don’t find that obnoxious at all. I have to admit, I’m in the same boat.” She lifted a hand into the air and popped up her fingers, one by one. “Nervous to meet your mom, your dad, your sister, and brother-in-law. Your students. Don’t get me started on your students.”
With my free hand, I slung the diaper bag over my shoulder and closed the car door. “My students are fantastic. They’ve learned all they know from me, so obviously they are amazing.”
“Do they share your humility, too?”
I loved to play like this, flirting under the guise of banter. But there was still a lot of work to be done. As soon as the three of us set foot on the porch, Mom and Dad swooped in with greetings and flailing arms that wrapped in hugs and pulled us into the house. It smelled of spicy marinades and sweet treats and all the fixings necessary for an event of this scale. The counters were layered high. You couldn’t see one centimeter of butcher block underneath the pilings of food.
Mom sent me straight to work, but Mallory didn’t make it past the foyer.
“She looks just the same,” Dad said as he shucked an ear of corn over the farmhouse sink. Stringy hairs stuck to the porcelain, our fingers, and clothes. We’d cleaned about twenty ears, but easily had another thirty to go. “More mature, but still has those adorable freckles and beautiful red hair.”
“Should I be concerned that it sounds like you have a crush on my girlfriend?”
“Oh, please.” Dad passed me another ear when I held an empty palm up. “You sure about what you’re doing, Cliffy? I mean, she seems great and all and I remember how head over heels you were for her when you were young, but you’re adults now. Both of you have been married. This isn’t high school anymore.”
“I know that.” I’d only been at my parents’ since mid-afternoon and we were already two lectures in. “I’m taking things slow. Painfully slow.”
“Okay, okay.” Dad laughed his deep, bear of a growl. “Maybe with the physical stuff, but I think in this instance it might be the emotional that is even more important. It’s only been a little over a year and a half since her husband was murdered, Heath.”
My face blanched. I ripped the husk of the corn in my hands harder than I should have.
“I looked it up, he—”
“I don’t want you to be the one to tell me.” I halted Dad with a corn pressed to his chest. “I’ll ask her.”
Dad pushed my hand, steadily lowering the vegetable like it had been some kind of weapon. “And just think about how hard that’s going to be for her. To retell that story.”
“No question, it will be hard. But I’m here for her. Always.”
A sigh pushed out of Dad so slowly. “I’m worried about you, too, Son. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
“And I appreciate that, but life involves hurt. I’m don’t plan on living a safe life just to avoid it. What’s the fun in that?”
Shaking his head while smiling, Dad looked down at the growing pile of husks and hairs. “Looks like a tornado blew through here. Mom’s not going to be happy with this mess we’ve made.”
“Sir, put us to work.” I spun around to find Lucas, Mark, and Tabitha standing at the kitchen entry. They each wore their country finest, Lucas sporting a black cowboy hat to match. He tipped it my direction and yelled, “Let the hoedown begin!”
“I will be picking straw out of my hair for the next week.”
Mallory stood barefoot on the deck. The moon washed a silver glow across her pale skin, making her shimmer under its light.
“I didn’t expect you to fall off the horse before actually getting on.”
“I told you I’d never ridden one before!”
“Well, technically you still haven’t ridden one.”
Her lips, shiny and plump, spread into a slow smile. “Maybe horses aren’t my thing.”
I drew a hand to my chest and feigned shock. “You’ve got to be kidding me! Something Mallory Alcott does not like? This is a first!” Then I realized the mistake in my words. “Mallory Quinn.”
She didn’t acknowledge my flub. “I can’t like everything. Peanut butter and horses don’t make the cut, I suppose.”
The bonfire roared up ahead. The students’ shadowy figures danced around it, the beat of the music that pulsed from the speakers guiding their bodies and movements.
“Looks like they’re having a lot of fun. I can’t believe your parents put this on every year. That’s awfully generous of them.”
“They like doing it. Mom always says a house isn’t a home unless it’s full of those you love. And they love that I love my job, so by default, I love my students and since my parents love me, they love them, too.”
“And those kids really love you, Heath.” Her green eyes sparked my way. “They care about you. I had a chance to talk to several of them and it’s clear you’ve influenced them greatly. Lucas speaks of you constantly at the shop. You’re quite a role model.”
Compliments weren’t always easy to receive, especially when I was just doing my job. But it did make me feel good to hear it. It made the lesson planning, the paper grading, and the lecturing all worth it.
“It helps that it’s a great group of kids this year. Well, every year, really.”
I took her hand and pulled her over to the pair of white rocking chairs. Instead of taking the one at my side, though, she slipped down onto my lap and threw her hands around my neck.
“Hey,” I said against her forehead. “There’s something I want to talk about.”
Mallory’s frame pulled taut, like a coat hanger straightening her back. “Everything okay?” Tension was thick in her voice and shrouded in her stare.
“Yeah, yeah,” I assured. “It’s just … I just—I just want to learn more about Dylan. If you’re willing to talk about him.”
“What would you like to know?” Her readiness eased some of the anxiety from me. I pushed off the deck with my toe to rock the chair.
“How you met,” I answered. “How he died.”
“Okay.” She swallowed, then filled her lungs with a breath. “Well, I was there for the first, but not the second, so I can only tell you what I know, but I’m more than willing to share.”
I continued to rock us back and forth. “You’re all right with that?
“Of course, Heath. It’s not a secret.”
“But I’m sure it’s painful to relive.”
“Well, yeah, it is. But it’s healing, too.”
I could understand that. It had been healing to talk with the counselor that Kayla had refused to see, and death wasn’t even involved in that scenario. Mourning occurred on a much different scale when it was the loss was life and not just a relationship.
“Dylan was the officer who found Nana and me after the accident.”
I stopped rocking. The blood in my veins ceased pumping, making me rigid, like every inch of me solidified. I tried to mask my shock when I asked, “You’re serious?”
“Yes.” It was matter-of-fact information for her. “It was his first year on the job. He was the one to give me CPR. He basically saved my life.”
She’d been revived. That was the detail I’d always held closely to, fastened in my grip like a tangible hope. She’d been given another chance at life. In the recent weeks, I’d wondered if I’d been the reason for it—if our second chance had been the reason for her second chance.
It suddenly felt like the most selfish reason of all.
He’d saved her. And he’d been given the chance to fall in love with her.
“At first he just visited to check in on me. It was purely a friendship. After all, I was only seventeen and he was twenty-one at the time.” My stomach roiled. “But once I got out of the hospital, he continued his visits, not often, maybe a couple of times a month. When I graduated, he came to my party and that’s when he first asked me out.”
“So he was what, twenty-two and you were eighteen?” It felt a little like he was robbing the cradle, but it felt equally as wrong for me to judge a dead guy. I hadn’t been there to know the details of how their relationship progressed.
I hadn’t been there.
That was the hardest truth to swallow.
“Yes, Dylan was four years older than me.” There was no shame in her tone, and it made me guilty over my quick and judgmental feelings. “We dated for three years before he asked me to marry him. We were together on and off in the beginning, but were serious for the last two before he proposed.”
He’d been gone over a year now. That meant Dylan had been in her life for an entire decade.
We’d only dated for six months as kids.
How could I ever, in this lifetime, compete with what they had?
It wasn’t possible.
“I had no idea you’d been together that long.” I didn’t want it to come out the way it did, how the sentence fell from my lips like the disappointment that formed it.
“Ten years, give or take.”
“Yeah.” I’d calculated that. “Wow.”
“It wasn’t a perfect marriage, Heath.” She interpreted my reaction. “We loved each other, but our life wasn’t easy. We had struggles to overcome. He wasn’t always faithful. He was a decent and hardworking man, but not the best husband.”
And now I wanted to punch a dead guy.
“It’s hard to think about those things, though, especially with him gone,” she continued. Mallory looked out into the pasture, at the fire that climbed into the sky with its flames licking against the black backdrop of night. “By nature, we only want to remember the good in people. And Dylan had a lot of good, so much of it.”
“I’m sure he did. For him to be worthy of your love, he must’ve.”
“He was a good man, Heath.” It felt like an apology each time she defended his honor. “He loved me in the way he knew how. And he loved Corbin. When he found out we were pregnant, things changed for us. For the better.”
My heart broke for her, for the loss she’d experienced with Dylan’s death, but also for the pain she’d experienced during his life. “I’m so glad,” was all I could say.
“It was just a routine traffic stop, that’s all it was.” Her voice started to shake with emotion. I pulled her tighter to my chest. “Something went terribly wrong. The man had a warrant out for his arrest. He shot Dylan five times in the chest the moment he walked up to his window. He never saw it coming.”
I was nauseous with grief, with the pain I knew Mallory felt on a daily basis. “God, Mallory. I’m so sorry.”
“I’d anticipated it our entire marriage, I think. Every time a cruiser would drive by the house, I was certain it was that news. That he was dead. I think anyone who has a spouse in that line of work thinks that way. The worst-case scenario is always tucked in the back of your mind. Maybe not even in the back. Maybe it’s always just hanging out in the forefront.”
That made so much sense, but I couldn’t imagine ever living that—dealing with the day to day worry that the other shoe was about to drop. “His death must’ve been impossible to live through.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it living.” Mallory shook her head. “I’m grateful for his family. They took me into their care and under their wing and made sure I put one foot in front of the other each and every day. Corbin and I might not be here if it weren’t for them.”
The gratitude I felt for two people I’d yet to meet was enormous. They’d saved Mallory and Corbin. There was not a Thank You big enough or loud enough to ever show my appreciation.
“I hate that I’ve summarized his entire life in a five-minute conversation, but that’s what it is. That’s what we were. I hope that answers some of your questions.”
“It does,” I said. “It does.”
“Listen.” She scooted back, balanced on the edge of my knee. “I get that this isn’t easy. It’s not easy to date a widow, I know that. Or a single mother. And if it’s too much, it’s okay for you to walk away. Honestly, I get it. It’s a lot to deal with.”
“To deal with?” My neck snapped. “You and Corbin are not something to deal with, Mallory. It’s an honor to get to be with you. Whether it’s me or someone else later down the road, I sure hope you always feel that. Honored. Cherished.”
Her mouth crept up at the edges, the hesitant curl of a smile forming on her lips. “Heath. You always were such a good guy.” She swung her hair back from her face and tucked it over her shoulder. “I remembered that about you. Your maturity and sincerity. I never thought it would keep growing. I’d just assumed you’d matured emotionally earlier than everyone else.”
“I have a feeling the two people who raised me would beg to differ.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “But I see it. You’ve become this awe-inspiring person. This beautiful soul.”
Our mouths were mere seconds from colliding when a young voice broke our momentum.
“Sir, I just wanted to thank you for all of this tonight.” When Lucas noticed he’d all but cock blocked me, he muttered, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“It’s okay, Lucas,” I said, noticing something of my own as well. His hand gripped tightly to Sabrina’s, their fingers intertwined. “You two have a good night?”
“The best.” Lucas turned his attention to Sabrina, who shed a small smile. She hid her emotion behind the drape of her hair that crossed her cheek. “Couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
“Then my work here is done,” I said. Mallory hopped from my lap and I rose to stand. With an extended hand, I offered it to Lucas, a sort of congratulatory gesture. “It was an honor to be your teacher this year, Lucas. You have a bright future ahead of you. I’m glad I had the chance to be a part of your story.”
Lucas took my palm in his grip and gave it a firm and impressive shake. “My story isn’t ending and you’re still very much a part of it, Mr. McBride. This is just the chapter where I get my diploma.”
“I like that way of thinking.” I nodded, pulling him in for a one-armed hug the only way guys knew how to hug.
It must’ve been time for the festivities to wrap up because Mallory and I spent the next half hour saying our farewells and goodbyes. I wanted to tell them all it wasn’t over like Lucas had said. That there was hope for more after that graduation cap was tossed high into the air.
Mallory and I were proof of that. Of the potential for more.
That reality spread through me as I looked at her. She was waving at the last car to pull down the long drive, and when her eyes swung my way, she startled.
“I still love you, Mallory.”
It flew out, the truth set for escape. Then, like she had so many years before, she slipped into my arms, her head against my chest, as she said, “I know, Heath. I still love you, too.”
