Page 98 of Shattered Promise

I end the call and clutch my phone to my chest for ten minutes. I can’t believe that just happened. There’s this part of me that keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it’s not big enough to overshadow the giddiness flowing through my veins.

I fall asleep with Mason’s voice echoing in my head and wake to the watery, gray light of morning leaking through the blinds. My body feels loose and light, the kind of soft you only get after a night of dreaming about someone you can’t wait to see again.

There’s a text from him waiting on my phone.

Mason: Drive safe. Call me if you need me.

My heart gives one of those fluttery little jumps.

Me: I’ll text you when I’m on the road.

I sit up in bed, every muscle humming with the afterglow of last night’s call. The sheets are tangled around my legs, and I let myself lie there for a minute, just breathing in the quiet. I’m so used to waking with a weight on my chest—anxiety, worry, the sense that I’m already behind. But today, there’s only lightness, the gentle ache of wanting.

I stare at the ceiling, let the feeling bloom a little longer, then swing my legs over the side of the mattress.

I’ve got a long day of driving ahead of me, and I’m already counting down the hours until I’m back inside my little cabin in Avalon Falls.

37

MASON

Theo babbles beside me,one sticky hand slapping against the porch floor, the other curled around the plush penguin he refuses to put down lately. The afternoon sun is high now, pushing heat across my shoulders.

There’s a coffee mug cooling on the rail, half full, untouched. I thought about going into town and grabbing an iced latte, maybe it could be a caffeinated reward for not blowing up her phone with texts and video calls while she was driving home.

But then I worried that she might get here, and we’d be gone.

So here I am, sitting on my porch like some kind of golden retriever waiting for its person.

It’s been two days, but it might as well have been two years. It makes me feel dramatic and a little unhinged but I don’t know how else to explain the suffocating feeling of hernotbeing here.

I didn’t even realize I was slowly suffocating until she showed up by the creek all those weeks ago.

Theo grunts softly, leaning against the front of the chair. He’s pulling himself up now—little hands gripping the edge, knees wobbling, brows furrowed like he’s trying to solve gravity. He lets out a determined little sound and starts shuffling sideways,both hands clinging for balance as he half-steps along the chair’s base.

“Careful there, bud,” I murmur, curling a hand just behind his back. “You’re gonna be walking any day now.”

He squeals in response—full of pure delight. Then he reaches for me with one hand, teeters for half a second, and flops back on his butt with a thump. No tears. Just a proud grin and a squeak of triumph.

I let out a low laugh and rub a hand over my face. “You better wait for her,” I say quietly. “She’s gonna be bummed if she misses you walking.”

There’s a weird ache in my chest, the kind that comes from wanting something so much you forget how to breathe around it. I’m not sure if it’s pride or terror or just the bone-deep knowledge that every tiny milestone with Theo is going to be a first and a last, all at once. That if I look away, even for a day, I’ll miss something else I can’t get back.

The hair on the back of my neck stands, and I look up. There she is.

Cresting over the hill, golden hour sunlight melting around her bare shoulders like molten honey. She’s got a guitar strapped to her back, the neck of it catching the light. An oversized cowboy hat sits crooked on her head, her blonde hair whipping in the wind. A tote bag in the crook of her elbow, stuffed full of what looks like stuffed animals.

She uses her whole arm to wave at us, her laugh floating through the air and wrapping around my heart.

God, I missed that laugh.

I don’t think. Just scoop Theo into my arms, hop over the baby gate, and take the porch steps in two strides. My boots hit the gravel path hard and I don’t even hesitate entering the snake pit.

“Trouble,” I call out when she’s closer.

I take the last few steps, meeting her halfway in the meadow. Theo wiggles, squealing, and Abby drops her tote bag with a thud so she can wrap both arms around us. She squeezes hard, like she’s trying to fuse the three of us together.

I want to say so many things at once—how did it go, are you okay, I missed you, don’t ever leave again—but all that comes out is, “You’re back.”