Page 1 of The Me I Left Behind (Tuckaway Bay #4)

One

June, Tuckaway Bay Beach

Thank God for friends with beach houses.

Maggie Oliver watched the littles play in the sand, a lazy sigh escaping her lips. It had been a while since she’d felt this relaxed—this much at peace. Her kids, too.

She supposed she should stop calling them the littles —which is what they’d called Jason and Chloe ever since Carol gave them the pet name years ago. They weren’t little kids any longer. Jason was fourteen and Chloe almost seven.

Carol, who just turned eighteen, was working at the Sea Glass Inn Resort this summer for Zach and Lia—mostly at The Sandcastle restaurant but sometimes helping with housekeeping.

It was a great experience for her and helped with upcoming college expenses.

She’d be heading to Eastern Carolinas University in the fall. Maggie’s alma mater.

Tilting her head back, she let the soft ocean breeze warm her face, the afternoon temperature mild for June. The waves were calm today, the Atlantic playing nice along the east coast barrier island. Life was better here. Not just good. Better.

No other way to put it.

Thank God for Tuckaway Bay.

The sea rolled endlessly behind the kids, the waves gently inching toward Chloe’s sandcastle.

Jason brought her water to bind the sand, running back and forth on his skinny legs.

Those two had always played well together, although she sometimes worried Jason spent too much time with Chloe, and not enough time doing boy things with his friends.

He was protective of her, that was for certain.

Pushing up out of her beach chair, Maggie left her spot under the umbrella and ambled toward the kids.

She wished Chloe had chosen a different spot to build because the tide would take her creation away, sooner rather than later, and Maggie would have to deal with the aftermath.

While Chloe had come a long way over the past few months, she still had her moments.

Earlier, Maggie had suggested she build further up the beach—but her daughter wasn’t having it.

Live and learn, she guessed. Consequences.

“Look, Mommy. Two towers! One for the princess and one for the prince.”

“It’s beautiful, honey. You are so talented.”

Chloe grinned. “Jason helped.”

“He’s a good big brother,” she said, catching her son’s eye. “Come here, you.”

She grasped Jason’s slim forearm and tugged him closer. Whispering in his ear, she said, “You are a very good big brother.” She hugged him then, and as always of late, his body went stiff. Don’t hug me in public , she’d been told more than once.

“Thanks, Mom.” Then he grinned and took off with the water bucket.

Maggie studied Chloe’s sandcastle again. “The prince and princess have their own towers?”

Chloe nodded. “So they won’t fight.”

Her words sucked the breath out of Maggie’s lungs. Chloe looked up, her expression blank. No emotion. No question. Nothing going on behind those big brown eyes.

It was just a statement. How it is.

She held her daughter’s gaze for another few seconds. Chloe’s upturned face remained stone still—and suddenly, the thought hit her that perhaps her daughter was challenging her to say more….

But princes and princesses usually live together.

You and Daddy don’t.

Well, Daddy is away, remember?

And when he’s away, you don’t fight.

So that’s better?

Fighting makes everyone cry.

Or maybe Chloe was worried she’d said the wrong thing.

An overwhelming feeling of sadness overtook her, and Maggie had to turn away. The conversation in her head wasn’t real, of course, but it could have been. She tried to cover her sob with a snort and a cough but wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off.

“I’m going to get my toes wet,” she said then, not looking at the kids.

Chloe said nothing. Jason gave her a wave.

They’d lost so much.

And all because she’d been too na?ve, self-centered, gullible, and foolishly agreeable to stand up for herself, and for the children, for far too many years.

She had grown these past few months, certainly. She was stronger, smarter, more independent than even a year ago. But she blamed herself for not waking up to the reality of her marriage, of their situation, sooner.

Twenty. Long. Years.

Where was that girl she used to be?

The girl who could lose herself painting for hours?

The college graduate who wanted to travel before settling down, and chose a flight attendant job, instead of teaching, for the travel perks.

That carefree, boy crazy, back-seat-romping college co-ed who loved life, sex, choices, and freedom?

When had she lost that girl? Where had she left her behind?

She stared out to sea, thinking, worried, then dropped her gaze as seafoam tickled her ankles, and a piece of seashell tumbled over her toes.

She dragged her big toe into the sand, chasing the shell fragment, then bent and picked it up, washing off sand in the surf.

It was the top of a scallop shell, pink and a little rosy on the edges. Her favorite shell.

A gift from the sea.

Smiling, she cupped it in her hand, then pivoted and headed back toward her chair and umbrella—glancing up at the Gull, the beach cottage Lia and Zach had graciously let her stay in for the summer. She waved at the littles as she passed, thinking about Carol.

They’d grown incredibly close since Christmas.

She’d leaned on her too much, and perhaps that was unfair.

But Carol knew more than the other kids and had experienced more of the chaos.

Maggie saw no need whatsoever to drag all three children fully into the hellscape their father had created around them.

They were innocent. Practically clueless.

That’s how it appeared then. Jason had known more than he’d let on, according to Carol—but ignored or simply refused to acknowledge.

One or both. Maggie often wondered if all the secrecy and closed doors had bothered him.

Until Max left, Chloe was a hard child to read on a normal day—shy, withdrawn, showing little emotion until she had a meltdown.

The past months, however, she was coming out of her protective shell.

Still, it was challenging to know how the mess had affected her.

Carol had assumed the role of Maggie’s confidant and supporter, and together they unloaded and reflected on the issues with Max and contemplated what to do about it. As much as Maggie hated that, somehow, it was good for both of them.

While eighteen-year-old young women don’t have the depth of knowledge or experience to understand the choices Maggie had made over the years, and why, Carol had needed her, too. Max had unceremoniously thrust her into the fray of their dysfunction. She had questions. Lots of questions.

The support was mutual.

Of course, Maggie could have found support elsewhere and often did. She had the girlfriends from college. And while they knew the situation with Max, and had for years, they’d not had the same experiences as Carol.

Alice was the mother hen of the group, the self-appointed fixer. She had a solution for most any situation. Too bad there wasn’t an easy fix for Max’s kind of crazy. Thing was, Alice had her own problems currently, with her pending divorce, and Maggie would not burden her with more.

Julia, her practical, no-nonsense attorney friend, gave practical, no-nonsense attorney advice as any lawyer would—unless she was giving Maggie shit for screwing up.

Which often happened. But Julia… God, she owed her more than she could ever give back.

She was getting her out of this mess so she could get on with her life.

And Lia, dear sweet Lia, always looked to the brighter side of life—though Maggie wasn’t sure there was a bright side to anything related to Max Oliver. But she’d been her savior, offering them the Gull Cottage for the summer.

The twins, Wren and Willow, couldn’t give advice, but were good listeners.

That’s how she framed it in her head, anyway.

There were times she needed to talk or explode, and she’d go out to her backyard and shout at the sky, pretending she was talking to them.

They never answered, of course, because wherever in the world those two women were living was a mystery.

Carol, however, was always there. For everything she’d been in the past, the spoiled bratty teenager to her, the darling daughter to her dad—she was neither of those things now.

She had, indeed, grown up too fast.

Back at her beach chair, Maggie plucked up her cell phone from where she’d stashed it under a book, shaded from the sun, and noticed a call notification.

She tapped on the call log. A missed international call from Australia. Puzzling. Max never called. All communication was through their attorneys.

The phone vibrated again in her hand. Australia.

“Hello?”

“G’day. Maggie Oliver?” The male voice spoke with a distinct Australian accent.

“Yes?”

“My name is Adam Barnett. I’m an officer with the Queensland Police Service. Your husband is Maxwell Oliver?”

What the hell kind of trouble is Max in now?

“Yes. That’s right.” Her heart rate kicked into overdrive. She would not bail him out of some stupid situation in fucking Australia. “Until the divorce is final.”

His voice lowered. “I see. I’m afraid I have unfortunate news. Your husband…well he was….”

He rambled on, the words dipping in and out of his Australian dialect.