He averts his gaze, making me feel a little panicky until he says, “I do know you from somewhere.”

“Wait. What?”

“I know you from somewhere.”

“That wasn’t just a line after all?” My laughter dies on my lips when I see the gravity in his eyes.

“We met twelve months ago.”

I feel myself pale, the blood draining from my face and gathering low in my belly where it roils. I push away from the table.

Granny was right. My past really is returning. Because twelve months ago, my world changed.

Chapter Seven

Asher

“I was going to name her Grace.”

When I first saw the girl sitting by the river twelve months ago, there was so much blood on her hands, I worried she had slit her wrists.

“Miss?” The redhead sat on the bank of the river, knees drawn to her chin. She ignored me and stared at her bloodstained hands like a tragic Shakespearean tableau.

“Are you okay?” I inched closer and saw a smudge of blood under her eye, streaked where the tears had run through it. I couldn’t get a good look at her wrists, but assumed she had cut herself there, come to my little edge of river to let the life bleed out of her. “Where are you hurt?”

She blinked at me, seeming to register my presence for the first time. God. She was probably doped up on all sorts of drugs.

She shook her head frantically. “I’m not hurt. I’m fine. It’s just a little blood. This happens to some women.”

But then she squeezed her eyes shut, clung to her legs, and rocked herself back and forth.

“What’s your name?” I kept my voice low, gentle, as I inched closer.

“I was going to name her Grace,” she whispered, eyes focused on the river as if it could save her.

“Who?”

She bit her lip, shook her head. “I didn’t want this. Not this.”

She reached a hand down, cupped herself between her legs as if she were trying to hold something there.

I understood then. I lowered myself on the ground next to her, felt the dampness of the riverbank seep into my pants. “You’re having a miscarriage?”

She shook her head again. “I was going to make it work. It wasn’t ideal, maybe not right, but I was going to make it work. I didn’t want this. This can’t be happening.”

“You need to go to the hospital.”

Her eyes grew wide, and I was struck by how her irises were a solid jade green. “Would you go with me? I don’t think I can be alone when they tell me I’m losing my baby. I”—she gasped for air, choked on a sob—“I’m so afraid.”

And then I surprised us both by pulling her into my arms and holding her while she cried.

I never forgot the way all concern seemed to leech out of her as we approached the hospital. I never forgot the way her voice changed, became monotone, as if, so young, she’d already lost all faith in life. I hadn’t been able to forget her haunted expression as I parked in the hospital’s circle drive and she’d watched the sliding doors that lead to the ER. “Do you believe God punishes us for our sins?”

I thought about her after that day. I wondered what had happened after the nurses took her back. I waited two hours, smudges of a strange woman’s blood on my shirt.

How could the Maggie who keeps a steel cage around her heart be the same woman who cupped herself between her legs to keep her baby inside?

***

Maggie

There’s so much pity in Asher’s eyes, I can’t stand it.

“I didn’t realize,” he says. “I couldn’t figure out how I knew you. You look so different now. Healthier than you did then. Your hair’s different, maybe? I only knew what you looked like when you were crying. I found you by the river. Took you to the hospital.”

Asher Logan was the stranger who took me in that day? Is the world really that small? Is fate really so cruel?

I was such a complete wreck that day at the river. I remember a man. Remember him trying to get me to go to the hospital.

I stare at my hands, almost surprised to see them clean. No blood, no horrible nightmare making me face my sins.

How can this all be coming back? But then, I never escaped it, did I?

“You held me.”

“Yeah,” he whispers, “I did.”

I was praying by the river that day. Confused. Guilty. Mixed up as hell. I was pregnant, and I was getting married in two days, and I had no idea when my life had gotten so completely out of control.

Then, when I started bleeding, it was like some sick answer to my prayer. Dear God, please make this right. And then blood.

I don’t hear Asher move, but when I look up, when I take my eyes off my unstained hands, he is standing next to me, extending a hand.

I could take it. No doubt, he’d hold me again. No doubt, it would feel damn good. He’d stroke my hair, murmur in my ear. He’d listen to me blubber like an idiot woman who can’t deal with a traumatic situation—or even the memory of one—without the strong arms of a man to hold her together.

I’m tempted. I’m truly tempted, and I hate myself for that. Even twelve months later. Even after therapy and endless affirmations of self-forgiveness, I’m tempted. I want to tell someone. I want to start at the beginning. I want to start with my father. With being fifteen and seeing the word CONFESS appear like a phantom in the steam of the bathroom mirror. I want to spill my ugly soul out onto the cold, scarred linoleum of the kitchen floor.

At least then I wouldn’t need to worry about any unwanted declarations of love—because then he would know just how damaged I am.

Asher reaches for me, but I ignore his hand. I wrap my arms across my chest because I won’t let myself need his.

“I’m sorry you had to see me that way,” I say. I need to get away from him. Away from the reminder. Coming back to New Hope is hard enough with all these pieces of my past returning, threatening to stir up questions I can’t answer. This month—the anniversary of Asher pulling me from the riverbank and taking me to the hospital, the anniversary of the cancellation of my sham of a wedding, the anniversary of making the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life—this month is the hardest yet. And my life has been no day at the fair.

“I hope you’ll respect my privacy and keep that day between the two of us.”

To Asher’s credit, he doesn’t come to me but neither does he retreat. He holds his ground, stands solid. “Of course.”

I nod, and I’m so confident I can trust him that I want to weep. “Listen, it’s been fun, but I think you should go. Do you need a ride back to your car?”

“No. I can walk.” He doesn’t move for a long moment, and I wonder if he’ll argue. I wonder if he’s having fantasies of holding the pieces of me together while I sleep. Will’s words haunt me.

“Maggie, if you’re broken, I’ll fix you.”

I won’t be the woman who needs that from a man. I won’t.

Asher is staring at me—waiting for something—but I can’t meet his eyes.

I wait until I hear the clang of the front door.

I run the water hot at the kitchen sink. While squirting liquid soap on my hands, I think of the bookmark I found in my purse. Confess your sins and be forgiven.

My sins? I don’t even know where to start.

***

I raise the mallet and hesitate a single heartbeat before bringing it down on the glossy purple serving tray. The sound of cracking ceramic lifts that ever-present weight from my shoulders, and I slam the hammer down a second time, and a third, until there’s no platter, only purple shards that send my right brain spinning.

Next I have an aquamarine vase I found at a thrift shop. I can’t wait to shatter it. And the mugs from the Salvation Army, and the ceramic tiles from my mom’s bathroom renovation.

This is my new obsession. Mosaics. I came to Sinclair on a scholarship for painting, and I know how my professors are going to react to my new medium when I return in the fall. Ethan Bauer will call it a waste of my talent. Mosaics aren’t real Art, he’ll say, not the kind with the capital A. They’re backyard tinkering. They’re the layman’s work. They’re—Ethan’s biggest insult to an artist—a craft.

But I think that’s why I’ve fallen in love with them. I like finding beauty in these discarded treasures. I like making something where there was nothing before.

Being back on campus feels odd. A little like returning to a former life after being reincarnated. Being in this studio gives me a sense of déjà vu.

I take another sip of cranberry juice and smile at the rising sun peaking in the window of my art studio. Getting studio space means getting a key to the fine arts building, and after Asher left last night, I grabbed my keys and headed to campus. The only stop I made was for a bottle of cranberry juice and a bottle of vodka.

And if I’m a little drunk at seven in the morning, who am I hurting?

I’m unsteady on my feet—from the liquor and the exhaustion—and I have to balance myself with a hand against the table.

Glass pops, snapping under my palm. I see blood before I even register the pain. A little blood smeared across the bubbled glass, then a lot of blood. Then the pain—dull and throbbing as red liquid puddles on the floor.

I put my hand to my mouth. My fingers tighten around the wound. I’m okay. Maybe I need a few stitches, but I’ll be all right.

But then I look at my hands. Really look. And the sight of them covered in blood sends me back to the river. Back to the day I thought I was losing my baby. Suddenly, breathing is too difficult. The air is too thick and the path to my lungs too narrow.

Then I’m crying. My tears are hitting the floor, mixing with the bright red blood.

I have to get to the bathroom. Wash this up. But I’m stuck in the past. My feet and my brain, frozen in time.

I don’t know how long I stand there before Will shows up at my door.

“Maggie!” He rushes in and grabs my hands. And now the blood’s on his hands too and that’s not right. He’s innocent in this. He doesn’t deserve to be stained by my mistakes.

He’s murmuring something and I realize he’s wrapping up my hand in some sort of cotton. Where did he…

His shirt. He’s torn off his shirt and is wrapping the gash in my hand in the soft cotton. Damn, that’s sweet. And now he’s standing in front of me in nothing but his jeans. I’m bleeding through his makeshift bandage, but I can’t take my eyes off his chest.

“You’re so gorgeous.” Did I say that out loud? I didn’t mean to. But he is. Will pushes his body hard—long runs and strict appointments with the weights. I always laughed at how regimented he was with his fitness, but now I’m thinking the world would be a better place if more men were so dedicated. There would be more happiness. Less war. Fewer children would go hungry.

I hear myself giggling and I’m looking into Will’s face. He’s taken my face into his hands and is saying…something.

Were his lips always so perfect?

“Maggie.” He gives me a soft shake.

They were always that perfect. I remember. I remember wishing I were a different kind of girl so I could kiss those lips without feeling like I was tarnishing something so beautiful. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital.”

I smile. “You’re going to take care of me? Don’t you just want me to bleed out? Wouldn’t that be…easier?” Then I laugh because I sound so damn dramatic.

He frowns, says something about shock. Then he leans so close to my face I think he’s going to kiss me. I tilt my lips up and wait. I miss the feel of his mouth on mine.

He draws in a deep breath through his nose. “You’re drunk.”

I lift a shoulder. “I’m legal now.”

“Jesus,” he mutters. He’s saying something else, looking around my studio for something, but I can’t take my eyes off his gorgeous bare skin, the expanse of his back. Did I kiss him there when I had the chance? Why can’t I remember?

He grabs my purse and wraps his arm around my waist. The next thing I know, we’re on the elevator, and I’m leaning into him. He’s so warm.

“Yeah, and you’re drunk,” he says.

I frown. Did I say something?

Then we’re walking again and he’s settling me into the car, and I think I might have fallen asleep a little because now he’s opening my door and pulling me to my feet. He has a shirt on again. When did that happen? Why did it happen?

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask.

“I’m not being nice. You’re just too drunk to notice I’m pissed at you.”

His arm is wrapped around my waist, and we’re moving through sliding doors. He says something to the man sitting behind the counter, while I blink, my eyes objecting to the fluorescent lights.

“You’re mad at me?”

He settles me into a chair and inspects my hand. The cotton is soaked through with bright red blood that doesn’t look real at all. It looks like something out of a B-grade film.

“Do you often get trashed and play with sharp pieces of glass?”

Oh. I hear it now. He is pissed. I smile. I like when Will gets pissed. He’s being all sweet and protective, and it makes me feel like I’m worth something more than the trash we all know I am. “I can’t create art if I’m not relaxed,” I object.

“It’s stupid and it’s dangerous.” He settles into the seat next to me, and I lean my head on his shoulder. He’s frowning at me, so I smile up at him. I’ve ruined his night. Then I laugh because it’s not night anymore, and Will was probably starting his day. He probably had work to do. Department meetings. Curriculum development. I’ve ruined his day.