Ana had been one of my mother’s closest friends. She had to have known who my father was. Didn’t she? Either way, she must have known that J.D. was married.

“It’s complicated, Sawyer.”

“Then uncomplicate it.”

Ana tried stepping past me again, but this time, I reached out and touched her arm. I didn’t grab her, but she ground to a stop like I had.

“Campbell Ames is in the waiting room,” I said. “She’s a friend of mine. And Lily’s. You know her father.” I let that sink in. Even though I felt like I’d swallowed cotton, I made my mouth form the question. “What happened to your baby?”

Three things occurred in the wake of that question. The first was that a nurse brought Lily back from her CT scan; the second was that Lillian and Aunt Olivia arrived.

And the third was that Ana Gutierrez placed a hand softly against my cheek, leaned forward, and whispered the answer to my question.

LABOR DAY, 3:26 A.M.

“Sawyer? I just wiggled my feet! And my hands! And my temple!”

“Your temple? As in your head?”

“No. As in my lady temple.”

“Your lady . . .”

“Temple. Like how it says in the Bible that your body is a temple?”

“Oh, God. Can we just go back to the part where you were talking about your hands and feet?”

EIGHT WEEKS
(AND SIX DAYS) EARLIER

CHAPTER 24

“Long time no see, Sawyer Taft.” Walker greeted me the same way he had every time I’d seen him exiting Lily’s room for the past nine days.

Somehow, I’d found myself living in a strange alternate universe where Lily’s boyfriend was allowed to be in her bedroom with the door shut, and I wasn’t allowed in her room at all—the former by my grandmother’s edict and the latter by Lily’s. If Lily could have kicked me out of the house, she would have. Lillian was blaming it on the head injury, but she hadn’t seen the look on Lily’s face when she’d seen me standing there with her father’s mistress’s hand on my face.

“How is she today?” I asked Walker.

I wasn’t asking about the stitches or the concussion, and he knew it.

“She’s angry,” Walker said. “It’s a better look for her than sad.”

Lily didn’t, as a rule, let herself get truly angry. She didn’t lose her temper. Anything she could repress, she did. But this wasn’t the old Lily we were dealing with here. This Lily’s father had moved out. Her mother was insisting on pretending that he was just being considerate, and once the gossip blew over, everything would go back to normal.