“What?” I breathed. “Here in Sweetbriar? Luke?” I gasped as my head turned to the door, then to the windows, stupidly looking around for a sign of him.

Lucas Michael McCabe.

I’d tried hard over the years to banish that name from my thoughts, and I’d always failed. Our mothers had been best friends. They had thought it would be fun to be pregnant at the same time. Later, they had been even more thrilled when they went into labor and gave birth on the same day: Diana to Luke, and my mom to me and Rose. After a childhood spent as inseparable best friends, we fell in love. We graduated from high school and he joined the Army while I went to college in Tacoma, near where he had been stationed. Deployments had been hard, but we loved each other, so we made it work. Until one day it stopped working. He went back to Afghanistan, and I never heard from him again. Luke was Dylan’s father. Even me being pregnant didn’t make him come back. I still couldn’t understand it. It went against everything I had ever known about him.

Dad’s voice shook me out of my memories. “He was injured and discharged from the Army. Lily, he never knew you were pregnant. The officer who was supposed to tell him died before he could give him the news. Jed told him about Dylan the second he returned to town. They came to the house and talked to me and Mom.” Jed was Luke’s grandfather and the only living family he had; it had broken his heart when Luke cut off communication. “We all decided it would be best to tell you after you got back home.”

Violet smiled softly at me. “We were afraid you wouldn’t come back if you knew, so we didn’t tell you until it was too late for you to change your mind. Don’t be mad, Lily. We all love you and wanted you here with us.” Tears shimmered in her eyes.

I stared at her, too shocked to say anything. Will and I had decided that Dylan should know who his birth father was, but Will had been his father in every other way. They had been right not to tell me. I may have chickened out and stayed in Tacoma had I known. But it was too late now, I’d already sold my house, my furniture, and quit my job. Deep down, I didn’t really want to go back. I missed my family. Still, talk about dropping a bomb on a girl.