Page 167 of Shadows of You

TWELVE YEARS LATER

I paced backand forth along the foyer of our home. The space had seen so much life. Racing through it to get to the car when my water broke the first time. The boys’ first steps. Photos of Cady’s first school dance. Roan carrying Chauncey to the car when we had to say goodbye and then welcoming a new three-legged puppy he’d brought home six months later.

We’d seen a million ups and downs in this home and the beautiful life we’d built. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever been this nervous.

My pacing picked up speed as I worried the corner of my thumbnail.

“What’s your deal, Mom?” Max asked from the couch, not looking away from the TV that housed his precious video game.

“Yeah,” Max’s twin brother, Colin, echoed as he hit a series of buttons on the controller. “You went wired after Dad called.”

Lewis looked up from his book at his spot by the window. “Everything okay?”

I nodded like one of those bobblehead dolls. “Everything’s fine.”

Max snorted. “Your voice gets all high-pitched when you lie.”

“It does not.” I winced as my tone went shrill.

Colin burst out laughing. “The only time she was worse than this was when she had to tell Dad that Cady had her first date.”

I grimaced at the reminder. Roan had not taken his baby girl growing up well. It helped that we’d have our three boys for a few more years, but Cady was getting ready to fly the nest.

Lewis’s brows lifted. “Cady isn’t getting married, is she?”

That had the twins’ gazes shooting to me.

“No, no, no. Nothing like that,” I promised. My girl was eighteen. Way too young to be thinking about that.

The sound of tires crunching on gravel had my nerves ratcheting up another few levels. My hands fisted as my palms went damp. A car door closed. Then there were footsteps outside.

He’d texted from the post office on his way home from his SAR meeting. Much to his chagrin, the community’s perception of him changed once people started seeing him with Cady. They saw the gentleness I had from that very first meeting. Now, he was constantly asked to serve on volunteer committees, sports teams, and everything in between.

The door swung open, and Roan filled the space. It didn’t matter if it had been twelve minutes or twelve years, I never tired of looking at my husband—his broad shoulders and muscled form, gorgeous face, now with a few lines from smiling and laughing, and his hair peppered with gray. But those blue eyes stayed the same.

“It came?” I whispered.

Roan closed the distance between us and handed me the envelope.

It looked like any business envelope, except the top of the return address readAmerican Ballet Theatre. My fingers rubbed circles on the paper. “It’s thin.”

It hurt to even say the words. My girl had fallen in love with dance. She’d been enamored with it from the moment she started, but as she’d gotten older, it had become clear that not only did she love it, but she was also incredibly talented. She’d done classes, camps, and even a special summer program in New York.

The American Ballet Theatre was her dream. And I wanted my girl to have all her dreams, even if it meant losing her to the other side of the country. But this envelope? I worried it was about to dash all those hopes.

Roan squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s just see what it says before we borrow trouble. Where is she?”

“Where do you think?” I asked.

Cady processed everything through dance. The good and the bad. But it was especially her outlet during times of anxiety. When we’d told her the whole truth about John, she’d locked herself in the studio for weeks until she had a hold of the feelings she needed to talk about. She did the same when we lost Chauncey. When she’d fallen in love. When she’d suffered her first heartbreak. And knowing that she should be hearing back about her audition for the company at ABT had her pretty much dancing around the clock.

Roan’s lips twitched, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Come on,” he said, plucking the envelope from my fingers and guiding me toward the stairs. “Don’t burn down the house,” he called to the boys.

“If you chill Mom out, we’ll be angels,” Max yelled back.

Roan chuckled. “Holding you to that.”

We descended the staircase to an area Roan had built just for Cady. I couldn’t help but take in the space as we stepped into the room. One wall was entirely mirrored with a ballet bar across it. The opposite wall was all windows with a view of Cedar Ridge. It was magical, and Cady had wept when she saw it.

---