Page 229 of Holding On To Good

Again.

It’d been a reoccurring theme throughout the day. But when she’d gotten weepy while getting her hair done, had cried silently during the ceremony and gotten choked up giving a maid-of-honor speech raving about how great love was, everyone had assumed she was emotional due to the wedding.

They were partly right.

But these tears were all for her.

Rose got up and moved to the chair next to Willow. Wrapped her free arm around Willow’s shoulder and pulled her in for an awkward hug. “It’s not too late.”

Willow had confessed everything to Hayden and Rose yesterday morning at brunch—her conversation with Miranda. How Urban had kicked her out of his house and life. That J&K was splitting up.

That Willow didn’t know what to believe or what, if anything, she should do about any of it.

“It’s almost midnight,” Willow pointed out, laying her head on her sister’s shoulder. “If he was going to show up, he would’ve by now.”

“I mean, it’s not too late for you to go to him.”

Willow sat upright so fast, she startled the baby. Nathan lifted his plump arms, but mercifully kept his eyes closed. “I can’t just leave my own sister’s wedding.”

Rose jiggled her son, settling him down again. “Right. Just like you couldn’t leave brunch yesterday to go talk to him. Or find any time in your cramped schedule before now to make this right.”

Stiff, offended—and called out—Willow used a napkin to carefully wipe away her tears. “I was busy.” So very, very swamped with her maid-of-honor duties and all the many, many, many activities that went with a wedding of this size: brunch and manicures and pedicures and afternoon tea and the rehearsal dinner yesterday. Another brunch—because Lily couldn’t go more than two hours without eating—photographs and hair and makeup and then the ceremony and reception today. “And I thought he’d be here today. That we could talk then.”

“You thought,” Rose said, gently, “that he’d make the first move.”

“Is that so wrong?”

“Wrong? No. But it is unfair of you to want Urban to be the one to put himself out there when you’re not willing to do the same.”

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

She was still being a coward. Hiding from the mess she’d made. Afraid she’d screwed up so badly with Urban there was no way he’d forgive her.

No way he’d give her a second chance.

“Love is scary,” Rose said. “Opening yourself up to someone else, giving them your heart, being emotionally vulnerable, that all takes courage. And it takes trust. Trusting that person to be open and honest. Trusting them not to break your heart. And trusting yourself that when things get hard, the love you have for them, is worth fighting for.”

Miranda’s words from yesterday echoed in Willow’s head.

Your mistake was not fighting for him.

Willow’s scalp prickled painfully. That had been her mistake. It hadn’t been her only one.

But it may have been her biggest.

She leaped to her feet. “I have to go.”

Rose shifted in her seat. “Want me to drive you?”

“No. I’m good.” Leaning down, she kissed her nephew’s cheek, then her sister’s. “Thank you. Love you.”

“Love you,” Rose called as Willow rushed off.

Ignoring the looks she got from several wedding guests, including her mother, Willow ran—literally, arms and legs pumping, ran—out the double doors.

And realized as she stepped onto the cool sidewalk that she wasn’t wearing shoes.

And that her car key was in her clutch back at the bridal table.

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