Page 65 of Sweet Revenge
“Oh wow! Thank you!” Evie took the pebble and set it on the table, rolling it around with her finger so the sun caught the flecks of quartz. “It’s my most favorite pebble.”
Evan beamed. “You’re welcome! Bye, Aunt Evie!”
“Well, that’s adorable.” Evie rubbed her thumb across the pebble before slipping it into her pocket. “You make cute kids, Cait.”
“James and I want to start trying as soon as we get married. I already technically went off the pill.”
“You didn’t tell me that!” Cait nudged Maura with her shoulder. “Finn and I are trying again too. It took so long to get pregnant with Evan, so we figured we’d get a jump on it.”
“Speaking of marriage and babies,” Maura said, and Evie’s eyebrows shot up. “How are things with you and Declan?”
“That’s quite a leap.”
Maura cocked her head. “Is it, though?”
Evie looked to Cait to intervene, but her traitorous friend only grinned. “Things are fine. Though definitely not marriage and baby level fine.”
“Do you want them to be?”
Did she? “No.”
“You hesitated.” Maura extended a finger to point at Evie, lips twitching in a barely contained grin.
“What? No, I didn’t.”
“You totally did,” Cait agreed.
“He just…did you know about the library?”
Cait’s smile was dreamy. “Yeah. I thought it was so romantic. Why? You didn’t like it?”
“No, I liked it. I liked it so much I had sex with him in there. Three times.”
“That’s impressive.”
Evie rolled her eyes at Maura. “The problem is, though, it doesn’t change what happened ten years ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, ten years ago he had a chance to be the person I needed him to be, and he blew it.”
“People change. Careful, Evan!” Maura yelled when Evan came a little too close to falling off the balance beam.
“I don’t want to hope for that. It’s easier not to.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Evie replied, “if you don’t hope, you can’t be disappointed.”
“Do you love him?”
Evie refused to meet Cait’s gaze. She couldn’t, because she already knew the answer. She’d known it since the moment the door had swung in on the library. “Yes,” she replied softly. “I’m not sure I ever really stopped.”
“Maybe that’s enough for now. The feeling is there, so you might as well let it be. Focus on Peter until he’s dealt with, and you can figure everything else out later.”
“How’s everything going with that, by the way? With the whole Peter situation?” Maura wondered.
Evie blew out a breath. “Seems like he’s escalating. After I found that note, Nessa called to say she thought someone had been in her house when she was out. She would come home and find things moved around. At first she thought she was being forgetful, but…Declan upped her security to round the clock. She’s not happy about it, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
