Page 2 of Last Wish Wedding

A flutter of movement in her abdomen answered her. Not a kick, not yet, but the strange butterfly sensation that had started last week. The same day as the accident. As if the baby had somehow known, had chosen that moment to make its presence undeniably felt.

Kelsey pressed her hand to the small, sacred swell beneath the black fabric. Part of David, growing inside her. The only part she had left.

“But I have to do this, don’t I?” she whispered to the grave, to the baby, to herself. “I have to keep going.”

The flutter came again, stronger this time. Kelsey took a deep, shuddering breath to gather the broken pieces of herself back together. When she stood, her legs were steadier than she expected.

She looked down at the casket, now fully lowered into the earth. Cemetery workers stood at a respectful distance, waiting to complete their task once she left.

A cool breeze lifted the ends of her hair, carrying the scent of fresh earth and new growth. Kelsey took one final look at the grave, a final silent goodbye.

Then she turned and walked away. Each step was an act of sheer will, propelling her forward into a future she hadn’t chosen but would somehow have to build, for the child who would need her to be both mother and father, both strength and tenderness.

For David’s child. For Noah, the name they had chosen together just days before the accident while lying in bed with their hands intertwined over her growing belly.

Behind her, the cemetery workers moved in and their shovels bit into the pile of dirt beside the grave. She didn’t look back, didn’t allow herself to hear the first thud of soil hitting wood. Instead, she focused on Amy by the car, on the horizon beyond, on the life within her. One step, then another. It was all she could do.

It would have to be enough.

Chapter 1

The fog rolled in off the Atlantic like a living thing, swallowing I-95 in thick, gray tendrils. Preston MacCormack squinted through the windshield of his grandfather’s Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. The massive sailing yacht he was hauling behind him felt like a target in these conditions, and every car that zipped past sent a shudder through him. At least he was visible.

“Damn fools,” he muttered, watching another set of taillights vanish into the fog ahead. At thirty-five, Mac had already seen enough of humanity’s stupidity to last several lifetimes. It was partly why he’d bought the sailing yacht—a promise of solitude on the open water, away from everyone and everything.

The cab’s heater fought against the early spring chill. He’d already slipped on the company jacket the usual driver had left in the cab and was eying the thick sweatshirt he’d brought lying on the passenger seat.

His grandfather would approve of Mac making this run himself, even if the old man might question Mac’s plans for the boat. He was a man that loved being around people. “Learn it from the ground up, boy,” he’d always said, his Irish brogue thick even after fifty years in the States. “That’s how you respect what you’ve built.”

Mac had learned, all right. Learned enough about people to know he was better off without them. The money he’d made on his own, plus his grandfather’s pending inheritance, meant he never had to work another day in his life. But here he was, hauling his own boat because...

Brake lights blazed through the fog ahead.

Mac slammed his foot onto his brake, but physics had its own opinions about eighteen wheels and forty tons of momentum. He thanked his stars that he’d had the common sense to slow down. The truck’s horn blared as he yanked it, but the sound was swallowed by the wall of gray. He could see it now—a pileup, cars crumpled like paper, and his rig sliding forward with inexorable certainty.

The world moved in slow motion. Mac’s training kicked in—all those hours his grandfather insisted on drilling him on handling the rig in every condition imaginable. He fought the wheel, muscles straining as he tried to guide the massive vehicle toward the shoulder. Hitting the mass of cars would make things worse for everyone involved. The trailer with his yacht threatened swayed dangerously, threatening to jackknife.

Metal screamed against metal as the truck’s cab clipped a silver sedan, pushing it sideways into the guardrail like a crumpled accordion. The impact jolted through the cabin, but the sedan was no match for the truck, and somehow he kept control until the rig finally shuddered to a stop.

Mac’s hands trembled as he unclipped his seatbelt and grabbed his phone. The fog wrapped around him as he jumped down from the cab with the wet splash of his boots on asphalt. “Hey!” he shouted, running toward the sedan. “Anyone hurt?”

The driver’s door groaned open. A woman emerged, moving with the kind of deliberate grace that suggested she was checking herself for injuries. She straightened, and Mac found himself frozen in place.

Her eyes were the color of Arctic ice, and they held about as much warmth. The look she fixed him with could have stripped paint off a wall. She was tall, maybe early thirties, with dark hair plastered to her face from the fog’s moisture.

“Are you blind?” Her voice cut through the fog like a knife. “Couldn’t you have missed my car?”

Mac felt his own temper flare. “Lady, if you could see past your own hood in this soup, you’d know I did everything I could to avoid—”

A chorus of horns blared behind them, followed by another sickening crunch of metal meeting metal at speed. The woman’s eyes widened, and the anger in them was suddenly replaced by something else—fear, maybe, or recognition of just how bad this could have been.

Mac instinctively stepped between her and the ongoing chaos behind them, his earlier irritation forgotten. “We need to get off the road,” he said, gesturing toward the guardrail. “More cars are coming, and they can’t see a damn thing.”

The fog made everything surreal, like a nightmare in slow motion. Mac wrapped his fingers around her arm to pull her toward the guardrail, but she twisted free with surprising strength.

Cries for help pierced through the fog’s muffled silence. “I need my bag,” she said, already rushing back to her crushed car. She reached through the passenger window and emerged with a large black duffel. “Call 911 and come with me.”

Mac fumbled with his phone, punching in the numbers as he followed her. Her figure appeared and disappeared in the swirling mist like a ghost.