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made the magic real. She’d learned never to
believe in anything she couldn’t see and hear and touch.
    Livy gave in to the urge to pull Max against
her and listen to his heart beat sure and steady; she touched his
impossibly soft cheek.
    Max was all the magic she needed. No matter
who was back in town.
    * * *
    Garrett walked to River Street, bought coffee
he didn’t need or want, then sat on a bench and watched the
Savannah River. Boats flowed by, tourists chattered, the city awoke
around him, and Garrett still stared at the water.
    I have a son.
    He could not seem to get his mind around that
fact. Maybe because his son was eight years old—a walking, talking,
laughing, falling person. Most fathers got to start with a
baby and work up. Not him. For a bonus, his son thought he was
dead .
    Garrett dumped out his coffee untasted. His
heart already pumped too hard and too fast from anger, fear and
uncertainty. He didn’t need a caffeine jump start.
    Why hadn’t Livy told him? Had she even tried
to find him? Most important why did she hate him?
    He wasn’t blameless. He had run away.
He’d also been a child, at least when dealing with emotions.
Because he’d never known love until Livy.
    Garrett’s mother had taken off when he was a
baby. He didn’t have a single memory of her. Perhaps he should feel abandoned. Counselors and teachers had told him
that often enough. But how could he feel left when he felt little
to nothing at all?
    He might have wondered on occasion why she’d
gone. Had it been to get away from him? But Garrett had lived with
his father, and somehow he’d doubted his mother had run from a
baby.
    James, Sr., a no-nonsense, high-profile,
corporate attorney, had wanted a son to follow in his footsteps.
He’d gotten J.J., instead.
    The man had not known what to do with a child
who walked around in a cloud of imagination, tripped over his own
feet, ran into doors and talked about people who did not
exist—except try like hell to change him.
    Garrett had waited until he was eighteen to
run. But a lifetime of being told he was useless and worthless,
that dreams were only dreams and his would never amount to
anything, had made Garrett uncertain of what was the truth.
    When Livy had told him she loved him, Garrett
had run again, knowing he did not deserve a gift as precious as
that. And in running he’d made all his father’s predictions come
true.
    The breeze off the river whispered
autumn—summer dying, winter coming. The scent of sultry heat fading
toward sharp, cool ice, but beneath it all, the tangy whiff of
burning leaves and the prophesy of withering daylight.
    The rumble of cars over the cobblestone
street at Garrett’s back made him remember walking along this very
river, taking her hand, wishing things he’d never dared hope for
and dreaming more than he’d ever dared to dream.
    Touching her skin in the moonlight, gently,
reverently, knowing she was the most beautiful being on this earth.
Pulling her close, smelling her hair, breathing her name,
understanding he held everything in his arms. And knowing in his
heart he deserved none of it, but wanting her nevertheless. She had
given him strength, made him believe in himself and shared every
bit of herself.
    Garrett had thought he was coming back to
Savannah for the book. He admitted now, he had come back for
her.
    He still didn’t deserve her love. He
certainly didn’t deserve Max. But he had learned a few things over
the past nine years. People rarely got what they deserved—be it
good or bad. They quite often got what they fought for, though, and
they could earn what they believed in deeply enough.
    Livy was different now. Perhaps not the woman
he’d once loved, and he had no one to blame but himself. His son,
on the other hand, was special. Garrett had seen that the second he
looked into Max’s eyes. Max was like him, only better, and Garrett
wasn’t going to allow Max to endure the childhood Garrett had
endured. He was going to