by Abby Tyler
When Jack returned, he was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
“We are,” he said. “You might want to put Ella in something good for the outdoors.”
He headed back out the front door.
What was that all about? She carried Ella to the nursery and grabbed a fuzzy jumper and a baby hat.
She was still changing the baby into the new outfit when Jack popped his head into the nursery. “Ready yet?”
“Almost.” She gave Jack an uncertain smile. “What are you doing?”
He came into the room. “I’ll finish dressing her. Gather a few things for about an hour outside.”
“Okay,” she said, still confused. “So much mystery.”
She loaded the diaper bag with formula, diapers, wipes, and essentials. When she came out of the kitchen, Jack was standing by the front door with Ella. He even had Nero attached to a leash. The poor dog was so excited he could barely stand still.
“You going to tell me now?” Louisa asked. Jack seemed eager, almost bubbly. This was unlike any version of Jack Louisa had ever seen.
Jack opened the door.
“For us!” He gestured outside. Sitting on the porch was a brand-new blue-and-gray baby stroller.
Jack knelt down beside it, holding Ella in one arm while he clipped Nero’s leash to the handle. “It has all-terrain wheels, a storage compartment underneath, and clips to hang a bag on the back. And cup holders!” He lifted Ella up to a set of toys dangling from the canopy over the seat. “Look at these, Ella.”
Ella waved her arms excitedly at the bright objects.
“Jack! It’s wonderful!”
“Ready to try it out?” He settled Ella into the seat, and her arms went instantly to the colorful objects dangling near her head. Jack clipped her in and tightened the straps.
“Are we going for a walk then?” Louisa asked.
“It’s a gorgeous day,” Jack said. “Of course we are.”
It was a glorious day, sunshiny and bright, with only the slightest nip in the air. Spring was well underway and would be moving to summer soon enough.
Was he outing them? They’d been a cozy threesome for so long. Or would he keep his distance around other people, maintaining their professional nanny and employer relationship?
The three of them set out down Murray Street. Louisa shivered with a touch of nerves. But then Jack took her hand.
They came across Linda, nursing her prized rose bushes. She looked up as they passed, her face pinched in her perpetually disapproving expression. “Officer Stone, is that you?” she asked. “With Louisa James?”
“It surely is,” he said. “And baby Ella.”
At the sight of the baby, Linda’s expression softened. “Oh, she is growing. I expect you’re getting on better now? I sent a chicken casserole back when Maude said we needed to get you some meals.”
“I’m getting along just fine,” Jack said. “And thank you for helping out when I was getting adjusted.”
“Of course,” Linda said. Her sharp little eyes darted between Jack and Louisa again, resting for a moment on their joined hands, but she didn’t ask any questions.
When they had passed her, Louisa asked, “What do you think she’ll do?”
“Tell everyone she knows,” Jack said. “But what does it matter? We’re just a man and a lady pushing a stroller down the street.”
Not exactly. For anybody who lived in Applebottom during the last forty years, their alliance was actually a pretty big deal. Jack and Louisa’s feuds growing up had been rather legendary.
“You’re okay with this?” she asked.
“Why not? Are you?” A note of concern flitted across his face. “Aren’t you happy with our situation?”
“Yes!” she squeezed his hand. “Of course.”
Nero slowed them down, stopping to sniff and pee on every pole. But Jack was in a fine mood, happy to indulge the dog.
They waved at Arnold, the town barber, who was walking swiftly back toward Town Square, probably at the end of his lunch break. He certainly didn’t pay them any mind. They turned up Pine Street and spotted Ginny McBride, who was taking her giant dog Roscoe out on a walk.
The huge Great Dane bounded straight up to Nero and they sniffed each other a moment.
Then Roscoe approached the stroller.
“Sorry,” Ginny said, running up beside him. “Babies are too interesting for me to keep him back.”
Jack stiffened, but Louisa was familiar with the dog. The two of them had come for pizza many times. “He won’t do her any harm,” she said to Jack.
Jack still kept his eye on the dog. Louisa watched to see if Ginny would make note of the two of them holding hands, but she was too worried about Roscoe.
“We sure miss your pizzas,” Ginny said. She pulled on the leash, but Roscoe continued to sniff at Ella, who waved her hands wildly.
“I’ll have to make you one sometime, just for fun,” Louisa said.
“I should probably learn how.”
“I have extra pizza pans if you need one.”
“I might take you up on that.” She finally extricated Roscoe from the stroller. “See you all soon.”
The two of them headed the opposite direction, and Ginny hadn’t even noticed the hand holding. Some people were not born gossips.
“Are we headed toward the park?” Louisa asked Jack.
“I thought it would be nice now that we have a way to take Ella out. Seems like she likes it.”
“Why didn’t we think of doing it before?”
“It was cold and we had a lot of other things to shop for,” he said. “But I had to run into Branson on my last shift, so I just popped in and picked one up.”
“Well, I love it.”
She let go of Jack to snap some pictures of Ella in her seat, and some with Jack pushing the stroller.
It gave her an excuse to stare at him. Even though his workouts had slowed down, he was still broad-shouldered with wide, strong biceps. In his jacket, he looked like he could take on a wrestler. His jaw was more pronounced than usual with the light and shadows of the bright day.
He definitely was handsome. He always had been. He would never have even looked at her in high school, not that she would’ve wanted him to. He was a big, tough jock, and his attitude was too serious, too domineering, and too authoritative for his age and position in the school. Louisa certainly hadn’t appreciated it then. And, admittedly, she had done everything in her power to undermine him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“You don’t want to know,” she said.
“Maybe I do.”
“I was just remembering some of our conflicts back in high school.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. I guess there were a lot.”
“We didn’t exactly see eye to eye.” His sharp, gray eyes missed nothing as he read her expression. “Why are you thinking of those old things?”
“Oh, I guess just how different we are now.”
“You mean because we get along.”
Louisa brushed an errant curl off her forehead. “I think we’re doing a bit more than just getting along.”
Jack laughed lightly. “That’s true. But why is it on your mind?”
Louisa waved her arms around. “We’re out here for everyone to see.”
“You really are worried about what people will say.” The frown returned.
Did he need reassurance? Someone like Jack? “It’s fine,” Louisa told him. “We’re adults.”
They approached the walking trail that ran alongside the woods and up the hill to the city park. Jack bumped the stroller up the curb and onto the dirt path.
Louisa almost didn’t want to broach the next question, but now that they were talking about it openly, rather than just living their relationship in private, maybe it was time. “So what are we doing here?” she asked. “I mean, you and me.”
Jack’
s mouth pulled into a frown. “What do you mean? You’re helping me with Ella. We get along well.”
Louisa’s confidence faltered. That wasn’t it at all. She was more than helping. They were stealing kisses in the kitchen. Having make-out sessions on his sofa. Then there was the way he made her feel, and how she assumed she made him feel.
But then an ugly thought entered her mind. He’d asked if he she was happy, as if it panicked him to think that maybe she wasn’t.
What if he was just trying to make sure she didn’t quit? What if he was so anxious about being left without a nanny he was showing romantic interest in her to keep her around?
She couldn’t ask a question like that. That would definitely ruin everything. This whole thing had been such a lovely, happy dream. Why would she question it by even suggesting that Jack was doing it for the wrong reasons?
“Well?” Jack prompted.
“You’re right,” she said. “We get along well.”
They started up the hill.
“Do you think this is too bouncy for Ella?” Jack asked.
He’d changed the subject. She pulled back the canopy to peek at Ella. “Actually, she’s asleep.”
“Even better,” Jack said. “Now we can enjoy each other.”
Louisa tried to relax. Her heart was telling her that he did feel something for her. But her head could not let their past go. Jack was a smart man. He knew his situation was tenuous, and that he relied upon Louisa just to get by.
Despite the bright day, the spring flowers, and the beauty of the lake spread out before them, Louisa found she could not settle in. Something seemed off here. No one had ever wanted to be with Louisa just for Louisa.
She wasn’t secure enough to talk about it. She hadn’t been in many relationships to start with. She didn’t know exactly how they worked.
But Jack treated her well, and was willing to let others see them together. That would have to be good enough for now.
Chapter 17
To give her some time to clear her head, Louisa decided to keep the next day to herself while Jack had Ella. She spent the morning sorting through her parents’ things, which still filled the closets of her house.
It was difficult work, something she hadn’t managed to do while her mother was still alive, even though, in the last year of her life, her mother would not have known the difference one way or the other. It seemed disrespectful to start dismantling the home her parents had put together while one of them still lived there, no matter the circumstance.
It was spring, the season for clearing out clutter, and Louisa had more than she cared to admit. As she picked through her mother’s old dresses, and the tweed suits she remembered her father wearing in her youth, Louisa considered her parents’ marriage.
Had they been happy? She thought so. Growing up, she remembered their smiles and kisses and happy times together. They argued, that was for certain, but they always found a way to work through it without any huge theatrics or words they’d regretted.
In fact, Louisa had taken this family support for granted all those years, until she was twenty years old and had gotten called back from college. Her father had begun his rapid decline with ALS, and her mother had needed to keep her job to maintain their health insurance.
Her younger brother had just started college, and he’d conveniently left for Brussels, so it had fallen on Louisa to come home and help.
When her father got ill enough to require more skilled care than Louisa could provide, she thought they would hire a nurse and she could return to school. But then her mother was diagnosed with her first round of cancer.
Louisa had to manage the care for both of them, and to shuttle her mother between appointments. After that, it had been just one overlapping disaster after another. It had seemed every time the moment for her to return to a life of her own was about to arrive, something had happened. Her father died. Her mother grieved too hard to leave. Then the cancer got her again.
Brain surgery that time, leaving her unable to care for herself, her short-term memory gone, partial blindness, and a level of confusion that meant she couldn’t live alone.
Louisa couldn’t resent the years she had spent caring for her parents. What else could she have done? But doing so had definitely used up her youth.
Now she was being given a second chance of sorts, but she couldn’t settle in. Everything about her life seemed so complicated. Why couldn’t she have just gone to college and met some nice boy, gotten married, and had children of her own?
Her life seemed to have perpetually been filled with other people’s problems. And now, she had fallen in love with a baby that wasn’t hers. And she was secretly falling for a man whose motives she couldn’t one hundred percent be sure of.
While she muddled through these problems, she accumulated five bags of clothes to donate. She shoved them into the trunk of her car and headed toward Town Square, where one of the churches maintained a drop-off point for used clothes.
When she’d managed to stuff the bags inside, she’d decided to treat herself to a cup of tea and a pastry at Betty’s tea shop.
A little bell tinkled as she walked inside. Betty wasn’t behind the counter, but her granddaughter Lorelei.
“Hey, Louisa,” Lorelei said, hopping up from the stool. “I haven’t seen you around much lately.”
“That’s what everybody’s saying. I think it’s because I’m not delivering pizza anymore.”
“Well, Micah and I miss that for sure. But it sounds like you and Officer Stone are really getting along.” Her sly expression let Louisa know that the town had indeed been talking about her relationship with Jack.
“We are. You definitely find ways to overcome your differences when there’s a baby to think of.”
“I can see that,” Lorelei said. “What can I get you?”
Louisa picked out a blueberry scone and a cup of the Applebottom tea blend Betty was known for. She sat in the corner, looking out the window as Lorelei served a large group of teenagers from the high school. Classes must’ve just let out.
Louisa watched them, full of optimism and youthful spirit. She felt older than ever before. Here she was, uncertain about everything, having just dropped off the clothes of her parents, and her own high school days seemed so long ago that the only thing she really remembered were all the times she had been hard on Jack.
Oh, that big prank with the greased football. She shouldn’t have done it. Sometimes she’d walk by the spoiled game ball on his shelf and felt like giving the girl she’d once been a big piece of her mind.
She found she couldn’t finish the scone and left her plate and cup in the dish basin. She waved at Lorelei and headed next door. The only solution to feeling sorry for yourself was to serve others.
And Jack’s dog, Nero, could use her attention. She’d pop into Nothing But a Pound Dog while she was on the Square.
Delilah was alone in her bakery, and the silence was a relief after the cacophony of the teenagers in the tea shop.
She looked up and said, “Hey, Louisa.” She wore a T-shirt that read Dog Mom and black leggings with dog bones. Her dark hair was twisted up on top of her head, but not quite teased into the beehive she’d been wearing the last few years. Maybe that phase was over.
She still rocked the cat-eye frames, though. They weren’t that much different in age, ten years, maybe? And yet, Delilah had children and a grandson.
Louisa shook the thought away.
“Thinking about getting yourself a pet?” Delilah asked. “I think Savannah has a new litter of kittens out at the shelter.”
Louisa shook her head. “No. I came for Jack’s dog, Nero.”
Delilah stood up. “What’s going on? Is he sick?”
“Not exactly. He’s eating fine. And we managed to get a stroller so I could take him on walks again. But he seems depressed. At least subdued.”
Delilah nodded. “Animals react differently to the arrival of new family members. It’s a big adju
stment for him to go from having Officer Stone all to himself to suddenly having a noisy, smelly baby and a strange woman around.”
“Should we take him to the vet?” Louisa asked.
“You could,” Delilah said. “But maybe you just need to find ways to involve him in some activities, so Nero can see he’s not being left out. He’s a rescue dog, and sometimes they are a little more insecure than puppies who were always loved.”
“What do you suggest?”
Delilah led her over to her toy wall. “Let’s get him a nice, big chew bone so he has something new. And maybe a toy. The baby’s too little to actually play with the dog, but one thing you could do is put the baby on your lap and help her roll the ball to the dog. Nero will get the sense that the three of you are playing together.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“And let’s pick up a few bakery treats. Something special to feed him during play, so that he gets a positive experience when you three are together.” She picked up a bag of bone-shaped cookies.
As Delilah placed the items in a bag, she tilted her head at Louisa. “So how are things with you and Officer Stone?”
“Okay, I guess. Are people talking about us?” This was something she couldn’t have asked Lorelei.
“Certainly. You guys took a stroll together with the baby in the park like you were one happy family.”
“So people noticed.”
“Of course they did. You weren’t a block away from Linda before she called Mary, who called Betty, who came right over here to talk to me about it.”
“I wondered.” Louisa passed her credit card over for Delilah to ring up the purchase.
“There are those who are saying Officer Stone might be looking a little sweet on you.”
Her head popped up. “Really?”
Delilah passed Louisa the receipt. “Now, surely we’re not seeing something you don’t know.”
“No, I see it.”
“So what’s the problem then?”
“I just have a little trouble believing it. Jack and I haven’t always been exactly pals.”
Delilah fluttered her hand in the air. “Oh, you mean all those high school pranks. That was twenty years ago.”