by Meg Maxwell
“Why does she do this?” Clementine asked, looking away. “She isn’t interested in a relationship with me, yet she walks by here at least once a day and looks in the window. It’s barely six-thirty in the morning.”
Georgia took another glance at the tall, dark-haired, fortysomething woman outside, then returned her attention to her new dough for the piecrust. “Well, maybe she’s limited, emotionally speaking, in what she can do, yet the need is there in her to see you, to see where you were raised, where you live.”
Clementine placed all the salt and pepper shakers on a tray to be doled out in the dining room, then headed over to the utility closet for a sponge and bucket, filled it with water, kneeled down and began cleaning the already clean lower cabinets and their little rooster pulls, which Annabel had told Georgia was a sign that Clementine was bothered by something. Or hurting.
Georgia knew her sister was troubled by her past, by how her mother, a drug addict in and out of rehab over the past thirty years, had refused to sign over parental rights until Clementine was eight, late for adoption. Clem was both glad her mother hadn’t wanted to sever those rights and resentful that her mother had kept relapsing, unable to care for her for longer than a few days before Clementine would be shuttled back to another foster home.
“Part of me wants to rush out there and scream, ‘What do you want?’ And make her talk. But I know she won’t. I’ve tried that many times over the years.”
Georgia glanced back out the window, but the woman had moved on and was nowhere in sight. Georgia kneeled down and hugged Clementine tight. “I’m sorry, Clem. You’ve sure got a lot on your mind right now. Mom and Dad would be so proud of you.”
Clementine had tears in her eyes. “Why?”
“You stayed in Blue Gulch despite how hard it is with your birth mother here and unwilling to meet you halfway. You’ve stayed by Gram’s side all these years. You’re a really strong person, Clem. Much stronger than you know.”
“I feel as strong as this washcloth,” Clem said, dropping it in the bucket. “But thank you,” she added, her expression softening. “You really think Mom and Dad would be proud?”
Georgia nodded. “I know they would be. I know they are.”
Clementine bit her lip. “Well, let’s change the subject before I start bawling.” She stood up and headed to the counter, adding white paper napkins to the yellow wooden holders for the dining room. “Gram said Dylan Patterson is starting today on lunch duty. I’m so relieved that Timmy’s reunited with his father. Timmy wasn’t abandoned. But many kids are and no matter what, those kids need a guardian angel like Mom and Dad were for me. Like you and Nick were for Timmy.”
Georgia smiled. Clementine was working on the requirements to become a foster parent. She had such a big heart. “Timmy’s got a great dad. Dylan’s a really impressive young man.”
“Speaking of impressive men,” Clementine said, lifting her chin toward the window.
Georgia glanced out the window to see Nick standing there pointing at the pie she’d just taken out of the oven. He then pointed to his stomach.
She had to smile. God, she’d missed him so much last night. Though she really had been snug as the ol’ bug in one of the guest bedrooms in the Victorian with its familiar furnishings. There was something about knowing her grandmother was in her room downstairs and Clementine upstairs that was very comforting. After they’d all cleaned up the restaurant and dining room, they’d gone into the parlor and watched an old Katherine Hepburn movie, complete with popcorn and iced tea, and Georgia’s mind had been taken off her heart. Until she’d gone to bed, wishing Nick were closer. Literally and figuratively.
She held up a finger, covered the rest of the pies, and headed outside to the porch with a slice of chocolate peanut butter and a thermos of coffee. They sat on the swing, and she waited for Nick to say something, about why he was here. But he just gobbled up the pie and drank the coffee.
“Avery’s leaving for Nashville today,” he finally said. “With my blessing.”
She practically gasped. “How did that happen overnight?”
“Long story.” He told her all about it. About Avery crying. About Quentin sacrificing. About the weeping willow at the old house. “While I was there, I realized I needed to stop looking at the house as though it was my childhood home where I have so many bad memories. It’s Avery’s good childhood home. And it’s hers. My mother left it to both of us, but I had Avery made sole owner. She grew up there with a different set of circumstances and the house means something different to her. It represents my mother.” He winced. “I took that from her. After our mom died, I moved back to that house for six months and I felt like a piece of me was dying every day I was under that roof. But I was wrong to make Avery move.”
“I don’t know about that, Nick. You kept her in Blue Gulch. If the house was killing you, you had to leave it.”
He took a sip of coffee and leaned back on the swing. “I feel like I quashed that last night. I made it Avery’s, my mother’s, and a lot of my association with it felt lifted off my shoulders. Seems strange that you could have a mental shift like that just like that.”
“It was hardly just like that. You were letting Avery go, Nick. You want to keep your sister safe, protect her. But you knew you needed to let her go. And by sitting with her at the house that brings her comfort, you shifted what the house represents. It’s Avery’s future—not your past.”
He nodded, staring out at Blue Gulch Street. Then he turned to face her. “I’m going to stay, Georgia. It’s the right thing to do.”
The right thing to do. She wanted to take the basket planter of impatiens beside the swing and dump it on his head. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it? I thought you’d be happier than okay. How you handled yourself in Houston, seeing your condo, revisiting all that—you made me realize I’ve been my own worst enemy about my past.”
“I’m glad for that, Nick,” she said, and she truly was. Even if it her heart was splitting in two. “I need to get back inside. I want to be here when Dylan arrives for his first day.”
He was staring at her, wanting her to explain what he’d said or did wrong. Throw the man a bone, she ordered herself. Sometimes that armor around his heart shielded his brain too. “I really am very glad that you’re taking back Blue Gulch for yourself, Nick. Like I did with Houston. But you’ll still be here out of a sense of obligation. First it was to Avery. Now it’s to me. And our son.”
He looked flabbergasted. “Obligation is about doing the right thing.”
“Right.”
He was looking at her as if they weren’t speaking the same language. And maybe they weren’t. Was she supposed to throw herself in his arms and tell him she loved him, dammit, and she wanted him to love her back? That she wanted him to want to live here to be near her and their son? That it was out of want, out of caring, out of love? Not obligation.
So she could hear him tell her he was sorry, but he just didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t?
“Goodbye, Nick,” she said, and hurried back inside, leaving him standing on the porch.
* * *
The best way for Nick to avoid thinking about things he didn’t understand, like Georgia sometimes, was to bury himself in work. And both unfortunately and fortunately, he had an immediate case that afternoon that took his attention. But not for long. Also fortunately and unfortunately.
“I’ll tell ya, Timmy,” Nick said, nodding at his computer screen, at the fingerprint match in the database that linked a suspect to a burglary in John Martin’s very expensive two-seater car. “Sometimes things are very, very easy.” The baby, in his carrier on the side of Nick’s desk, peered at him with his curious blue eyes.
Early this afternoon, John Martin, the former Blue Gulch lothario slash pizzeria owner, had bought an engagement ring, then tucked it a
way in his glove box, locked his car and gone to get his hair cut for the occasion of proposing to his girlfriend this evening. When John returned to his car, the passenger window was broken and the little velvet box gone. Apparently, John was so in la-la land over the idea of proposing that he hadn’t paid attention to who might have been skulking around. A couple of hours ago he’d called Nick in a panic; he’d paid a lot for the ring and wanted to start being his girlfriend’s fiancé and his little girl’s soon-to-be stepfather and had pleaded with John to catch the perp.
The fingerprint belonged to one of the former boyfriends who’d decked John in the past for “making his girl cheat.” His prints were on the door handle of the car. On the glove box.
“Timmy,” Nick said, glancing at the baby, “this is one of those easy times.”
Except he couldn’t exactly go question a suspect with an infant in his arms, and he was on babysitting duty, since Dylan was working at Hurley’s and Georgia was baking extra desserts for a big rancher association meeting dinner at the restaurant tonight. Maybe he could drop off Timmy with Georgia. If Georgia were speaking to him.
But you’ll still be here out of a sense of obligation. First it was to Avery. Now it’s to me. And our son.
Did she want him to love Blue Gulch? That he’d never do. Not with his history, no matter how many new memories he’d made here. Maybe the town wouldn’t represent the terror he’d felt as a kid anymore, but it would never make his heart light up the way it did for some people. Like his sister. Like Georgia. Surely she could understand that.
Nick had to admit that he did feel...less wound up, less stressed. Less...like the way he always felt. His shoulders didn’t feel as if two lead weights were pressing down on them. No gray cloud above his head. Deciding to stay in Blue Gulch hadn’t hurt that bad. He wanted to be here for Georgia and the baby. So what was he missing? Why was she out of sorts?
He texted her to ask if he could drop Timmy off with her while he questioned a suspect. She immediately texted back a sure, and he had to admit, his heart did light up at the idea of seeing her beautiful face.
He scooped up the carrier and Timmy’s bag of stuff, then left the station and headed over to the peachy-pink Victorian. As he walked up the steps, he could see Dylan chopping vegetables at the counter in the big kitchen. Essie Hurley was beside him, peeling potatoes. Nick liked the expression on Dylan’s face—peaceful.
Not wanting to interrupt Dylan at work, especially with the big boss right there, Nick didn’t stop in the kitchen to say hi and instead went inside the parlor where Georgia had said she’d wait for him. She was sitting on the floral love seat, looking...miffed. Again, what was he missing? He was staying in Blue Gulch. Yes, he felt obligated. But at least the feeling of obligation overpowered his old, bad feelings about the town. That was a good thing. And a start.
“Thanks for watching him,” Nick said. “I have to get a search warrant and go check out a lead. I’m not sure what time I’ll be back.”
“That’s fine,” she said, her expression neutral.
“We’re okay, right?” he asked.
She stared at him. “What else would we be?”
Ugh. What wasn’t he getting there? He thought he understood Georgia, knew what she needed. He’d worked toward making that happen—he, father of her child, would be staying in town to help raise their son.
She picked up Timmy’s carrier and headed out of the parlor. He wanted to run after her, demand to know what was wrong. But he had to get John Martin’s ring back. He and Georgia would talk tonight.
If she was talking to him at all by then.
* * *
Nick sat at his desk in the police station, filling out a police report for the Martin burglary and also entering the information into the new digital system he was trying to get going, despite the chief’s old-fashioned ways.
Warrant in hand, Nick, with the help of Officer Midwell, had searched Edward Huffingwell’s car, finding the diamond ring in two seconds in his own glove box. Huffingwell had said that slick bastard pizza boy deserved all the unhappiness in the world. Now Huffingwell had joined Farley Melton, back for his eighth disturbing-the-peace arrest of the year, in the jail cell.
With that settled, Nick planned to pick up Dylan, who should be just about finished with his lunch shift, and show him around the area: the home goods store for basic necessities for the new house, towels and linens and that kind of thing, plus the shortcut to the supermarket, then a brief tour of Blue Gulch. He hoped Dylan’s first morning at Hurley’s was a good one, that he was happy, that Essie was happy with him. Based on what he knew about Dylan and the diner manager’s glowing review, Nick had a feeling all would be very well for Dylan at Hurley’s.
As Nick stood, so did Farley Melton, his gnarled hands wrapping around the bars of the jail cell. “Oh, look, he’s back with that screaming baby,” Farley said, looking past Nick’s desk, a scowl on his lined face.
Confused, Nick turned around to see Dylan, who’d just come through the door with Timmy in his stroller. Perfect timing, Nick thought, not that shopping was one of his favorite things to do. But he wanted to make sure Dylan was comfortable in town, knew his way around, and that his aunt would have comfortable sheets and pillows for her bedroom at the new house.
But then a thought struck him. Nick turned to Farley. “What do you mean back?”
“He’s the one who left that squawker on your desk last week,” Farley shouted, jabbing his finger toward Dylan. “A man can’t get a minute’s peace in this place. I should file a complaint.”
Nick glared at Farley. “You said you didn’t see anyone leave the baby!”
Farley shrugged. “I was half-asleep and wanting to get back to it. Just make sure he doesn’t start crying.” He shot a frown in Timmy’s direction and lay down on his cot. Fifteen seconds later, he was making the racket by snoring.
Nick should charge Farley for withholding information. If Farley had told him a tall, lanky teenage boy had left the baby, Nick would have come up with Dylan Patterson in two seconds.
Shaking his head, he turned to Dylan. Was it his imagination or was Dylan looking kind of pale and clammy. “Everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” Dylan said, his blue eyes looking sort of glassy.
Nick stepped toward him, noting that Dylan looked very pale.
Dylan gripped the stroller bar as if for support. “My shift ended, so I thought I’d take Timmy for a short walk before leaving him with Georgia so we could take that tour around town. But when I started walking, I got dizzy.” He let go of Timmy’s stroller and gripped the side of a desk for support.
“Dylan?” Nick said, rushing over.
The precinct secretary got to him first and caught him before he hit the floor, but Dylan was limp and unconscious. Nick called for an ambulance, his heart pounding out of his chest.
Nick squeezed shut his eyes and threw up a prayer, then glanced at Timmy, his little mouth quirking up, his white-socked foot kicking out in a stretch.
Please, please, please, let Dylan be okay.
Chapter Fifteen
Georgia, Gram and her sisters were in the bedding section of Baby Center, Annabel oohing and aahing over crib sheets with tiny climbing monkeys. Clementine pointed at a set with seashells against a pale orange background, and they all smiled; the color immediately brought Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen to mind, and Georgia loved the idea of a bit of the sea in her little one’s nursery.
“Is it wrong if I buy the same set?” Annabel asked. Very innocently.
Georgia, Clementine and Gram all stared at her. “Wait a minute,” Georgia said. “Are you saying—”
“Yes!” Annabel exclaimed. “I’m expecting!”
There was much cheering and hooting in the bedding section of Baby Center. Gram was crying. “Two great-grandchild
ren! Four generations of Hurleys.”
Annabel filled them in on the details—the baby was due in February. Her husband, West, had already put together his daughter Lucy’s old sleigh crib and was painting it a pale yellow. Annabel said they’d decided not to learn the baby’s gender, but they might be unable to resist knowing when the time came.
Georgia noticed Clementine staring at a big stuffed giraffe. “You okay?” she whispered.
Clementine touched the giraffe’s soft fur. “I’m so happy for you and Annabel. But I had this crazy fantasy that I would marry Logan Grainger, that we’d have a whole house full of kids. Now he doesn’t even want me two feet near him.”
“I’m so sorry, Clem,” Georgia said. “There has to be some reason, something that clamped him up tight. This letter you mentioned. Maybe he got some bad news?”
“I wish I knew. But he won’t tell me. He won’t even talk to me. And I miss the twins.”
Why was love so danged difficult? Georgia wished she had the right words for her sister, but she could barely figure out her own love life, not that she had one. “You could try talking to Logan one last time. Maybe invite him and the boys to Hurley’s for dinner.”
Clementine barely managed a shrug. “I’ll give it one last try. Then I think I’d better listen when someone tells me I’m not wanted.” Her expression turned sad and grim, but as they heard Gram oohing and aahing over an impossibly tiny onesie that read My Grandmother Rules, Clem smiled. “I love how happy Gram is. I’m just grateful both my sisters are home, that we’re all together. I have my family. A little perspective,” she added, knocking herself on the forehead.
Georgia smiled. “You always will have your family.”
Her cell phone rang. Nick. Before she could even say hello, Nick explained that Dylan had collapsed at the police station and that Timmy was fine.
Georgia’s heart started racing. “Will Dylan be okay? What’s wrong?”