When You Came Home With Me: A Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Blue Shore Book 3)

by Wendy Silk

  Grant stood still as he listened closely to me. He no longer looked like he was about to eject Cici forcibly from the building, but I saw I hadn’t convinced him yet.

  “Cici lost everything in that accident, the same as you did. But you two had each other and you had the hotel to keep you going. She lost all the family she had, and she lost her hometown as well. Don’t you think it took courage for her to come back here, knowing all the time that people were talking about her?”

  Toby was nodding in agreement, urging Grant to come around.

  “And you know what people think about her now? The McCahons rave about her and what a great mom and neighbor she is. They missed her like crazy while she was away. Mr. Kemble says she’s the only baker he’ll ever work with now. He says she’s a talented, devoted businesswoman. And Alice wants so badly for you to forgive her. And Cindy, and Toby…” I had run out of steam. But while I’d been speaking, Cici’s chin had come all the way up. She was looking at me as if she’d never seen me before.

  “Tim, I thought you once told me that you never listened to the things people say about me around here.” She was so quiet that I could hardly hear her.

  “Cici, those are the things that people are shouting from the rooftops about you. It doesn’t take any work to find all that out.”

  She blushed and looked down at her hands. I could see that she was smiling.

  Knowing that it would be the last memory we would have of each other, I went on. “Cici, let me tell you what I think of you. It’s all those things that other people say, all rolled together, and then so much more. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Look what you’ve been able to do, coming back here. Raising Maggie without...without her father. You have this idea in your mind that people think you can’t be trusted. I’ll tell you what, Cici. I trust you with the most important thing in the world to me. Every day of my life, from here on out, I’ll go to sleep at night certain that you are providing the loving care that I can’t, that you’re the most reliable, amazing woman that I’ve ever known.”

  Grant was staring at me. The silence deepened as we waited for him to speak. Finally, he let out a long breath. “Cici, I may have been wrong about you. I’ve been holding on to something that happened long ago, and I got confused about which parts of it were important. What matters is the here and now. And if you need to take some time off, then that’s fine with me. I want to go on record as saying that I don’t think you should close your business. But whatever you decide to do, I’ll always have the door open here for you. You can work here any time.”

  I had already started to sidle out of the room. My own meeting with Grant seemed inappropriate now. We could talk about it tomorrow.

  Before I made it around the edge of the door, out of his line of sight, Grant directed a keen look at me. He spoke so softly that I didn’t think the others heard. “Tim, you can’t run away forever. That goes for both you and Cici. Trying staying put. See what happens.”

  I couldn’t answer him, so I ducked around the door, and I left the hotel as quickly as I could. I went home to my tiny, shabby apartment, in which all my belongings were now in a box in the middle of the floor. Nevertheless, it was a kind of home.

  Only the peace of sleep could stop my mind from racing. I tried, but tossed and turned all night long, thinking of second chances. And third, and fourth.

  Chapter 20: Cici

  By the time I left the Blue Shore Hotel, I was a limp mess. I’d been crying all day, and from this vantage point, the meeting with Grant had been far too much for me to take. Why had I thought it was so important to try to see him tonight, after all I’d been through today with Tim?

  I knew why, of course. I’d been seeking permission from him to run away from Blue Shore again. In deciding to tell Grant my old secret, now stale after twelve years of being buried in my heart, I was issuing him a kind of a dare. His first impulse, as I’d thought it would be, was to say I could never come back to the hotel again. That let me off the hook so I could retreat from everything about my past without having to confront it. Alternatively, if he had told me it was fine with him if I took a leave of absence from the hotel, I would have done exactly that. Either way, I was going to leave Blue Shore to follow Tim.

  Tim was already gone, I was sure of it. When he’d stomped away from my house, I’d known immediately that those were the footsteps of a man leaving town. I didn’t know how he could stand to go without spending more time with Maggie, but that was his decision. But I’d made one of my own. Wherever he went, I was going to find him, and give him the chance to get to know his little girl. Even if I had to leave my home.

  It was dark, and I needed to get back to my baby. I’d left her at the house, reading books on the living room floor with Kelly, but I craved the feeling of her in my arms right now. I began to jog down the tree-lined trails, making my way back to town. I wished I’d brought the car with me. Screw the idea of taking head-clearing walks in the dappled forest. Sometimes, you just needed to get back to your real life as soon as you could.

  My feet were pounding against the dirt, creating a refrain of the phrase, “back to your real life.” I heard it in my mind over and over as I jogged. Boy, if only I knew where my real life was.

  All I could think of was Tim’s face as he had stepped into the meeting room and stood up for me. He wouldn’t have crossed Grant for the world. But he’d stayed in town long enough to defend me. Tears welled up in my eyes yet again, thinking of what he’d said. Was it true that people here really did value me? Was I welcome here?

  Could I come back to my real life?

  No, all the chapters in which I lived here in Blue Shore were closed. I’d go wherever Tim went. I just had to find out where he was, and then tell him that he couldn’t get rid of me so easily.

  When I reached my house, I slowed to a walk. I swung the gate open and stopped to take in the nighttime scents of the garden. The years that had gone into this moment settled onto my shoulders. All the time that my dad had spent in this garden, on this house, trying to leave something lasting for me and Margaret. Now I could see that what he’d really given me was the love that went into that hard work. He’d loved us, no matter what mistakes we made. It had been unconditional.

  I hadn’t understood that until I had Maggie.

  I stepped into the house, ready to tell Kelly my plans for a new life. She’d be disappointed, but we could work it out. She could run the business without me, or take on a new partner. More than anything, I had to face up to my responsibilities. The most important one was giving Maggie the family that she deserved.

  “Kelly, can we talk? I know it’s late.” I called out to her, then followed my words into the living room. My mouth dropped open when I saw that Kelly was no longer playing on the floor with my sleepy daughter. Kelly was sitting in the corner armchair, companionably watching a visitor. The person reading colorful picture books to Maggie was Tim.

  Kelly looked up at me as I entered the room. She spoke with a lightly apologetic lilt to her voice. “Cici, I figured you’d be home any minute. Tim said he left you tying up some loose ends at the hotel. I hope you don’t mind that he’s here, but it seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “You were right, Kelly. Thank you.” I cleared my throat, trying to find the words to tell her what I needed to say. “You’ve been the best friend I’ve ever had. I’m sorry I wasn’t always that to you.”

  Kelly grinned at me, not unkindly. She had taken in my disheveled appearance, including my puffy eyes and my dirty shoes. “Cici, sweetie. Things are never as bad as you think they are. Really, truly. You’ve been my best friend, too. But nothing is ending here.” She rose from her chair and stood in the doorway. “You’ll see. What we’ve got here is a bunch of beginnings.” Then she withdrew, tactfully leaving me and Tim alone with our daughter.

  I hovered near them, not knowing what to do. Should I sit down? Was Tim even speaking to me?

  He was leaning against the couch
with his legs stretched out in front of him. Maggie sat on his lap with her head against his shirt. She looked so sleepy. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her so relaxed with any adult besides me and Kelly. She was tugging her hair over her left ear, as she did when she was ready to drift off. Tim had been reading, but he’d gone quiet when I entered the room.

  Now, he looked up at me, and patted the rug next to him, inviting me to sit down. His eyes met mine in a long, unsmiling look. “Can we talk about this now? In front of her?”

  “Yes, she won’t understand. As long as we don’t raise our voices, it will be fine.” I hesitated, then I said, all in a rush. “Tim, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I wasn’t able to tell you. It was so unfair. Won’t you please try to forgive me?”

  His face was grim. “Cici, you were planning to leave town. I heard you telling Grant that you couldn’t stay here. Are you really going to run away again?”

  “No, Tim, you don’t understand.”

  “I think I do. I was going to do the same thing. When I realized that Maggie was mine, and that you didn’t want me to know, I was going to run away from it. Not from her, not that at all.” He smoothed her hair down as she began to close her eyes. “I was going to run from the truth, which was that you didn’t want me to be a father to her because you were ashamed of my past.”

  “Tim, no.” I reached forward and put my hand on his forearm. “No, I’m so sorry. It was me; I was holding back from telling you because I didn’t want to share her. I was being small and mean.”

  “Still, you haven’t answered me.” He didn’t move away from my touch, but he didn’t seem to like it much either. “Were you going to leave town with her?”

  “Oh, I wish I could make you see.” I was whispering now. I peeked up at him through my eyelashes, and I saw how firm his jaw was, how perfectly chiseled his features were. “Tim, I’d follow you anywhere. I was only going to quit at the hotel because I knew I had to go with you. Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you.”

  A long, low sigh escaped from his lips. “Cici, you’d give up everything you love here? Your father’s house, your business that you’ve worked so hard to build? You’d do that to try to be with me?”

  I turned it around on him. “Well, Tim, you were going to give up everything that you love here, weren’t you? I saw that you were going to leave, to try to get away from the pain of not being able to be with Maggie.”

  As I spoke, I saw that his big, rough hand was gently holding her little foot. She had on the pink striped socks that were her favorites. She always pulled them first from the laundry basket and shouted in happiness while she tried to jam them onto her feet. Tim’s callused thumb was brushing the tip of her sock, moving absently as we spoke. It was the softest thing I’d ever see him do, and the most natural.

  Tim followed my gaze down to his hands, where they held out little girl. He tensed a little, turning an embarrassed face to me. “I don’t really know much about babies. I don’t know how to take care of her.”

  “Tim, there’s nothing about it that you don’t know. You’re doing it right now. Look at you. You got Maggie to fall asleep better than I do most nights. You know what? You know how to take care of both of us. How to stand up for both of us.”

  His face was still as shuttered as it had been since he’d discovered how deeply I’d betrayed his trust. “Cici, you don’t need standing up for. I’ve never seen anybody as ready to go for what they want as you are. The last thing you need is me holding you back.”

  I touched a stray hair on his forehead. “You’re wrong. Maggie and I need you desperately. And yes, I was going to leave everything behind if it meant I could find you. Sure, I love all this,” my hand made an broad wave around my house. “But it doesn’t mean anything without you. I can see now that I went to Grant hoping he’d fire me. I wanted a good reason to let go of everything here, if it meant I’d be free to follow you. And you know that was what he was doing when you barged in.”

  “I heard some of it, yes,” he admitted.

  I ducked my head, swallowing the lump in my throat. “He was trying to give me a chance up there, but he never did manage to see me for who I am now. He wasn’t able to forget the past, not until you showed him how.”

  Tim finally leaned gently against me. He kept one hand on Maggie’s back, but the other one stole into mine, gently stroking my fingers. “Maybe we’re too much alike, Cici.” His lips curled up into a smile. “If we were both ready to give up this place to try to get through our troubles, then what do you say we just live them out right here?”

  “Live out our troubles?” I snickered, beginning to realize that he was going to stay after all. “Boy, you know how to sweet talk a girl, don’t you?”

  He squeezed my hand. “No, Cici, we’ll stay here and we’ll kick the troubles. If we’re together, then I know for a fact that what we’ll be living is the best life there is.”

  I checked to see if he was joking. The look in eyes convinced me that I’d never seen him more serious about anything. I said the only words I could. “Tim, come upstairs with me.”

  There was still something undone between us, though. As he reached gingerly around him to gather Maggie up fully in his arms, I mustered up the words that I’d saved in my heart for two years now. I almost whispered them, but I knew he heard.

  “Tim, will you let me tell you all about Maggie?”

  He nodded without words, but I could see a glimmer of tears in his eyes.

  I went on, saying all the things I’d kept for him, as we went upstairs together. “Tim, I want to tell you about the day I found out I was pregnant. I’ll tell you all about the night she was born. Then there was the time that she had a fever when she was six months old, and I didn’t sleep for two days straight. And I want to show you her ultrasound pictures...they’re upstairs in my nightstand. Oh, and the first outfit that I ever bought for her, and it didn’t fit at all because she was so big when she came….And how she used to love rice crackers when she started eating solids, but now she won’t touch them….Don’t let me forget to tell you about the day she first started crawling, and I had to put up baby gates in a hurry…”

  My scrambled thoughts went in every direction at once. Tim listened as intently as if there was going to be an exam afterwards. He watched my lips as I yammered on, and he held our baby snugly against his chest as we climbed the stairs.

  When we got to my room, he laid Maggie gently into her crib. She relaxed into a wide-armed sleep posture that told me she was going to be down for quite a while. He would have stood there all night, looking at her, but I put my arms around him and pulled him to my bed.

  We stayed awake for hours, but we never even undressed. Words were all we needed that night. There were so many stories, all coming together, all culminating in this moment.

  When the sun rose, our stories had become permanently joined. The three of us were a family.

  Chapter 21: Tim

  The summer sunshine had long ago given way to fall chill, and then to winter shadows and freezing winds. As the weeks of December had raced by, Cici and I had relished our first holiday season together. Maggie was walking on steadier feet these days, dashing around the house like a curious ferret and getting into absolutely everything. Cici hadn’t been kidding about how useful baby gates were. Every day, I learned something new about having a toddler in my life.

  And every day, I found myself hearing in my head the words, “You have a family now.”

  There had never been a greater miracle, I was sure of it. I’d gone from being a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who had nobody to live for to being a father and a genuinely valuable community member. After this weekend, I’d be a husband as well.

  Cici answered my knock on the door of her bedroom by peeking only her head out. She scolded me, “Tim, you know you aren’t supposed to see me in my wedding dress. Didn’t Kelly tell you that when she got here? Or is she not here? Don’t tell me she and Jorge haven’t arrived ye
t. Their new apartment is so close, there’s no excuse for her to be late. And did Billy and Colin arrive safely? I hope they get here in plenty of time.”

  Although Cici was pretending to be fussed, her face was beaming. She looked as if she’d saved all the sunlight we’d seen together in the summer that we fell in love. When we’d fallen in love for the second time.

  “Cici, I know I’m not supposed to see your dress, but can I see you?”

  She grinned wickedly. “Actually, I was kind of kidding. I’m not wearing it yet, so technically, I suppose you could come in.” She stepped back and pulled me into the bedroom with her.

  My hands found her waist immediately, and I drew her toward me. She had been telling the truth: she wore only white, lacy panties, and a matching bra. This was worth getting into any kind of trouble with the wedding authorities.

  As I kissed her, I found myself laughing at the idea. She drew back with a questioning expression, and I answered her unspoken query. “I was thinking that there are no authorities in the world that could come between us now.” My lips traveled down her soft, sweet cheek, and along the warmth of her throat. “There’s nothing that could stop us from being together. No person, no place, no rules about how we are supposed to be with each other.”

  She smiled dreamily at me. “You’re right. We just are.” She lifted her hand to admire the ring on her left hand. She’d asked me if I would mind if she wore her own mother’s engagement ring, which had sat in a drawer at the bank for years, and I had loved the idea. Neither of us had any family left on earth, but they would be with us in every way we could bring them into our lives.

  Cici pressed herself sinuously against me, moving her hips as if we had all the time in the world. Her soft breasts rubbed against my crisp white shirt in a way that was utterly irresistible. I groaned at the effort it took not to pull the sheer bits of silk fabric off her hips right then and there. My cock was straining against my pants, my desire for her making it hard for me to breathe. There would never be another woman for me.