“I couldn’t talk to you because I was lying.”
I fold my hands on the scratched old table in front of me. My mom has it decorated with a red and white checkered table runner and a bowl of apples in the center.
“I was engaged.”
My mom slaps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as the full moon, and my dad just blinks. I give them a second to absorb the information before I land the next blow.
“The wedding was supposed to be today.”
My mom’s hand moves to her heart, but my dad doesn’t even appear to be breathing.
“But I called it off.”
They both seem to sag at that, either in relief or disappointment, I can’t tell.
“Because I’m pregnant.”
Immediately, they are both at full attention again, like they are puppets and someone came along and grabbed their strings.
“With another man’s baby.”
My mom closes her eyes and then holds out a hand to stop me. “Please, just tell us the whole story. My heart can’t take these snippets.”
My dad nods in agreement. “And please tell me this is less crazy than it sounds.”
Relief flows through me. I’ve just hit the highlights of my last three months, and my parents still sound like my parents. They aren’t looking at me like I’m an oddity in a freak show. They are looking at me like I’m their most treasured belonging being held over the edge of a cliff, and they are waiting to see if I’ll fall or not.
So, I take a deep breath and start at the beginning. And slowly, over thirty minutes of questions and answers, I see the panic leave their eyes. I ease my way back from the precipice, and they seem to relax.
“You could have come to us if you needed money,” my dad says, reaching out to grab my hand.
I squeeze his calloused fingers and shake my head. “I wanted to take care of myself. I just got a little confused on what that meant, I guess.”
“I thought you liked your job,” my mom says. “You told us you were living your dream.”
I twist my lips to one corner and shrug. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Well, what on earth do you think we’re doing now?” she asks, reaching over and patting my hand the way she would when I was a kid. “Plus, I was worried every day that you were never going to come home again. You told us you loved New York and stopped calling. We felt like we were losing you.”
Tears well up in my eyes again, and I look around and realize they are both on the verge of crying, too.
“I felt like I was losing me, too. That’s why I’m here. To figure it out.”
My mom throws her arms around my neck again and kisses my cheek. Then, as if she has forgotten, she jolts and then looks down at my stomach. “And you’re pregnant!”
I drop my face into my hands. “That is the craziest part. I still can’t believe it.”
“Well, you’ve only known for a few hours,” Mom says. “When I found out I was pregnant with you, I didn’t really believe it until they placed you in my arms.”
“I didn’t believe it until we brought you home from the hospital,” my dad says, smiling at the memory. “And you pooped on me within the first hour.”
I laugh, and then so slowly I barely notice, the laugh turns to tears again.
“What’s wrong?” my mom asks, running a hand down my immaculately styled hair.
I wipe at my eyes and shrug. “I just realized I’m actually going to have a baby. Like, in seven or eight months, I’ll be someone’s mom.”
“Yes,” my mom says. Then a smile brightens her face. “And I’ll be a grandma!” She claps her hands, clearly thrilled about the news.
“I’m happy you are excited, Mom. This just wasn’t the plan.” That is the understatement of the century.
“It wasn’t your plan,” dad says, giving me a knowing look. Then, he points to the ceiling. Though, I know what he means. “But it was someone else’s plan.”
I nod. “Yeah, well I wish He’d give me an itinerary next time He has something like this planned. Sure would be nice to have a little advanced notice.”
My mom holds one finger up. “I need to call the doctor. We need to get you checked out, make sure everything’s okay. You need to start taking prenatal vitamins, and no more alcohol or coffee.”
“I can have coffee!” I argue.
“One cup,” she says, her mom eyes wide and warning.
I sigh, knowing I won’t win this fight as long as I’m staying with them. Which reminds me.
“I know I didn’t call or anything, and I’ve kind of dumped all of this information on you, so I understand if you—”
“You can stay with us,” my dad says, settling the matter before I can even ask the question. “You never have to ask or get permission.”
I grab his hand again and smile at him and then at my mom. “You two are the greatest parents in the world, do you know that?”
My mom shrugs and smiles, her head bobbing back and forth. “We had a pretty good idea. But really, baby girl, we’re here whenever you need us. Always. So, don’t ever keep secrets from us again.”
“No more secrets,” I agree with a solemn nod.
Then, as if nothing of much importance happened, my mom busies herself reheating leftovers for me to eat for dinner, and my dad wanders back upstairs to finish working on the sink. I’m left alone at the kitchen table with my thoughts, which are centering more and more on Leon Knight.
I may have run away from New York, but I can’t escape my responsibilities. No matter how much I’d like to hole up in my parents’ house and ignore the man who gave me hope and pretend I am one of those asexual plants which can reproduce on their own, I have to deal with this.
I have to tell Leon the truth.
Chapter 16
Leon
I make it to Emmitsburg after midnight and find the only hotel in town. Actually, it’s a bed and breakfast housed in a two-story Victorian. The old woman running the place has on a floral skirt suit that matches the wallpaper. She tells me that the room is technically reserved for her son, the night manager, but I can have it if I pay for a week in advance.
I try to sleep, but my mind is on overdrive thinking about how close I am to Grace. I gave myself a solid pat on the back when I remembered the name of Grace’s hometown from our one and only dinner date, and I hope that will earn me a few brownie points with her when I finally track her down.
In a city like New York, not knowing someone’s address would end your search then and there, but Emmitsburg is tiny. I’ve never lived in a small town, but I suspect it’s the kind of place where people know other people’s business, and Grace isn’t the kind of woman people would overlook. Someone has to know where she is.
After two hours of laying on the stiff mattress, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, I get up and begin to pace. The floorboards squeak underneath me, and I’m worried I’ll wake the other guests in the house, so I sit on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, and jiggle my foot.
I don’t know what I’m going to say to Grace, but if she’s already backed out of her arrangement with Sebastian, then that is half the battle. Now, I just need to convince her I’m not the biggest jerk in the world. Which, unfortunately, will probably be way more difficult than it sounds.
Despite my strong feelings for Grace, she doesn’t have a lot of experience with me. A couple hours at a wedding, one dinner, one amazing night together, and one horrible morning. She doesn’t have a lot of data to pull from, and what she does have doesn’t look on me too favorably. So, rather than sleeping, I spend the night preparing myself for the possibility that Grace will slam a door in my face.
When the sun comes up, I’m already showered, dressed and packed up, ready to begin my search. A middle-aged man with the same round face and brown eyes as the woman from the night before is at the desk to greet me. Though, “greet” is a strong word for the grunt of acknowledgment he gives me. Clearly, he doesn’t appreciate me claiming his home a
way from home as my own for the week.
It’s barely seven, but when I drive past the local diner the lot is almost full. If I want to find out where Grace is, I figure my best bet is to fit in with the locals. Drink where they drink, and eat where they eat. So, I pull in.
It looks like every country diner I’ve ever seen in a movie. Black-and-white tiled floors, bright red vinyl booths along one wall, and a bar with red and silver bar stools lined up along it. Every seat in the place is claimed except one stool in the center of the bar. Seeing no other option, I claim it.
People stare as I pass. It isn’t like I strolled in wearing a designer suit and a Bluetooth headset. I’m in blue jeans with a plaid shirt rolled to my sleeves. I look casual.
“Aren’t from around here?” a gray-haired man at the counter asks.
“No, sir,” I say, grabbing a laminated menu from a metal holder and opening it up.
“Country-fried steak’s what you want,” he says, tapping the menu in the top right corner where the country-fried steak with gravy, hash browns, and two eggs is pictured. It looks like a heart attack waiting to happen, but eat where they eat.
I order the country-fried steak and a tall glass of milk from a teenaged waitress in a red-and-white striped skirt. She grins at me and bats her lashes.
“You want any coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Desperately.
She brings me a small mug and carafe along with a bowl of plastic containers of cream and sugar. I try to drink it black, but immediately choke on the bitter taste and add in three packets of sugar and two containers of cream. My next drink is sickly sweet, but at least it doesn’t make my eyes bleed.
“Where are you here from?” the same man from before asks. He turns slightly on his stool to see me better, though we are too close together for him to really face me.
“New York City.”
He lifts his brows in surprise. “What business do you have here?”
“None,” I say. “Well, I mean, I’m not here on business. It’s personal.”
“Oh? You have family in the area? If you do, I’m sure I know them.” He takes a big swig of his black coffee, and I pray he didn’t see me nearly choke on mine. “I’ve lived here since I was a boy. Know just about everyone.”
I have to keep reminding myself I’m still in the Northeast. Emmitsburg feels like another world entirely.
“That could be really helpful, actually. I’m looking for someone,” I say. “Do you know Grace Miller?”
His demeanor changes immediately. His brows lower, his lips tighten, and he runs a hand through his neck-length beard. “Grace Miller? Brown hair, green eyes, exceptionally pretty?”
“That’s her,” I say, amazed that this could really be so easy.
The man sits up tall. I’m not short by any means, but he’s an entire head taller than me, and he seems to be using that to his advantage.
“What do you want with Grace?”
“Oh, um,” I stutter, surprised by the swift change in his tone. “I just need to talk to her.”
He hums, clearly not convinced. “Seems like if she needed to talk to you, you’d know where she lives.”
The man is easily twice my weight, and I’m not interested in starting a brawl in the middle of the town watering hole, so I bite my tongue.
“She isn’t expecting me.”
“So, it’s a surprise?” he asks.
“Something like that.”
He slides his tongue across his front row of teeth. “Is this a surprise Grace would enjoy?”
“Shove off, Ted.” The waitress is back with my food, and she slides it across the counter to me, all the while glaring at the man whose name is apparently Ted. Then, she turns to me, disappointment obvious in the downturn of her mouth. “You’re looking for Grace?”
“I am,” I say, leaning forward a bit. “You’d be doing me a huge favor if you could help me find her place.”
“It isn’t our information to tell,” Ted growls at the waitress. Her name tag reads “Christie.”
I look from Christie to Ted and back again.
“I’m a friend of hers from New York. I just need to talk to her.”
Ted shakes his head, but Christie waves a hand at him and smiles at me.
“I don’t know where she lives exactly, but her aunt works at the bank down the street. If you go talk to her, I’m sure she’ll help you out.”
“Angie won’t tell him anything,” Ted whispers proudly to the man next to him, as if it was his life’s mission to stop me from talking to Grace. I’d almost think he was in love with her—maybe an ex-boyfriend or something—if he wasn’t dangerously close to being at least sixty.
Ted made offhand, yet pointed, comments about “city slickers” while I finished my chicken-fried steak, but Christie gave me a free cinnamon roll for the road, so all in all, it was a good morning.
I have my cinnamon roll in my mouth, keys in hand, about to unlock my car to drive to the bank when I look up and realize by “down the street,” Christie actually meant “next door.” In fact, every business in Emmitsburg seems to be located on the three blocks known as Main Street.
The buildings are all brick and, by the looks of it, original, with weathered hand-painted signs distinguishing one shop from the next. There is a hardware store, a Paul’s Grocery Store, two restaurants, a host of boutiques and antique shops, and, of course, Emmitsburg Bank. When I walk into the building on the corner, the teller behind the counter smiles and waves me over.
“Welcome to Emmitsburg,” she says, having no doubts about my visitor status in the town. “How can I help you today?”
As I walk closer, the friendly brunette begins to look a lot more familiar to me, and it is another second before I realize why. She is an older version of Grace. Truly, they could almost be twins. She has bright green eyes, long chestnut-brown hair, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. The only difference is her nose is a little longer, and she is wearing a vibrant pink shade of lipstick rather than red.
“Are you Angie?” I ask, wishing I’d asked Christie for Angie’s last name.
The Grace look-alike points to her name tag, which has “Angie” printed in big white letters. “That’s what they call me. Do you need something?”
“Yes,” I say, putting on my best charming smile and planting my palms flat on the counter. “I’m actually here in town looking to speak with Grace Miller, and I heard from someone over at the diner that you might know where I can find her.”
Her eyes light up. “Grace is back in town? I didn’t even know. That stinker didn’t call me!”
“It was a last-minute trip,” I say, doing my best not to get Grace in trouble with anyone.
Angie nods, and then her eyes narrow, and she looks at me exactly the way Ted was at the diner. “If you want to talk with her, why don’t you call her?”
“I don’t have her number.”
“Well, I do,” she says, pulling her phone from her back pocket. “I can call her for you.”
“No.”
The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it, and Angie’s eyebrow raises in both suspicion and judgment. She thinks I’m up to something shady, and I can’t blame her. I sound suspicious.
The thing is, though, if she calls Grace and tells her I’m looking for her, Grace might decide she doesn’t want to see me before I can even talk to her. Before I can explain why I said and did what I did. The only way I’m going to have a shot at convincing her to give me another chance is in person.
“I mean,” I continue, scrambling to save the situation. “It’s a surprise.”
“A surprise?” Angie asks, crossing her arms over her chest, one hip popped to the side. She isn’t buying it.
I sigh and sag forward, forearms flat on the counter. “Look, Angie, I’m going to level with you. I like Grace. A lot. I messed things up with her, but I’d really like a chance to fix them. I just need to talk with her. If she turns me down, I’ll be ou
t of this town by lunchtime.”
Angie, it seems, is a bit of a romantic. Her eyes widen, and her lips pull up in a small smile that reminds me so much of Grace it hurts.
“You’re here to apologize?”
I nod. “On my hands and knees.”
“And it will be a surprise?” she asks.
I nod again. “Hopefully a good one.”
Angie chews on her lower lip, thinking, and I stay quiet, figuring my best strategy now is to hit her with the puppy dog eyes and hope she takes pity on me. After a minute of thoughtful silence and staring, she finally smiles, rolls her eyes, and grabs a pencil and a piece of paper from her desk.
“I’ll give you her parents’ address, but you should know her dad is very protective and has a lot of land on which he could hide a body. So, don’t even think about hurting that girl.”
“I won’t,” I swear, trying to ignore the thing she said about hiding bodies. I’m nervous enough without thinking Grace’s dad might kill me.
I thank Angie for the address and practically skip from the bank. When I walk past the diner windows again to get to my car, Christie is watching me. I hold up the slip of paper with Grace’s address on it and give her a grateful wave, which she returns with a limp raise of her hand and a grimace.
Grace’s parents’ house is at the end of a long dirt driveway. The house itself is a modest bungalow with rocking chairs on the front porch and a large oak tree out front, but the property is gorgeous. Lush green grass, forest on either side, and in the distance, I can see row after row of apple trees. The air smells sweet, especially compared to the city, and I’m standing in the driveway in front of my car, admiring the clear blue sky, when I hear the front door open and close.
“Can I help you?”
Everyone in Emmitsburg is so nice…at first.
A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and a square face is standing on the porch. She doesn’t look as much like Grace as Angie did, but I can see enough resemblance to guess she is Grace’s mom. I walk forward, hand extended for a shake.
“Hi, I’m looking for Grace.”
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