Amelia (18 page)

The tears were back—again and Penelope shook her hands as if they were wet and that would stop the tears. “They’re going to hate me. They’re going to hate my baby.”

“They aren’t haters. They’ll need to adjust. But they’ll love the baby.” She put her hands on Penelope’s shoulders. “C’mon. You need to get ready for work and I need a ride into town. My truck is still at the hotel.”

Penelope stopped and turned to her. “You really love him?”

Amelia gave some thought to her astonished realization from the night before. “I do. Is that crazy?”

“I think it’s lovely.”

“I just met him.”

“Just because it follows a similar time frame of your last relationship doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

Amelia laughed. “I guess when I think about it I’ve been with Sam longer than I had been with Adam before I married him.”

“I think it’s very sweet.”

“I just think it’s nice I have someone who can share in the mistake with me. I never should have trusted him and married him.”

Penelope shook her head. “It’s not a mistake. It was a path.” She looked Amelia in the eye. “Fate does some crazy things when it has too. Without Adam you wouldn’t have Sam. Vivian needed friends to bond with and here we are.”

“What about you?”

Penelope took a deep breath and let it out as she placed her hands on her stomach. “I might not have Adam, but I have my baby.
My
baby. What a gift.”

“You have us too you know. You’re not alone.”

“I consider that a bonus.”

In a pair of Victoria Secret PINK sweatpants and a fitted T-shirt Amelia borrowed from Penelope, she walked out into the living room after her shower.

Her hair was still damp and her mouth only freshened by a swish of SCOPE.

Vivian sat on the couch, her head rested against the back of it. Amelia could hear the girls playing outside.

Penelope walked from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee. She looked in Amelia’s direction.

“I didn’t grab one for you. Do you want one?”

“I’m fine.” She walked around the couch and looked at Vivian. “Are you okay?”

Vivian’s eyes were closed and her cheeks tear stained. “That was as bad as telling them their daddy had died.”

Amelia sat down in the chair across from her. “How did they take it?”

Vivian raised her head. “Just as well as they took the news of his death.”

“So they’re upset?” Amelia asked.

Penelope sat down in the other chair which faced the couch. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

Vivian ran her hands through her hair. “No, they weren’t upset. That’s the whole thing. When I told them he died they consoled me. They didn’t know him. Ava didn’t know him at all. He’d only been around a few times.”

That stabbed at Amelia. Knowing that if he was with Ava he’d lied to her to be there.

“Emma didn’t remember him too much. So to tell them that their daddy was,” she contemplated her words, “having another baby, they just took it in stride.”

“They hugged me,” Penelope said. “They touched my stomach and hugged me. I didn’t think they’d do that.” Her voice shook.

“So they’re okay?” Amelia asked.

“Too okay,” Vivian answered. “They should have been a little bit upset. They should have cared a little. But now they’re all excited to have a little sister.”

“Or brother,” Penelope said softly.

“Or brother,” Vivian said as she rolled her head back again and let out a long breath. “God, who thought this would be the way everything would happen. I trusted him. I loved him. He gave me my girls and then I have to tell them about his lies and deceptions.”

Amelia heard Penelope sniff back tears. She understood the feelings. She too now felt like a lie and a deception.

Penelope had dropped Amelia by the hotel on her way to work. She changed her clothes as she was much too old, she thought, to wear Penelope’s clothes.

Amelia pulled her hair up into a ponytail and brushed her teeth. Then, she looked around the small room. It was silly to keep paying for the space.

She sat down on the bed and clasped her hands in her lap. In a few weeks she could have the townhouse. Penelope could stay with Vivian if she wanted or she could certainly move in with her.

She hated feeling petty about wanting Penelope to choose one or the other of them. And worse, she wanted her to choose her.

Blowing out a breath she looked around again. It was time to check out.

If she knew Sam Jackson, the man who had said he loved her and she’d admitted she loved too, then he’d still offer to let her stay with him.

But she’d let him come to her. He said he’d come by the house later. She’d let him.

Amelia went about clearing up the room and packing her belongings. It was time to move on. She was ready to leave behind the life as Adam Monroe’s wife. It was time to make a home in Parson’s Gulch, embrace the love she had with Sam Jackson, and start a business with the women she had forced into her life—and whom she’d embraced as well.

~*~

Sam stopped off at the hardware store before heading to the house on Main and Pine. Amelia hadn’t stopped by the office so he assumed that meant he needed to stop by the house.

As promised, he’d fix the steps. Most of his day had been spent researching what needed to be done. He was feeling fairly confident. Besides, he had enough handy friends if he needed them. He could call in one or two—or ten of them.

The moment he pulled up in front of the house, he saw the baskets of flowers he’d brought hanging on the porch. Amelia stood at the base to the steps of the porch. She was hovering over the bush he’d brought with a shovel.

As he climbed out of the truck he called up to her. “Do you need some help with that?”

“You’re timing is impeccable. I’m done.”

“Good,” he said and laughed.

She looks okay, he thought. Penelope had said she was fine that morning, but he hadn’t dug for too much information. He didn’t want to use Penelope like that.

But Amelia was going to have to explain to him what went wrong last night. He thought everything was fine and then she’d just flipped out. Something had set that off and he needed to know what that was.

Sam lowered the tailgate on his truck and began pulling the supplies to the end of the bed. Amelia set her shovel by the pillar to the porch and walked toward him.

“What’s all this?” she asked as she neared him.

“Came to start on those stairs.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just come to see if I’d throw that shovel at you?”

He gave her a chuckle. “Thought crossed my mind I suppose.”

Amelia moved in toward him and he opened so she could. She rested her hands on his hips and he brushed a piece of her hair from her forehead.

“I’m sorry about last night. I really am.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“But I am. You telling me you loved me shook me up a little bit. Then when you said we should go home, I panicked.”

“You’ve stayed at my place before.”

“But not when it was
us
going
home
. I’ve gone to your house before. But that wasn’t what you meant.”

Sam cupped her face. “No. It wasn’t what I meant.”

“I calmed down once I settled in at Vivian’s. I just had to sort it all out.”

“And what did you come up with?”

Amelia dropped her shoulders and looked up into his eyes. “I checked out of the hotel today.”

“Good. That was good money being wasted.”

“It was.” She raised her arms and linked them around his neck. “I figured that it wouldn’t be a big deal to stay with you until the townhouse is available to rent.”

“That’s good too,” he said wrapping his arms around her waist.

“I found out a lot of things last night.” She wound her fingers up into his hair. “Ava and Emma say I snore and I talk in my sleep.”

“No comment.”

“Hmmm,” she grunted. “I guess I speak very clearly.” She looked down at his chest and took a moment before looking back up at him. “I somehow said something about a baby in a fight with Adam.”

Sam pulled back just enough to look at her. “You said that?”

She nodded. “Vivian had to tell the girls.”

“Oh,” he let it ride on a sigh. “What did they say?”

“They’re excited to have a baby sister.”

“Or brother.”

She laughed easily. “They don’t really know Adam. This is just another thing to happen to them.”

“I get that. I’m glad it got out in the open. Did you tell them about the life insurance policy?”

Amelia looked at him. Her face had gone puzzled. “I forgot all about it.”

“You did?”

“Yes, I’d had another epiphany and didn’t think about it I guess.”

“And what was that?”

“First of all that I’m still a girl and able to have all those confused girlie feelings.”

“Right. We established you were just that and allowed to have them.”

She gave him a nudge. “With these two women in my life I seem to be embracing that…that…
sisterly
factor I guess. The kind where you can let those emotions play out in front of someone to get resolve.”

“And what was the resolve?”

She pressed a kiss to his lips and then sunk into it. “I realized I loved you too.”

He pulled her closer and held her there. “I never thought you’d get to that realization.”

“I was avoiding it.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s over.” He kissed her again, this time deeper, fuller.

When he stepped back he noticed Penelope and Vivian on the porch watching with smiles before they both hurried back into the house.

“I guess they’re okay with us?”

“I think they are. She looked up toward the house. I genuinely think they are.”

Sam smoothed a hand over her ponytail. “Why don’t we let this wait a bit and go in and tell them about the policy. They need to know that they have some breathing room when it comes to the estate.”

She nodded and he took her hand and headed into the house.

Chapter Twenty-One

Vivian and Penelope were in the dining room scraping old wallpaper off of the walls when Sam and Amelia walked in. There was some Blake Shelton blaring from an iPod and that seemed to ease Amelia’s nerves.

“Do you girls have a moment to talk business?” Sam asked.

Both women looked up with grins spread over their faces.

“Really, Sam, you don’t have to discuss the birds and the bees with us. We know what happens after you kiss a woman like that. After all, we’re the ones who have been knocked up.”

Vivian and Penelope giggled and Sam’s face had gone red.

“What?” He choked.

“Nothing,” Amelia interrupted. “Don’t listen to these childish girls.” She shot him a smile.

“I get it. This is an inside joke. The three of you have bonded enough to have inside jokes.”

They all exchanged glances. “I guess we have,” Vivian said standing and stretching her back. “Who’d have thought? Because I really had wanted to kick Amelia’s ass.”

“It humors her that she tried.” Amelia crossed her arms over her chest.

“Maybe someday you’ll be the one on your ass,” Vivian shot back.

“Don’t give up on your training.” Amelia let the remark hang. “But honestly,” she gave them a serious tone. “Sam has some news to share with us.”

Vivian gave a somber look to Penelope and then shifted it to Sam. “Is everything okay? God, please don’t tell me there is more bad news. Don’t tell me he has four or five wives. Or he had gambling debt that he owes the mafia.”

Sam shook his head. “Do you have some iced tea in the fridge?”

Penelope nodded. “I just put a new batch in there.”

“Let’s sit down and have some tea. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Penelope poured iced tea into plastic cups and Amelia found some buckets to set in the kitchen for chairs.

Sam had run out to his truck to grab the paperwork he’d shown to Amelia the night before.

They all stopped what they were doing as he walked into the kitchen.

“You girls are too high strung and serious,” he said setting the papers on the table. “Not everything is always bad news.”

“It is when Adam Monroe’s name is attached,” Vivian said through gritted teeth.

“Well then you can thank your United States armed services for this reprieve.” He handed her the envelope.

Vivian pulled the papers out and looked them over. Her eyes shifted as she read the words.

She thumbed through the documents and went back to read the first page again.

“Oh, what is it?” Penelope asked nearly frantic.

“This is the life insurance policy from the Army. Since Adam was killed overseas in combat…well look.” She handed Penelope the paper with the payout number on it and Penelope’s eyes grew wide.

“Oh…”

“You girls can pay off his debts and fix up this house for your business. Vivian, there should be enough to pay off the mortgage on your home.”

Vivian placed her hand on her chest. “That would take a load off of my mind.”

Amelia stood and moved to the table. “We can clear the auto loan and keep the car for now. We should hold on to it and sell it when we need more capital.”

“That’s a good idea,” Vivian agreed.

“What do we do with the rest of it?” Penelope asked.

Sam exchanged looks with Amelia and she gave him a nod.

“I’ve been working on that today. Amelia would like to set up trust funds and college accounts for Adam’s three children.”

“Why?” Vivian was quick to shoot out the question. “Why would you do that?” Vivian pushed back from the table, her voice accusing.

“They are the real victims in this,” Amelia said. “They lost their father.”

“He wasn’t much of one and you know that.”

“Well, then he pays for that.”

“This leaves you with nothing. Why do I feel like I’m missing something?” Vivian turned fully to face Amelia. “You gave up your home in Georgia. You had sex with the lawyer,” Vivian said and Amelia saw Sam’s cheeks deepen in color. “Now you’re going to pay off the bills and give our kids all the money left over?”