The Detective's 8 lb, 10 oz Surprise (17 page)

He was going to run with it. An idea came to him, involving a camera, Blue Gulch and the rest of his life. As Georgia clipped away at a bush without seeing him, he rushed off the porch in the opposite direction, wanting the rest of his life to finally have a chance to get started.

Chapter Sixteen

N
ick bypassed a group of day campers walking two by two to the playground at Blue Gulch Elementary School, took out his phone and clicked on the video camera function. He flipped the screen so that it was filming him.

“Dad here,” he said, but his voice was a little wonky from how not-everyday this was for him, so he restarted the video and cleared his throat. “Dad here. Hi. I don't know your name yet. Your mother and I haven't talked about that yet, but I'll bring that up later today. You need a name, right? I—”

A little girl stood at the edge of the playground fence and stared at him, then finally ran off to the tire swings, giving him the privacy he needed to do this.

He kept the video camera aimed at him. “I'm filming this five months before you were born. One day, maybe when you're all grown up—your aunt Avery's age now—you'll like the idea of looking back on how you came into the world.” He felt like the Grinch on that snowy precipice, his heart growing so big it almost exploded. “I want you to know something. I want you to know that that even before you were born, I loved you.”

The floodgates opened and Nick had to sit down on a bench and catch his breath.

It was true. He loved his child. He always had, from the moment Georgia had told him she was pregnant. He'd been afraid, yeah. But that never meant he didn't love their son.

He aimed the camera back on his face. “Dad here again. I've been worried how I'll do—and since you'll probably be watching this when you're graduating from high school or whenever people watch home videos that only families like, you'll be able to tell me how I did.”

He paused, clicking off the video and leaning his head back, something daring to sting the backs of his eyes. He clicked Video. “Got kind of emotional for a minute there. I just want to do right by you. I don't want to let you down. I
won't
let you down. Since there's five months till you're coming, I thought I'd show you a little of the town where you'll be born, where I was born, where your mother was born. I'll show you where I grew up and where I went to school, where I had all my firsts.”

I'm reclaiming this town for you, little guy
, he added silently.
I'm going to see it through your eyes, for your eyes. Life has to be about the present and future, not the past.

Yeah. It did. And it would be from here on in.

“This is where you'll go for your first day of school,” Nick said, sweeping the video camera across the front of the Blue Gulch Elementary School. “Right there,” he added, zooming in on the bicycle rack, “is where I wiped out in front of every kid on my bus. I had such a bad cut on my leg that kids used to offer me baseball cards to see it.” He turned to the left. “And see that tire swing? That's where I made my first friend, a really funny kid named Finn. I should look him up.” Nick smiled at the memory of himself and Finn riding their bikes all over town, looking for buried treasure and frogs, like little Henry Grainger.

After the elementary school, he moved to the middle school, where he had had his first awkward kiss, filming under the bleachers where it had happened. Then the high school, where he shared one of his favorite memories, his high school graduation, his mother and sister surprising him with dinner out at Hurley's. He told his son how back then, he had no idea that the girl he'd grow up to marry had been at Hurley's that day.

Nick froze. The girl he'd grow up to marry.
Marry
. He'd thought about it, of course, over the past weeks, ready to cough up Georgia's least favorite word,
obligation
, and commit to her and their child. But he'd known Georgia wouldn't want a husband who operated out of
should
. She was holding out for the real thing.

His heart wobbling, he got back in his car and filmed around town, pointing out some businesses that had come and gone, spending a good ten minutes in front of Hurley's, aiming it up at Georgia's window on the second floor. He probably looked half-crazy, holding up his phone and narrating, but Nick didn't much care.

“Now I want to show you where I grew up,” he said into the video camera. He got into his car and drove over to the house that had stopped making his insides seize up—or had since that night he found Avery in the yard under the weeping willow. It was Avery's house now. That was how he would think of it: about its future.

He walked around to the backyard, hoping his tenants wouldn't mind that he was skulking around. There were no cars in the driveway, so they didn't appear to be home. He swept the video camera across the yard. “This is where I'd lie for hours every night with the telescope my mother bought me for my tenth birthday, looking for the Big Dipper and hoping to see some planets. And right there,” he added, zooming in on the back porch, “is where my mother would read to me and Avery every night for an hour.” He stared at the porch swing, barely focusing on the crack his father had once put into it in a fit. “This will always be Aunt Avery's house, and if she moves back here, if she's not too big a country music star for little ol' Blue Gulch, maybe she'll read to you here too, under the stars.”

I'm having a baby
, he whispered into the early evening air, and again he felt something shift in his chest—open instead of close, widen instead of tighten.

He had one more place to visit and then he was going to see Georgia Hurley and let her know he was ready to be a father.

* * *

Well, well, there was a new text from Nick, this one asking Georgia to meet him on the front porch of Hurley's. She glanced at the time. It was close to 9:00 p.m. and two big parties had come into the restaurant a little while ago to get in before closing. Georgia should be inside helping out in the dining room, walking around with a coffeepot and a pitcher of lemon water, fetching anything the busy waitstaff couldn't get to.

Anything to avoid what she was afraid was coming: goodbye. Nick might be staying in Blue Gulch, but he might as well be half a world away emotionally.

She took off her apron and hung it up on a peg, let her grandmother know she was stepping outside for a moment and steeled herself before opening the front door. She still couldn't get over his last text—from last night.
Thanks...for everything
.

Thanks for...everything
. She was about to give him a piece of her angry mind. She yanked open the door and there he was, standing on the porch so danged handsome with so many shopping bags in his hands that she was surprised he could still stand straight.

She'd spent hours tossing and turning last night, unable to get comfortable, unable to fall asleep. Tears pricking her eyes every time she thought about Nick.
Thanks for everything
was about goodbye. About appreciation of service. About
we're done here
.

Well, dammit, she wasn't done here. This man wasn't walking away until she said her piece. Until he knew how she felt about him. If he didn't feel the same way, fine. Go live a quarter mile away and visit their baby every other day or however they'd work it out. But until she was officially defeated, she wasn't giving up.
Thanks for everything
was close to defeat, but because Nick
was
the brick wall that surrounded him, there was a chance for them. Brick walls could be blasted through. Well, Nick Slater, meet Georgia, the human blowtorch.

Thanks for everything
. Good Lord. Was he kidding? How dare he! A fresh round of hot indignation rose in her, and that was it.

“I have something to say to you, Nick Slater.”

He stared at her, and there was something different in his expression, something she couldn't pinpoint. “Okay.” He let go of all the shopping bags, wedging them over on the porch with his leg so that diners could pass by on their way out.

Okay.
Grr, he was impossible! She took him by the hand and led him down the street to a grassy area with a bench. Neither of them sat.

“You listen to me, Nick Slater,” she said, jabbing a finger at him. “I don't want you here out of obligation. I want you here because you want to be here. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Ah. So that's what you were talking about. Now it makes sense.”

Grr
again. “You really couldn't figure that out?”

He looked down, then away, then turned so that she couldn't see his face.

“Nick?”

“I don't want to hurt you,” he finally said, turning back to face her. “After all you've been through, you deserve all the happiness in the world.”

“And...” she prompted. If he was going to say it, that he didn't love her and it just wasn't going to happen for them in the way she dreamed, she had to give him the chance to say it. Without trying to read his mind. Or project.

“And I love you, Georgia.”

Did he just say he loved her? Her hand flew to her mouth.

“I love you. And I'll be there for you and the baby. I promise you that. I've made some kind of breakthrough today—I'm really ready to be our child's father. Not out of obligation—out of want. The baby is coming in five months and I'll be ready. I'm going to be the best father I can be. I'm sorry for all the mixed signals I've given you ever since you came back to town. I could barely resist you because you're so damned beautiful. I thought I needed to let you go. Same way I let Avery go this afternoon.”

Oh, Nick.

“But if you'll have me, I promise to always try to be the man, the husband you deserve.”

If
she'd have him. She almost laughed.

From the pain shadowing his dark eyes, Georgia knew he wasn't completely sure he was up to the task. But he was. Despite everything he'd been through, all the wrongs he made right in their world, he still didn't realize how good a man he was.

“Nick Slater, you once told me to tell you if anything was ever wrong. And something is wrong. Do you want to know what?”

“Of course I do.”

Georgia nodded, then waved at Harriet Culver, who was walking Bentley across the street. She waited until Harriet had moved on far enough so that they had some privacy. “Okay, what's wrong can be made right. But it depends on the answer to a question.”

Nick's eyes narrowed. “This sounds complicated.”

Georgia smiled. “Yes or no isn't complicated. You just say the answer to the question. Oh, and there's no ‘yeah, but' allowed. No ‘it depends.' Either yes or no, a sentence in and of itself. Okay?”

“This sounds really complicated now, but okay.”

She looked at him, at this handsome man, this beautiful person inside and out, and closed her eyes for a second, making a wish in advance on tonight's stars. She opened her eyes. “Do you
really
love me?”

He leaned back a bit, his gaze intense on her. “Yes. I really do.”

Georgia's eyes filled with tears. “Another question, then. Are you in love with me?”

He reached for her hand and held it. “Yes. Very much so.”

Her heart was bursting. “So what the gobbledygook have you been doing?”

“Well, for the past few hours I was practically buying out Baby Center for our son. Onesies. Baby blankets. Diapers. Burp clothes. A mobile. Two car seats. At least four or five things we probably don't even need, like a baby wipes warmer.”

She laughed, happy tears pricking her eyes again.

“But,” he said, “you probably mean since you came back into my life.” At her nod, he added, “What I've been doing is...worrying. Being terrified. Of letting myself feel anything.”

“Love
is
scary,” she said. “In a good way. I know, Nick, because I love you so much. So much.”

He took her hand and held it. “I love you too. And I don't want to get this wrong.” He placed his other on her cheek, the look in his eyes full of tenderness. “I don't want to let you down.”

“You just have to love me,” she said. “You'll be surprised how much that covers.”

He reached for her and she melted against him, so much anxiety and fear and worry flitting away. “I love you, Georgia. Deeply. I have since the first day I met you.”

“Me too,” she said. “I love you so much sometimes I think I'll explode.”

He held her tight, then said he'd stopped at one more shop earlier and pulled a little velvet box from his jacket pocket. “Will you marry me, Georgia?”

She couldn't help the gasp, then brought a hand up to his cheek and looked into his eyes. “Yes, I will.”

He slid the beautiful diamond ring on her finger, then kissed her passionately.

“No wonder you haven't found the thief who stole my clothes!” a voice shouted out. Georgia whirled around and there was Penny Jergen, tottering down Blue Gulch Street in three-inch heels, two similarly dressed girlfriends flanking her. She was glaring at Nick. “Too busy kissing women.”

Nick laughed. “Just one,” he called out. “Woman. Forever,” he added on a whisper.

Epilogue

W
ell, Georgia had tried on her
grandmother's beautiful tea-length wedding dress, the one Essie had worn to
marry her great love over fifty years ago, the one Annabel had worn to marry her
own great love a few months ago, but there was no way that dress, so elegant and
simple and lovely, would fit over her belly. Not when she was five months
pregnant.

Georgia, her sisters and her grandmother all headed over to
Blue Gulch Bridal, Georgia wondering if she'd get the side eye from Marley, the
owner, for being pregnant before the wedding. Not in any kind of judgmental
way—just a gossipy way.

“I win twenty-five bucks!” Marley said the moment Georgia
entered, her family behind her. “I told my sister that Georgia Hurley was
knocked up and she said no, she's just been eating for free at Hurley's all day
so she started packing on the pounds.”

Georgia couldn't help laughing. “Nice to know, Marley. And yes,
I have been enjoying quite a few po'boys for lunch, so technically you both
win.”

A few hugs and congratulations later, Georgia explained that
the wedding was this weekend, just days away, and that Clementine had amazing
seamstress skills if Marley's usual seamstress couldn't get to Georgia's dress
on such short notice. Marley said she'd work her magic and make it happen on
time, no worries.

“So, who all is in the bridal party?” Marley asked. “Yeah, I'm
nosy, but I want to know.”

Georgia smiled. “Well, we decided to keep it simple. My
grandmother is walking me down the aisle to my groom, and that's that. My
sisters, my matron and maid of honor, are giving speeches at the reception.”

“I had ten bridesmaids,” Marley said. “I think you've got the
right idea.”

Georgia's sisters went through the racks, looking for what
Georgia had described as her dream dress—a white gown, simple and sleeveless and
pretty. Essie was looking through the “mother of the bride” section for her
dress, determined to get dolled up, since she hadn't attended Annabel's quickie
wedding-of-then-convenience in Las Vegas.

“I think I found it,” Clementine said, pulling a gown off the
rack. “It's you, Georgia.”

Georgia turned and gasped. It
was
her. And exactly what she'd been looking for. Classic and elegant, sleeveless
and simple and flowy, with a row of delicate beading at the necessary empire
waist, almost like something Audrey Hepburn would wear.

“So beautiful,” Annabel said, nodding.

Georgia took the dress into the large fitting room and removed
her tank top and maternity shorts, then pooled the gown by her feet and stepped
in and brought it up. So far so good on fit. “A little help zipping?” she called
out, and her whole family rushed in.

Essie zipped and her sisters stood on either side of her,
staring into the floor-to-ceiling three-way mirrors.

“I'm going to cry,” Annabel said, a hand covering her mouth. “I
can't speak.”

Clementine eyes welled. “Me either.”

“You're going to make a beautiful bride, Georgia,” Essie said,
wiping away her own tears.

* * *

Nick stood by the bay window in the dining room of
Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen, which had been turned into a wedding hall, complete
with a red carpet aisle runner and more flowers than he'd ever seen in one
place. He smiled at his sister and Quentin in the front row beside the Hurley
family. Then winked at Dylan beside Quentin, Timmy in his carrier on a seat
between Dylan and his great-aunt. Logan Grainger and his two cute twin nephews
sat behind Dylan.

Nick had spent the past few minutes with not much to do other
than look around at the people who'd come to witness his wedding, so he couldn't
help noticing how often Logan looked at Clementine's profile, then quickly
looked away when Clementine would realize someone was staring at her. He hoped
those two figured it out. Nick had spent some time being miserable when the
woman he loved was right beside him, and he had a feeling Logan Grainger was
doing the same dumb thing.

Not that it hadn't taken Nick some time to figure that out.

Harriet Culver, sitting at the piano that had been brought in
from the parlor, began the traditional wedding march, and everyone turned around
to watch Georgia, her face slightly obscured by a white veil, begin down the
aisle, her grandmother beside her.

Nick actually gasped, the sight of the woman he loved in a
wedding gown, walking to him, almost too much.

He didn't take his eyes off her. As she reached him, Essie
pulled back her veil, and Georgia stood smiling at him. He took both her hands
in his, and then they turned toward the pastor, both of them ready to start
their future as husband and wife, mother and father.

“I just felt the baby kick!” Georgia whispered, but everyone
heard and their guests starting clapping.

Nick laughed and put his hand on her belly. He felt a little
kick on the side, and his heart almost burst. “I'm glad he's here for this,”
Nick whispered. “The best day of my life.”

* * * * *

Look for Clementine and Logan's story,
THE COWBOY'S BIG
FAMILY TREE,

coming soon.

Keep reading for an excerpt from
HER RUGGED
RANCHER
by Stella Bagwell.

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