The Detective's 8 lb, 10 oz Surprise (15 page)

“Tell you what,” he said. “How about if I go talk to Quentin?”

She nodded. He also didn't like the idea of his kid sister staying at a boyfriend's—fiancé's—apartment, especially when this was her home. But he'd been the one to send her running out the other day. And she was eighteen. Dammit.

He explained to her about Dylan and Timmy and Aunt Helen, then headed to the kitchen to leave a note for Dylan in case he woke up. His life sure had changed in a week.

* * *

Nick jogged the quarter mile to the bookstore and headed down the short cobblestone alley with the entrance to Quentin's apartment. He found Quentin sitting on the front steps, looking miserable, the glow from a streetlamp barely illuminating his face.

When Nick sat down next to Quentin, the boy practically jumped.

“Avery's very upset,” Nick prompted.

Quentin crossed his arms over his chest. “All she talks about is how she can't convince you to give your blessing and that she can't see leaving without it. I just know if we did leave tomorrow, when we got to Nashville, she'd be a wreck about it. You're her family, her big brother who raised her when her mother died. What you think means everything to her.”

There was so much pain in Quentin's expression. Nick dragged a hand through his hair and looked up at the stars for a moment, wishing life weren't so damned complicated when sometimes it should be easy. Quentin loved Avery. Avery loved Quentin. And here was Nick, in the middle of it. But it
was
complicated.

“All I really care about is that Avery is happy,” Quentin said. “And I just know that not having your blessing will eat away at her and she won't put her all into singing or auditioning. So I think if this is something she really wants, she can either do it on her own and not piss you off or stay in school like you want and go on auditions in Dallas.” Quentin squeezed his eyes shut and Nick could see he was willing himself not to cry, especially not in front of the big bad ogre known as Avery's Older Brother.

“You really care about her, don't you?” Nick said.

“Like I told Avery, sometimes when you love someone, you have to let them go.” Quentin stood up. “I'll come by the house to say goodbye to Avery in the morning.” With that, he turned to go inside.

“Quentin,” Nick said.

The young man turned around, tears in his eyes.

“That you're willing to sacrifice your own happiness for Avery's future—that says quite a lot.”

Quentin just looked at his feet, clearly unable to speak, his Adam's apple moving. Then he went inside.

What the hell had Nick done? The two of them miserable was better for Avery than the two of them together? Not chasing a dream when you were young and fearless enough to go for it was better than chasing it?

If you love someone, sometimes you have to let them go.

Was he supposed to let Georgia go, to be able to find a man who could love her and be a good father to their baby?

Seemed kind of ridiculous when he was right there, the father of the baby. Unable to do the job.

Unable or unwilling?

Hell if he knew. So he was willing to lose her? Had he given up on himself, as she'd said before they went to Houston?

Soul searching sure was the pits.

When he got back to the house, Avery wasn't in his room. She wasn't in the kitchen or outside in the backyard. She wasn't anywhere. And she wasn't answering her phone.

His heart racing, he texted Quentin.
Avery's not here. Is she with you?

I wish
, Quentin said.
But no
.

Dammit! Where had she gone? He thought of her friends, but her two best girlfriends were away at school.

He was pacing and frantic that Avery was out walking alone at midnight when he got another text from Quentin.

First place I'd look is under the weeping willow at the edge of your old house—where she grew up. She likes to go there.

The hairs on Nick's neck stood up. The old house? Avery liked to go there? What?

He got in his car and drove the few miles out to the old house. The white clapboard farmhouse sat on three acres. The front door was now painted red and there were window boxes everywhere, flowers trailing, something he kept up—well, paid someone to keep up—in honor of his mother. The weeping willow his mother had loved so much was right at the edge of the property in the front yard, at a good distance from the house.

He was getting good at spotting feet under trees. He could make out Avery's red flip-flops. She sat huddled. “Hey,” he said.

“How'd you know I'd be here?” she asked, wiping tears from under her eyes.

“Quentin said you'd probably be here. I didn't even think of it. Guess he knows you pretty well, huh?” If anyone had told Nick an hour ago he'd ever start a sentence with
Quentin said
, he'd have laughed.

She nodded and sniffled, sucking in a deep breath. “How can I accept that it's over between us? I want to move to Nashville, but I don't want to do it alone. Quentin is my rock, you know? He's my support.”

I thought I was
, he wanted to say, but he realized he wasn't—not solely, anyway. He was her family. He was her father figure. He was her older brother who'd do anything for her except, it seemed, what would make her happy.

“I guess I'm heading back to school in the morning,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes. “Maybe you're right—when I graduate I'll be older and more mature and maybe I'll be ready to move to Nashville on my own.”

“Actually, Avery, I don't think I'm right at all.”

She turned and stared at him. “About what?”

“If you want to marry Quentin and move to Nashville and become the next Carrie Underwood, you have my blessing. The both of you do.”

She burst into tears and threw her arms around him. “What made you change your mind?”

“You did. And Quentin did. You love him. He loves you. You two have a sound plan. I might not love the idea of what you're doing, but I support your right—and your courage—to do it.” He raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like something a politician would say.”

She laughed. “Your blessing means everything to me.”

“I'm glad it does, Avery. That means everything to
me
.”

“You hate this house, huh?” she said, looking up at the farmhouse.

“Mama raised us here,” he said. “So no, I don't hate it. But I do have bad memories of living here. You know all about that.”

“I don't have bad memories,” she said. “I wish you hadn't sold it, Nick. But maybe one day I can buy it back.”

“I didn't sell it,” he said softly. “This house belongs to you. I put the deed in your name when you turned eighteen. I've been renting it out to tenants since we left here, but the house is yours. I wouldn't have sold your childhood home, Avery.”

Surprise lit her expression. “I should have known that. I'll always have a home, my home, to come back to. If things don't work out in Nashville.”

“You'll always have a home to come back to no matter what,” he said, hugging her close. “Why don't I drop you off at Quentin's? You can go put your fiancé out of his misery.”

She smiled and bolted up, brushing off her shorts, and Nick realized that he hadn't thought of him as Quentin Says. Just Quentin.

“You won't be sad that I'll be taking Mr. Whiskers with me?”

He smiled “Well, I'll admit that the cat and I did finally bond. But he belongs with you.”

“You'll see him again,” she said. “In about five months. Since I'll be back when my nephew is born.”

He stared at her. “You knew?”

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Nick. Come on. And I really hope with all my heart you put
yourself
out of your misery and propose to that woman.”

“Let's go,” he said.

Propose to Georgia. He would if he thought marriage to a man like him would be what she needed or wanted. But Georgia wouldn't want to marry him just because he was the father of her child. She wanted a man who could love, who could be the kind of father their child deserved.

And Nick was...he wasn't even sure how to classify himself. Better than he used to be but no one's bargain.

Chapter Fourteen

“D
id you talk to Logan?” Georgia asked Clementine, not sure if she should pry, since Clementine hadn't brought it up.

The sisters had been in the kitchen since 6:00 a.m., Georgia making piecrust and thinking about what kinds of pie would go best with today's specials. A cherry pie, for sure. A chocolate peanut butter. Classic apple. And maybe a pumpkin pie just because Georgia loved pumpkin pie.

It had been strange waking up at five-thirty with no one to take care of but herself. No sweet baby to diaper and powder and feed and burp and rock. She'd taken a shower in utter peace, had a moment's panic while rinsing the shampoo from her hair that she'd left Timmy unattended, then remembered. Timmy was at Nick's. With his father. And great-great-aunt. And Nick.

And Georgia had gotten dressed and gone to work—a commute of a staircase, her sister already up and a pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen. If she had to give up her job at Nick's, being at Hurley's sure was a nice place to be instead.

“I tried,” Clementine said, sitting at the table and filling all the little ceramic cactus salt and pepper shakers. She sipped her coffee. “I texted and got back ‘It's for the best.' That's it. So I called and he said he had some emergency with a calf and couldn't talk, sorry. And then I just drove out to the ranch at a time I knew he'd be there—he's always there at six for dinnertime with the boys, no matter what—and he froze me out, said, ‘We're sitting down to dinner. Goodbye, Clementine.' He kind of emphasized the goodbye in a very final way.”

“What happened between you two? What is he so closed off about?” Georgia didn't know much about Logan Grainger, but Nick seemed to hold him in high regard. Word was that since Henry had slipped away a few days ago, Logan hadn't let either boy out of his sight.

Tears pooled in Clementine's eyes. “I don't know. I was a good babysitter to the twins. I know they like me. We had one kiss.
One
kiss. I guess it caught him by surprise. But so what? Why shut me out?”

“I wish I knew. I wish I had a crystal ball that could explain everything about two certain men.”

“Me too,” Clementine said, plugging the last of the shakers and setting them on her tray. “You doing all right? I know you moved in here last night.”

Georgia nodded, her resolve to be grateful for Hurley's, for her sisters and Gram, and her job as baker firm in her mind. “I knew it was temporary. I just wish it could have been forever. Not that I didn't want Timmy to be reunited with his family. I just wanted to stay at Nick's forever, our little family together.” Her heart clenched and she handled the dough too roughly and knew she'd have to start over. The last thing she wanted was complaints about her pie just when she needed rallying most.

“I don't know Nick well,” Clementine said. “At all, really. But I have this feeling, even without a crystal ball, that you two are meant to be. I look at you together and everything feels right in the world. Do you know what I mean? It's how it seems when Annabel and West are together.”

Georgia felt tears prick her eyes at her sister's kindness and compassion. “I sure hope so, Clem. But like the song goes, I can't make him love me if he doesn't.”

“I'd bet my life that Nick Slater loves you, Georgia.” Before Georgia could even process that, Clementine glanced out the window and flinched. “Oh no.”

“What?” Georgia asked, following Clementine's gaze. Her birth mother stood across the street by Clyde's Burgertopia, sipping a cup of coffee and looking toward the Victorian.

“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 away 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.