“Fine. Test pie it is. I’ll get one done Saturday.”
“I want pie now!”
“Ugh!” Nate rolls his eyes.
Natalie reaches out for him, and Nate takes her in his arms. She makes the same goofy grin again and points to her cheek.
“This face!” she says, and we all laugh.
After an overly lavish dinner and a few educational games, Nate ushers me into the bedroom with my study notes for my plant-microbe interaction class while he puts Natalie to bed. After about an hour, he joins me, still smiling.
“You really like this, don’t you?” I grin at him as he climbs into the bed next to me.
“What’s not to like?” Nate leans over and places a gentle kiss on my lips. “I’ve got two beautiful girls, a ton of land all around us, and you’re just about to graduate with your degree. Now, if this one is a boy, I’ll probably explode with joy!”
“We’ll find out next week.” I place my notes on the nightstand and turn toward him.
“I can’t wait.” He pulls me close and kisses me again.
After a few minutes of making out and cuddling, Nate breaks away with a more serious look on his face.
“Hey, I wanted to tell you something,” Nate says.
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to foul up any good mood you might be having, but it has to come out at some point.”
“What?”
“I finally heard back from Virginia Bay.”
We had been trying for the last year to get a hold of the woman who allowed the Ramsay family to steal her identity so I could be raised in isolation. I didn’t feel right about trying to sell the house and shop in Accident without talking to her first, but just hearing her name reminds me of the woman who raised me. Though we hadn’t actually been blood relatives at all, I still miss her.
“What did she say?” I ask.
“Well, the gist of it is, she wants nothing to do with us or the property. She said that was ‘done and done years ago’ and not to contact her again. Then she hung up on me.”
“I guess we should start planning on selling the house and the store.” The idea makes me sad, and I have to fight back the tears again.
“Hey,” Nate says softly as he pulls my head to his shoulder, “don’t cry. You can keep the house and the antique shop if you want to.”
“It’s just the hormones,” I whisper as I bury my face in his chest. “I was like this with Nat, too.”
“You were a weepy thing.” Nate kisses the top of my head. “But I also know you’re disappointed. You wanted to meet her.”
“Yes, but I also feel bad about the house and the shop. What are we going to do with them?”
“Sell them, I guess. Good way to start a college fund for Natalie.”
“Don’t we already have a college fund?”
“The money, yes, but it needs to be, uh, ‘cleaned.’”
“This is the part where I stick my fingers in my ears and hum a lot, isn’t it?”
“That’s your MO, yes. I’ll take care of the sale. We’ll get the places fixed up first. Reid might like the opportunity to rehab an old house like that.”
“He asked about it before Nat was born,” I say. “Back then, I was still hoping the real Virginia Bay might want it back.”
“I think it would be a little difficult for her to go back to that town after all these years, don’t you? I’m not surprised that she doesn’t want to leave a life of relative luxury on a Caribbean island for Accident, Maryland.”
“I suppose that’s true. Such a small community would have a lot of questions if she just showed back up there, trying to use her real name again.”
“At least the county sheriff stopped asking about the shooting.”
“I’m sure all that money you gave to Pablo to stop pressing the issue helped.”
“His shop was damaged.”
“You gave him enough to build two more stores.”
“He’s a good guy,” Nate says with a shrug. “He deserves it.”
We snuggle down into the pillows, and Nate pulls the quilt up over us.
“Are you going to see Jessie when we go visit?” Nate asks.
“I talked to her about it,” I say, “but we might have to wait until Christmas. I don’t think there will be time over the long weekend.”
“Nora says that woman still comes by with baked goods on a regular basis.”
“You know, it’s probably best I don’t live so close to her anymore,” I say, “or I’d be two hundred pounds by now! You spoil me with your food as it is.”
“You’re eating for two.” He rubs my belly under the blanket. “I have to make sure you eat healthy for two as well.”
I reach up and touch the side of his face, then kiss him gently.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” I say softly.
“Thank you for loving me.” Nate runs his hand from my stomach up to my face. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be in a business I wanted nothing to do with, alone and probably completely insane.”
“You worked on that yourself,” I remind him. “You’re still working on that.”
“Yes, but as much as I know I needed to do it for myself, I don’t think I would have had the courage without you.”
He kisses me again.
“I love you, Nate.”
“I love you too, Cherry. Always.”
When I moved to Cascade Falls to find my family, I never could have imagined that just a few years later, I’d have not only my birth family but a family of my own. I have Nate, Natalie, a new child on the way, and countless family and friends around me now.
I was
