Page 124 of This Time Around
“Thanks, Jack.” The man was a godsend.
“Good call hiring Meg,” Skye said. “I went out with her ex-fiancé a couple times, and let’s just say the woman’s a saint. I don’t know what she saw in Matt Midland, but I sure hope his dick is as big as his ego.”
Allie giggled, enjoying the easy repartee of girlfriend chatter. When Skye had agreed to stay on as a caretaker running a tiny beauty salon on site, Allie had looked forward to this easy camaraderie the most. “I take it you didn’t sleep with him?”
“Nope,” Skye said. “Maybe I should have. Then I could become besties with Meg and we could sit around eating her delicious food and talking shit about her ex.”
Jack piped up from the couch. “Is that Matt Midland the famous sports photographer?”
“The one and only.” Skye made a face. “Personally, I think his brother’s the talented one. Way hotter, too.”
Jack snorted and reached over to turn the clay vase of mixed metal daisies on the end table. “Glad to know Kyle Midland’s skills as a metal artist are eclipsed only by his hotness.”
The women ignored him as Skye grinned at Allie. “Need anything at the store?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Text me if you think of anything.” Skye started for the door. “I ran out of cuticle cream in the salon, and the guests in the Laurelwood room ate all the cream cheese this morning.”
“Please don’t mix up the two,” Jack called as she headed toward the door.
“I’ll do my best!”
As Skye vanished from the room, Jack turned back to Allie. “Come on. There’s something I want to show you.”
She looked up at him. “Are we going somewhere?”
“Not leaving the house, if that’s what you mean.”
He pulled her up and out of the chair, and Allie felt a tingly swoop in her belly. “Don’t you dare try to pick me up, Jack Carpenter,” she said. “You’ll break your back.”
“Relax, woman. Come with me willingly and I won’t have to carry you anywhere.”
Allie would have followed him off the end of a dock with her pockets filled with rocks, though she couldn’t do it quickly in her current state. Why had no one told her that being nearly eight months pregnant felt a lot like swallowing an angry watermelon?
Jack towed her out of the parlor and into the foyer, rounding the corner toward the stairs. “Wait,” Allie said as her gaze landed on the framed collection on the wall. “Hang on a sec.”
He let go of her hand, and Allie paused to straighten the framed letter from Ernest Hemingway. The words—and the legally documented authenticity of it—were a big part of what had put the Rosewood B&B on the map. She owed it to Ernie to at least make sure things looked tidy.
“I still can’t believe we own Ernest freakin’ Hemingway’s cats,” Jack said as Allie touched the edge of the framed feline family tree next to the letter. Her grandmother’s handwriting was tidy and flourished, and Allie felt a pang of nostalgia.
“Not all of them,” she reminded him. “Just some. Enough to make them an historic attraction, anyway.”
“I guess now that Maple’s expecting, we’ve got at least one more generation.”
Allie winced as the baby kicked again. “I’ve never identified so strongly with a cat.”
Laughing, Jack caught her hand again. “Come on.”
Allie let him pull her away from the documents, which was fine by her. She’d had plenty of time to study them in the eighteen months since she’d found everything in the attic and pieced it all together. About the cash her grandmother really had squirreled away for her, a mixture of smart investments and a few sizable contributions from one famous literary figure. It was payment for the care and feeding of his favorite felines, though apparently Ernest had vastly overestimated the cost of cat kibble. Either that, or he’d been exceptionally grateful for some of the other things Allie had read about in the letters.
She preferred not to dwell on that part of the story.
As Jack pulled her up the stairs, Allie thought about how damn lucky she was. She had a husband who loved her and the best step-kid any woman could ask for. Her father might still be in prison, but things were better now that her mom could visit him. Each time Allie saw their eyes light up or watched them hold hands across the familiar gray table, she learned a little more about love and forgiveness and all the things that made marriages survive the worst stuff life throws at them.
She rested a hand on her belly now as Jack towed her down the second-floor hallway. Looking at him, she felt a swell of gratitude so fierce it took her breath away. Or maybe that was the exertion of climbing stairs while incubating a baby the size of a small rhinoceros.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. “I thought you said I wasn’t allowed in this wing because the paint fumes might be bad for the baby.”
