Page 93 of All Wrong
She laughed. “Yeah, I guess I should’ve waited until daylight, but I wanted to show you.”
“Show me what exactly?”
“My new house.”
“You bought this place?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought, with a little TLC, it would make an excellent foster home.”
His body froze. His brain went on total andcomplete lockdown. When he snapped back into reality, he realized he was alone. He could hear her moving around in the next room and hastened to follow her. She’d turned on a light in there too. It was a big room with a huge stone fireplace and plenty of windows, but it barely registered.
“What did you say?”
She wasn’t looking at him. “Ten bedrooms, three stories, including a full attic and an unfinished basement. Only three bathrooms, but Johnny said we could easily add more. Twenty acres, several outbuildings?—”
“We?” he choked.
She turned around and smiled. “Yes, we. I can’t do this on my own, Nick.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Remember I said that I thought life was trying to tell me something? Turns out, it was.” Her smile faltered. “It sucks that it took so many things happening for me to see it, but I guess that’s how it works sometimes. Anyway”—she cleared her throat and resumed her walking tour—“I did a lot of thinking while I was at my brother’s. I saw what he and Tori were doing with the ranch, the difference it made in the people that came there, and I thought,Now, that’s worthwhile. I wish I could do something likethat.Then, Nicki told me about your vision for The Zone, and everything just clicked into place. So … yeah. What do you think?”
“What do I think?” he murmured, swallowing the lump that had appeared in his throat.
There were no words to express his thoughts or the feelings that came over him. So, he gathered her in his arms, lowered his lips to hers, and tried to convey it another way.
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
“Well?” Corinne asked as AJ walked into the kitchen.
He grinned. “Made varsity.”
She whooped and smothered him with a hug. It was a bit of a stretch. The young man had grown six inches in the last year and a half.
“I didn’t doubt it for a minute.”
AJ placed a kiss on her forehead and made a beeline for the stairs just as Nick entered through the back door.
“Well?”
“He made varsity.”
“Knew he would,” Nick said, drawing her into his arms. He kissed Corinne, too, but in a way that had her toes curling.
“Ugh. Get a room,” said Helena, reaching for an apple while her sister, Lauren, went for a pear.
“Works for me,” Nick said. In a quick move, he had Corinne draped over his shoulder and was walking toward the stairs. “Get dinner started. We’ll be down in about an hour. Keep an eye on the littles.”
“Nick!” Corinne protested with a laugh.
“You’re right,” he said. “Better make it two. Snacks, then homework, no exceptions.”
