She smiled. “Well,” she said, nuzzling the infant in her arms. “You’re all changed, Timmy. Is someone hungry?” she cooed.
The baby cried harder.
“There, there,” Georgia said, rocking Timmy a bit. But he still fussed and squirmed.
Her cheeks flamed and she looked as though she might cry. “If you want to hire a professional nanny or someone with a clue about babies, I’ll understand.”
Nick looked at the case files on the table. Looked at the baby squirming in Georgia’s arms. He thought of everything she’d just told him, everything she’d been through.
He watched as she held Timmy up against her chest and gently patted his back and he calmed down, his tiny hand opening and closing.
She smiled and kissed the top of Timmy’s cap. “I’ll bet you’re hungry, aren’t you?”
Timmy let out a wail, his little face turning red. Georgia rocked him and he squirmed harder, so she brought him back up against her and patted his back again and he let out a burp, then calmed down again. Then started fussing again.
She needed this. He needed this. So that was that.
“You’re hired,” he said. “I’ll show you the guest room. Are your bags still in your car?”
“Wait. What?” she asked.
“The job is live-in,” he said. “I need you round-the-clock.”
She stared at him as though he had five heads.
Maybe he did. Georgia—live here? A woman he wanted to grab to him and run from at the same time. A woman he’d said too much to. A woman who’d been through hell and back herself.
A woman pregnant with his child. His child. Would that ever sound right to his ears?
He liked the idea of knowing she was safe in the next room, that a wall separated them at night. No one and nothing would ever hurt Georgia Hurley again.
Especially not him. Which meant keeping his distance. After what she’d been through, the last thing she needed was a man with no interest in love or marriage or family life. He’d support her, support their child, be there as best he could, but Nick knew his limits, knew how shut down, closed off he was.
“Is that a problem?” he asked. “It’s just a five-minute walk to Hurley’s from here, so you can easily go between there and here. And if I don’t find Timmy’s mother before she comes back, it’ll be just a week that I have responsibility for him.”
“Not a problem,” she said, lifting her chin.
“So you’ll start tonight?”
“I’m here. So I might as well. I’ll take him over to Hurley’s tomorrow morning while I bake. My grandmother and sisters will go nuts over him.”
He nodded. “The guest room is down here,” he added, leading the way. “Right next to my bedroom. If you need anything, just let me know.” He watched her walk in and look around. “The basics are in here. Bathroom is right across the hall.”
He hoped she liked it. The guest room wasn’t much, since he and Avery rarely had guests. They had no family except each other. There was a queen-size bed with a dusty-orange quilt embroidered with seashells. Across was an antique bureau with a big round mirror above it. Two windows with a view of the backyard were covered by pale yellow drapes.
“I’ll move in Timmy’s stuff,” he said as she glanced around the room.
“I do like the idea of living with a cop. I know my ordeal is over, but having an officer of the law in the next room is a comfort nonetheless.”
“I can certainly understand that.” He was glad she still felt that way even though the police hadn’t been able to help her. “I’ll go get your bags,” he added, heading out, his shoulders relaxing just slightly as he left the room. In a minute he was back, set her bags by the closet, then began moving in Timmy’s bassinet and everything else he’d bought from Baby Center.
“I can’t believe you bought all this,” she said, glancing at the blue-and-white gingham bassinet and the pastel mobile suspended above it.
He looked at Timmy, his big cheeks quirking around the yellow pacifier. “I want him to be comfortable.”
Huh. He hadn’t realized that until he said it. He’d had a few—more than a few—of those kinds of moments with Avery the past couple of years. Moments of...whatever it was called that always caught him by surprise. Tenderness, maybe. He’d certainly experienced it and then some with Georgia in Houston.
His skin felt...tight. “I’ll be in the kitchen with the case files and a pot of coffee if you need me,” he said quickly, and shot down the hall.
A week of Georgia here. Given everything he’d been through—everything he was about to go through with Timmy—having Georgia in the next room might be the hardest of all to deal with.
The baby had woken up a few times during the night, but the last time, at 4:30 a.m., Georgia changed him, gave him his bottle and then very quietly left Nick’s house. It was just five o’clock now and except for one lone jogger, she and Timmy were alone on the short walk to Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, dawn still an hour away. For the first time in months, she felt no fear as she walked, even as the only person out. She was safe. She was home.
The sight of the old apricot-colored Victorian made her heart leap in her chest. She loved this place. And now that she was back and the restaurant’s official baker, Georgia felt she was exactly where she belonged.
She quietly opened the gate of the white picket fence and headed up the porch steps and inside, taking in the scent of lemon cleanness—her sister Clementine’s doing, she knew—and the faintest scent of barbecue sauce and biscuits, which always permeated the air at Hurley’s. She carried Timmy into the big country kitchen and showed him around, including the baking section where all the supplies were kept. They’d be watching the sunrise in that section for the next several days.
She then took him into the hallway and showed him the family photos lining the walls, of her parents and her grandparents and sisters and Hurley’s throughout its fifty years. Hairstyles and clothing might have changed, per the photos of customers in the dining room, but the menu was pretty much the same as it always had been. Good, traditional, home-cooked comfort food from recipes handed down through the generations. From steaks and chops and meat loaf and ribs in Gram’s amazing barbecue sauce, to macaroni and cheese, and chicken fingers for the little ones, all served with delicious sides—spicy slaw, potato salad, corn on the cob. Hurley’s was open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner and was a Blue Gulch institution. Everyone in town loved Hurley’s.
And because of her, because she’d been unable to come home and help back in April, Gram had almost lost the restaurant she’d started fifty years ago. Well, Georgia would never, ever let that happen again. A man would never come between her and family again, between her and her own values again. She knew that for sure because she was done with men, done with romance. She had a baby on the way. Nothing would get in the way of Georgia being the best mother she could possibly be.
Given how not interested Nick Slater was in marriage and fatherhood, Georgia knew she didn’t have to worry about falling in love with him. About hoping for something that couldn’t be. Because she wouldn’t go there in the first place.
Had she thought about him last night as she lay in his guest bed, so aware of him in the room next door? Yes. Had she lain awake, tossing and turning as she remembered how he’d held her, how he’d made her feel, how he’d made love to her? Yes. And knowing he was right next door, in bed, brought back every moment of their night together. But Nick certainly had no romantic interest in her anymore,