God, he was handsome.

And shirtless.

He wore a pair of dark blue sweatpants and nothing else. She could barely take her eyes off his chest.

Memories came over her. The two of them sitting on the couch in her living room in her Houston condo. Talking. The tall, dark and incredibly hot cop making her feel safe, making her dream of a way out, making her want him like she’d never wanted a man before. One minute he’d been telling her about his cat, Mr. Whiskers, and the next, he’d reached his hands up to her face and looked at her, then leaned in to kiss her, possessively and passionately, and she’d responded. Within minutes they’d been naked and on the soft shag rug.

From the way he was looking at her now, she had a feeling he was remembering, too.

“Well,” he said, glancing away. “If you’re both all right, I guess I’ll leave you alone.” He turned to go, but Georgia sensed he wanted to stay, wanted a reason to stay.

She would give him one. And give Operation Dad more time to work.

* * *

Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen:

There’s nothing more delicious than falling in love …

The Detective’s 8 lb, 10 oz Surprise
Meg Maxwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their beagle and their black-and-white cat. When she’s not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favourite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women’s fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.

For my dear friend Julia Munroe Martin. Lucky me to have a great friend and a great writer friend in one.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

In the fifteen minutes it had taken detective Nick Slater to go down the street to Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen to pick up his lunch order of a roast beef po’boy with a side of spicy slaw, someone had left an infant in a blue-and-white baby carrier on his desk.

Nick froze in the back doorway of the otherwise empty Blue Gulch Police Station, staring at the baby and mentally taking stats.

Newborn, one month, maybe six weeks old. Boy, according to all the blue. Healthy, from the peaches-and-cream big cheeks and the rosy bow-shaped lips, slightly quirking. Cared for, given the cap and clean outfit, the hand-knit blanket tucked around him in the sturdy, padded carrier. Sleeping—for now.

All that had been on his desk when he left were his frustrating notes on the Jergen burglary case, half-finished paperwork for Farley Melton’s seventh disorderly conduct arrest of the year, a “just because” card with two folded twenties and a ten that he was going to send to his sister at Dallas City College, and a scrawled note from himself that he was running out to pick up lunch, back in ten.

Now there was a baby.

“Hello?” he called out, expecting the parent or caregiver or someone, anyone to appear. The Blue Gulch Police Station wasn’t very big. Aside from the main room with the long reception desk, and Nick’s and the other two officers’ desks, the chief had a private office next to the two jail cells and a break room that served as conference room, interrogation room and lunchroom.

“Hello?” he tried again.

Silence.

Nick kept one eye on the baby and walked over to the break room—empty. Chief’s office—empty. Jail cells—one empty, one containing the sleeping form of Farley Melton.

Cynic that he was, he walked over to his desk, put the bag containing his lunch on his chair and lifted up the baby carrier to see if the cash was still in the card. It was. He set the carrier back down.

Okay, so the baby’s mother came in for some reason to talk to an officer or lodge a complaint, saw no one was around and set the carrier down while she went to use the restroom.

Except both restroom doors were ajar, the lights out.

Nick glanced out the windows at the front of the station to see if anyone was sitting on the steps or the bench. No one.

“Hello?” he called out again, despite the fact that clearly no one was there. Except for Farley snoring in his jail cell and the gentle hum of an oscillating fan in the corner, the office was quiet.

Why would someone leave a baby on his desk—and when no one was in the station? He mentally went down the list of who in Blue Gulch had had a baby recently. The Loughs, who lived a quarter mile from here in the center of town. But they had a girl with blond wisps. Nick eyed the baby; fuzzy dark hair peeked around the baby’s ears, just below the blue cotton cap.

Then there were the Andersons, who lived on the outskirts of Blue Gulch and didn’t often come to town. They’d had a boy back in June. Had one of the Andersons left the baby on Nick’s desk for some reason that even he, seasoned detective, couldn’t come up with? Nick grabbed his phone, looked up their number and punched it in.

He heard a baby cooing the moment Mike Anderson said hello.

Nick pretended to be alerting residents about the coyote sightings in his area, which was true, and to be careful, then hung up, racking his brain for who he might be forgetting. Blue Gulch was a small town, population 4,304—4,305, he corrected. If there had been another hugely pregnant woman in town over the summer, he’d have known about her.

Nick stared at the baby. A tiny blue-encased foot kicked out. Then the other. The big cheeks turned to the left. Then to the right.

Little eyes opened just a crack. Then closed again.

And then the first waaaah. The baby started sort-of crying, the bow-shaped mouth suddenly opening wide and pouring forth a screeching wail you wouldn’t think could come from such a tiny creature.

He glanced at the clock—1:16 p.m. Michelle Humphrey, department secretary, was on her lunch break. Officer Midwell, who was supposed to be manning the station, was probably at the coffee shop for his sixth iced coffee of the day, flirting with the barista he had a crush on. And the chief, nearing retirement, took long naps in his pickup truck in the back parking lot these hot summer days. You take over for me, Nick, will ya? was Chief McTiernan’s favorite refrain. Nick wasn’t much interested in being chief, even for an hour. He liked being a detective, needed to be out in the field.

And besides, Nick was planning on leaving Blue Gulch in the coming weeks. He’d moved back two years ago to take care of his sixteen-year-old sister when their mother died. But now that Avery was in college, living in a dorm, Nick didn’t have to live in this town he hated, a place that reminded him of his worst memories on a daily basis.

“Waaah. Waaah! Waaaah!”

Oh hell. He’d have to do something, like pick up the baby.

He reached into the carrier and pulled down the tiny blanket and froze.

There was a note taped onto the baby’s pajamas.

Detective Slater: Please take care of Timmy until I can come back for him in a week. I am not abandoning him. I know I can trust you.

What the—

He stared at the note, reading it again, then again. The note was typed on a half piece of plain white paper, please underlined in red pen. He read it yet again, hoping his eyes were playing tricks on him, that it said I’ll be back for him in a minute, thanks. With minute underlined in red.

So...a scared mother? A mother who had to attend to some personal business?

Timmy. At least there was a name. A big clue. Who did he know who’d had a baby named Timmy? No one. He glanced at the little guy. Yawning and stretching, unaware that someone else’s decisions, actions, choices could change the entire trajectory of his life.

Nick knew about that too well.

Now here was an innocent baby, at everyone’s mercy.

His, right now. I know I can trust you...

Obviously, the mother was someone he knew.

His heart started banging in his chest. No. Couldn’t be. No, no, no.

His sister?

God, calm down, Slater, he ordered himself. You just saw Avery off to college less than two weeks ago. For the past nine months, she’d been the same tall string bean she’d always been. His eighteen-year-old sister wasn’t the baby’s mother. His heart rate slowed to normal.

So who? Who would have chosen him over the other officers, or over grandmotherly Michelle, or over anyone else she knew? Why him?

Nick Slater wasn’t exactly paternal.

What you want doesn’t matter! the entire town had heard him shout at Avery a few months ago when she told him in front of Clyde’s Burgertopia that she wasn’t sure she wanted to go to college after all. And that her boyfriend, Quentin—Quentin says this, Quentin says that—thought she should give her singing talent a real chance. Quentin, who walked around spouting philosophy and called Nick dude, thought his eighteen-year-old sister, who liked to sing and play guitar, should give up college to sing at the coffee shop for change from people’s lattes. Over Nick’s dead body—that was his philosophy.

He stared hard at the squawking baby. Who the heck left a baby alone? On someone’s desk? A hot burst of anger worked its way inside Nick at the utter crud some people did.

You’re not just any old someone, he reminded himself. You’re a police officer. And the note is addressed to you.

Still, he’d have to call Social Services and report it. He shook his head as he walked to the front door and held open the screen, his gaze going over every hiding spot, from the tall oaks that lined the stone path into the building, to the weeping willow. No one was out there. The Blue Gulch Police Department was in the center of town, right on Blue Gulch Street with easy access to a main road leading to the freeway. He glanced out at the small parking area on the side of the office, flanked by evergreens and the green and brown hills, the expanse of the Sweet Briar Mountains that went as far as he could see, reminding him how big the world outside Blue Gulch was.

Whoever had left the baby had left too.

“I’ll give you an hour,” he said into the air, putting it out there for the child’s mother. “Then I’m calling Social Services.”

He glanced back at Timmy. He was still crying. Pick the baby up, he ordered himself. He took off the blanket. Wedged against the side of the carrier were two baby bottles, one full of formula, three diapers, a small stuffed yellow rabbit with long brown ears and a canister of formula. Someone cares about this baby, he thought, quickly freeing Timmy, who struggled to open his eyes.

Nick picked him up. Carefully. The lightness of him was almost staggering. He definitely wasn’t more than nine pounds. Nick cradled the baby’s neck against his forearm the way he’d learned long ago in officer training, and Timmy stopped crying. Until he started again, a minute later.

A thud and a string of expletives came from the direction of the cells. Farley Melton must have fallen out of his cot again.

“For Pete’s friggin’ sake, shut that wailing creature up!” screeched Farley, who been brought in two hours ago for disturbing the peace and public intoxication on town property.

Timmy’s probably hungry, Nick thought, reaching for the full bottle. He opened it and gave it a quick smell test and it seemed fine, not that he knew what baby formula, fresh or spoiled, smelled like.

With the crying baby in his arms, he headed over to Farley’s rectangular cell, just visible from the main room. The skinny, disheveled sixtysomething was sprawled out on the cot, his hands pressed over his ears.

“Hey, Farley, did you hear anyone come in a little while ago?”

“Yeah, you and that screaming kid,” was Farley’s helpful response.

“No, I mean like fifteen minutes ago. Did you see anyone come in and leave something on my desk?”

“I was sleeping until that wailing started. Now let me get back to it,” he snapped, and was snoring before Nick could turn around.

Nick rolled his eyes, reached into his pocket and pulled out the note. Please take care of Timmy until I can come back for him in a week. I am not abandoning him.

A week. Good Lord.

But the underlined please in red assured him the mother would be back when she could because of some kind of trouble or another. He glanced at the clock—1:18. Time sure moved slowly.

As Timmy sucked on the bottle, he glanced outside, hoping the secretary would come back. Michelle was great with babies.

Yes! Someone was coming up the walk. Maybe it was Timmy’s mother, realizing she’d done a nutty thing and was returning for her baby. Although he wouldn’t hand over Timmy so fast—not until he was sure the mother was stable.

He rushed to the window to get a good look at her in case the woman changed her mind and bolted.

He did a double take.

Georgia Hurley was coming up the walk. And considering that her stomach—which he’d kissed every inch of—had been flat as a surfboard just four months ago when he met her in Houston, she certainly wasn’t the mother of baby Timmy.

Well, well, so Georgia had finally come home to Blue Gulch.

The woman was so self-absorbed that when her grandmother had gotten sick a few months ago, and the family business, Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, was in financial jeopardy, Georgia ignored her sisters’ pleas to come home and stayed in Houston with her rich boyfriend.

Nick knew all this because four months ago, before he even knew Georgia Hurley existed, her sister Annabel had been worried sick about Georgia and thought she might be in some kind of trouble. Nothing would keep Georgia from coming home when her family needed her unless something was very wrong, Annabel had told him. Nick had barely known Annabel, but since he’d been headed to Houston for a police academy reunion, he’d assured Annabel he’d check on Georgia that weekend. Make sure she was okay.

Boy, had she been okay. Checking on Georgia had started with a knock on her condo door in Houston and ended with the two of them wrapped naked in each other’s arms, talking for hours about things he never talked about. He’d lost himself in Georgia Hurley that night.

Then, wham, bucket of cold water on his head in the morning. He’d never forget how she acted as if she didn’t know him, as if they hadn’t just spent the night together, when her slick boyfriend unexpectedly showed up the next morning in his Italian suit and thousand-dollar shoes. The man’s sunglasses probably cost more than a year’s room and board at Nick’s sister’s college.

“Oh, him?” Georgia had said to the boyfriend, tossing a glance at Nick in the bright April sunshine in front of her Houston condo. She and Nick were standing on the sidewalk, making a plan for where to have breakfast, when the boyfriend had shown up. The boyfriend Nick hadn’t known about. “Just an acquaintance I ran into. Ready, darling?” she’d added, linking her arm with the Suit and heading down the street. She hadn’t looked back.

It took a lot to shock Nick. He’s been through hell and back as a kid. He’d gotten through raising his teenage sister, the two of them both in one piece. He’d seen the worst of humanity in his first five years as a cop on the force in Houston. Nothing surprised him. Nothing got to him.

But Georgia did. His head, his heart, everything in him exploded like an earthquake in those minutes on that Houston sidewalk, and trying to make sense of it as he drove back home to Blue Gulch had given him a bigger headache.

She’d used him for the night—why, he didn’t know. He hadn’t been able to figure that out either. What was the point for her? What had she gotten out of it? Hot sex? When she had some six-foot, four-inch, rich boyfriend? Whatever her reason, whatever motivated her, she’d discarded Nick with a lie and walked away. He’d never heard from her again. He’d gone back to Blue Gulch, let her sister Annabel know that Georgia was absolutely fine—without adding that Georgia was a selfish, lying, cheating witch—and gotten back to his life.

Now here she was, walking into his police station. And this wasn’t exactly a good time, he thought, glancing down at Timmy in his arms.

He braced himself for her to walk through the door. But no one came in. He glanced out the window and saw her standing in front of the weeping willow and taking a deep breath. Then another.

And from this angle it was pretty clear her stomach wasn’t flat, after all. In fact, Nick would say Georgia Hurley was four or five months pregnant.

Chapter Two

For a moment, Georgia Hurley was so dumbstruck with joy at the sight of Nick Slater, even a hundred feet away through a police station window, that she almost missed that there was a baby in his arms. The infant was nestled against his forearm as he held a small bottle to the tiny mouth.

Confused, she stopped in her tracks, eyed him through the leaves of the weeping willow and sat down on the bench by the steps. Based on everything Nick had told her the night they spent together, he wasn’t a father. He’d made it crystal clear that he had no interest in marriage or parenthood. That the bachelor life was for him. Clearly, this baby wasn’t his. She didn’t believe for one second that he’d lied to her, that he was someone’s husband, someone’s father. Georgia might get people wrong sometimes—oh boy, did she—but what had drawn her to Nick was the integrity, the honesty that had enveloped him the night they met. She’d felt it in her bones, seen it in his face, in his eyes as he’d held her, as he’d made love to her.

As she’d betrayed him the next morning.

Despite the warm August air, a chill snaked up her spine at the memory. Georgia closed her eyes, her heart clenching as she remembered the look of utter disbelief on his handsome face, her own powerlessness. He probably hates me, she thought—for the hundredth time. How could he not?

She sucked in a breath and glanced at him again, but his back was to the window.

Go on in, she ordered herself. It was time to right a wrong. Best she could, anyway.

He shifted to the side and she could see he was still holding the baby, a half-finished bottle in his hand. He was very likely watching the baby for someone, a coworker, probably. That he was holding a baby, feeding a baby, was a good sign, she reminded herself, given what she was about to tell him.

A bit more confident, Georgia started toward the steps, but her belly fluttered, and she sat back down on the bench.

That was only the second time she’d felt the baby move and she brought her hand to her stomach, a feeling of utter wonder spreading through her. The first time happened during the long drive from Houston to Blue Gulch, as if the baby were reminding her of what she had to do upon arrival: tell Nick Slater that he was going to be a father.

Just a few minutes ago, the three-hour drive finally over, she’d stopped for a red light on Blue Gulch Street and had been able to see the steeply pitched roof of the apricot Victorian that housed Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen. Home. She hadn’t seen her grandmother, her sisters, since Christmas. Tears had stung the backs of her eyes. More than anything she’d wanted to speed over and tell them everything, finally explain herself. But instead of turning left for the Victorian, for her family, she’d made a right for the police station, knowing she should tell Nick first, that she should let go of the secrets she’d been keeping all these months. Including the awful one.

Georgia stood up. Okay, get in there. Tell him.

Hello again, Detective Slater. Nick. You may not remember me, but we met in April in Houston, and without even knowing it, you gave me hope, made me dream again. But the next morning I did something terrible and I can finally explain why.

Yes, she would start with that and then tell him about the baby. Or should she start with the news of her pregnancy first? Anyone can see you’re pregnant, she reminded herself.

Georgia bit her lower lip and sat back down on the bench. She didn’t know Nick Slater well. At all, really. But she did know that after hearing the news, he wasn’t going to pull her into a hug and swing her in an excited circle and pass out cigars the way impending fathers used to do in old movies. In the few beautiful hours they’d shared, he told her he’d had a rough childhood and then had barely survived the past two years as sole guardian of his now eighteen-year-old kid sister. All he wanted, Nick had told her, was to do his job, catch the bad guys and keep Blue Gulch a safe place to live. He didn’t even want responsibility for the cat his sister had taken in against his wishes—and would stick him with when she left for college in Dallas in mid-August.

It was now August 21. Georgia vaguely wondered how Nick was doing with the cat. Maybe the purring bundle of fur had worked its way into his heart and changed his mind about taking care of living, breathing things. But probably not.

Georgia didn’t love this new cynical side of herself. She used to be so motivated by possibility, by you never know, by the idea that anything could happen. But these days, that was what scared her the most: that anything could happen. Now Georgia only wanted assurances and security—nice words that she was afraid had no meaning anymore.

She stood and dusted off her sundress, smoothed her wavy, shoulder-length brown hair and walked up the steps. She took a final deep breath and pulled open the door.

Nick stood there, the baby cradled in the crook of his arm. He was staring at Georgia, his expression stony.

“This is a surprise,” he said.

She took in the sight of him, six feet two, the broad shoulders, his intense dark brown eyes, the thick dark hair, his fair skin, a groove in each cheek the only softening of the otherwise hardened countenance of a police detective.

“Me or the baby you’re holding?” she asked, not daring to step farther in.

He glanced down at the infant. “Both. I didn’t expect to come back from picking up my lunch to find a baby on my desk. And I definitely didn’t expect to see you of all people walking through the door.”

Wait—what? “You found the baby on your desk?”

He shifted the bottle in his hand. “With an anonymous note saying his mother would be back in a week, that she wasn’t abandoning him and could trust me.”

She froze. “Could you be the father?”

He stared at her as though that was preposterous. It most definitely wasn’t. “No. No chance.”

She looked at the beautiful baby in his arms. So sweet and innocent. What it must have taken for this child’s mother to leave him and walk away. Georgia could only imagine what the baby’s mother was going through. “What are you going to do?”

Nick stared down at the infant. “Give her another half hour before I call Social Services.”

“No, you can’t do that,” she said. “The mother entrusted this baby to you. Something terrible must be happening and she’s in no position to care for her child this week.”

Nick stared at her. “And you know this because?”

Because I know what it’s like to be in trouble. To be threatened. To feel trapped and cornered and have no one to talk to, nowhere to go. God, if Georgia had had a child—a baby—the past several months? She would have had no choice but to have sought a safe haven for the baby.

“I can imagine,” she said, aware of his dark eyes on her, assessing her.

“Is there a reason you’re here?” he asked. The baby began fussing and Nick took the bottle from his lips, setting it down on the reception desk.

Now was hardly the right time to tell Nick he was going to be a father. He had his hands full—literally.

“Yes, but perhaps I should come back a bit later? Or I could stay and help,” she said, her gaze on the squirming infant. Not that she knew more than he did about babies.

He stared at her, the expression stonier than before. “Should you be holding a baby in your condition?”

Her hand flew to her belly. She wasn’t sure he’d noticed. Then again, he was a detective. Of course he’d noticed. “I can handle him. Pregnant mothers have been balancing toddlers on their hips since time began.”

“I guess,” he said. “Oh, and congratulations.”

He was glaring at her, she realized.

Oh God. Because he thought the baby was someone else’s.

“Nick, I need to explain to you about the morning after—”

“I don’t need to hear it,” he said. “In fact, I’m pretty busy right now and would appreciate it if you left. I need to call Social Services.”

Social Services. Back in Houston, Georgia had an acquaintance who worked for Child Protective Services. She knew the good work they did, how devoted her friend was. And she also knew how babies and children could slip through the cracks. “Do you?” she asked. “Doesn’t the note say that she’s leaving the baby with you—for a week? That she isn’t abandoning him? That she can trust you? Sounds like someone you know. And she’s very specific in the note.”

As the baby fussed, Nick began pacing back and forth, trying to comfort the little guy. “Someone who didn’t sign her name. I have no idea whose baby this is. I can’t think of anyone who had a baby boy recently and named him Timothy—Timmy. Anyway, I can’t take responsibility for him—I have active cases.”

Georgia’s heart sank. She wanted the police to be superheroes. But they were flesh-and-blood men and women restricted by the law, by regulations. That she knew all too well.

“If you could hold him and get him to stop fussing while I make that call, I’d appreciate it,” Nick said.

“Of course,” she said, reaching out her arms.

He transferred the baby to her, and the sweet weight of him almost made her knees buckle. How heavenly he felt. And a bit scary. Would she know what to do?

The baby squirmed and cried a bit, so she gently rocked him, and he quirked his mouth, then settled down.

Huh. Maybe she could learn on the go. In the field. She could take care of this baby for Nick for the week.

He stood watching her, his phone against his ear. She listened to him report the baby being left on his desk, about the note. “The mother left the baby in my care, so that means I’m his temporary guardian, right?”

Georgia’s heart lifted. He wasn’t asking Social Services to take the baby and give him to foster care. He was following protocol, but planning to take responsibility for the infant.

“Yes, if she’s not back after a week I will call you back,” he said, then clicked off the phone. “Good God. I’ve got exactly a week to track down the baby’s mother or Social Services will take him into custody and arrange for foster placement if the mother doesn’t return for him by noon next Saturday. And depending on the circumstances of why the mother left the baby with me, the safe haven law won’t apply because even though the baby appears to be under sixty days old, he wasn’t left at a hospital, an EMS or a child-welfare agency.”

Georgia bit her lip. The baby could be taken away from his mother, who was only trying to protect him from someone—something. Her youngest sister, Clementine, had been a foster child, adopted by the Hurleys when she was eight years old. Georgia knew there were wonderful foster families—like her parents. But there were also bad ones. She couldn’t bear the thought of this baby in her arms being placed with strangers.

“How am I going to take care of a baby, do my job and find Timmy’s mother all at the same time?” Nick said, and Georgia realized he was more thinking out loud than asking a question.

“I’ll care for him for the week,” Georgia blurted out. “I’m back now. Home for good in Blue Gulch. And unemployed.” And without a cent to my name. Not that she planned to get into all that right now. “And I could use the on-the-job training,” she added, touching a hand to her stomach.

He was staring at her belly. “How far along are you?”

“I conceived in April. April twentieth to be exact.” The night you changed my life, made me believe in possibilities again, made me determined to find a way out. She held his gaze and saw the flicker of mistrust in his eyes when he understood what she was saying.

His lower lip dropped slightly. “And yet on April twenty-first, when your rich boyfriend showed up, you acted like we’d just run into each other outside your condo. How are you so sure when you conceived? Or that I’m the father?”

She owed him an explanation. She’d come here to tell him everything. And though the thought of rehashing it, reliving it for the telling made her feel sick to her stomach, she had to do it.

She could still remember the first time she’d seen Nick, her surprise that someone from Blue Gulch was standing on the porch of her condo in Houston, the immediate pull of attraction to him on all levels, the inability to look away from his face.

Oh, how the sight of him had comforted her. He was from home. He was the police. But she’d been too afraid to tell him anything—about why her sister Annabel had clearly felt the need to have a policeman check up on her. Why Georgia hadn’t come home to Blue Gulch when her gram fell ill and Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen was failing. Why the “fancy city businesswoman” had let down her family and stayed put in Houston. Why she hadn’t simply sent home a check to pull Hurley’s from the brink of bankruptcy.

She’d invited Nick in and they’d talked about Blue Gulch. They’d talked a little about their families—but Georgia realized she’d done most of the talking, needing to feel connected to the Hurleys even if she couldn’t be with them. And a glass of wine had led to another, and a kiss had led to Georgia allowing herself the evening with this man. Knowing there wouldn’t be a next day or a next time. She’d given herself to the fantasy of it, of him, of what her life might be like if only—

She pushed the thought away. She wouldn’t, couldn’t think of the past anymore. It was over, finally over. She was safe. She was free. And she was finally home. She’d bring it up only to explain herself to Nick and her grandmother and her sisters. Then she’d lock it up tight. She was going to be a mother and had to focus on that. Not on mistakes, on regrets, on what had been out of her control.

Easier said than done, but Georgia was going to try.

“I’m sure,” she said. “I’m pregnant with your child, Nick. Listen, I—”

“I need to get some air,” he interrupted, taking the baby back from her.

She nodded. He’d been streamrolled twice in the same half hour.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then started pacing, the baby seeming to like the quick movements. “I need to get some things for Timmy. I’ll be taking the rest of the day off.”

“Did you hear what I said?” she whispered.

“I heard you. I’ll be in touch.”

Dismissed, she thought.

She watched him settle Timothy into the baby carrier, taking a frustrated few moments to figure out the five-point harness straps. Then he picked up the carrier and walked out of the station and down the steps without looking back.

Chapter Three

Timmy was fast asleep in the little bassinet Nick had bought at Baby Center. Nick watched the baby’s chest rise and fall, rise and fall, and then he tiptoed out of his bedroom, keeping the door just ajar. Timmy had been sleeping for a good forty-five minutes now. Nick had looked in on him eleven times. Still breathing: check.

There at all and not a figment of his imagination or some crazy dream: check.

Keeping him too occupied to fully process that Georgia was pregnant with his child: check.

The moment he stepped back into the living room, the uneasy feeling hit him in the chest, in his throat, in his head. Again. There was a baby in his bedroom, a tiny human he was responsible for. Every time he sat down and tried to focus on how to go about finding Timmy’s mother, he would hear a cry or a sound and leap up like a lunatic and rush into the bedroom and find Timmy exactly as he’d been four minutes ago and four minutes before that: sleeping peacefully.

Everything inside him was on red alert for the baby to start crying or fussing. According to the salesclerk at Baby Center, if Timmy cried, Nick should eye or feel the diaper. Check for diaper rash. Calculate last feeding time and decide if the baby is hungry. If the baby is fed, changed, rash-free and still fussing, pick him up for a burp. If he’s still fussy, cradle him upright against you and hum softly.

Nick wasn’t a hummer. He did not hum.

After he’d left the station, left Georgia just standing there like a jerk, he had buckled Timmy in the backseat of his car, driven over to the Blue Gulch Clinic and had Timmy checked over. Perfectly healthy and deemed to be five weeks old. Since Nick wasn’t the baby’s legal guardian, he couldn’t authorize a DNA sample. He’d been hoping he could in order to check that database to possibly find a biological match between the baby and someone he’d arrested—even just as a start. But he’d have to dig through his records and try to figure out some connection between a recently pregnant woman and a case he’d worked. He’d do some investigating, find out someone had a baby five weeks ago named Timothy, and voilà.

Between now and voilà, he had a baby to take care of. He’d barely made it through the past few hours. How would he get through an entire seven days?

I’ll take care of him for the week. I could use the on-the-job training.

He really was almost grateful that he had a very immediate problem on his hands—finding out who Timmy’s mother was—so that he couldn’t focus on Georgia and her bombshell. Or her job request.

After the clinic he’d driven over to the Baby Center two towns over and asked that helpful clerk for the essentials. A few hundred dollars later, Nick had a few footed onesies, burp cloths, a couple of extra blankets, a big pack of diapers, two huge containers of baby wipes, a baby monitor, a baby swing and a tiny lullaby player that hooked over the side of the basinet. When he found Timmy’s mother, he’d let her keep all the stuff if she needed it, or donate it if she didn’t. And he would find her—well before the seven-day deadline. He had to reunite mother and child, for both their own good. And for his.

He sat back down at his dining room table with five boxes of case files, representing the past two years as a detective on the Blue Gulch police force, in front of him. Chief McTiernan was way behind the times in shifting to digital records. So somewhere in these files—police reports, notes and documents from various agencies—was the key to Timmy’s mother. Nick had made a good impression on someone, someone who’d entrusted him with a five-week-old baby. Someone related to a suspect? A perp? A witness? Someone who was a suspect, a perp, a witness?

He finished reading through his last case file—solved a few days ago in less than two hours, almost a record. Bentley, the miniature greyhound that Harriet Culver had adopted from the animal shelter last week, had been dognapped from where she’d left him tied to a pole near Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen while she ran in to pick up a to-go order. An hour later, his investigation led him to the dugout at the middle school baseball field, where eleven-year-old Jason Pullman was hiding with Bentley and teaching him how to play fetch. Apparently, his parents wouldn’t let him have a dog, and the greyhound had been sitting there all alone, so... Harriet had settled on the tearful, remorseful Jason doing two weeks of community service by walking Bentley every day after school, if he wanted. He wanted. Case closed.

Nick liked cases like that. Cases with happy endings. Cases without bodies. Without hospital records.

Okay, so someone on the Culver case liked how he’d handled the dognapping and thought he’d be a good babysitter for a week? He looked through the list of witnesses. He’d spoken to the owners of businesses near where Harriet had tied up Bentley. Clyde Heff of Clyde’s Burgertopia. Sau Lan of Sau Lan’s Noodle Shop. The manager of the general store. The yoga studio. Then he’d forced himself into Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen to talk to Essie Hurley.

If only he’d spoken to Essie first. She’d been in the kitchen making biscuits and had actually seen the boy take the dog and walk off, but hadn’t thought anything of it until Nick came by. He’d been avoiding Hurley’s these past few months. Even when he’d craved baby back ribs for dinner or those flaky biscuits slathered with apple butter with his three o’clock coffee break. Just the sight of the peachy-pink-colored Victorian reminded him of Georgia. And he’d tried like hell to put Georgia Hurley out of his mind. But because he could have solved the dognapping case in five minutes had he only gone into Hurley’s first, he’d decided just this morning to end his boycott of the place and had ordered from there today. His plan was to connect barbecue burgers and Creole-sauce-slathered catfish po’boys with his thankful stomach instead of a particular Hurley with silky golden-brown hair and big green eyes. And a slick, rich boyfriend.

Oh, him? Just an acquaintance I ran into. Ready, darling?

A cold ache seeped into his bones, despite the eighty-five-degree temperature outside.

Nick was “oh, him.” Just an acquaintance. After a woman he barely knew had managed to accomplish something no other woman had: made him feel something more than lust, made him open up about himself, which he rarely did. About the childhood he never talked about. What his mother had endured. His mother passing two years ago and Nick moving back home to Blue Gulch to take care of Avery, sixteen and a grieving mess.

For Avery, he’d lived in his childhood home for six months before he couldn’t take another second of it, of remembering the constant sound of his rageful father slamming the front door, shouting, his mother fruitlessly trying to calm him down with a ready beer and a plate of meat and potatoes, the kids out of sight, out of earshot, lest they upset him, lest he start using his fists against his wife and the son who’d try to intervene.

Avery had been furious about having to move to a new home in Blue Gulch, not wanting to leave her childhood home, but she was ten years younger than Nick and remembered very little of their father, who’d died when Avery was just five. But Nick had spent fifteen years being afraid of his father, Vincent Slater, career officer on the Blue Gulch police force. The sight of his gun in his holster used to scare Nick to death, that his father would snap and shoot his mother.

When Nick was fifteen, Vincent Slater had been killed in the line of duty, chasing a burglary suspect who turned and fatally shot him. His partner had fired back at the perp and killed him.

Nick could remember his surprise, that you could grieve so hard for someone you thought you hated, someone you’d wished was dead a million times before.

He’d decided to become a cop to try to understand his father better, but Nick was nothing like his dad and he’d understood nothing. Over the years, mostly in Houston, where he’d served for five years until he moved back home to care for Avery, he’d met some hotheaded cops like his dad, but it didn’t seem to be the job that had turned them. They’d always been hotheads; it was just their personality. He’d once asked his kind, gentle mother why she’d married Vincent Slater, why she hadn’t packed up him and Avery and left, and she’d said sometimes the opposite of what you are draws you, you admire it, and then things turn bad, things turn ugly and you feel trapped for a million different reasons you can and can’t explain. I’m so sorry I didn’t do more to protect you was one of the last things his mother said to him.

Nick’s stomach twisted. He was never getting married. He was never having kids.

He stood up, his chest tight.

I’m pregnant with your baby, Nick.

Well, unless Georgia had never slept with the Suit in the thousand-dollar shoes, Nick couldn’t understand how she could be so sure.

He wasn’t going to be a father until she explained that little mystery. Not that he wanted to hear one damned word from her about it. He got it. Clear as day. Her actions had told him everything he needed to know about Georgia Hurley.

Nick Slater, a father. He closed his eyes and almost laughed—that was how crazy the idea was. Yes, Nick could learn how to change a diaper and remember to point down tiny male anatomy so that he didn’t get sprayed in the chest—again. But being a father was about a hell of a lot more than just stepping up, which Nick would do if he really was the father of Georgia’s baby.

As he was doing with Timmy. Stepping up. Taking responsibility, despite being 1,000 percent sure that he wasn’t Timmy’s father. He’d had a long, self-imposed dry spell in the women department until he met Georgia Hurley. And another since her. Whoever Timmy’s mother was, she definitely knew Nicholas Slater was not her son’s father. She’d chosen him as a safe keeper for a different reason.

The problem here, Nick realized, was that he didn’t want to take care of Timmy. He would, but he didn’t want to. First of all, he wouldn’t be any good at it. Two, something about that helpless, defenseless, innocent baby had his protective instincts on red alert, giving him that unsettled, uneasy, on-guard knot in his chest and stomach. He’d lived with that feeling his first fifteen years of life and the past two, when he and his kid sister would be at each other’s throats and he was so damned afraid he’d mess up and Avery would decide to drop out of high school.

So yes, he could take care of Timmy. But he did need to hire a full-time caregiver. That way, he could track down Timmy’s mother, find out what her situation was, do what he could to help and reunite a mother and child. The note she’d left made him think she wasn’t a nut job or a rage-aholic or an irresponsible, immature shirker.

These days, though, Nick would give his gut, which had always served him well, a D-. Maybe an F.

Someone knocked on the door. He glanced at his watch. Four o’clock. Timmy’s mother? Three hours separated from her baby had been enough, maybe. He rushed to the door and pulled it open.

Oh hell. It was Georgia Hurley. She had a big basket in her arms.

“I brought some things for Timmy,” she said, gesturing to the basket.

She still wore the pale blue sundress that draped over her curves, her hair now up in a topknot. She was too damned pretty, too damned sexy, even at four months pregnant.

He took it from her, eyeing the pack of diapers and various ointments and burp cloths. “Thanks.”

“Can I come in?” she asked.

He stepped aside to let her enter. “Of course.”

“Nice place,” she said, glancing around.

“I let my sister pick out a lot of the furniture,” he explained as he led the way into the living room. “Otherwise those couches would be black leather and not ‘eggplant twill,’ whatever that is.” Letting Avery do the decorating had saved their relationship back then; she’d been less angry about having to move, about not taking most of their furniture. The worn old upholstered recliner his father had fallen asleep drunk in most nights? Not taking it. He had brought over some of his mother’s favorite furnishings, but anything that reminded him of his father had gone into storage for Avery to decide what to do with when she was ready to furnish her own place.

She smiled. “Did she leave the cat?”

He was surprised she remembered that. “She sure did. Mr. Whiskers hates me. He pretty much sleeps all day in Avery’s room and comes out twice a day for breakfast and dinner. Sometimes I forget he’s even here.”

“I had a stalker,” Georgia said suddenly, turning away and facing the window that looked out to the side yard. “That morning, the man...that was him.”

Nick froze, his blood cold in his veins. He stared at her back, noting how tense her shoulders were. “What? If he was a stalker, then why—”

Georgia turned and sat down on the love seat, taking a small throw pillow embroidered with an owl and clutching it against her stomach. “About eight months ago, my boss was replaced by a man named James Galvestan. He was so impressive. I was doing well at the company, on my way to being promoted to vice president of new business development, and he was my strongest supporter, my champion, crediting me even though I only developed his ideas further. ‘You did the work,’ he’d say. ‘You get the credit.’ He was so handsome, so gallant. I fell in love fast.” She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“And then,” Nick prompted gently, everything inside him twisting at where this was going.

She leaned her head back, letting out a hard breath. “And then he began making it clear he was attracted to me. A lingering look, a hand on my shoulder, moving down my back. I was so flattered, but nervous about dating not only a colleague but my boss. But within weeks, I began noticing how controlling he was. I had lunch with a male colleague with whom I was working on a project—the next day, that man had been transferred. I’d find James sitting in his car outside my house, and when I’d go out to ask him why, he’d say he just wanted to make sure I was safe.”

“Or alone,” Nick said.

“Exactly. It’s as if he was compelled to sit outside in his car and watch, check up on me. Like being with me wasn’t the point. Just making sure no one else was. That’s when I realized I had to put an end to our romantic relationship. And he got even scarier. He told me we were meant to be, that I was his dream woman, and when we were married, I’d make him the happiest man on earth. The word marriage scared me to death. I told him we were through. And he grabbed me and said we weren’t through until he said we were through, that I belonged to him. I quit my job to get away from him—that’s how freaked out he made me.”

“Please tell me you went to the police for a restraining order,” Nick said.

“I did. It made him even angrier. He’d come to my condo and by the time the police came, he’d be gone and I’d be unable to prove he was there. The police said that until he physically hurt me in some way, there was really nothing they could do.”

Nick knew all about that.

She stood up and walked over to the window, still clutching the pillow. “And then one day I came home and found him in my bedroom, going through my things. He had old address books, letters, keepsakes. He started saying things like ‘How nice that your grandmother owns a restaurant in a small town. One phone call and Granny will have an accident, poor thing. And your sisters. I know how much you care about them. Small towns just aren’t as safe as they used to be. You never know who’s creeping around waiting to attack a pretty redhead like Annabel. Or a dark-haired former foster kid named Clementine.’” Her voice broke and she turned around, her head dropping.

Nick wanted to rush over to her and pull to her him, comfort her, but he knew from experience that when people were telling their stories—whether victims or witnesses or criminals—you had to let them finish, not rush them, not lead them, not hug them. It took everything in Nick to stay seated, to let her finish when she was ready.

She sat back down, the pillow on her lap. “I didn’t know what to do. He was threatening me, and the police said they couldn’t help me until he actually hurt me—or my family. So I panicked and just went along with him, figuring I could give myself some time to figure out what to do, how to get help.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his voice practically a whisper. “I was right there.”

“I wanted to,” she said, finally looking at him. “I wanted to tell you everything. You can imagine how much of a comfort you were. Not only were you a police officer, but you were home—you were Blue Gulch. I let myself have that beautiful night with you, Nick. I was so afraid to tell you for fear of bringing you into it. He’d go after you and God knows what would happen and suddenly your whole world is upended because of me.”

“Georgia, I would have taken that risk.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t let you.”

I was right there. I was right there. The words kept repeating his head. I could have done something.

She shifted a bit to face him. “The night we met, he’d told me he was going out of town for a couple of days. When he returned in the morning I panicked and pretended I just ran into you. You have no idea how desperately I wanted to run into your arms and tell you to help me. But I was so scared, fearing for your life, for my family’s. For your family’s. What if to hurt you, he went after your teenage sister?”

Nick dropped his head into his hands. He’d been right there, he thought again and again and again. Right damned there. And he’d let her down.

Just as he’d let his mother down as a teenager, unable to help her, unable to stop his father’s tirades and threats.

She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when I allowed you to believe the night meant nothing to me, that that monster was my boyfriend. I was half numb, half terrified and found myself frozen. But when I discovered I was pregnant, I knew I had to get away before I started to show.”

His heart was starting to thud. “You were going to go into hiding?”

She shook her head. “If I ran, it was going to be to you. And that would just bring him right to your doorstep—to your sister’s doorstep. I couldn’t, wouldn’t risk that. I decided to go back to the police and beg for help. But very early that morning, the police came to my door. James Galvestan was found dead in my backyard, having fallen from the roof and twisted his neck. They found all kinds of cameras and surveillance bugs on him.”

She stood up and walked to the windows, wrapping her arms around herself. He wanted to go to her, but he stayed put, wanting her to finish, to cry if she needed to.

She turned to face him. “It’s a terrible, terrible feeling to be glad someone is dead, Nick.”

“I know,” he whispered, but wasn’t even sure he’d said it out loud. He stood and walked over to her, jabbing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I hate that I let you walk away with that monster.”

She was quiet for a moment, then said, “The reason I’m so sure the baby is yours and not his is that he refused to consummate our relationship until marriage. He wanted everything to be his version of perfect.”

The baby was Nick’s.

What kind of father could he be? What the hell kind of detective was he that he missed the signs, thought the worst of her?

“Nick, listen. I want to put all that behind me. For so many months, he controlled me. He kept me from my family, from being able to come home when my grandmother got sick, when Annabel and Clementine desperately needed my help with the restaurant. Early on, before I knew what he was, he’d talked me into investing all my savings into a business venture that ended up not existing, so I’m completely broke. I lost everything. I’m not letting him invade my thoughts anymore. I have a baby to think about.”

Their baby. She was carrying his child. Nick Slater was going to be a father. And given everything Georgia had just been through, there was no way he’d let her down. He’d be there for her—as far as he could. He’d make sure she was safe, pay for her health insurance, be an ear, build her a crib—whatever she needed. He never wanted her to feel a moment’s fear again.

She put a hand on her belly, then smoothed the blue material and clasped her hands in front of her. “I want to babysit Timmy for you while you work and search for his mother.”

The tension was gone from her shoulders, he saw. The shame and sorrow that had clouded her green eyes as she talked about what had happened in Houston—also gone. She was doing everything she could to move on, to not let it infect her. The determination in her expression was impressive.

He wanted to tell her that. He also wanted to put off talking about the possibility of her being his nanny for the week. “Georgia, I—”

“After I left the police station earlier today, I went to see my grandmother and sisters and told them everything,” she interrupted. “I let them know I want to focus on the future, not the past. Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen is doing very well now that Essie is healthy again and back in the kitchen. I’m going to be baking for Hurley’s, but that will only require my mornings. I need this job as Timmy’s nanny because I’m worried about my ability to be a good mother. I was always focused on my career, climbing the corporate ladder, and never thought I had maternal instincts and now here’s my chance to learn in the field.”

Nick could hear Timmy beginning to fuss. He turned to head down the hallway. “Exc—”

“I’ll get him,” she said, picking up her basket of supplies and following the sound of Timmy’s cries.

A few minutes later she was back with the baby in her arms. “Wow, I didn’t need to use anything I brought. You have everything he needed.”

“I drove over to Baby Center after getting Timmy checked out at the clinic. He’s healthy. Five weeks.”

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.

Chapter Four

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, not after everything that had happened, everything that would happen five months from now. And she wouldn’t let herself have any interest in him. They would be coparents. Though Georgia accepted that she’d be doing the lion’s share.

Timmy stirred and Georgia moved on down the hall toward the parlor, finding herself lost in memories of her childhood as she looked at all the family photos on the walls and atop the old piano. “Time to start baking,” she whispered to Timmy, careful not to wake up her grandmother, whose room was on the first floor, or Clementine, who had their childhood room on the third floor. She brought Timmy over to the big window with its view of Blue Gulch Street and some shops and other restaurants. Then she brought him back into the kitchen and settled him into his carrier on the table by the window, ready to get to work.

The scent of chocolate cupcakes baking brought Gram into the kitchen, followed by Clementine a few minutes later. As it had yesterday, her heart practically jumped out of her chest at the sight of her beloved grandmother, so strong and healthy now, her chin-length white-gray hair pulled back with two pretty clips. And Clementine, her youngest sister, in her trademark yoga pants and long T-shirt and brightly colored flip-flops.

I’m home. I’m really home, she thought as her grandmother and Clementine beelined for the baby on the table by the bay window.

They marveled over how sweet and precious Timmy was while Georgia texted Annabel that they were all in the kitchen if she was available to come over. Annabel texted back Yes!!! Be there in a flash, and ten minutes later, Annabel arrived, her long auburn hair in a ponytail with three sparkly scrunchies, the work of her five-year-old stepdaughter, Georgia figured, smiling.

Annabel peeked at Timmy in his carrier and gasped. “He’s so beautiful! Look at those cheeks!”

Georgia laughed. “So pinchable! Not that I would really pinch them. I just love the baby-powder smell of him.”

Clementine put on a pot of coffee and then she, Annabel and Gram sat at the round table after Georgia assured them she didn’t want help baking. “I hope we don’t wake him up with our gabbing.”

“Well, I’ve only been his nanny for about twelve hours,” Georgia said, “but he seems to sleep like a champ in three-hour intervals.”

Annabel added cream to her steaming blue mug. “It’s so good to see you back here. I still can’t wrap my mind around what you went through in Houston.” Annabel’s expression turned grim.

Georgia cracked three eggs into the big silver mixing bowl on the center island. She didn’t want to talk about Houston, but she knew her family might need to. She’d told them everything yesterday after she left the police station, and their reaction, the fear and worry and sadness in their eyes, brought her to tears now. She blinked them away. It was over; she was here and safe. “Sometimes I can’t either. I’m just glad it’s behind me and that I’m home.”

Essie stood up and walked over to Georgia, wrapping her arms around her granddaughter. “I know why you stayed quiet, Georgia. I understand you were worried about us. And for good reason. But if anything ever happens to any of you,” she said, looking at each of her granddaughters, “you speak up. If the police can’t help, you bring in your own cavalry—family, friends, people who love you. I know it’s easy to say in hindsight.”

Each of them promised and Gram sat back down with her coffee, the conversation thankfully turning to Timmy’s cheeks again. For Georgia’s benefit, she understood. Of all the things Georgia knew for sure, it was that her family knew her inside and out. She’d told them she was pregnant and that Nick Slater was the father. They were giving her space on that too, not peppering her with questions. She sure appreciated that.

She added the cocoa to the batter, closing her eyes and breathing in the fragrant scent that never failed to soothe her. Baking had always had that effect on her—since she was a little girl learning at her mother’s hip and then at her grandmother’s after her parents had died in a car accident when Georgia was sixteen. Essie Hurley had taken in the three Hurley girls and given them time and space to mourn. Though there were three small bedrooms on the second floor, the three grieving Hurley girls had wanted to share one room, to be close together in the dark of night after having lost their parents, so they’d taken the big attic bedroom. Their beds had been lined up next to one another, with Clementine, the youngest, in the middle.

Like her sister Annabel, Georgia had found herself gravitating toward the kitchen but not watching step by step as Gram made her famed barbecue or pulled pork for po’boys the way Annabel did. Georgia had instead been glued to Hattie’s side. Hattie was Gram’s longtime assistant who baked for the restaurant. Cakes, pies, tarts, cookies. Back then, though, being a baker or pastry chef wasn’t even on Georgia’s mind. She had been something of a math whiz and knew she wanted to be involved in business, work in a sky-rise glass building and wear fancy suits with high heels to work the way businesswomen did in movies.

And for a while she’d been happy, working her way up the corporate ladder in Houston. Until she started missing home, missing a quieter, slower, easier, nicer lifestyle. When she’d first gotten involved with James, she thought maybe she was just waiting for the right man. Now she shuddered to even remember that she’d thought he was Mr. Right.

Some judgment.

I promise you, little one, she said silently to her belly. You come first. I won’t do anything that will jeopardize your future or happiness.

When Timmy started fussing, Clementine gently picked him up from the carrier. Clementine often babysat for folks around town and she held Timmy like a pro. “Someone left this tiny baby on a detective’s desk in an empty police station,” she muttered. “Who does that? Why not leave him with a relative?”

“Clementine, you really can’t judge when you don’t have all the facts,” Gram said, sipping her coffee. “There has to be a good reason the baby’s mother left him with Detective Slater.”

Georgia adored her grandmother, who always did the right thing or the fair thing, depending on the situation. She was so grateful for Essie Hurley. Last night, when she’d let her grandmother know that she’d be staying at Detective Slater’s house for the week as a live-in sitter, Essie only told her that sounded like a win-win for all parties. If she had anything else to say on the subject, she’d kept silent and would wait until she was asked.

“Left him on his desk,” Clementine reminded them. “And given what Georgia said about the timing—that he’d gone out for fifteen minutes to pick up lunch—obviously the mother waited until he was gone to leave Timmy. She didn’t want to be caught. She wants to be anonymous. Why? Because she’s trouble.”

“Or in trouble,” Annabel said.

“I just hate the way babies and kids are at the mercy of adults who don’t give a fig or put themselves in bad situations,” Clementine said, cradling Timmy close.

Georgia walked over to Clementine and put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. Charlaine and Clinton Hurley had rescued Clementine from a bad foster situation when she was just eight years old and were able to adopt her when her birth mother severed her parental rights. That day had been both the best and the worst of Clementine’s life, Clementine had once said, knowing her birth mother had walked away for good when she was eight, but allowing her to find a permanent home with the Hurleys, to have two older sisters who adored her. Clementine didn’t talk often about her birth mother, who’d been a drug addict back then and who’d relapsed several times since. Her birth mother lived right in town in a small apartment above the library but crossed the street when she saw Clementine or any of the Hurleys coming.

“You know, Clem,” Georgia said softly, “you could say the same thing about me. I ended up in a bad situation with my former boss. Was it my fault for falling for him? For not seeing signs? Or was he a master manipulator? I think I’m pretty smart and levelheaded, and even I fell prey. It can happen to anyone. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is.”

Tears pooled in Clementine’s eyes. “I didn’t mean—” She looked down at Timmy and kissed the top of his head, covered in a soft knit yellow hat. “I’m sorry. I know you’re right. I’m just...angry about how things work sometimes, how things are.”

“Well, that’s both good and bad,” Essie said. “Good if you do something positive with your anger. Bad if you let it seep inside your bones. Capisce?”

Even Clementine had to smile. “Capisce.” She glanced at Georgia. “Are you really home for good? Not going back to Houston?”

Georgia shook her head. “No way. I’m home for good.”

“I’m very glad to hear you say that,” Essie said. “Because with Hattie gone to help care for her granddaughters, we’ve sorely needed a baker and I’m overjoyed you’ve agreed. I do okay and I make a mean biscuit, but no one bakes a chocolate layer cake like you, Georgia.”

Georgia smiled, the compliment from her grandmother nestling in her heart. “I’m just glad to finally be able to help out around here.”

Over the next few hours, as Gram and Annabel got busy making sauces, from Creole to barbecue to white gravy for chicken-fried steak, and Clementine set up the dining room, Georgia baked two chocolate layer cakes, three pies—blueberry, apple and lemon meringue—and two dozen chocolate-chip cookies. They talked and laughed and reminisced and gossiped and it was as if Georgia had never been gone. Then Gram and Clementine left for the farmers’ market, and Annabel headed to the door to get home for lunch.

“Do you instinctively know what to do?” she asked Annabel, who was stepmother to her husband West Montgomery’s five-year-old daughter. She and West had married back in April in a business arrangement to save both Hurley’s and West’s family—but the two had realized how much they loved each other and their marriage became very real. “Or have you had to learn as you go?”

Annabel smiled. “I’d say a bit of both. Sometimes I surprise myself. Sometimes I’m so afraid to say or do the wrong thing. But even when I do, it works out because my heart is definitely in the right place. You know?”

Georgia nodded. “But at least a five-year-old can tell you you’re braiding her hair too tightly or whatever. With Timmy—and with my own baby—I’ll have to figure it out for myself. What if I figure wrong?”

“You’ll do fine,” Annabel said. “I don’t have experience with babies either, but moms I know always say you’ll just figure it out as you go and you can quickly tell the different between cries. One waaah means hunger, another means pick me up, another means wet diaper.”

Georgia bit her lip. “Sounds complicated.”

Annabel dug into her tote bag and handed over a thick book. “I almost forgot! I borrowed this for you from West’s bookshelves. Your Baby 101.”

Georgia smiled. “Thanks. I definitely need this.” She slipped the book into her own tote bag. “Thanks for everything, Annabel. And for sending Nick Slater to me in Houston in the first place. I’m sorry I worried you. I wish now I’d just told you what was going on.”

Annabel nodded. “Well, I understand why you didn’t. But who knew that my sending a detective to check up on my older sister would end up with said sister pregnant with his baby? Not me.”

They both laughed, but then Georgia’s smile disappeared and she wrapped her sister in a fierce hug. “Thank you, Annabel. And I know I’ve said it too many times already, but I am so sorry. You entered into a business-deal marriage to save Hurley’s.”

Annabel smiled. “Well, I would have done that if Hurley’s had been in the black too. I really married West to stop his former in-laws from trying to sue for custody of his daughter. Now we’re all one big happy family, in-laws included.”

“I’m so happy for you.” Georgia loved the joy she saw in her sister’s eyes.

“Now our big happy family is going to get one person bigger,” Annabel said, eyeing Georgia’s belly. She glanced at her watch. “I’d better run. See you later.”

Alone again in the kitchen, except for napping Timmy, Georgia was sliding the last of the pies from the oven when Timmy began to stir and then let out a wail.

Georgia took off her oven mitts and then rushed over to Timmy, scooping him up from the basinet. “I’m here, sweet boy,” she cooed. “Let’s change your diaper. Hey, I am getting the hang of this.”

She glanced at her watch. Just after eleven-thirty. She and Nick hadn’t made any kind of plan for today, and for all she knew, he was off investigating Timmy’s mother. Or maybe he was home, reading through the case files and using the internet and phone to investigate. She’d left him a note saying she’d taken Timmy to Hurley’s and would be back at lunchtime. Maybe he’d be there too. She’d head back to Nick’s and see.

It would be good for Nick to spend time around Timmy. Just as taking care of Timmy would teach her the rudiments of taking care of her own baby, perhaps being around Timmy would soften Nick’s feelings about fatherhood, get him used to having a baby around.

She could hope, anyway.

Chapter Five

Last night, Nick had woken up to the sound of a baby crying and thought he was dreaming, then remembered. Timmy. And when Timmy had magically quieted down, Nick had bolted up.

Georgia.

Right next door. It had taken him a while to fall asleep, but he did, only to wake up a few hours later to the same cries. Then the same magic quiet. Then he heard the very faint sound of her singing some kind of lullaby.

He hadn’t been able to fall back asleep that last time.

He’d wondered what she was wearing. What she was thinking. If he should knock on her door and offer to make some coffee.

But he hadn’t gotten out of bed. He’d sat up, consciously unwilling to check on Georgia and the baby.

Which was interesting, considering that he’d hired her as his live-in nanny.

You want her close but not too close, he knew.

He’d heard her tiptoeing around at five o’clock, heard the front door gently click. Then he’d sprung out of bed. In the kitchen he’d found she’d made a pot of coffee and left a note: Took Timmy to Hurley’s to meet the family and start my first morning as baker. Back at lunchtime.

He glanced at his watch. It was just about lunchtime. For the past several hours, he’d been parked on the living room couch, the box of case files for the past two years on the coffee table. He’d been too distracted to go through the case files last night, but now they were all fresh in his head, his little notebook full of reminders, schedules and any helpful information. This afternoon, he’d start with the most recent and work his way back. First up: a visit to Harriet Culver, whose greyhound eleven-year-old Jason Pullman had dognapped, then the Pullmans. Harriet was in her early sixties, but perhaps she had a relative or a neighbor who liked how he’d handled the case and thought he’d make an excellent babysitter for the week. Or maybe the Pullmans were connected to Timmy—someone who thought Nick had something to do with how Harriet had been so kind to dogless Timmy when it had been Harriet’s own doing.

He pulled the next file, shaking his head. Penny Jergen, a twenty-four-year-old local beauty queen with a mean streak whose entire wardrobe, including shoes, were stolen and never found. The only evidence? Ashes from a bonfire in a clearing on the outskirts of town, a glittery pink scarf left behind with a rock holding it down. Clearly, someone wanted Penny to know all her clothes and shoes were dust. He’d never cracked that case, and Penny Jergen glared at him in town. If she’d had a baby and had had to leave her infant with someone, he doubted it would be him.

But he’d add her to the list. She’d been difficult, to say the least, and he’d been kind and patient, since her demeanor had reminded him of his sister when she’d been hurt and angry or frustrated. Maybe someone connected to her liked how he’d handled Penny and that someone was Timmy’s mother.

He’d have to backtrack through all these people. He sighed. Sounded tedious and draining. But somewhere in these boxes was the key to Timmy’s mother. So he’d do it.

The doorbell rang and he jogged over to open it. It was Georgia with Timmy.

“You don’t have to ring the doorbell,” he told her, again struck by how damned pretty she was. She wore a denim skirt and a pale yellow ruffly tank top, the swell of her belly even more visible in this outfit. “This is now your home for the week.”

“Still seems strange to just walk in.” She set Timmy’s carrier on the coffee table next to the box of case files. “Any luck on finding Timmy’s mother?”

He sat down and slid the Jergen file back into the box. “Not yet. But I have a long list of folks to see today. My not so brilliant plan is to casually ‘run into’ them and conversationally check up on their cases. I’ll look for any signs of nervousness. You can tell a lot by someone’s expression, by what they do with their hands.”

Though he’d certainly misread Georgia’s back in April. He’d tossed and turned last night thinking about it. Why hadn’t he recognized what was right in front of his damned face? He’d allowed her to suffer under that man’s abusive thumb—while pregnant with Nick’s child—for four months. And what if the bastard hadn’t gotten himself killed? Georgia had said she’d had enough, that she was going to ask for help, but that hadn’t gotten her very far before.

He looked at Georgia’s belly. Five months and there would be a little person in her arms, his child, his son, his daughter.

Nick was man enough to admit he’d been scared before in life. But nothing scared him more than impending fatherhood.

“You know,” she said, “maybe Timmy and I could come along. It would probably be easier to get a reaction out of someone who was actually looking at her own baby. Or at a five-week-old relative.”

He considered that. “I don’t know. None of these folks fall into the dangerous category, but I’m not comfortable bringing you and Timmy on police business.”

“Unofficial police business, though.”

He smiled. “I suppose. I guess it would help. Good thing about a small town is you know where people generally are. Harriet Culver will be having her usual 1:00 p.m. lunch at Hurley’s with her sister, Gloria. We’ll find the Pullmans at their son’s baseball practice at 3:30 p.m. And Penny Jergen works at the coffee shop her aunt owns. She’s on till five.”

“Where will you find me on Mondays at ten?” she asked with a smile. A beautiful smile. One he hadn’t seen since their night in Houston, he now realized.

“Well, you’re a newcomer,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “But I’ll have you profiled in no time.”

She smiled again, but it faltered a bit. “Actually, this Monday at ten I have a checkup at my obstetrician’s office.” She hesitated for moment and added, “Perhaps you could come with me.”

He almost choked on his coffee.

“I can feel the baby kick inside me. It’s what made this feel very real for me. I think you’ll feel similarly if you see the baby on the ultrasound.”

“I don’t know, Georgia,” he said, turning away, his skin feeling tight again.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to. The baby will be here soon enough and then it’ll be very real. I just thought—”

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