Chapter Eighteen

“Where are you?”

Sinclair adjusted the earpiece of her cell-phone headset. “My flight just landed. I’m at the airport.” She unlocked a luggage cart from the kiosk while on the other end of the line her sister relayed information to someone—presumably her husband.

“Beau says the roads are ugly thanks to this rain we’re having. Want to come over for dinner and spend the night? We finished setting up the second bedroom.”

Second bedroom, aka “nursery,” Sinclair thought and wondered if she’d be needing one of those in about nine months…and if so, where the hell she was going to put it? “Thanks, but no. I’ve got to get home.” While she still had one. She appreciated her sister’s offer. Savannah had been nothing but supportive since Sinclair had called her Thursday after her confrontation with Shane and dumped the disaster of her life all over her poor sister. She’d cried long-distance tears of joy when Sinclair had phoned from the middle of a Manhattan jewelry show yesterday morning to relay the news she’d received from her gynecologist—the pregnancy test was positive, and initial hormone levels suggested the baby was exactly where it should be.

“How are you feeling?”

Elated, sick, terrified, sick, hopeful, sick. “Fine.” She snagged the first of her two checked bags and loaded it on the cart.

“Have you talked to Shane yet?”

“No.” Savannah already knew she’d opted to inform Shane of the test result via text, and had made no secret of the fact she disagreed with that decision.

“He didn’t respond at all? Not a word?”

“He texted.” She grabbed her other bag from the carousel, stacked it on the cart, and wheeled toward the exit.

“Are you really going to make me ask?”

“Savannah, I’m standing in the middle of an airport, here.”

“I don’t care if you’re standing in the middle of the Vatican. What did he say?”

She sighed and pulled her cart to the side, accidentally cutting off a businessman in the process. He glared as he drew even with her. “You want to know what he said when he found out I was pregnant?” The businessman’s expression froze, and he hurried past as if she might throw a net over him. Men.

“Spill it.”

“This won’t take long. It was only two words.”

“Sinclair…”

“Okay. Okay.” She took a deep breath. For some stupid reason, her heart skipped a beat at the idea of saying the words out loud. “He texted, ‘Trust me.’”

Silence followed. Finally, she asked, “Did you hear me?”

Then she heard it. A sniffle.

“Don’t even.”

“I c-can’t help it,” her sister replied and sniffed again. “You’ll see. Anyway, as two-word replies go, that’s a pretty good one. Can you do it?”

“Trust him? I don’t know. He lied to me. I know that doesn’t necessarily sound like a big deal, given everything at stake now, but it is to me. How do I know he didn’t lie about everything?”

“Because you know,” her sister insisted quietly. “You knew how he felt about you ten years ago, and you know how he feels now. And underneath the completely understandable anger you’re experiencing, you know how you feel, too. For that reason alone, you need to give him the chance to explain.”

She closed her eyes and let the truth of her sister’s words sink in—the near inevitability of them. She’d loved Shane Maguire for ten years. He’d been her first. He’d be her last. It would always be him. “I know.” The words came out little more than a whisper.

“So, call him,” Savannah urged. “Call and talk things out.”

She looked at her watch. “I planned to call him tonight, anyway. My guess is he’s on a flight to Seattle right now, but even if he’s not, this isn’t a conversation I want to have on the road.”

“Especially not tonight. Be careful driving home. You’re headed into the mess, not away from it.”

Sinclair signed off with a promise to be careful and strode through desultory rain to where she’d parked her car. The blanket of gray overhead hung low. A few beams of sunlight broke through in isolated patches to the south, like rays of hope. Her gaze sought them out in her rearview mirror as she drove onto the freeway, and she tried not to read anything into the fact that the skyline in front of her churned with clouds—thick and foreboding. Not a shred of light in sight.

Afternoon gave way to evening as she drove home, but the murky sky and constant rain made it an uninspiring transition from dusk to dark. She didn’t normally mind the drive. Watching the sprawl of Atlanta thin out to suburbs, and then farms, and then miles of greenbelt dotted by the occasional signs for gas, food, Jesus, or Lake Winnepesaukah helped her shed the stress of the business side of her job. But tonight she just wanted to get home—for however much longer it would be home to her. The lawyer she’d retained to give her an opinion on her chances of fighting Ricky’s termination of her land lease hadn’t been too encouraging. Yes, the Pinkerton Family Trust might owe her damages for entering into a land lease they knew, or should have known, violated local zoning codes, but at the end of the day, the code was the code, and it would control. He was looking into the specific language to determine if she had any wiggle room given she used her building for business and residential purposes, but ultimately, she’d probably have to move.

A couple months ago, her world had been settled. Stable. Within her control. Now the status of her home was just one more uncertainty in a life suddenly rife with them. Maybe she was going to be a mother. She’d do whatever she could to make it happen. Of that much she was certain. Maybe she would have the man she loved at her side. She’d do whatever she could to make that happen, too, even if it meant uprooting herself from the place she considered home. Shane didn’t. Yes, he’d let her believe their second chance included him coming back to stay, and he’d let her believe coming home was important to him, but considering how bleak the odds of her keeping her home looked at the moment, it could be the universe was trying to send her a message.

Maybe he didn’t come back to Magnolia Grove, but he came back to you.

The epiphany flew from her mind when she reached the rise of the hill where the Whitehall Plantation stood, and through the steady curtain of rain her headlights picked up the outline of trucks and equipment sitting in the distance, beside long, parallel walls of mounded dirt.

“That bastard.”

Ricky and team had wasted no time getting their golf course construction underway. Dammit, she still had over three weeks to move, according to his stupid notice. How much rain had they gotten? She slowed and took the turn to her drive. How much of it was being funneled down to her end of the creek? More importantly, how much water could her end of the creek hold before the banks overflowed?

Her high beams provided answers about three-quarters of the way to her house. A huge puddle covered the path, stretching from the tree-line on the left and continuing all the way to the other side of the drive. She slowed and steered the Tahoe through, listening as the muted sound of rubber cutting through water thinned to the tinny, hollow pings of waves splashing against her hubcaps. The water seemed to get deeper by the second. How much clearance did the Tahoe have? A foot? Eighteen inches? And how would she fare, knee-deep in water with a discernible downstream current?

Best not to find out. When the barn came into view, she gave the steering wheel a hard turn and drove up the slight slope on which the structure perched, lurching to a stop beside the big, double-hung sliding doors on the side. Her heart pounded as if she’d sprinted up the driveway. Sweat coated her cold skin. Three feet more, at most, and she’d have a wading pool for a first floor. She needed to…fuck…what could she do, except grab everything important, toss it in the back of the Tahoe, and drive to her parents’? Her mind raced through a list of things to gather—her sketchbooks, everything in the safe, her tools, her computer…oh God…so much. She launched herself out of the car and nearly lost her footing on the slick, muddy ground. Rain gear. A hysterical laugh tried to break free from somewhere beneath her pounding heart. Rain gear would be handy.

Stinging droplets pelted her skin and soaked her hair. She pushed it out of her eyes and took a lunging step toward the barn. The blast of a horn brought her head around, and headlights momentarily blinded her.

A Campbell’s Construction super-duty pickup lumbered up the slope. Another followed a few yards behind, and then a flatbed loaded with something. Mayor Campbell stepped out of the first truck, along with three beefy guys wearing work boots and rain ponchos. Campbell walked toward her while the other guys headed around to the bed of the truck.

“What the…” She swallowed, and tried again. “Mayor Campbell, what’s going on?”

“I got a call from a friend of yours a couple hours ago, asking me to get a team out here with sandbags. These guys”—he pointed to the growing group of men assembling around the now-parked trucks—“are going to build you your own personal floodwall.”

“Oh my God. That’s amazing, but…” Questions poured in faster than she could process them. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s involved with this kind of thing. I’m not sure I can afford to have you do it, and even if I can, what’s the point? It’s a temporary solution. The next big rain will land me right back in this same predicament.”

Campbell held up a hand. “Don’t worry about the cost. Pinkerton is footing the bill, and there’s a permanent solution in the works.”

Okay. None of that made sense. “Ricky called and arranged for this?”

“Not exactly. He signed off on the check, but Pinkerton didn’t put the wheels in motion.” Campbell trailed off as a black Range Rover roared up the slope and skidded to a halt a few feet away.

An instant later, Shane stepped out. She blinked, struggling to wrap her head around the fact that he was…here. He closed in on them, his steps unfaltering, but his scruffy jaw, wrinkled jeans, and half-laced boots testified to a long day—or possibly days—leading him here. He shrugged out of a hip-length all-weather jacket as he walked. A black baseball cap bearing a Haggerty Consulting logo shielded his eyes from view, yet even so she knew they were locked on her.

Her knees went weak.

Mayor Campbell cleared his throat. “I’ll let this guy explain.” Then he clapped Shane on the shoulder and disappeared.

The Haggerty hat funneled the rain to the edge of the brim, where it rolled off in steady drops. He turned it backwards and then leaned toward her and wrapped his coat around her.

“What are you doing here?”

He met her stare. “I’m here to fix things, baby girl. Just like I promised.”

…

Twenty-four hours, three flights, innumerable phone calls, and one dead-serious threat to beat the shit out of someone all paid off here and now with the stunned but relieved look on Sinclair’s face. The stunned part wasn’t too flattering. Obviously, she hadn’t expected him to come through in her hour of need, but the relief told him everything he needed to know. Her world might be upending before her eyes, but his being here eased something inside her. She trusted him to try and make things right.

And he would. He was the man with the plan, and he had one for her—for them. He pulled his jacket more snugly around her.

“You arranged all this?” She gestured at the men springing into action around them.

“For starters.”

“How?”

“Haggerty contacted me yesterday and told me Ricky had rammed the golf course permit through the planning commission and then fast-tracked the construction. I called in the big gun.”

“The big gun? Mayor Campbell?”

“Bigger. I called Claudia Pinkerton and let her know her grandson was putting a piece of Magnolia Grove history in jeopardy with his new golf course. I figured the president of the Magnolia Grove Historical Society might object. Stridently. Let’s just say she prevailed upon Ricky to get a crew down here ASAP and sandbag the place. Ricky’s personal financial situation will suffer severe reverses if this structure takes any water damage.”

He watched her lips twist into a fleeting smile at the idea of Claudia Pinkerton reading her grandson the riot act, but then she put a hand on his chest and looked up at him with serious eyes. “I appreciate the effort, and all the trouble you went to, Shane, but clearly you were right from the start. I’m now in a flood zone. If the resort’s permit is valid, that’s a permanent situation. I can’t live behind a wall of sandbags forever. According to the city’s zoning ordinances, I can’t live here at all.”

“I know.” He covered her hand with his. “I have a plan for that, too.”

“A three-phase plan?” Dark brows arched. “Isn’t that where we started?”

Hopefully not where they ended. “You love this barn. I get that. You also own it. Every board. Every brick. So, we’re going to move it—every board, every brick.”

Her mouth fell open. “Move it where?”

“That’s up to you, but…” This was where the plan got personal. He pulled her in closer and tipped her chin until their eyes met. “I just happen to hold the deed on the perfect spot. Big, quiet lot. Plenty of trees. It’s zoned for residential use, and water encroachment isn’t an issue.”

She gripped his hand. “Are you serious? You’d let me put my barn on your lot?”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated. There are some strings attached to my offer.”

“I—” Her mouth worked for a moment, then she swallowed as if her throat had gone dry and started again. “Let’s hear them.”

“I come with the lot, Sinclair. Or rather, we do. I’m sorry I lied. I wasn’t playing you so much as looking for a way to convince you to deal with me—and when you did, I fell for you all over again. Hard, and fast, like the first time, but this time there was no fucking chance I could walk away. I bought the lot thinking I wanted to hold onto an important piece of my past.” He laughed. “I didn’t realize until afterwards, when I was sitting there with a deed in my hand, I’d only owned up to half my motives. It wasn’t just about the past. It was about the future. The whole truth is I wanted the lot because I want roots. I want a home. I want you. And I want this baby we’ve made. I don’t have a hell of a lot of control over that part, but I’m in, Sinclair, for whatever ride life takes us on.”

She blinked fast and wiped at her damp cheeks, which might be a bad sign, or just a by-product of the rain that fell in a steady shower around them. “You hate it here.”

“No. As someone took the time to point out to me recently, I belong here. I haven’t fought hard enough for my place, but that’s going to change. I’m not leaving just because certain people would rather not have me around. I don’t really give a shit if half the town thinks I’m trouble. I’m staying. So, what do you say, baby girl? You want to settle down with Magnolia Grove’s least-favorite son?”

Her arms were around his neck and her body plastered to his before he finished asking the question. Triumph surged, only to recede just as quickly when her voice broke over something like a sob, and she said, “No.”

He eased back and lowered his chin to get a look at her face. “Sinclair, I have to warn you, I’m going to do whatever it takes to change your—”

“No, you’re not Magnolia Grove’s least-favorite son. You’ve earned people’s respect. All of this”—she gestured around them again—“proves my point. Claudia Pinkerton doesn’t suffer fools, but she didn’t doubt when you told her the barn was at risk. Mayor Campbell wouldn’t rally a crew in the middle of a rainstorm to lay a bunch of sandbags just because Ricky showed up with his checkbook. He did it because of you. They trust you.”

Maybe they did, and later, he might take a moment to appreciate the victory, but right now, he only cared about winning one person’s respect. “What about you, Sinclair? Do you trust me?”

By way of answer, she came up on her toes and sealed her mouth to his. He cupped the back of her head and took everything—demanded everything—and didn’t let her go until they were both panting. Once his breathing leveled off, he heard the whistles and catcalls over the soundtrack of falling rain and truck engines. He blocked them out and focused on the woman in his arms. “I know my timing could use a little work, but I’ll take that as a yes.”

She nodded. “Yes, I trust you. And yes, I want to settle down with the man I love.” Her arms tightened around his waist, and she gave him a hard hug. “As for your timing, I’d say it’s perfect.”

Pride and relief washed through him, as tangible as the rain. “In that case, I’ve got one more question for you.” He eased back and dug in his pocket. “Think you can turn this into a wedding ring?” He opened his hand to offer her the infinity symbol she’d made him for his eighteenth birthday.

She reached for it and then drew back when the platinum caught the light. “Oh my God.” Shock sucked the strength from her voice, leaving only a whisper. “You still have it.”

He shifted the artfully twisted wire so he held it between his thumb and forefinger. “The leather wore away a long time ago, but this”—he traced her lip with the precious metal—“this lasted. When you gave it to me, you promised me forever. I’m holding you to it.”

This time there was no mistaking the tears in her eyes, but she smiled and took the symbol. A single, dark brow shot up. “What’s your timeline?”

“Expedited,” he answered and lowered his mouth to hers. “I’ve waited a decade already. I don’t want to wait anymore. The rest of our forever starts now.”