“I can’t believe you got up at this hour for years.” Stacey yawned into her orange juice before filling a coffee travel mug for him. She made good coffee—expensive brand of beans and high-tech gadget for brewing, and Nick was more than a little touched that she’d woken up to put the coffee on for him and see him off before his drive to Jacksonville. The couple of days he’d spent after Christmas had been tedious—he kept begging her for jobs to do, and she’d grudgingly let him install a closet organizer and a few other small tasks.
“After almost thirty years I have a hard time sleeping in.” Except with Teddy, of course, but he wasn’t telling her that, not about to share how Teddy had been remarkably good at getting him to sleep past six.
“But now you’ll have all the time in the world.” She smiled brightly.
He gave her a tight smile in return and gestured at the stainless-steel coffeepot. “None for you?”
“No.” Her cheeks went unusually pink. “You didn’t guess?”
“Guess?” Nick narrowed his eyes, considering her.
“I’m pregnant.” Her bright smile wavered into something more tender and tentative.
“Pregnant? But you’re forty-four now, right?” He wasn’t an expert on women’s health by any means, but he thought he’d heard about certain ages being unlikely to reproduce.
“I know. Total and complete shock to us too.” She fiddled with her juice glass. “Which is why we’re not telling the whole world yet or the girls. We want to wait until it’s further along.”
“So you didn’t plan this? I thought you were thinking of going back to school or work now that the girls are getting older.” He wasn’t sure whether he should be offering sympathy or congrats.
“I was.” She shrugged. “But life had other plans. I’m just going to roll with it. Treat it as a blessing.”
“In that case, congratulations.” Awkwardly, he patted her arm. Life had other plans. Is that what had happened to him, caught up in Hurricane Teddy? Unlike Stacey though, he seemed incapable of rolling with it. In a way, he envied her attitude—which, considering her overriding need to have things perfect, was a bit unexpected. “And good for you, embracing the change of events.”
“Oh, I’m still me.” She laughed. “I’ll be all control freak about the nursery and delivery, I’m sure. But I’m not going to turn down a gift like this.”
A gift like this. Teddy’s image crept into his brain again. In so many ways, he was the best thing to happen to Nick. And he’d still walked away. For the thousandth time in the past few days, he tried to figure out if he’d done the right thing. He was no longer so sure, but he couldn’t afford to waffle. Adams was expecting him in Florida, and Stacey didn’t need him unloading his sudden crisis of self on her, not in her condition.
So he made sure that she didn’t need anything and made her promise to keep him posted.
“I’ll visit when the baby comes,” he promised because he had Teddy on the brain and that was totally something Teddy would promise. Maybe… But no. They weren’t that kind of friends, not anymore.
“You will?” Stacey’s eyes went wide. “You didn’t see either of the girls as babies. But sure, I’d be glad for the company.”
“And help. You can put me to work.” Lord knew, he’d need that. Already he craved a sense of purpose.
“I’m going to need photographic evidence of you helping with baby stuff.” She grinned at him.
“I was thinking more painting…”
“I know.” She surprised him yet again with a tight hug. “Drive safe, Nicky.”
And with that, he was off into the chilly North Carolina early morning air, on a six-hour drive to Jacksonville. He listened to sports radio most of the way down, talk about Bowl games and NFL playoff chances. And tried not to think about Teddy and those lost chances. About an hour out of Jacksonville, there was a traffic slowdown, cars on I-95 creeping along. Emergency vehicles zipped down the shoulder, one after the other, and he wasn’t surprised when traffic finally reached a horrific wreck—looked to be five or six vehicles plus a semi involved, one of the trucks all but flattened.
Someone might not see New Year’s. He swallowed hard, midday sun seeming to dim some fractional amount. He’d worked plenty of accident scenes and had no reason to feel queasy, even if the damaged truck was close in make and color to his own. Looking away, he firmed his jaw and focused on the road ahead, getting to his friend’s place.
His buddy lived just outside Jacksonville in a tiny beach town that was technically an island, bracketed by state parks and nature preserves. Nick pulled into the short driveway of a pale blue beach house with a second-story wraparound deck. Like its neighbors, the house featured a bank of windows facing the wide blue Atlantic Ocean, scrubby bushes and beach grass giving way to sand and rocks.
“Nowicki!” Adams came out to greet him, shaved head gleaming in the light, big barrel chest clad in a Hawaiian print shirt. “I’ve already got the grill fired up.”
He ushered Nick into the sunny, very lived-in main space with well-worn couches and mismatched chairs. Nick had visited before, and like the chaos at the MacNally house, always felt comfortable here, more so than at Stacey’s stately home.
“This is Lisa.” Adams indicated a pretty brunette on the couch. Last visit it had been Michelle, visit before that Amy. Like her predecessors, Lisa was pleasant, offering him a drink and making small talk over soda while Adams cooked on the deck.
Dinner was tasty—big slabs of meat and potatoes cooked in foil packets, but Nick couldn’t help the ache in his chest that kept growing. Weird to be here at last, sea breeze wafting in, ideal temperature and gorgeous sunset out the picture windows, and to suddenly feel like he’d misplaced something vital. It wasn’t a feeling he’d ever had before and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He watched Adams with Lisa, who hung on his every word but had some other man’s name tattooed on her forearm, and wondered if this was his fate as well—series of affairs, each more temporary than the last, no one to build…
What?
Getting fanciful, Nowicki. But some people did build homes and families. He’d seen it. Some people made it work. Take Commander Grace and her husband. Or any of the MacNally clan. The car accident he’d witnessed passed through his mind. Some people made the most of their time on earth, made lasting connections, and while he’d always thought he wasn’t that kind of person, that he was more like Adams and his freewheeling approach to relationships, now he wasn’t so sure.
After dinner, they moved to the couch where Lisa sprawled against Adams in a way that made Nick miss Teddy even more.
“Smoke?” Adams pulled out—
“Is that a joint?” Nick blinked several times.
Adams rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad. And you never have to take another drug test, Buddy. Come enjoy yourself.”
“I’ve never…”
Lisa gave him a grin that was more than a little feral. “Then it’s a great time to start.”
“I can’t do that. I’m a…” A cop. Teddy had said he had law enforcement in his blood, more than once, and apparently he wasn’t wrong.
“Suit yourself.” Adams shrugged and lit up anyway, taking a drag before passing it to Lisa.
Nick flopped back against the couch cushions. He was a cop. For almost thirty years, he’d eaten, slept, and bled law enforcement procedures. He was the son of a cop, a kid who’d grown up idolizing the military and law enforcement personnel. The first time he’d been able to put on the MP armband was one of the proudest moments of his life. He loved making life safer for others—knowing that whichever base he was stationed at was a safe space had always been a point of pride for him.
Your life’s not ending, Teddy had tried to tell him. But he’d been…well, wounded. Put out that the army didn’t want him anymore. At loose ends. And then Adams had offered to take Nick on here, give him a new purpose. And it wasn’t a bad purpose. Nick loved the water, loved fishing, loved being out on a boat. But maybe he wasn’t exactly boat captain material. And apparently he wasn’t a fun-loving single guy either, given how badly his fingers were twitching against his phone, waiting to see if Teddy had messaged again. But hell if he knew what to do with any of these revelations.
He was a man who’d made a promise to an old friend, a promise he needed to keep, but he was also a man with his heart in a different state.
Much later as he lay on guest bed linens that smelled heavily of chlorine, he did check his phone, but the message was from Rhonda, not Teddy.
I want to find someone for Teddy to kiss at midnight New Year’s. Got any suggestions?
Yes, yes, Nick did, and suddenly all his uncertainty found new purpose and he knew exactly what he had to do.