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Celia finally convinced Jake to let someone else take over at the library for a while. Her sister Ronnie had arrived, no kids in tow for once, and taken charge. She’d even given them a plate of cookies. To Celia’s surprise, her own mother had been with Ronnie—she’d had Ronnie’s children in her van and wanted Cameron as well.
That left Celia and Jake with a plate of cookies—and Liam. Celia carried him, still attached to her chest, out to her borrowed car, along with his car seat. He slept so peacefully. Jake had called in an order to the diner and was going to stop off and pick it up on his way to her house.
They were going to spend some time watching a movie together. Her own mother had encouraged the idea. Ronnie had acted like it was a given. Apparently, everyone had noticed she and Jake were...
She wouldn’t say they were together—it was far too early for that—but she was attracted to him. And if given half a chance, she almost thought something could develop between them.
Celia hadn’t felt this excited about being with a man in a long, long time. Funny that it took a tornado to shake things up enough for her to stop being so afraid. And that’s what it had been: fear.
Pure fear.
Well, not any longer. She was taking charge of her future now. And she liked it.
She fastened the little man in his infant carrier and slipped the seatbelt over it. It took her a moment. It had been a while since she’d dealt with an infant car seat, and she was seriously out of practice at it, but she eventually got Liam fastened in.
Jake would get the food. She’d take Liam back to her house and settle him into the travel playpen that had already been in her sister’s trunk. Her sister believed in being prepared, and always had.
Celia drove the few blocks from the library to her house—she could have walked, but Ronnie had insisted she borrow a car—and carried the baby inside. He was sleeping soundly. She didn’t like the idea of leaving him for even a moment, so she left the door open and put him—still in the car seat—where she could see him, as she got the playpen out of the trunk.
Within fifteen minutes—whoever had invented those travel playpens had been sadists—she had Liam settled in the playpen and was giving the house a last-minute cleaning. She had a four-year-old, after all. She was likely to find things in the strangest places.
She had just enough time to wipe what she thought was banana pudding off the kitchen chair when she heard Jake pull in. She’d already told him that she had better parking—and an accessible door—in the back of the house. He’d been on his feet for far too long today—and he wasn’t fooling her, after all.
He came in, the bag of takeout hanging from one handle. “They through in pie. I think they believe we have been busy or something lately and deserve it.”
Value wasn’t like where she’d grown up. They’d had a large home in a suburb of a larger city. It was far more impersonal than Value.
Celia had been in culture shock when she’d first moved there with Charlie. When he’d hired tutors for her to help her adjust to what had happened. Now she knew that was just his way of isolating her from the real world—so she couldn’t find out about his crime.
Value wasn’t like that. Everyone knew everyone else and what they were doing—and what they needed.
Jake had been working himself to the bone since the storm. And apparently everyone knew it.
“Come in, Jake. Liam’s still sleeping. I think the excitement of all those people has worn him out.”
Liam slept through most of dinner, waking toward the end. Jake had ordered him a dish of plain peas and a sweet potato that Celia blended for him. The baby sat in his carrier, propped up where he could see them. He babbled and laughed and enjoyed himself. Celia fell more and more in love with the little man every minute.
And felt herself falling for the man across from her even more.
She’d just cleared away the remains of dinner while Jake changed his son’s diaper when she heard tires squeal in her front yard.