Chapter Twenty-six
“What can I get you folks?”
Stacy smiled up at the buxom, middle-aged waitress waiting to take their order. A tinged-with-gray black-pixie haircut engulfed a plump face that had a sweet-eyed expression and a mouth that looked used to smiling.
Nikko ordered the meat loaf, while Stacy opted for a cheeseburger. When it was Melora’s turn to order, the teen’s lips pulled into a pout as she perused the broad menu. “I can’t make up my mind. There’s so many choices.”
The waitress—or Maybelle, as her name tag read—smiled. “Sure are. Menu’s been voted best in the state for the past three years. You like mac and cheese?” Her eyes roamed across Melora’s face and torso. “Never met a teenager who didn’t, and Earl’s cheesy mac will spoil you for the rest of your life for anyone else’s.”
Melora’s face split into a wide, open grin. “Sold.”
Maybelle grinned, nodded, and said, “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
“This place looks exactly like it was described,” Nikko said, glancing around the crowded, noisy diner. “If the food is half as good as we’ve been told, the crew will never want to go home.”
The research she’d done on Earl’s Diner was extensive. Stacy knew all about their numerous dining and people’s-choice awards from articles she’d read online. Today’s stop at the diner was a preproduction go-see for her and Nikko to determine the logistics of filming the place. She hadn’t contacted the owner yet, preferring to see the diner in its natural, everyday state, first.
So far, she hadn’t been disappointed.
“So, this is like, the last one, right? Before you know if you’re going to get renewed?” Melora asked.
Seated across from Stacy and next to her father, the teen’s questioning gaze settled on Stacy.
“Yes. So far, the footage we’ve gotten on the others is good.”
“Better than good,” Nikko said. “But, yes, after this one is filmed, you’re off the hook for following us around for a while.”
To keep Melora in the mix and not home alone while he traveled, Nikko and Stacy had worked out a filming schedule that took them all across the country two weekends a month. Traveling with Nikko and his daughter to the various location shoots had been some of the happiest times in Stacy’s life, compared only to the times she and Nikko spent alone.
From the moment they’d left Teddy’s office, the two had spent every minute they could together. Nikko had asked Stacy to watch the edited footage from Beef Battles, wanting her opinion. He’d done an outstanding job and the show was guaranteed to be a ratings winner, of that she had no doubt.
Since declaring his feelings for her, Nikko’s entire demeanor had changed; lightened. Melora had commented more than once about how much happier he was whenever Stacy was around. Privately, the girl had questioned Stacy about her own feelings. When Stacy admitted how much she loved Nikko, Melora had cried and thrown her arms around her. She was still so much like a little girl and her mother’s death was still such a recent occurrence, that Stacy wouldn’t have blamed Melora in the least if she’d resented her, or squawked at the amount of time she spent with the girl’s father. But Stacy’s heart had simply filled with the acceptance Melora had given her, and with her own love for the teen.
“It’s been fun,” Melora said, smiling at the waitress as she delivered their drinks.
“You folks just passing by or visiting?” Maybelle asked.
“Visiting,” Nikko said.
“Well, if you’re looking for things to do, sights to see, just let me know. My cousin, Donny, is the head of the Chamber of Commerce and I can have him give you a rundown on the area. We get a lotta nice families like yourselves passing through while vacationing. It’s nice to stop a while and get the local flavor of a place, you know?”
With a wink, she ambled to the next table.
“She thinks we’re, like, a family passing through town,” Melora said, pointedly staring at her father.
Confused at the look, Stacy took a sip of her water, then said, “Makes sense she’d think that. Look around.” She swiped a hand across the diner.
The tables and booths were packed with people of all ages, from toddlers in infant seats to an elderly couple holding hands across a table.
“It’s a family place.”
“Yeah,” Melora said, her eyes still settled on her father’s face. “It is.”
Nikko’s ears turned a quick shade of pink under his daughter’s scrutiny.
“What’s going on?” Stacy asked, her gaze bouncing between the two of them.
“Yeah, Dad. What’s going on?”
“You know,” he said, laying his palms flat on the table, and addressing his daughter, “I’ve been giving serious consideration lately to enrolling you in a boarding school. Run by nuns. In Switzerland.”
“Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen.” She cocked her head toward Stacy and widened her eyes.
“Melora.” There was a subtle warning in his voice Stacy couldn’t fathom.
“Nikko.”
The scowl that had been missing for the past few months popped up on his face while they stared at one another.
“Okay, look.” She rose from the booth. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” Staring down at her father, she added, “Use the alone time wisely.”
When she sauntered off, Stacy looked over at Nikko.
“Alone at last,” he said with a sigh as he grabbed her hands across the table. “I’m serious about the boarding school.”
“No, you’re not. What was that all about?”
He shook his head and squeezed her hands. “I made the mistake of telling her something in confidence last week and she’s like a tick. She won’t let it go.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Just something I was planning on doing.” He stared out of the window to the parking lot.
When he didn’t say anything further, she asked, “Care to share?”
He drew his gaze back to her and she was surprised to see the identical expression swimming in his eyes he’d had the day in Teddy’s office.
He was nervous.
“Nikko?”
He dropped his gaze down to their joined hands and then back up to hers again.
“Stacy. Sweetheart.”
When he went no further, she said, “You know, don’t you, that I melt a little inside, every time you call me that, right?”
His mouth twitched at the corners. With a nod, he let go of one of her hands.
“I’d planned on doing this in a much more romantic setting. Not,” he glanced around, “in the middle of a diner when we’re working.”
“Do what?”
He brought the hand he held to his lips, gently kissed her knuckles.
“I’m melting again.” She chuckled. The laugh stopped cold when he drew his other hand back up to the table. In it was a small, blue, square box. The blue was so familiar, so iconic, she gasped when the meaning of it hit her.
“But Melora has a point. This is a family place, so it seems appropriate to ask you this here. Now.”
With this thumb and index finger, he shot open the box to reveal an enormous emerald-cut diamond. Stacy’s eyes started to burn and she couldn’t decide if the tears were from joy or because the boulder staring back at her was so brilliant and bright.
“Stacy Peters, I love you. So much, there are times I can’t breathe the feeling is so overwhelming.”
She smiled at him.
“I know we had a rocky start. I was in bad place physically, emotionally. But if I’ve learned anything in the past year, it’s that love can go a long way in healing a person. In making you feel whole again. So. I’m asking you to marry me. To take me, and my annoyingly perceptive daughter”—she laughed, her vision blurring through the tears—“as your own and making us a new family. One we can grow with. Love with. Spend together. For the rest of our lives.”
Her hand squeezed his.
“Please don’t say no,” he added, his mouth quirking up at one corner. “There are at least fifty pair of eyes trained on us right now and I think I’d die of mortification if you said no.”
She did a quick pan around them, saw the smiling, expectant faces of the diner’s patrons all zeroed in on their table, and chuckled.
When she settled back on his handsome face, she said, “Well, I can’t have your death on my conscience, so I’d better say yes.”
When his grin split his lips in two, she repeated it so everyone could hear.
“I said yes.”
Nikko slipped the ring on the appropriate finger on the hand he still held and when he leaned over to kiss her, through the sound of clapping, his baby girl’s voice loud and clear called, “It’s about, like, freaking time!”