Chapter 30

Jasper parked his truck in front of Java Beans, grabbing the velvet box from the seat beside him as he swung open the door. He had no idea how he’d expected to feel right now, so soon after finally letting go of Bridget’s ashes, but elated sure wouldn’t have been on the list.

Yet that’s exactly how he felt. Light, free, ready.

He just needed to check in with Liam, who’d offered to oversee the place while he was in San Diego, then throw a few things in a duffel bag and head to the airport. The box practically hummed in his hand, but he was confident it was right. Just right.

He pulled open the glass door, doing an automatic head count as he headed for the coffee counter. He nodded, satisfied. Might be time to think about expanding into the back room one of these days. More often than not lately, there wasn’t an open seat in the place.

But now wasn’t exactly the time to be making plans like that, given the conversations he was bound to have over the next couple of days. He had no idea what the future held at this point, but for the first time in forever, he felt like he was so damn ready to figure it out.

“Yo,” Liam called from behind the counter. “What can I get you, stranger?”

“I don’t know. You have coffee here?” Jasper came around the end of the counter and went down the line of carafes, tipping them to see if any needed refilling.

“You checking on my coffee maintenance skills here? Everything’s full, thank you very much.”

“Sorry.” Jasper put up both hands. “Got issues with other people managing my coffee.”

“Couldn’t tell, given this bible of directions you left me.” Liam rolled his eyes. “Your pursuit of coffee perfection is safe with me. I wouldn’t dare touch the beans in any way that wasn’t preapproved. So hands off. You’ve got better things to do. Also, you have company.”

“Huh?” Jasper looked around the café but didn’t see anyone who appeared to be waiting to talk to him.

Liam tipped his head toward the back room. “In there.”

“Who?”

“Emma.”

“Wha—?”

“Yeah. Apparently not in San Diego.”

Jasper’s eyes flew to the box he’d just set on the counter, and Liam’s followed.

He pointed. “Holy sh—no. You’re not—really? Seriously?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to give it to her now.” Jasper took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Dammit, he’d thought he had a few hours at thirty thousand feet to practice before he faced Emma. But now she was here?

“You need something stronger than coffee before you head back there?”

“Tempting.” He shook his head. “Very, very tempting.”

“She doesn’t know you’re here yet. Maybe go take a walk around the square and get your shit together before you do this? Maybe—make sure you’re ready? Because are you? Like, seriously?”

“Turns out? Yeah.” Jasper nodded, feeling a smile sneak over his face as he looked at the door separating the café from the back room. He tapped the bar with his fist, then picked up the box, winking at Liam. “Wish me luck.”

Emma picked up the kitten she’d named Snowball, cuddling it into her neck as she sat gingerly on Jasper’s leather couch. She’d had second thoughts about coming here only thirty times in the last thirty seconds, and had actually made it all the way to the back door twice before she’d chickened out and made herself stay put.

If she didn’t do this now—right now—she was dead afraid she’d lose her courage, fly to San Diego tonight, and end up sending him a Congratulations! You’re a daddy! card in the spring.

She walked to the windows, where the view wasn’t nearly as spectacular as upstairs but was still amazing. She’d rehearsed what to say a hundred times now. She was ready. She’d start with how Bette was apparently coming back to work earlier than expected and move on to how that meant Emma wouldn’t have to learn to drive in snow, after all, because she’d be headed back to Florida in two weeks, and then, after a well-measured pause during which she praised her time here and his friends and the view—of course—she’d move into the whole oh-by-the-way-there’s-a-baby thing.

In the annals of baby announcements, it wouldn’t rate up there as the prettiest, but points for honesty and forthrightness and all of that, right?

“Hey.”

Jasper’s voice sliced into her from behind, soft and deep, and she spun around.

“I’m pregnant, Jasper.”

Her eyes went wide. Seriously? After all that practice, she’d just blurted it like that?

She clamped her lips shut, trying to stop them from shaking so hard while she waited for his reaction, now that she’d detonated the news all over him.

He didn’t answer for the longest time—just studied her face, up and down and around and around until she thought she might scream.

Finally, he spoke. “How do you feel about it?”

“How do I feel?” She shrugged. What kind of question was that? “Scared, terrified, mystified, scared…terrified?”

He nodded, his face sympathetic, which was reassuring. But really, had she expected different?

“Anything else?”

She looked up at the ceiling, taking three shaky breaths. “Blessed. Lucky, magical, wondrous.” She looked back at him. “But mostly terrified.”

He smiled. “Good to have a balance.”

“I’m going to have this baby, Jasper. But I’m able and willing to do it on my own. I’m not asking for anything—nothing. I know you’re not in a space to take this on, and that’s—it’s okay. I can do it. We’ll be fine, and you can be involved however you want to, as time goes by.”

“Do you want to do it alone?”

His voice was soft, and in it, she couldn’t quite read whether he was hoping her answer would be yes or no.

She’d spent twenty-four hours convincing herself that she could do it alone—that she’d be just fine raising a child by herself. And she would. She knew she would. She could do it.

But the fact that she could do it was different from whether she wanted to.

“No.” She shook her head. “No. I don’t. I know it doesn’t make sense, and this stuff only happens in romance novels, but for some crazy, world-is-upside-down reason, I think I’m in love with you. Like, kind of stupidly in love with you. Like, I’d give up alligators for you. I can’t believe I’m even saying it, but…it’s true.”

Oh, jeez. The blurt-o-meter was seriously pegging.

“Oh.” He looked away, and her stomach sank.

“ ‘Oh’?” She clamped a hand on her mouth so she wouldn’t be sick right here. “ ‘Oh’?”

But then he smiled. “You’re sure it’s not the hormones talking? Because I am not that easy to fall for.”

“Pretty sure this started to be a problem before the hormones were.” She rolled her eyes. “And this is kind of a lousy time to be joking—just saying.”

“I warned you about the water, didn’t I?”

“Yes, this is a water problem. Definitely.”

He shook his head, his smile growing. “You were warned.”

“I know.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “And I also know that you’re a good, kind, decent man. I know you’ll want to do the right thing, and I know about your wife, and I don’t want you to do anything for the wrong reas— Jasper?”

She broke off as his face went stone serious.

“Who told you about Bridget?”

“Someone—who thought it would help me to know.” She shrugged carefully. “After you…left.”

His jaw relaxed. “Did it? Help?”

Emma put the kitten back in its basket, then stood up slowly, crossing her arms. “I don’t know. Yes and no. It certainly helped me understand a little bit about your past, and it definitely helped me see why you’d be gun-shy to go all-in with anybody else. Like, ever.”

“But?”

“But…nothing, really. I got it. I get it. And if I hadn’t done six different pregnancy tests in hopes that they were defective, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, because I would have forced myself to accept that you weren’t in a space to offer anything more than friendship. And I would have been grateful for that. I would have.”

“So…” He stepped closer to her, and she tried to read his eyes—tried so, so hard—but she couldn’t.

“So?” Her voice shook, dammit.

“Come here,” he said, and took her hand, drawing her down to sit beside him on the couch. She sat, but knew her legs were poised to spring right out the door if he said something stupid right now.

And how would she define stupid? She had no flipping idea.

“My dad said something to me not long ago, and it’s been knocking around my brain ever since, because it makes more sense than pretty much anything else has lately.”

“Oh?” she whispered, then cleared her throat carefully.

“I don’t remember his exact words, but what it came down to was that maybe I needed to come to the realization that you and I had been placed in each other’s paths for a reason—for a lot of reasons, probably—and maybe I needed to stop overthinking things and just enjoy the moments for what they were.”

“I—um—I think I like your dad.”

“He would probably like me to clarify that he was very much in his right mind when he suggested this.”

Emma laughed carefully. “Good to know.”

“So…” Jasper slid down from his spot on the couch, landing on one knee on the patterned rug, and Emma felt her eyes go full-moon-shaped. “I have a question for you.”

“No, you don’t. You really don’t.” She shook her head, panicking. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. This was not the way a proposal should happen. It was not the way she wanted it to happen.

She wanted love, lust, the whole shebang. She wanted please-marry-me-because-I-can’t-live-without-you, not oh-crap-we’re-having-a-baby-so-I’d-better-be-a-stand-up-guy.

All wrong. This was all wrong.

“Emma?” He took her hand, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“No,” she breathed.

“You haven’t heard the question.”

“I already know what it is! And no! This isn’t—no! It’s not how it should go.”

He smiled. “I’m trying not to be insulted here, since you’re refusing me before I even ask, but seriously. Hear me out, maybe?”

She closed her eyes. “Okay. Sorry. Go.”

“Thank you.” He took her other hand. “Emma?”

“Yes?” She ground the word out through clenched teeth.

“Will you have my baby?”

She opened one eye. “I think we covered that part already.”

“Oh. Right.” He winked, then sat back up on the couch. “We’re good, then.”

“Seriously? That’s…it?” Suddenly, she didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed. What the ever-living hell?

“Well, it’s pretty clear you don’t want to hear any other questions right now, and I have it on good authority that any other question I might ask would be—well, questioned. And analyzed. And doubted. And possibly discarded. So I’m making a command decision to hold off on other questions for now.”

“Oh.” She swallowed, nodding slowly. “Okay.”

“But just out of curiosity, I have a couple. Because—you know—people are asking.” He winked. “Would you give up gators? Would you actually consider living here in Carefree?”

“Depends. It’d have to be a pretty good offer.”

He was thoughtful for a long moment, staring out the big window. Then he turned to her, his face so, so serious.

“I’ve lost my head twice in my life, Em. Once was for all the wrong reasons, and the other? All the right ones.”

“Now would be a good time to reassure me that I’m the second one.”

“You are.” He reached for her hand. “I lost my wife, and I lost the baby I didn’t know she was carrying, because I was doing everything wrong.”

Emma felt her hand clamp to her mouth. Baby?

“I had everything in the wrong order, and I paid the ultimate price. But I felt like I deserved it, and I’ve never doubted that. And I was willing to live out my days alone in a café, doing my best to make all of the right decisions going forward.”

“I’m so sorry, Jasper. I didn’t know. Why—why didn’t you tell me the other day?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know how. But I felt your pain like it was my own, and it broke something inside me.” He squeezed her hand. “Broke it in a good way, because for the first time in five years, I felt something other than my own guilt and pain.”

“I—don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything, sweetheart.” He pulled her against his chest, and she let him, the word sweetheart tickling her ribs deliciously, even as she felt tears behind her eyes as she thought about his loss.

He tucked her head under his chin. “I found myself here, Emma. I came here broken and battered and my own worst enemy. I owe my life to this place and its people, and I wish I didn’t mean that as literally as I do.”

“I…know.”

“But this morning? When Daniel told me you’d left? I just about lost my mind. And that’s when I realized that while it would be my dream for you to fall in love with this place, too, I’d go anywhere with you, Em. I’d even risk gators around every corner.”

She smiled, and seriously? Tears? Again? “Really? You would?”

“I would. But I’d still vote for you falling in love with Carefree, instead.”

“I’m working on it. Staying out at Whisper Creek certainly makes that a lot easier. It’s a little hard not to love a place—or a family—like theirs.”

“They’ll happily call you family, too, if you stay.”

Emma smiled under his chin. She knew he was right, and the thought warmed her more than she’d ever thought possible. She’d always longed for the big, happy, loud family thing, and maybe here it was, hers for the taking.

That, plus Jasper, made the decision look fairly no-brainer.

She pulled away, letting her hand stroke the faint stubble on his jaw. “I think I’d like that. A lot, really.”

“Seriously?”

She laughed at the way his face lit up like he was ten. “Seriously.”

“Really? Will you stay? If we both admit that we know strangers don’t fall in love this fast, and we’re completely nuts, and we didn’t mean for this to happen?”

“That’s terribly romantic.”

“Well, you’ve already said ‘no’ to a proposal I didn’t even offer yet, so I’m trying to be practical.”

She smiled. “Gotcha.”

“Look—I know I’ve only known you for two months, Emma. But right now, I can’t imagine going through the rest of my life without you. I can’t. I want you here, in my life, in my house, in my b—” He stopped. “But that’s not a proposal, either, I swear. Don’t run.”

She laughed. “Okay. Couple of questions, though.”

“Name ’em.”

She put up one finger. “Do I get as much coffee as I can drink? After the baby’s born, I mean?”

“Obviously.”

Another finger. “The chair on the right, in your living room? I like the view better.”

He laughed. “Whichever chair you want.”

“Can we always have kittens?” She put up a third finger. “Because that could be a deal-breaker right there.”

“We can have as many kittens as Hayley and Daniel bring us.”

“My sister? And her twenty-three kids? Can you put up with them visiting as often as I can get them here?”

“Even if she has twenty-four. And I’ll insist that we visit her at least three times a year.”

Emma smiled, then felt her face drop. Bette was due back at Shady Acres in a number of weeks, which left Emma—where, exactly? She couldn’t stay at the nursing home, and what else was she remotely qualified to do? Her dream job in Florida was just at her fingertips.

Wasn’t it?

She took a deep breath. Maybe…it wasn’t, and that was a startling, delicious sort of realization. She’d been so busy running Shady Acres that she hadn’t had time to think about how to impress any-damn-one, and it was exhilarating. She loved it there—loved the residents, loved the nurses, loved the changes she’d snuck in without telling the corporate office.

But…it was ending, and there was no way she was going to sponge off Jasper, even if he presented it as an option.

“You thinking about work?”

“Well, it’s kind of a factor. You’re a little young to be a sugar daddy.”

He laughed. “There might be something I know that I haven’t told you, for fear of making you feel a pressure I didn’t think you needed.”

“Could you say that using half the number of words? And have it make sense?”

“I never thought I’d see this day, but it looks like Bette’s had some revelations while she’s been laid up. And one of them is that ‘retirement’ might not be the worst word in the dictionary.”

“Shut up. Everybody says she’ll die at Shady Acres—and not as a resident, to be clear.”

He laughed. “Well, she’s not ready yet, but she did utter the words ‘half-time’ last week. Does Galway allow that? Think the two of you could work something out?”

“Like a job share, you mean?” Emma’s stomach quivered with possibility. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of them approving something like this, but—”

“But it would be kind of ideal, wouldn’t it? Have you two share the load for a year as she transitions out and you transition in?”

“Well, yes. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, how much more ideal could you get, really?” Then she sobered, thinking of Duncan and his proverbial rubber-stamp-of-doom.

“I have an idea.”

“I’m all ears.”

Jasper raised his eyebrows. “Go above Duncan’s head. Present it to his manager. And while you’re at it, maybe present that entire binder of other ideas you have—the ones he never let get past his desk. I have a feeling you’d get a different response.”

“Or it could be career hari-kari.” She shrugged. “One or the other.”

“Would it be worth the risk? Maybe?”

Emma pressed her lips together, taking a deep breath as she imagined her baby moving inside her. She was a long way out from feeling it for real—she remembered that—but if she thought about it hard enough, she could almost feel it. And here she was, sitting with the man who was ready, willing, and excited to take on parenthood with her.

She’d be insane not to give it a try.

“Okay. I’ll do it. I don’t know exactly how I’ll do it, but you’re right. It’s definitely worth the risk. If they say no, then…I’ll figure something else out. Which doesn’t panic me at all.” She puffed out a dramatic breath. “Not even a little bit.”

“We can figure it out, Em. We can figure it all out.” Jasper squeezed her hand. “And no matter what happens, we’ll have a perfect little baby to share it with. So maybe we just take it one step at a time, and see what happens?”

“Maybe.” Emma felt a warm, light glow steal from her chest out to every nerve ending in her body, and in her entire life, had never felt like any moment was so…right.

“Is that an actual answer yet? Will you stay?”

“Almost. One last thing—can I keep driving the car? Because I really, really love the car.”

He laughed. “She’s all yours.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” He looked like he wasn’t sure whether to believe her.

“Yes. I’ll stay. And yes, we are nuts, and yes, this only happens in romance novels—which will please Ari to no end, by the way, except she’s still afraid we’ll elope to Vegas—and yes, we’re completely, utterly insane.”

“You said that already.”

“Do I get to see what’s in the box now?”

“Oh!” He looked down like he’d forgotten he was even holding a box. Then he handed it to her. “I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it.”

She opened the box—which was too big to hold a ring, thank goodness—and put her hand to her mouth when she saw what was inside.

“Oh, Jasper.”

“I hope this is okay. I know we’re agreed on the insanity plea, and I definitely knew a diamond would send you running for the hills…so I tried to do something different.”

She pulled the charm bracelet out of the box, watching the silver charms catch the sunlight, and she blinked hard to clear her vision.

“This one right here”—he lifted a tiny cow—“reminds me of our first dinner together, along with this little oinker, because you were too afraid not to order vegetarian. And this teddy bear one? Reminds me of the day we sat in the grass looking at clouds, though I still say it looked more like the Mormon Tabernacle. The kitten reminds me of you texting Ari that you were headed home with a serial killer.”

Emma laughed. “Well, that worked out terribly.”

“And this one?” He lifted a baby rattle. “This one’s…our miracle.”

“It is.” Emma bit her cheek so she wouldn’t cry as he slid the bracelet onto her wrist and hooked the clasp. “I love it, Jasper. I really, really love it.”

He kissed her then, and it was a kiss so full of promise and hope and happily-ever-after, she felt her bones dissolve, one by glorious one.

After a long, long moment, he pulled back, his fingers caressing her cheek. “Come on. Let’s go tell the crew that you’re staying.”

“The crew?”

He rolled his eyes. “How long have you been here? I will bet you a basket of kittens that right now, out in my café are at least five members of the Whisper Creek family who are doing their best to sit there and drink coffee like they just happened by, when really, they all drew straws an hour ago to see who got to come down here and be the first to know whatever news we might have.”

“No way.”

“You doubt me?” He grinned as he pulled her gently to her feet, wrapping his arms around her. He kissed her on the forehead, then spun her around. “Do you want to tell them?”

“I think you overestimate the level of them caring whether I stay or go, Jasper. Seriously.”

“We’ll see.”

He pushed open the door to the café, his arm tightly around her back, and when she saw the crowd gathered around the bar area, laughter sputtered out. Daniel and Hayley were there, along with Cole and Liam, and Kyla was pretending to write on a notepad up near the register while Jess sipped from one of Jasper’s mugs.

“Oh. My. God.”

He leaned close to her ear. “You owe me a basket of kittens.”

Hayley was the first to speak. “Well? Do I get to use your ticket to San Diego? Because I could really use a vacation, and there’s still time for me to get to the airport.”

Jasper laughed, turning to Emma. “What do you think, Em? Do we still need those tickets?”

“Hm.” She scanned the little crowd, a sweet, peaceful glow settling right between her ribs as Jasper leaned down to kiss her. “No. I think—we’re already exactly where we belong.”