As much as it pained him, he turned to her. “Listen, I have a big issue that needs me in person in Atlanta.”
Her eyes flickered and she drew back. “You’re leaving?”
“I’m just going to drive up in the morning and hope it only takes a few days.” He gave her a sad smile. “I won’t be gone long, but a little time apart might be good for both of us.”
She looked like she didn’t agree, then nodded. “’Kay.”
They sat there for a long time, hands linked, with no more words left to say.
They stood and wrapped their arms around each other. After a long embrace, she drew back, lifted on her toes and whispered into his ear.
“I love you, Eli Lawson.”
The bone-deep sincerity squeezed his heart. “I love you, too, Lady Katie Wylie.”
She kissed him on the lips, the longest and sweetest kiss they’d shared in days.
With one more wordless hug, she went upstairs. He listened to her footsteps fade, heard the soft click of her door, and then the house was silent again.
Eli sat alone with his tea and his Bible that held the answers to all the questions, but he didn’t have the strength or the guts to look. He might not like the answer in there. It might lead him away from the best woman he’d found in years.
He tried to pray but his well was empty. And the ache in his chest wasn’t going anywhere.
When he got up, he spotted her glasses on the counter and lifted them. “Has she ever not lost a pair?”
Tucking them into the cover of his Bible—the irony of that not lost on him, either—he turned out the lights and went back to bed.
It was time for Plan B, which Jonah really hoped wasn’t for Bad Idea.
But at ten o’clock this morning, he had an interview with Isobel Vega then a lab that started at noon. Today was the day to dip his toes into the muddy and uncertain waters of daycare.
He’d done his homework. He’d channeled his inner Meredith—and got help from her, of course—and researched seven daycares within a fifteen-mile radius of the Summer House.
Within an hour, he’d eliminated four based on reviews that included phrases like “wouldn’t leave my dog there” and “pretty sure that’s a health code violation,” and narrowed it down to Sunny Days Child Center in Niceville.
The place was licensed, insured, and had a decent Google rating. It was close to campus, where he’d be most of the time, but not too far from Driftwood, where he’d be interning…God willing.
He’d arranged a tour last week and thought it was…fine. Clean enough, bright enough, staffed by women who smiled a lot and spoke in that particular singsong voice that adults used with small children and cute dogs.
They had a dedicated infant room with six cribs, a rocking chair, and a mural of cartoon animals that someone had painted with more enthusiasm than skill. No alarm bells went off and he imagined—hehoped—Atlas would be young enough not to care as long as someone was holding him, changing him, giving him a binkie, and letting him sleep.
Was it the Taj Mahal of daycares? So not. It was barely affordable and they had room, and Jonah had exactly zero other options.
He stood in the kitchen at seven a.m. with Atlas already fed and changed and cooing in his bouncy seat, watching with mild interest as Jonah packed a bag for a trip that no kid really wanted to take.
Guilt squeezed as he shifted his gaze between the list on his phone and the items in the bag.
“Four bottles, eight diapers, two changes of clothes, the elephant, the backup pacifier, the backup backup pacifier,” he murmured. “Wait. Is four bottles enough?”
“How long will he be there?”
He looked up to see Kate leaning against the counter, watching him. She looked tired this morning—a little drawn, eyes red—but she smiled at him with genuine warmth.
“A long day if I make the lab at noon,” he said. “From drop-off to two-thirty…ish. Four bottles?”
She furrowed her brow, calculating. “Yes.”
“Maybe I should throw in a fifth.”
