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“Busy, to say the least,” she said, smiling. “But I have to admit, a little lost.”
“I know how you feel,” I said, deciding that if I was going to tell her how I felt, it had to be then and there. Otherwise, I feared I would lose my nerve. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“You have?”
“Yes, for the entire last year,” I said. “In fact, when you came to look for me, I saw you, but I didn’t realize it was you until you had already left. We crossed in front of each other without even realizing it.”
“That is insane,” she said, shaking her head. “I thought everything was strange. When I checked in, Brian told me I was staying in the same room that you had stayed in during that month together.”
“That was you? The hotel couldn’t let me check in until the room was clean because they said a guest was staying there.” I laughed. “Talk about that little thing called fate.”
“Yeah,” she scoffed. “I’m starting to think that I may have been wrong about that whole thing. Maybe fate does have some sort of truth to it.”
“Look,” I said, taking her hands. “I want to tell you some things, and I need you to just listen. I am afraid if you talk back, I will lose my nerve.”
“All right,” she said with a worried look on her face.
“From the moment that I left you in your room and went to the airport, on that last morning together, I have felt completely lost,” I said. “There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that you haven’t been on my mind. There has been no one else since you, and I was starting to worry that I would never find anyone again. I searched and searched for you, but I didn’t have enough information to find you. So, I sat around, barely living for the last year, counting down the days until New Year’s Eve. I didn’t know if you would actually come here today, or if you would still feel the same connection that we had back then, but I couldn’t go another day without at least finding out how this would end. Bea, you are the first woman to ever make me want to change who I am. No, more than that. You are the first woman to ever change my mind about the things I thought so strongly about in my life. You have made me want to stop, to settle down, and to embrace a beautiful life that I know that we could have together.”
“Cameron,” she said quietly, putting her hand on top of mine. “You can’t even know how happy I am to hear you say all of these things. There are so many personal things I want to say to you about the way I feel about you, but first, there is something I need to talk to you about.”
“All right,” I said, feeling nervous. “You can tell me anything.”
“Well, for the entire month after we parted ways, I was miserable, wanting you, yearning to be close to you,” she said, lightening my heart. “Then one morning, I woke up, and I was terribly sick. Hailey had to come and get me up off of the floor of the bathroom.”
“Oh, no,” I said, worried. “Are you all right?”
“Well, I am now.” She smiled. “But I didn’t have the flu or food poisoning or anything else like that.”
“Okay, then what did you have?”
“I didn’t have anything,” she said. “I found out that I was pregnant. Immediately, I knew I had to find you, to tell you what was going on. I spent the last year trying to track you down, but I lost you at every turn. So, when it got to the point where I was too pregnant to continue chasing you down, I came to the conclusion that I would have to wait until after the baby was born, when I could meet you here in our spot and tell you everything.”
“Wait,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Wait just a second. Let me process this. You had a baby? You had our baby?”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “Her name is Lily Eliza, and she is a little over three months old. She has your hair and your nose, and she giggles at everything. I have to admit, at first, I was terrified, especially when I realized that I might not find you, but when I held her in my arms for the first time, I fell completely in love with her. I know this is a lot, and I didn’t come here expecting anything from you. I just thought that you had the right to know that you had a child out there.”
I turned and clasped my hands in front of me, staring down in the snow. I had so many emotions running through me that I could barely get ahold of all of them. I was in complete shock by this news. Suffice it to say, this was not anywhere in the conversation that I thought we would have. I took in a deep breath and absorbed the information into my brain. Then, I opened my eyes and turned back to Bea.
“Where is she now?”
“She is in the nursery,” she said, smiling.
“Here? Like in Aspen?”
“Yes, right inside.” She laughed.
“I have to meet her,” I said, standing up and smiling big. “I have to meet my daughter.”
Bea giggled and stood up quickly, looking at my face as if she were trying to figure out if I were serious or not. I turned to her and grabbed her, pulling her into a huge hug. She laid her face on my chest and let out a deep breath, something I felt like she had been holding since we left each other.
“I can’t believe that I’m a father,” I said, looking down at Bea. “This is absolutely amazing. Unexpected and a little confusing, but amazing nonetheless.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” she asked, reaching out her hand. “Come meet your little girl.”
I smiled and grabbed onto her, following her around the corner and back into the resort. The atmosphere of the inside seemed completely different than when I left, and there was an excitement in my chest that I just couldn’t shake. The colors were brighter, the laughter louder, and the fact that Bea was by my side was so amazing that I felt like I was in a dream. I followed her around the corner and through the corridor where the conference rooms were. At the end of the hallway, there was a brightly-painted room with the sound of children’s laughter coming from the inside.
“Well, hello,” a woman said happily as we walked in the door. “You’re back early.”
