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Sarah blinked at him, her lips shining with grease from the pizza. Her dark-blonde hair was mussed from so many days on the road, and her eye makeup was smudged. He’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
“It’s just that we’ve hardly talked since we got to White Plains,” Charlie went on. “And I’m overthinking everything.”
Sarah’s lips quivered with laughter. Charlie felt as though he wasn’t in on her joke, and his cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Sarah said with a laugh. “I really am.”
Charlie straightened his spine. Was this it? Her big reveal about her affair with the fry cook at the restaurant? Her assertions that Charlie was never “the one for her,” after all?
“I found out when we were back in Niagara,” Sarah continued. “But I wanted to wait for the perfect time. I wanted to tell you at the top of the Empire State Building like I was Meg Ryan or something.”
Charlie gaped at her. Despite having known her for five years, he felt he had no idea what she was talking about. It was as though she spoke another language.
Finally, Sarah rolled her eyes, and her face broke into the most gorgeous smile he’d ever seen. “I’m pregnant, you dummy,” she said. “You’re going to be a father.”
Charlie rocketed to his feet and stared at her. He was no longer on solid ground, no longer in White Plains or on planet Earth. The world as he’d understood it before this moment was inexplicably changed. “A father,” he whispered.
And then, he fell back onto the bed and wrapped his bride in his arms, covering her with kisses. This was the future they’d always planned for. Despite their pathetic bank account, they would find a way to make it through. They would do it for the love of one another and the love they already had for the little bean inside Sarah— a future they could hang their lives upon.
ChapterTen
Present Day
Charlotte stormed back into the apartment behind the Cherry Inn and pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. Her heart raced with rage, and her thoughts spiraled with the words she wished she would have said to Charlie— more assertions of how little she needed someone like him. “How dare he,” she muttered to the kitchen counter. “Classic Manhattan developer guy. Don’t know why I expected anything else.” The heat from her anger came over her arms and chest; it was almost pleasurable after a season of loss and fear. Anger felt like an emotion she could control.
And she couldn’t shake the way Charlie had looked at her as he’d stormed out. The rage in his face had made him even more handsome. It pleased Charlotte, knowing she’d caused that.
“Mom?” Van stepped out of her bedroom with Ethan in her arms and gave Charlotte a nervous smile. “Are you all right?”
Charlotte tried to fix her face. “I’m just fine. How are you feeling?”
“Better.” Van frowned, placed Ethan in a bassinet near the kitchen counter, and crossed her arms. Her eyes were more alive than they’d been in previous days. Her mastitis was clearing up. “How did it go with that developer guy?”
“Terribly.” Charlotte smiled in spite of herself. “He really infuriated me.”
Van laughed. “You look like you just ran a marathon.”
“I feel like I just stood up for myself for the first time in a while.” Charlotte shook her head. “Everyone should encounter an awful, arrogant man like Charlie Bryant every once in a while. Getting angry at him was my therapy for the year.”
“That’s good? I guess?” Van blinked at Charlotte with confusion. Then added: “I was thinking we could bake some cookies today. I’ve been craving them.”
That was all Charlotte needed to hear. In a flash, the oven was pre-heated, and she was speckled in flour. Van put Christmas music on the speaker and then used Grandma Dee’s Christmas cookie cutters to make reindeer, Christmas trees, Santa Clauses, bells, and snowmen out of the dough. Charlotte snapped the first tray into the oven and clapped her hands. As she’d rolled the dough and hummed along to Christmas tunes, images of long-ago Christmases had come over her. There was her mother, Louise, hovering over Charlotte, helping her cut out a snowman or frost a Santa. There was her mother, telling Charlotte she could taste the dough if she wanted to. But just a little.
“So,” Van said, leaning against the counter. “What are you going to do about the inn now that the developer is out of the picture?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted, her stomach twisting. She smeared a bit of the dough onto her finger and tasted it, crunching on the raw sugar.
“Mom! That has raw egg in it,” Van scolded her.
Charlotte ignored her. “After we bake the rest of the dough, I have to run.”
“Where are you going?” Although she hadn’t admitted it, Van was usually nervous when Charlotte left the house for too long. Charlotte was her stand-in partner in all things early motherhood. Charlotte remembered her own fear twenty-eight years ago— as well as her husband’s lack of commitment to helping her. She wanted Van to feel supported.
“I won’t be gone long. I promise.”
Van’s face softened. “Are you going to go yell at that developer guy again?”
Charlotte laughed. “I wish. Instead, I have to apologize to my mother, of all people. She’s really going to love this. Wish me luck.”
