to the extent it could jeopardize the pregnancy.” Madi found one of the blankets and tugged it over her legs.
“That’s a relief.”
“Definitely.”
They sat there, not speaking for a long time. A couple of hours later, the call came for dinner.
“I think I’d rather eat here,” Wyatt told Madi. “You go ahead, but I’m going to see if they can send something up here for me. I don’t want to make Robert and Lizbeth uncomfortable.”
Madi nodded her understanding and went to the phone to make the call. They both ate in their stateroom. Conversation didn’t flow as easily as he would have wished, but they did talk some about the premiere, Sean and Lexi’s formal wedding, and the Christmas gathering with her siblings - the last two would take place after the filming ended.
Through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, the conversations and revelations swirled in the back of Wyatt’s mind, never far away, as he tried to focus his attention on anything else. He needed time, time to process, time to grieve even.
But not here. He needed to put it on the back burner. They had one more day before going back to the house in Ravenzario for a few more days, then back to Trumanville.
It would only be three days until the premiere then the wedding then the Christmas gathering with the rest of the siblings. He shouldn’t have anything official to do for his charity work or endorsement deals until after the first of the year.
Once the sibling gathering was over, then he could maybe talk with a pastor or a counselor or Mama Beach and sort through some of this.
As the sun set outside their window, they both went onto the deck to watch. They didn’t say much.
Finally, he looked over at her as she stared out beyond the deck. “How are you?”
She took in a deep breath then blew it out slowly. “I don’t know how I am. I’m sad, for Lizbeth, for Robert, for you, for the child that never had a chance to exist. At the same time, I’m almost glad you don’t have a kid who’s several years old that you didn’t know about and who didn’t know anything about you, though I’m sure Robert will be a great dad. That probably makes me a horrible person, but it’s the truth.”
“I understand your point.” He wasn’t sure he agreed with it entirely, but he could see where she was coming from. “This meeting would have gone very differently if there was a child.”
He’d been knocked off his feet, metaphorically, by this knowledge. He didn’t know how things would have gone if an almost four-year-old child had been with them.
“How are we?” he asked her. Was this the beginning of the end of their relationship, though it barely had a chance to get started?
“I think we’re going to be fine,” she told him after a brief pause. “I think it’s going to take some time, but I think we’ll be okay.”
Wyatt reached over to take her hand, grateful she let him. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that. I’ve told you before and I’ll keep telling you, for the rest of our lives, that I’m falling in love with you. I don’t ever want to stop falling in love with you.”
She let her head fall to the side as she smiled at him. “I like that sentiment. I don’t ever want to stop falling in love with you either, Mr. Baseball Star.”
He chuckled. “I never would have guessed a chance encounter and a book club meeting would lead to this.”
The mere mention of their first meetings made Madi laugh. “You know, small-town girls don’t marry baseball stars, like ever. Unless maybe he was a small-town boy to start with. They really don’t marry them when they’re coerced into it by a production company, but somehow we’re going to make it work.”
The chairs were close enough Wyatt was able to maneuver himself enough to lean over and kiss her softly. “This baseball star is glad he ran into this small-town girl. And always will be.”
Epilogue
Madi wished she could stay in the car, but this was her moment in the limelight. News crews waited, along with most of the local celebrities. Not the royal ones, though, except her brother-in-law and the actor who married a princess, because they were friends with Eli, the star of the show.
This was the biggest thing to happen on the Trumanville side of Serenity