the strong set of his chin, and the worried lines of his mouth. He was about to worry a lot more.
“I’m pregnant.”
Chapter Nineteen
Noah
Scarlett,
Here we are again, separated by miles that feel too long at night, waiting for our chance to be together again. You’ve given up so much for me, and here I am, asking for more, asking you to follow me once again. I promise you, once this war is over, I’ll never let you regret choosing me. Not for one minute. I’ll fill your days with joy and your nights with love. There is so much that waits for us if we can just hold on…
“I brought lunch,” I called out to Georgia as I walked in the front door of her house. Had to admit, it was still a little weird to walk into Scarlett Stanton’s house without knocking, but Georgia had insisted, since we’d started spending our afternoons together last week in what she called Stanton University.
“Thank God, because I’m famished,” she called out from the office.
I walked through the open side of the French doors and stopped short. Georgia sat on the floor in front of her great-grandmother’s desk, surrounded by photo albums and boxes. She’d even moved the large wingback chairs out of the way to make room.
“Wow.”
She looked up at me and offered an enthusiastic smile. Damn. Just like that, my mind wasn’t on her great-grandmother or the book I’d staked my career on. It was on Georgia, plain and simple.
Something had changed between us the day we’d gone rock-climbing. Not only did it feel like we were actually on the same team, but there was now a heightened awareness, as if someone had started a countdown. I couldn’t have written the sexual tension any better. Every simple touch between us since then was measured, careful, as if we were matches in the middle of a fireworks cache, knowing too much friction would set the whole place ablaze.
“Want to picnic?” she asked, gesturing to a vaguely open bit of floor at her side.
“I’m game if you are.” I picked my way across the spread of memories to claim the spot at her side.
“Sorry,” she said with a sheepish cringe, her wide-neck sweatshirt slipping off her shoulder to reveal a lilac bra strap. “I was looking for that one picture I told you about from Middle Wallop and got kind of lost in this.”
“Don’t apologize.” Not only did she look better than our lunches, she’d unlocked a veritable treasure trove of family history and laid it bare for me.
If that didn’t say opening up, I wasn’t sure what else could. We’d come a long way from her hanging up on me. Everything about the woman next to me was soft, from the sweep of her hair into that knot on her head, to her bare, shorts-clad, mile-long legs crossed beneath her. There was nothing icy about her.
“Once I found the pictures, I couldn’t help myself.” She smiled down at the open photo album on her lap as I took the boxes of takeout from the bag.
“No tomato,” I said, handing hers over. I couldn’t remember if my last girlfriend liked her coffee sweet or black, yet here I was, committing everything about Georgia Stanton to memory without even trying. I had it bad.
“Thank you,” she replied with a smile, taking the box before pointing up to the desk behind us. “Iced tea, unsweetened.”
“Thanks.” Guess I wasn’t the only one committing the details to memory.
“I still think you’re a weirdo for drinking it without sugar, but whatever floats your boat.” She shrugged and flipped a page in the album.
“That you?” I brushed off her commentary and leaned over her shoulder slightly. Whether it was her shampoo or perfume, the light citrus scent I breathed in went straight to my head, along with other body parts I needed under firm control around Georgia.
“How can you tell?” She shot me a quizzical look. “You can’t even see my face.”
“I recognize Scarlett, and I highly doubt there was any other little girl dressed up as a princess Darth Vader.” Scarlett’s smile was proud, just like it was in every picture I saw of her and Georgia together.
“Fair point,” Georgia admitted. “Guess I was feeling a little dark side that year.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven.” Her brow furrowed. “Mom had come to visit before marrying husband number two, if I remember correctly.”
“How many husbands has she had?” It wasn’t that I was judging, as much as the look on Georgia’s