“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we start figuring out the rest of it.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “But tonight, we just get to be tired together.”
Christina smiled against his shoulder. Tired together. It wasn’t poetry, but it was real.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll let you carry the diaper bag.”
“Such generosity.”
“I’m a giver.”
They gathered their things—the bag, the carrier, the gifts that well-wishers had pressed into their hands all afternoon—and said their goodnights. Tara hugged them both, holding on a beat too long. Evan clapped Marco on the shoulder.
The October air hit Christina like a cold cloth when they stepped outside, bracing and clean after the warmth of the inn. Above them, stars were emerging in the darkening sky, more stars than she’d ever seen in Miami.
Marco loaded the car while she settled Violet into her car seat. The baby stirred, fussed, then settled again when Christina tucked the blanket tighter. Those green-gold eyes fluttered open for a moment, found Christina’s face, and drifted closed.
“Ready?” Marco asked from the driver’s seat.
Christina looked back at the inn one last time—the warm glow of windows, the silhouette of her mother waving from the porch, Patty’s Garden a dark shape against the darker trees.
“Ready,” she said.
The car pulled away, gravel crunching, headlights cutting through the dark as they drove around the lake to the cottage. Home.
Christina reached across the console and took Marco’s hand. Tomorrow they’d start making calls—lawyers, logistics, the complicated machinery of two lives becoming something new. But that was tomorrow.
Tonight, the road was quiet, and Violet was sleeping, and the mountains rose dark and steady on either side of them.
“I’m glad you kept her,” he said. “I know that sounds—I don’t have the right to say that, maybe. But I’m glad you did.”
“So am I.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the engine idling, the heater pushing warm air through the vents. Then Violet made a small sound from the backseat—not a cry, just a murmur—and Christina turned to check on her.
“We should get her inside,” she said.
“Yeah.” Marco turned the car off. “Home.”
The word sounded different when he said it. Fuller, somehow. Like it meant more than just a place.
They had time. That was the thing she was finally starting to believe. They had time to figure this out, to make mistakes and course-correct, to build something that neither of them had expected.
CHAPTER 30
TARA
The jack-o’-lanterns came to life at dusk. Tara stood on the inn’s front porch, watching the carved pumpkins flicker into orange warmth as Ryan and his friends lit the candles inside them. They’d spent the entire previous afternoon at the long farmhouse table, scooping seeds and arguing over designs—Ryan’s intricate geometric pattern, his friend Derek’s lopsided grin, a pair of twin sisters competing to carve the scariest face. Now, their creations lined every surface. The porch railings, the front steps, the stone wall bordering Patty’s Garden.
“That one’s definitely going to catch fire,” Ryan said, pointing at Derek’s pumpkin, which had been carved so thin the light blazed through like a bonfire.
“It’s atmospheric,” Derek protested.
“It’s a fire hazard.”
“Same thing.”
Tara smiled and left them to their bickering. The inn buzzed with activity behind her—final preparations for the Halloween party that had somehow grown from a small family gathering into a full community event. Mary had brought pumpkin bread from Spilled Milk. Francesca was setting up a costume contest station in the parlor. Bo had parked his sheriff’s cruiser out front with the lights flashing, much to the delight of every child within a mile radius.
