“Like, fly to Paris?” I ask and she immediately laughs.
“Not that spontaneous. I haven’t been over to the coast in years.”
“Then the coast is where we will go.” I wiggle my eyebrows and reach for my phone. We’re sitting in my car, but haven’t driven off yet. I Google luxurious hotels on the Oregon coast and call the first listing. Once arrangements are made I grin at Mia. “We have an ocean-view room waiting for us.”
“That was easy.” She settles back against the leather seat and turns on the seat warmer. “I could get used to having you handy to take care of things for me.”
“Good.” I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “I like doing things for you.”
The drive to Cannon Beach takes a few hours, not including the extra half hour we took to swing by Mia’s to grab fresh clothing on our way through Portland. By the time we arrive, it’s time to check in to the hotel, and we are not disappointed.
“They labeled this correctly,” Mia says. “It’s definitely luxurious.”
It’s a beautiful boutique hotel right on the ocean with steps down to the sand. The big Haystack Rock is just a couple hundred yards down the beach. It’s a nice afternoon. It never gets too hot here, and the sun is tucked behind billowy clouds, making it perfect for beach walking.
“Let’s check in and then head down to the beach,” Mia says, mirroring my thoughts.
The check-in process is quick. I’m pleased to see that they offer milk, coffee, and cookies twenty-four hours a day; and a gourmet breakfast is included in the morning. Our room is spacious, with a balcony that we can sit on and watch the sunset tonight.
“This is swanky,” Mia says from inside the bathroom. “The tub is bigger than my entire bathroom at home.”
“We’ll take a dip in it later,” I reply and step out onto the deck. With lounge chairs built for two, I can see us sitting out here and never wanting to go home.
“I love the sound of the ocean,” Mia says as she joins me. She takes a deep breath and rests her head on my bicep. “It’s just so beautiful.”
“Are you ready to go for a walk?”
“Absolutely. I’m leaving my shoes here.” She kicks out of her sandals, and we walk around the building and onto the vast beach below. The water is grey-blue and frothy white with waves. “It’s not calm today.”
“No. It’s lovely.”
She smiles up at me, takes my hand, and leads me down to the water line, where our feet can get wet as we walk toward Haystack Rock.
“This is a nice surprise. Do you do things like this often?” I ask.
“Not nearly as often as I would like,” she admits. “My family used to own a cabin out here, but we used it less and less so my parents sold it about five years ago. Real estate here is crazy, so they made a nice profit on it.”
“Would you like to have another place here again one day?”
She frowns, considering it. “Maybe. This is my favorite beach on the Oregon coast. I mean, look at this view.”
“It’s stunning.”
She glances up to find me looking at her, and blushes. “I meant the ocean, not me.”
“I know what you meant.”
“You say some sweet things.”
“I mean them,” I reply. “You know how I feel about you.”
“It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I was just thinking on our way here that it’s funny how fate works. Or destiny, or whatever you want to call it. Chance. Karma.” She steps around a crab trying to walk its way back to the ocean. “I don’t mean to keep bringing up our past. It’s in the past, and there’s no need to live there. We aren’t the same people, and we’re in a great place now.”
“Agreed.”
“I guess I just have one more question, and then I’m going to stop talking about it.”
“What do you want to know, Mia?”
She stops walking and looks out at the ocean for a long moment. The wind is blowing like crazy, and she tucks her hair behind her ear. “I came here. To the cabin.”
“After you left?”
She nods. “I stopped at my parents’ house and asked them for the keys. They looked worried, but my dad talked Mom into giving me the keys and just letting me be. They knew I was healthy, and that I’d be safe at the cabin. They asked for an explanation when I got home, but I just gave them the barest details.
“I came here, and I walked this beach, and I thought about what I’d done. The way I’d left. I was convinced that it was the right thing to do, even though I know now that it wasn’t.”
“We’ve already talked about that,” I reply.
“I know.” She turns to me now. “But I never asked you why you didn’t come to find me. After you saw that I was gone, why didn’t you come after me?”
I sigh and push my fingers through my hair. “Do you remember what you wrote in that letter?”
She frowns. “I said that you were free to find someone you really loved.”
“You said that we could find someone we truly loved to spend our lives with.” I drag my fingertips down her cheek. “I don’t know if you worded it that way on purpose, as a bit of a dig, but it stung. So, I guess the answer is, the same reason that you left—thinking that you didn’t love me and we weren’t in a real relationship is the same reason I didn’t try to find you.”
I kiss her forehead and pull her to me for a hug. “I don’t like the thought of you walking this beach by yourself with a broken heart.”
“It wasn’t quite that dramatic,” she murmurs, then laughs. “Actually, yeah. It was. I was twenty and I was heartbroken. But now I’m thirty, and I’m standing here on my favorite beach, with the man I’ve loved since I was a girl. I’m no poet, but I think that’s pretty fucking romantic.”
I laugh and lead her farther down the beach. “I agree. It’s pretty fucking romantic. The tide is out. Let’s go look around Haystack Rock to see what it brought in.”
She nods and we spend the next hour carefully walking around rocks, pointing out ocean creatures. There are plenty more crabs and sea stars. Finally we walk back to the hotel and order room service so we can sit out on the deck to watch the sunset.
“Hello,” the server says when the food is delivered. “I have dinner for two, and I brought up a complimentary pair of binoculars as well. The whales have been very active in the evenings.”
“Awesome!” Mia exclaims and takes the binoculars. She hurries out onto the deck to look for whales while I wait for the server to set up dinner. When he leaves, I join her.
“See anything?”
“Not yet,” she murmurs. “But you can bet your sweet ass I’ll be sitting out here until dark, just in case.”
“That’s the plan.” I smile when she turns around and sees the table set up on the deck. “You were too busy searching for Moby Dick to care that he was setting this up.”
“It’s fantastic.” She raises her lips for a kiss, and I oblige. “I’ve been craving a crab Caesar salad.”
“I’m sure it’s incredibly fresh.”
She takes a bite and nods happily. “Oh yeah. That’s good stuff. Here, have a bite.” She holds a bite up to my lips.
“Delicious.”
“What’s under there?” She points to a dish still covered.
“Dessert.”
“What is it?”
“A surprise.” I smirk when her eyes narrow. “You’re not terribly patient, are you?”
“No.” She laughs and continues eating her salad. “I can admit that I’m not patient. I hate surprises. I hate Christmas because my mom would wrap gifts weeks in advance. Our tree always went up Thanksgiving weekend, and the gifts would sit there for a month. It drove me nuts.”
“This isn’t a Christmas present,” I remind her. “It’s dessert.”
“And I’m just about finished with my entrée,” she says with an innocent smile.
“I’m not.?
?? She narrows her eyes again, making me laugh. I actually am just about finished, but I take my time with the last few bites, enjoying the way she squirms in her chair. “Now I’m looking forward to Christmas.”
“Give me the sugar, and no one gets hurt.”
“Threats.” I cluck my tongue. “That’s not very ladylike.”
She raises a brow and waits as I keep my eyes on hers and raise the lid on the dessert.
“Cheesecake,” she whispers.
“Strawberry.”
She looks up at me. “You got two pieces.”
“I can’t expect you to share it. I mean, we just exerted ourselves on our beach walk. You need the calories.”
“You know that I love you, right? Because I do.”
“I know.” I smile and hold a bite up to her lips. “I got the memo.”
“Mm.” She licks her lips and takes the fork from me. “Thank you.”
Something behind her catches my eye. “Shit. Look.”
Just as she turns around, a whale breaches the water and falls back in, making a spectacular splash. Then, five seconds later, another smaller one does the same.
“Oh, she has a baby,” Mia cries, completely forgetting about the cake. I cover it back up as she reaches for the binoculars and races to the railing. “Oh my God, this is incredible. Look.” She offers me the binoculars, but I shake my head.
I can see them. They’re gorgeous.
“I count four whales right now,” she says.
“The only time I’ve heard this much excitement in your voice is when you pick vegetables in your garden or pull a fresh pie from your oven,” I say, and brush her hair to the side so I can kiss her neck. “You love this.”
“Who wouldn’t love this?” she asks. “Do you know how many people go their whole lives without seeing a whale even once?”
“Do you?” I ask with a laugh.
“Okay, so I don’t have exact statistics, but it’s a lot. This is incredible, Camden.”
She needs a place here.
I’ll put that into motion next week. That’ll be her Christmas gift this year. She deserves it.
“There are two babies,” she says. “Oh my God, this is fantastic.”
“You’re fantastic,” I whisper in her ear. Suddenly, she spins around and wraps her arms around me, holding on tightly. “What is it?”
“Thank you,” she says and turns her big blue eyes up to me. “Thank you for this.”
I tip my head down to kiss her lips. “This is entirely my pleasure, sweetheart. Watch your whales.”
She kisses me again and turns back to watch the show in the water, and I know that I will never spend another day in my life without her.
She’s mine.
Chapter Seventeen
~Mia~
“I’m sure it’s just a bug,” I say to the doctor as she takes notes. “We arrived home from the beach last night, and I think it’s probably just something I ate, or maybe even the flu.”
“How long have you been feeling like this?” she asks, not looking up from her computer.
“Off and on for about a week, I guess. But it comes and goes.”
“And when was your last period?”
I think back and can’t remember, so I reach for my phone. “Let me check. It would have been about eight weeks since my last period.” I frown. “But, I do remember that I had a spotty period last month.”
“Not a full period?”
“No, but I’m under a ton of stress right now, and that usually makes my period weird.” I shrug.
“Stress can definitely do that,” she says with a smile. “It can even make you feel queasy.”
“Yeah, I figured. But I thought I should come in, just in case.”
She nods and finishes typing, then asks me to sit on the table with paper covering it. “Go ahead and lie down.” She pushes her fingers into my stomach, then listens to my heart. “Sit up, please.”
More poking and prodding and looking up my nose and into my ears.
“You seem pretty healthy,” she says. “I know I say this every time I see you, but you could benefit from losing fifty pounds.”
“Yes, but that’s not why I’m here today.”
“As your doctor, I need to remind you of that.”
I roll my eyes behind her back and wait for her to tell me to go home and rest. But instead she hands me my slip and points down the hall.
“Take this and drop it off at the lab. Go ahead and leave a urine sample for me, and they’ll draw some blood and send you back here.”
This seems excessive for it being something I ate, but I shrug and follow directions. When the phlebotomist is finished poking forty-three holes in my arm, I make my way back to my room and sit for at least twenty minutes.
I shoot Riley a text.
Why is it that every time I go to the doctor, she writes OBESITY as my diagnosis, even if I’m not here for that? Does my weight have anything at all to do with eating bad crab yesterday?
I roll my eyes and read about rheumatoid arthritis on the poster opposite from where I’m sitting when Riley texts back.
What a bitch. I’m sorry you had bad crab! No one wants bad crabs. Ha ha!
I grin and put my phone away as the doctor walks back in with her laptop open and her glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“Well, we have figured this mystery out.”
“Fantastic.”
“You’re pregnant.”
I blink at her for a moment and then laugh. “Right. Oh gosh, that’s funny. Anyway, what’s up?”
“You’re pregnant, Mia. We’ll do an ultrasound to figure out exactly how far along you are, but I would guess between eight and ten weeks based on your last period.”
“This can’t be right.” I shake my head and feel my cheeks flush. “I have a history of a false-positive pregnancy test. Maybe you should recheck.”
“The blood test was positive,” she replies. “I take it this isn’t a planned pregnancy.”
“No.” I swallow hard. “No, it’s not planned. We always use condoms.”
“Are you sure?”
I scowl at her. “Of course I’m sure. I’m there, aren’t I?”
“Well, even if you do use them every time without forgetting, they’re only ninety-seven percent effective.” She shrugs. “You seem to fall in that three percent.”
“Lucky me.” My voice is quiet and weak.
“I’m going to have my nurse wheel in the ultrasound machine, and we can take a quick look to see how far along you are. Unless you want to call the father so he can see it, too.”
I stare at her as if she’s just birthed a giraffe. “He doesn’t even know yet. I don’t think I’ll call him and ask him to meet me here just so I can surprise him with a baby on the screen.”
She nods and leaves for a moment. Within ten minutes, I’m in the stirrups with the lights out and have a wand stuck up my vagina. “That flutter is the heartbeat,” she says, pointing to the screen.
“It’s so little.”
“Just about the size of a grain of sand,” she says with a nod. “Everything looks good, and I’d estimate you’re right at about ten weeks.”
So, I pretty much got pregnant as soon as he and I hooked up.
I’m just a regular overachiever.
“But I’ve had periods,” I say, confused. “I had a regular period and a spotty period.”
“That can happen,” she says with a nod. “It could be that you ovulated right after that first period, or you just had bleeding and didn’t know. I’ve had patients who had periods their entire pregnancy. It’s not unheard of.”
“Huh.”
After I’m cleaned up, have checked out, and am in my car, I sit and give myself permission to have a quick little freak-out session.
“What the fuck?” I stare at myself in the mirror. “I’m pregnant.”
My heartbeat picks up, and my palms are suddenly sweaty. I pull the photo from the ultrasound out of my purse a
nd stare at it.
“You’re quite the surprise,” I whisper.
Should I panic? Should I be upset? I don’t even know. At least now I do know that Camden loves me, and that we’re doing so great together. But that’s also the bad thing. We’re just relearning each other and getting used to being together.
Now I’m going to throw a baby into the mix? What if he doesn’t want kids? What if he doesn’t want me?
I scowl at myself and shake my head. “Don’t go there. He just spent a ton of time proving to you that he does want you. Wanting you isn’t an issue.”
Now I’m talking to myself in the third person.
Stop that. Just go home and tell him. He’s coming up with some new recipes for the show, so you know he’s home. Stop at the store and get him a card or, I don’t know, a freaking bouquet of flowers or something, and tell him that he’s going to be a daddy.
And pray that he doesn’t run away screaming.
That thought actually makes me laugh. He’s not going to do that. He’s a good man, and even if we don’t end up together forever, he’ll be a great dad.
I nod and turn the car on, impressed that I’m so calm about this.
Then again, I’ve been here before. He didn’t freak out last time. He married me for crying out loud.
I call Camden, using the hands-free option on my car.
“Hi, beautiful,” he says in greeting, making me smile.
“Hi there. How’s it going?”
“Pretty well. I think I have the Italian episode figured out.”
“Oh, that sounds so good. Can we practice that one tonight?”
“If you like,” he replies. I can hear the smile in his voice. “What’s up?”
“Well, I’m on my way home, and I wanted to make sure you’re going to be there when I get there.”
“I should be. I don’t have plans to leave.”
“Great.”
“Why?”
“I have something to tell you, but I want to do it in person.”
“You can just tell me.”
I laugh. “No, I can’t. I want to tell you in person. Who’s impatient now?”
He laughs. “Okay. I can wait.”