Epilogue
Six months later
“Why are you here?”
Laura glanced up at her sister to find Carly standing in front of the couch, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
“Ah, because my shift does start yet.” She hadn’t meant it as a question, but there was no denying it came out that way.
“No.” Carly’s scowl intensified. “Why are you here, here?” She emphasized the first here but pointing at the floor between them.
Sitting up straighter, Laura stared at Carly in confusion. “I told you, my shift doesn’t start until four.”
“Grrr…” Carly’s fists clenched at her sides and her jaw did that ticking thing it always did when she was mad.
Laura held up a hand as she got to her feet. “Okay, okay, I’m obviously not understanding the question.”
Although how she didn’t understand was beyond her. Then again, Carly had been acting weird lately. Ever since Laura and Nash had gone public—
“Is this about me staying with Nash a lot?”
“Yes!”
“Okay…” She couldn’t work out why Carly was upset. They’d never been jealous of the time they spent with other people, unless… “So you want me here more?”
“No, you big idiot!” Carly threw her hands in the air and stormed toward Laura’s bedroom.
With a shake of her head, she followed her sister, only to stop short in the doorway. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What you should be doing but are either too oblivious or scared to.” Carly dumped an armload of clothes from Laura’s dresser on the bed.
“I’m too scared to pull clothes from my drawers?” Laura shook her head again in the hope of loosening some kind of clarity as she moved into the room.
“No. You’re too scared to move in with Nash!”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Nope.” Laura stood in her sister’s way, feet shoulder width apart, arms folded over her chest. “Not too scared or oblivious.”
“You think?” Carly arched one eyebrow. “Then why are you here when not only do you spend most of your time at Nash’s, but when you aren’t there with him, he’s here with you!”
“Do you not want him staying? You never complained when I asked you if you’d be okay with him being here last Christmas.”
“I don’t have a problem with him staying over. What I have a problem with is you keeping him at arm’s length.”
“How is me sleeping with him every night keeping him at arm’s length?
” Motherfucking hell. Sometimes Carly confused the fuck out of her.
And frustrated Laura so much she wanted to punch her.
Not that she ever had. In spite of her job, Laura didn’t like violence.
Maybe that’s why she’d always wanted to be a police officer. To stop violence from happening.
Carly ducked around her and dropped another armload of clothes on the bed before facing her again. “Look. I get that this is your first serious relationship and you might not be ready to dive in, especially after what happened—”
“Don’t say it. That has nothing to do with my relationship with Nash. I haven’t moved in with Nash because I don’t want to freak out Mom and Dad.”
“Why would they freak out?” Carly’s genuine confusion had Laura wondering if she might have been putting off moving in with Nash for no reason.
No. Waiting to take the next step in their relationship was the right decision. “Because I’ve only just started seeing him. I can’t go from single to shacking up with a man in one day!”
“It’s been months!”
“Months, not years.” With a sigh, Laura moved to the bed, shoved the pile of clothes back, and sat. “He asked me to move in last December, but before we spent all those nights trapped at the Inn we hadn’t even been on a date.”
“No, but the whole fucking town knows he’s been gone for you since he arrived in Winter Lake.”
“What?”
“Laura, I love you, but for a police officer you are sometimes completely oblivious to what is going on around you.” Carly sat next to her and grabbed her hand.
“Nash Yates has been in love with you for years. I know it, Mom and Dad know it, the whole damn town knows it, and I’m pretty sure you now know it. ”
“I do.”
“Then why are you here? You have a man who loves you and isn’t afraid to show it. He doesn’t care who’s around or what they think, he loves you out loud for anyone and everyone to see. Everyone dreams of being loved like that.”
“Oh, Carly, Macklin—”
“No. We are not talking about me. Or him.” Carly shook her head.
“But—”
“No buts. I want to know why you’re still living with me when you could be living with that hunk of man who treats you the way Dad treats Mom.”
Laura couldn’t hold back her smile. “He does, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. And you should be grabbing him and holding on tight.”
“You don’t think it’s too soon to move in with him? He mentions it every week but he’s not pressuring me, just reminds me that’s what he wants.”
“Of course he’s not pressuring you, because you would dump his ass if he tried to force you and he knows it. He knows you.”
She looked around her room, noticed all the things missing, the things she’d taken to Nash’s and left there.
Like her favorite blanket, the one Grandma Murdock made her when she was ten.
And the comfy armchair that used to be in the corner of her room by the window.
It now sat in Nash’s living room in front of the fireplace they’d restored together.
“If I go, it will be the first time in our lives we haven’t lived together.”
“Are you worried about me or you?” Carly asked, one eyebrow raised in a questioning arch.
“Neither.” Laura met her sister’s gaze. “It will just be different. I guess I’m feeling nostalgic. We’ve been together since before birth.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like we’re joined at the hip.” Carly bumped her shoulder into Laura’s. “With your shifts and my shop, we hardly saw each other before you started seeing Nash. Now I’m shocked when I find you here.”
“That’s true.”
“You have a chance to build the life you always wanted. The house on the lake, the devoted husband, the family.”
“No one is talking marriage and children,” she protested.
Except they were.
Nash had made it clear that was his end game. Marriage and children. With her. And it wasn’t like either of them were waiting to establish a career or following a timeline. The only people they needed to be concerned about was each other and Nash talked about living together all the time.
Fuck.
They pretty much lived together now. They just did it in two different locations.
“I see your brain spinning.”
Laura looked at her watch. “I’ve got three hours until my shift starts.” She locked her eyes on Carly’s. “You think you can help me move everything to the Inn in that time?”
“Fuck yes,”Carly yelled with a fist pump that almost took out Laura’s left eye.
“Hey, watch it.” The warning didn’t matter because Carly was already on her feet rushing over to the closet. “We need to get some boxes.”
“That can wait. Let’s just do as much of my clothes and personal items that will fit in my suitcase and yours. We can worry about big stuff, like the bed, later.”
“I’m sure Nash or Dad or Josh would help move the big stuff,” Carly said as she dragged clothes out of the closet hanger and all.
Laura looked at the bed, the matching bookcase and dresser on the other side of it. “Actually, there isn’t anywhere to put my stuff at the Inn yet. We’re still living in the kitchen and inn keepers quarters. I’d have to store it.”
“Then leave it here. You can use it if you and Nash need to stay on this side of the lake.”
“You don’t want to rent out the room?”
“No. I don’t need the money, and I don’t want to live with a stranger anyway. C’mon, help me get all these clothes in your suitcase then I’ll grab mine.”
Carly pulled the old bag their parents had gotten her when she’d graduated from high school and planned to leave for college. Her sister had a matching one. Except neither of them had gone away to school.
“Do you regret not going away to college?”
Carly looked up, a frown marring her forehead. “Where did that come from?”
Laura tipped her chin at the bag.
“Ah, right.” Carly straightened, emotions flashing through her eyes too fast for Laura to decipher them. “No. I don’t think I would have enjoyed living away from Winter Lake.”
“Because of Mac—”
“No. Because you weren’t going to go.”
“Oh.” Laura had always believed her sister’s crush on Macklin had kept her from going away to college.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was a factor. Not the biggest one. And definitely not the only one.”
“He’ll—”
“No. He won’t.” Carly’s shoulders dropped a little, her voice doing the same when she said, “But I’m okay with that. Or I’m learning to be.”
“It’s his loss.”
Carly smiled, the same smile Laura saw on her own face when she was pretending to be happy and wasn’t. “Yeah, it is.”
“Maybe someday…”
“Maybe. But I’m not putting my life on hold while I wait. And neither are you, because you have a guy ready to build a life with you. A really good guy who loves you as you are.”
Laura’s phone rang in the other room and she grinned. “Speaking of.”
“Go answer the phone. Tell him to get his ass over here to help move your shit. I’ll keep packing.”
Rushing back to the living room, she grabbed her phone and answered it just before it went to voicemail. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
Frowning, Laura said, “Yeah, why?”
“Your voice, when you answered, just now. You sounded out of breath or…”
Laura’s smile returned. Nash was always checking on her. He knew her so well, he could tell when something was even slightly different. “I’m fine. Had to run from my room to the couch to answer the phone.”
“Oh, you’re in town already?”
“Yes. I needed to get my uniform shirts from the dry cleaner’s. I forgot to grab them yesterday.” She grinned wide. “Someone distracted me after my shift.”
Nash chuckled. “Yeah, I’m not apologizing for that.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Good. And speaking of shifts, you’re not on until four, right? Got time to have lunch with your favorite guy?”
“Oh, Dad’s free for lunch?”