Chapter Forty-Four
TALLY
The baby registry gun made a satisfying little beep each time I pointed it at something ridiculous, which apparently gave me the unhinged confidence to zap everything in sight.
“This?” I asked, aiming it at a miniature baby robe with bear ears.
“Obviously,” Daddy said, pushing the cart like it was a parade float. “Every baby needs a robe. With ears.”
Beep.
“What about this?” I asked, holding up a wipe warmer with deeply skeptical eyes. “Do I need this? I mean, I’m a child of the nineties. I was raised on cold wet wipes and internalized shame, and look how I turned out.”
Daddy gave me a once-over and winced. “Scan the butt wipe warmer, sweetheart.”
Beep.
The next aisle was full of things I hadn’t even known existed—pacifier sanitizers, vibrating bouncers, a plush giraffe that claimed to teach emotional regulation. Emotional regulation! I was thirty-one and barely qualified.
“You’re going a little feral with that thing,” Daddy noted as I aimed the scanner like I was hunting for sport. “I love it.”
“It’s not just a baby registry,” I said. “It’s retail therapy with a side of delusion.”
He laughed, the sound light and unguarded in a way I hadn’t heard in a while. “You needed this. Something to look forward to. Something real.”
I nodded, emotion catching in my throat before I could answer.
After one more lap through the store—and one regrettable incident where, giggling like a maniac, I tried to scan a store employee’s barcode badge to “see what would happen”—Daddy suggested we get some lunch.
I agreed, hunger finally catching up with me after a morning of impulse scanning and light emotional unraveling.
We were halfway to the restaurant when I stopped cold.
No.
No way.
It couldn’t be.
But there he was, clear as day, standing in the center of the rebuilt gazebo downtown, hands in the pockets of his jacket, head tilted like he was trying to memorize the architecture and beam length.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Viking-level red hair catching the winter light.
Sam Heughan could never. My lungs forgot how to work.
“Daddy,” I whispered.
“Yes, darlin’?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the man I’d written a love letter to—the man I’d practically dared to come after me—was standing dead center in the heart of Newnan, Georgia, in the exact spot where he knew I’d find him.
Always waving.
And, finally, he’d come ashore.
“I’ll meet you at home,” I muttered to Daddy, eyes locked on the gazebo, and the man I loved, one foot inching off the curb.
“How will you get home? Where are you—oh,” he said, squinting. “Is that him?”
I nodded, finally turning back toward my father.
He gave a soft, knowing smile. “Go on, doll. I’ll see you at home.”
As I crossed the street, one cautious step at a time, the thought hit me like a sucker punch to the ribs.
Home.
What a strange word.
It wasn’t that big, sterile house I’d grown up in, all echoey halls and pristine carpets.
It wasn’t Doyle’s posh penthouse with its spa-like details and overly plush furniture.
It wasn’t New York City, or Australia, Los Angeles, or the coast of New England—none of them ever quite fitting the way I’d hoped they would.
Home was standing in front of me, in the rebuilt gazebo, with that unreadable expression on his face, as I climbed the three small steps that separated us.
We stood there in the hush that settles over a small-town square once the holiday magic dies down. No music from the bandstand. No chatter spilling from the diner across the street. Just a lone car easing past and the wind shifting through the winter-bare oaks.
I’d imagined this moment a hundred times. Charlie would read my letter, cross every mile between us, and find me somehow stronger. Stitched up, but with enough to let him fully in.
I wasn’t even sure if I was there yet, if I was ready, but he was already here, filling the doorway of the folly—copper curls, steady eyes. And I had no script for that.
“We really do have a thing for gazebos, huh?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
A slow, reluctant grin tipped one corner of his mouth, the rare kind that actually reached his eyes and made the corners crinkle like warm, worn leather. “Seems we do.”
He stepped closer, boots scuffing the old pine boards. He took my hand, wove our fingers together, and pressed them gently over my heart. “You gave me this once,” he said, “And made me promise not to break it. And I’m a man of my word.”
My throat tightened. I lifted a shoulder, half shrug, half shield. “I don’t know if I’m whole enough to love you back the way you deserve. I’m a wreck, Charlie. I come with baggage and a baby and a raggedy poodle and, well, Dig.”
He gave a quiet huff, almost a laugh. “You think I don’t know that? I counted every piece before I got in the truck, Tally. The baggage. The sequin-covered best friend. The hurricane that you are.”
He paused, untangled our fingers, and rested his hand over my stomach. “And this, Tally. I especially want this. With you.”
I opened my mouth, but he closed the last inch between us first. Running a gentle hand over my cheek, cupping the back of my neck, and tilting my face toward his.
His gaze locked on mine, eyes watching my lips in the way one does when they’ve kissed you before, and, God help them, they want to do it again.
“That letter of yours?” His voice dropped low. “It wasn’t a goodbye. It was a map. And it led me straight here.”
He slid his fingers between mine again, sure and steady.
“You’re not broken pieces, Tal. You’re a work in progress. So am I. We can sand the edges together, one day at a time.”
The cold air stung my eyes. I blinked hard. “What if I wave you in, and tomorrow I panic and run again?”
“Love isn’t always pretty, Tally.” His voice was quiet, but every word landed like it had been etched into my ribs.
“It’s never going to be this picture-perfect thing you imagined.
It’s not candlelit dinners and grand gestures every day.
Most of the time, it’s having someone by your side when you need them most. It’s being there on the good days and the awful ones.
When a parent’s in the hospital. When you’re sitting in silence next to a hospice bed.
When you’re standing in a delivery room, too afraid to ask the questions out loud.
Or when you’re holding your breath and your baby’s being placed in your arms for the very first time. ”
He took a step closer, eyes blazing. “Love is driving five hours in my dead uncle’s busted truck because I had to tell you—without a single shadow of a doubt—that I’m that man, Tally. I’m the one who will hold your hand through every storm. The good. The bad. The heartbreaking. I am that guy.”
He paused, breath catching.
“Let it be me.”
We stood still, breathless, like the world might split straight down the middle if we moved too fast.
His voice cracked. “I used to think I was the one who took broken things and made them beautiful. That was my story. But then you showed up. You took the mess of me, the broken edges, the scattered pieces, and somehow you made it make sense. You didn’t just fix me, Tally. You reminded me I was worth fixing.”
He took one last step, close enough for his warmth to spill into the space between us as our bodies pressed together. “You made me believe that someone like you could love someone like me.”
We stood there, hearts thudding.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave Charlie the only answer I had in that moment.
I kissed him.
Soft at first. Quiet. Then firmer, fuller. Packed with every promise we had made, and broken, and would make and break again.
I didn’t know much about life. Hell, I didn’t know much about anything at all. But I did know that maybe the secret isn’t being perfect. Perhaps it’s not the right job, or the right house, or the right partner on paper.
Maybe the secret to a long, beautiful, heartbreaking, worth-it kind of life is finding the person who sees you at your absolute worst and doesn’t flinch. The one who doesn’t try to fix it and sits beside you in the mess and holds your hand through it.
Maybe the real magic is in finding someone who will chart a course straight to you, even when you’ve built every roadblock you can think of.
And when they finally arrive, breathless and stubborn and sure…
I didn’t need the river to bring Charlie Pruitt ashore; he’d found his way all on his own.
And this time, I let him stay.