21. Lydia
21
LYDIA
“ M iles? Oh, my God, Miles is that you?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was taking my daily doctor prescribed walk when a car pulled up and he climbed out. I haven’t seen him for months. I honestly never expected to see him again. It had been so long. I ran to him. I wasn’t so pregnant that I waddled, but I didn’t move with anything that could closely resemble grace.
He had a confused smile on his face. He looked me in the eyes, and then he looked down at my stomach, and then he looked back up at my face.
“Lydia? This is unexpected,” he said.
I wrapped my hands around my stomach and grinned. “Yeah, it certainly is. You’ve been gone so long and I didn’t have any way to get in touch with you.”
“Get in touch with me?” he asked. “Why would you need to do that?” His tone was very cautious.
“Because, silly.” I laughed as I rubbed my hand over my belly. “You’re going to be a father.”
The expression of the confusion across his face grew deeper as he tried to understand the words I said. His mouth tried to form words, but he seemed to be struggling when it came to making any sounds. His brows pinched together, relaxed, lifted up almost to his hairline before returning to being slightly pinched in the middle. And he blinked continuously. This news was clearly a bit of a shock for him.
I may not have told anybody else who the father was. It was none of their business. However, this very much was his business.
“Oh, wow, you didn’t say anything the last time I was in town.”
I giggled nervously, questioning whether or not I had actually done the right thing by telling him like this in the middle of the street.
“I didn’t actually know the last time you were here. I didn’t figure it out until a couple of days after you left.”
“You didn’t say anything,” he repeated.
I bit my lip as nervous butterflies danced through my stomach. Or maybe that was the baby deciding it was time to flip around and make its presence known.
“I didn’t have any way of contacting you,” I told him. “I never had your phone number and had no way of contacting you. I didn’t expect you to be gone so long between visits. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung this on you.” I may have taken a step back as I realized I'd messed up.
Miles reached out for me. “No, no. It’s just a bit of a shocker. This is amazing, and it’s mine?”
I nodded.
“This is amazing,” he said again as he stepped in close and pulled me into an embrace. “I never expected this.”
“Me either,” I admitted. Those nervous flutters in my stomach went into overdrive. I really didn’t want this to send him running back to the city, at least not before I got his phone number.
“I thought I was only going to be up here for a couple of days, but with this I don’t know…” It seemed more like he was muttering to himself than speaking to me.
“Are you planning on going back right away?” I asked.
“God, no, Lydia. Why would I do that?”
“Well, I mean, I did kind of drop a baby bomb on you right here in the middle of the street.”
“True, but that means I have to think on my feet. Should you be out walking around?”
“Yes, I should be out walking around. It’s very healthy for me. Where were you headed?” I asked, pointing to his car.
“I was going to the inn,” he admitted.
I couldn’t help but smile. He was coming back to me.
“Where are you going?”
“I was just taking a little walk. Miss Griffin is watching the front desk, and my doctor said I need to make sure I’m exercising every day.”
“Can I give you a ride back?”
“Since you were headed that way, I wouldn’t say no.”
When we got back to the Sweet Mountain Inn, Miles paused as soon as he climbed out of the car. He took a moment to look at all the renovations I had managed to accomplish in the past few months.
“It looks different, somehow,” he said.
“I would hope so. I put a lot of work into the old girl.”
“But I can’t quite figure out what’s different,” he admitted.
I looped my arm through his elbow, and we stood there, looking up at the Sweet Mountain Inn. “She’s had fresh paint on all the decorative woodwork that helps protect the wood and hide all the wood rot until I can afford to have everything replaced. She’s also had all the windows repaired or replaced.”
“Did you get the bathrooms done?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“No bathrooms, but you spent all that money on the windows?”
“Not my money,” I admitted. “I got a grant to cover the cost to make the building more energy efficient. Now when there’s a storm, the building doesn’t howl like it’s in some kind of a horror movie. Hopefully, I’ll be able to secure another grant to help cover the plumbing costs and redoing the bathrooms. Apparently, there’s a lot of grant money out there to help maintain historic buildings, and Sweet Mountain more than qualifies, but the application process is a real pain in the butt,” I admitted.
“Was it grant money that put in landscaping and rosebushes around the gazebo just like you wanted?” he asked.
Yeah, just like I wanted. “I think that was more of a coincidence than anything else. After all, I didn’t have any say in what they did.”
“But a gazebo covered in roses was your vision,” he said.
“Speaking of that,” I started, “You’re not some kind of spy for that developer who’s trying to come in here and buy up the town, are you?”
He closed his eyes in a long blink and turned to me. “What developer?”
“There’s this developer who wants to come here and put in some kind of a resort in the middle of town. I’ve seen the plans. He wants to level some of the older buildings. I will admit some of those structures are rundown, but that’s not an excuse to level them. He wants to take out the area from the inn to the library. That would include the post office, and then going back”— I gestured toward the part of town that would be impacted if JM Carlisle Group was allowed to come in— “and take out about six square blocks of some of the oldest homes in Brookdale.”
“And you think I’m a spy for this company?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but the last time you were here, I told you my idea of turning Brookdale into a wedding destination. The next time the development company sent a prospectus to the mayor, they had included ways that the resort would help bolster the local economy, and it even mentioned how it would support turning Brookdale into a destination location for things such as family reunions, and as a honeymoon and wedding destination. Now that can’t be a coincidence, can it?”
Miles chuckled. “It sounds like a coincidence to me.”
“I’ve never mentioned the whole wedding thing to anybody,” I said.
“Brookdale is a quaint little town. Anybody looking to suggest ways of bolstering the economy would think in terms of how to turn this into a destination location. I’m not a spy. What kind of changes have you made to the inside?” he asked, changing the topic as we started to walk up to the front porch.
“Nothing major, a few minor repairs here and there. I got most of the door locks oiled and running properly, so there should be no more lock failures anytime soon. And of course, the windows, which required a few rooms to be repainted, but other than that, she’s still pretty much the same.”
Miles paused as we started to climb the steps. “Look, Lydia I don’t want to be presumptuous here, but are you gonna let me stay with you again?”
“I can’t believe you’re even asking me this, Miles.”
“Well, considering the last time this happened…” He pointed to my baby bump.
I ran my hand over my stomach. “This didn’t happen the last time you were here. This happened the first time, during the storm,” I said.
“You’re more pregnant than I thought.”
“I am definitely way more pregnant.” I laughed.
“And your friends know I am the father?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No one knows, except for me and now you. I wasn’t exactly blabbing it around town.”
“This is gonna take some time to get used to,” he said. “Do you know if it’s a girl or a boy yet?”
“Baby wasn’t cooperating when it was time to find out. I guess you could say the birth is going to be the gender reveal party. You never told me, what are you in town for?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter now because I’m gonna be here to help you out.”
“You’re going to stay?” My heart lodged in my throat.
“I’ll stay for as long as I can,” he said. “I might have to go back to the city to make arrangements and to get more of my things. I can’t believe you’re pregnant. I’m gonna be a father.”
“Yes, we’re going to have a baby,” I said.
Miles very tentatively reached his hand out toward my stomach. “Can I touch you? The baby?”
I grabbed his hand and put it on my distended stomach, pressing his palm down.
“That should be the baby’s butt.”
“How do you know?”
“Because of how it kicks,” I said. “Sometimes, it’s turned around, but…” I pressed my hand against the other side of my abdomen. “That’s definitely the head.”
At that point, the baby bucked against Miles’s hand. His entire face lit up in astonishment.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“That’s my baby? Our baby.”
“It is,” I said.
“You are so amazing,” Miles said, his voice full of awe.
“I’m hardly amazing. People have been getting pregnant for thousands upon thousands of years.”
“Yes, but you are the first person to get pregnant with my child.”