Just In Time For Love (Stanton Falls #1) Read online

  Just In Time For Love

  By Kaci Hart

  Copyright © 2015 by Kaci Hart

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and character are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 1

  Emily released a deep sigh as she looked at the sign signaling that they had made it to their destination.

  Welcome to Stanton Falls

  Her father had come to the airport in Dallas to pick her up and bring her back home. It had been a long time since she had considered Stanton Falls home. As she looked around, she realized that not much had changed in the town since she had left so many years ago. There were no high rise buildings or occasional movie star sightings. No street corner artists or bistros selling with names that she could barely pronounce. She had gone to college on the west coast to become a nurse and honestly had never even considered moving back to her childhood home again. All of that changed during her junior year of school. Having a baby had its way of changing lives.

  She thought back to when she had first found out that she was pregnant. She had hoped that she was wrong. Had hoped that the home test was somehow at fault and that the ninety nine percent accuracy allowed her to be the one percent of inaccuracy. Three tests later, she was sure that her life would be changing.

  I can’t be pregnant. I’m not even done with school yet.

  She knew it was true though. She was studying to be a nurse so she should know a thing or two about the signs of pregnancy. The missed cycle was one thing but the first morning she woke up throwing up, she knew there was a concern.

  That was four years ago. She looked into the back seat at her now three year old daughter and smiled at how beautiful she was. She was unable to even fathom her life without her little child now. She thought back to meetings with the doctor and at the options that he wanted to make sure that she and the father knew were available to them. As if her time in nursing school hadn’t already taught her that. The father had actually wanted her to get an abortion simply because he wasn’t ready to be a father. Emily knew she had gone too far from God when she had considered it--even for the slight second.

  No matter how far she had gone from her roots, she still considered the conglomerate of mixed DNA inside of her belly to be a live baby and never really entertained the thought of not having Ashleigh. She’d decided from that day to have the baby and raise her alone if that’s what it took. She hadn’t spoken to the baby’s father in two years. She reached into the back seat and placed her hand on Ashleigh’s tiny forehead rubbing softly as the she slept. She turned back around in her seat, watching the familiar scenery unfold before her and was lost in her reverie until her father spoke.

  “Sweetie, don’t worry. Your mother and I are going to be here to help you out. It took you long enough but I’m glad you finally decided to let us be here for you and our grandbaby. You know a big city is nowhere to raise a child by yourself.”

  Her father had looked at her while he was driving and had seen the concern on her face. He placed his hand on hers and continued.

  “I know it wasn’t part of your plan to get pregnant at this point in your life. That definitely isn’t what we expected when you went off to school, but God knows what He is doing. You made some decisions and you have to live with them, but you aren’t going to do it alone.”

  His words took the sting off of what she was feeling. Her dad was one of the kindest people she knew. She was convinced she had the best parents in the world, with him and her mother. They supported her from day one, with her mother making the two hour drive to spend weeks at a time with her and her little grandbaby. Even still, they were always telling her to come home and have family around to help raise the baby. She felt low at times. She’d made all the decisions that they had told her not to.

  “Thanks daddy.”

  She didn’t get how they managed to still see her as their little girl. The car pulled up to her parents’ house and she got out to her screaming sister calling out to her as she sprinted out the door to give her a proper greeting.

  “Emily!”

  Elizabeth was her younger sister by two years and at times her very best friend. Seeing her face again, she was glad that Elizabeth had convinced her to move back to Stanton Falls. She had considered at first moving in with her sister instead of her parents but ultimately decided it would be better to stay with her parents since her mother didn’t work and--in her own words--couldn’t have enough time in the world to pinch those precious cheeks. She embraced her sister for at least a few seconds. She had missed that part of life. Being a pediatric nurse and a single mother, she couldn’t even remember the last time she had hugged an actual grown up.

  “Liz! I am so glad to see you sis.”

  “Sure you are. Anyway, it’s nice to see you too, although you took your sweet time in coming back. Common sense finally showed you where you belong. Now on to bigger and better things. Where is my little niece at?”

  “Wow sis. Not even a three second greeting and my return is yesterday’s old news already. Yes, you are definitely my sister. C’mon, she’s sleeping in the back. Help me grab her.”

  They walked to the back seat of the car and stopped for a minute to watch the baby. Liz whispered softly to her about how she made a cute baby. Her attempt at stealth went in vain as Ashleigh’s little brown eyes blinked slowly a few times before she yawned and reached out for her mother, requesting release from her restraint in the car seat.

  “Well, she’s awake now so get ready for a million questions. She’s at that age.”

  “Wow. I still can’t even believe that you have a kid. My big sister. So much has changed in the past few years.”

  “Not everything I bet!” Emily tickled her little sister and fought back her own side splitting laughter as Liz jumped at least two feet away. “Still can’t fight a good tickle, can you?”

  The girls laughed as they unbuckled a laughing Ashleigh from the car seat, leading her into her new home. Their playfulness had triggered a feeling Emily hadn’t felt in a long time and if her laughter was any indication, Ashleigh was going to have a great time figuring out what all the fun was really all about. The truth was that Emily couldn’t think of a better place in the world to raise her baby.

  ***

  Aaron sat at his desk working on designs and support for the website changes he was planning on making. With so much data hacking going around in the news, he had been researching and found some great ideas on new checks and balances to protect information. When he got a knock on his door, he tore his gaze from the screen long enough to see Nick standing in the hallway. He swiftly returned his attention to his work, silently praying he would be able to send him away without too much time wasted.

  “Hey Aaron, what’s goin on buddy.”

  “Well unlike you, some of us have to actually work for a living.”

  His brief response was meant to give Nick a hint that he didn’t have the time right then. He didn’t have to be so curt about it, but that was how their friendship was.

  They had been close friends since junior high. Nick came from a family that was loaded but he was still down to earth--always the one to be a
ll about having fun. Any time Aaron had ever gotten in trouble, nine times out of ten Nick was not too far away. Of course, their kind of trouble wasn’t worthy of the six o’clock news. Just the silly thing teenage boys did, pranks and such. Nick’s family had resided in Stanton Falls since its founding and they owned the largest company in town. At one time it was estimated that a minimum of one tenth of the population was employed by his family’s company while another hefty percentage were just as heavily reliant on them.

  Nick had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, which was definitely true. But he was never the type to rely on that. After college he had decided that he wanted to start a business of his own and when Aaron had finished his time in the armed forces, he hired him to handle all the computer support and technological aspects of the company since that was something he was really great at. Or at least that was what he said; Aaron figured it was just to have someone to hang out with at work. The company wasn’t really large enough to need him doing full time IT work, but when he did have a project, he put his all into it.

  “Whatever man. You know the drill, lunchtime. I’m hungry, so let’s go. My treat.”

  “No can do. Seriously. I have way too much to do today.”

  “Yeah. You say that now, but I wonder what you’ll say when I tell you the great news.”

  “I’m sure it’s not more important than this.”

  “I disagree.” Seeing that Aaron wasn’t biting, Nick laughed before speaking to his friend again.

  “Well buddy, you leave me no choice. Aaron, when I hired you on here, I told you I’d never pull rank on you man, but I am bored out of my mind. You know I’m not leaving unless you come so stop wasting our time and let’s go!”

  Knowing that he would get more work done after he returned from lunch, he finally relented. That and the fact that he was seriously hungry.

  “Fine. I was gonna have to eat anyway I guess. Let me just lock up my office.”

  “That works.”

  Twenty minutes later they were both eating corn beef sandwiches on rye, one of Aaron’s absolute favorite meals in the world.

  “Man I love this stuff. I didn’t even realize how starved I was until we got here.”

  He stuffed a few more chips in his mouth and took a drink of his lemonade.

  “I know. You probably completely lost track of time like you always do.”

  “You boys doin ok here? Need a refill or anything?” The waitress came over to their table to check on them. Aaron noticed how Nick had been glancing at her occasionally and was sure that his friend found her attractive. He couldn’t blame him. She was pretty indeed.

  “No thank you Donna, we’re just fine and we won’t take your time up too much longer.”

  “Oh you are ok. You guys come in here so much I just want to treat my good customers nice. Stay as long as you want. And I am gonna get you a refill of soda since you pretty much guzzled that one down Nick, alright.”

  “Well thank you very much Donna.”

  Nick smiled at her a second extra when she grabbed the drink and Aaron laughed.

  “How long buddy?”

  Nick cleared his throat.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean how long before you tell her that you are interested? It’s obvious to me and I can see she enjoys your company. You always get twice as many refills as me.”

  “That’s because I drink faster than you. Like a man, instead of your little boy sips.”

  “I just like to actually taste my food. You know, get all the value I can out of my taste buds.”

  Nick laughed at his friend before speaking again, excitement in his voice as he continued.

  “Oooh I almost forgot.”

  In between large bites of his sandwich, Nick kept talking.

  “About the good news I promised you. Let me ask you a question... have you seen Emily yet?”

  Aaron froze switching his gaze from the sandwich in his hands to his friend sitting across from him who was grinning like he had secret information.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I figured you didn’t know. Clueless. You have absolutely no idea what I am talking about at all, do you?”

  “Do I look like anything you are saying is making sense to me right now?”

  “No, but you always have that blank, lost look on your face. I meant to ask you about it yesterday but I guess it slipped my mind.”

  “Leave it to you to not remember something important like that but not forget all the best shot locations in Call of Duty.”

  “Whoa there Aaron. First of all, keep your priorities right buddy. Call of Duty before the girl that completely forgot about you years ago. I imagine I don’t have much choice now but to be the town gossip. I actually didn’t find out until a few days ago either so being the pal that I am, I did a little recon for you. I can let you know without a doubt that Emily moved back to town a few weeks back and she’s been working as a nurse at Stanton General since last week. I thought you would be one of the first people that she would see when she got back.”

  Aaron was in shock. She was back. Emily. His Emily. The only woman that he had ever seen himself marrying had returned to town.

  She’s been her for weeks? I wonder why she didn’t at least look me up.

  Aaron listened as his friend continued to drone on about all kinds of things that could in no way hold his attention compared to the revelation that had been dropped on him.

  Chapter 2

  Emily walked into the house after work completely out of energy. Who knew that so many people visited the small town hospital? She figured it would be really slow compared to the practice that she worked at in California. She hadn’t figured she would be one of only three nurses on staff. To actually call it a hospital seemed like a stretch. It was more like a medium sized clinic or an urgent care facility. Any time something really big needed to be done, they would be sent to a much larger facility in the neighboring city. That day she was in charge of several patients all by herself and it had taken a toll on her but she enjoyed it. It was nice to know a lot of the people that showed up. She locked the door behind her and saw her mother on the couch playing with Ashleigh.

  “You know mom, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you asked me back here just so you could spend all your days with her.”

  “Emily, you did just get home a little late so I fed her and have spent the last...wow, half hour playing with her. Honey, I can’t lie. I do love this little girl. You can’t blame me. I get the chance to be a grandma and help my daughter at the same time, that’s a win for me. With your father being his ‘I just wanna go fishing when I retire’ self, and your sister having moved out, it was getting quiet here. I’m happier than you know that you decided to come home.”

  “Thanks mom. Honestly I don’t know what I would have done trying to stay out there. I…”

  She was interrupted by the doorbell.

  “I’ll get it.”

  Emily opened the front door and her breath caught in her throat.

  “Aaron? Oh my gosh. Hi. Wha- What are you doing here?”

  “I could say the same thing to you. I heard today that you were back in town but I had to see it for myself. You are definitely a site for sore eyes.”

  She thought he looked just as handsome as he did the last time she had seen him. That was years ago, before he went off to the marines and war. His long hair had been cut short and stylish and his boyish smile had become a man’s. His shoulders had become broader and he was obviously more muscular, no doubt due to the hefty training that they did in the armed forces. Still beyond all that, what she saw was that same guy from five years ago that she once knew unquestionably that she was in love with.

  “Uh, yeah. It’s good to see you too.”

  “Nick told me that you were back but didn’t know when you work. Since I didn’t really have a working number for you anymore I figured I’d just stop by. I hope it’s not an issue.”

  Of co
urse Nick told you, because he can’t keep anything to himself.

  Emily tried to keep a low profile since she had been back. She rarely went anywhere. She didn’t want to see any of her old friends. With a town that small, it was eventually going to happen. Nick was actually one of a few people that she had bumped into. She was getting coffee last week when he spotted her leaving the cafe. When they were all younger, anything Nick knew, Aaron knew and it was apparent that things hadn’t changed. She assumed it would only be a matter of time before Aaron dropped by looking for her. Her mother called out to her from the other room.

  “Who is it Emily?”

  “Um, it’s Aaron mom.”

  “Does he want to come in for coffee? Maybe you guys could catch up.”