Ryan and Kaylie walked out of the courthouse and into the limo Ryan had waiting. They went to the Newark airport, boarded Ryan’s private jet, and buckled up for take-off.
After the plane had leveled off to cruising speed, they unbuckled and sat together on the leather sofa.
“Would you like some champagne or a glass of wine?” He asked as he kissed the left side of her mouth and then the right side.
“No, thank you. I think I’ll have some apple juice.”
Ryan kissed her lips, then frowned and reared back holding her by the shoulders. “Apple juice?”
She nodded and smiled. “I’m expecting.”
His eyebrows raised. “Expecting? We’re having a baby?” He paled.
“That’s right, in seven-and-a-half months.”
“A baby.” He kissed her. This time the kiss was soft and gentle. “I can’t believe we’ll be parents. You and me. Mom and Dad.”
“Yup. Us. Believe it.”
“I love you, Kaylie, with all my heart.”
“I do you, too, my darling. Forever and a day.”
SNEAK PEEK
June was a bad month for Shavon Montgomery. Her beloved sister, Sophie, was murdered by her jealous husband and then the coward took his own life. That left eighteen-month-old Georgie an orphan and now Shavon’s responsibility. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Georgie was still asleep. The baby was probably as tired as Shavon.
She loved her niece but had never planned on raising her. This put some of Shavon’s plans off and others ahead. For instance, she’d planned on leaving the Chicago law firm at the end of the year and moving to Twin Bluffs, Montana, ten miles from Bozeman, where her great-grandmother had lived until six months ago. She’d died not long after Sophie.
Great Grandma Nora hadn’t changed her will to reflect Sophie’s death, so she’d left Shavon and Sophie her house…and her money. An old Victorian mansion that Shavon and Sophie had visited for three months every summer, while their parents traveled the globe digging up dinosaur bones. Shavon had come until she was eighteen and entered college, ten years ago. The last time she’d been there was a couple of months before Grandma Nora had died, to tell her about Sophie.
With Sophie gone, Shavon was now a very rich woman and she’d give it all away just to have Sophie here with her.
Now, she would live in the house with Georgie. Hopefully many guests would come and stay as well. Shavon wanted the B and B open by Christmas. She knew people would wonder why she’d want to operate a B and B if she was wealthy enough to never work again. The answer was a simple one, she’d always wanted to own and operate a B and B. She was living one of her dreams.
Shavon looked in her rearview mirror again. Georgie was still sound asleep in her car seat. Shavon smiled. She looked just like her mother, with white-blonde hair and the bluest eyes. The same color as Shavon’s own eyes. They all received them from their Grandma Nora. They were a deep blue, like the deepest part of the ocean as seen when the sun was high in the sky. A clear, clean blue which no other color muddied.
Shavon looked around and marveled how different the landscape was compared to the skyscrapers of Chicago. She looked for a familiar landmark…the rock pillars at the end of the driveway to the mansion. She knew she was near the turnoff for Nora’s place.
The trees obscured the driveway and she nearly missed it even though she’d been there recently. Of course, she’d nearly missed it then, too. The rock pillars at the end of the driveway were almost completely fallen down…or been knocked down. Another thing she needed to repair or replace. Sighing she turned right onto the driveway and drove the quarter mile to the house.
Grandpa Ben’s father, Ralph, built quite a long way outside of Twin Bluffs, which had been little more than a mining camp when they built. Ralph had made his money in the gold rush in California. He didn’t hit gold, as in the mineral, but had hit gold as a grocer in Sacramento.
When Ralph heard about the 1863 gold strike in Virginia City in the Montana Territory, he sold his grocery store and moved his wife to Twin Bluffs. There he built his wife her dream home—a ten-bedroom mansion several miles from town. They’d planned on having lots of children but were only blessed with Shavon’s great grandfather Ben.
Ben married Nora and just as his father had before him, he planned to fill the mansion with children. But they too were only blessed with one child and not until late in life, Shavon’s mother, Estelle. Nora had been nearly forty-two when Estelle was born. Ben was fifty.
She supposed in some ways that was a good thing because now that Sophie was gone, she didn’t have to fight with anyone about what she wanted to do with the house. Sophie wouldn’t have cared. She would have joined in on the venture.
Now that home would be Shavon and Georgie’s. Shavon wanted to turn the mansion into a bed and breakfast, but knew the house needed some updating. And she knew she would have an uphill battle for guests. The tourist industry in Twin Bluffs wasn’t huge and those that did come, like hunters and fishermen, didn’t usually stay at a bed and breakfast. But she had to try. She’d always wanted to own one and now was her chance.
Several of the bedrooms in the house were small, but she hoped that could be rectified by combining bedrooms or knocking out closets or something else. She wouldn’t know for sure until she looked at the house with renovation in mind and not as the beloved home of her grandmother.
Whereas the home had been miles outside of town when it was built, now it was barely outside the city limits. The location was perfect for a B and B.
The driveway was rutted and bumpy. It would need to be graded and gravel put down for it to be usable by regular vehicles. Maybe a lot of people in Montana drove SUVs, but that didn’t mean her guests would..
The bumpiness of the road woke up Georgie. Her corkscrew curls went everywhere but mostly formed a white-blonde halo around her face.