VALENTINE VETO – BONUS EPILOGUE

Four years later

“I still can’t believe you managed to keep all this a secret!” I exclaim as Nick and I exit the elevator into the lobby of the Rolling Hills resort in Quince Valley, Vermont. The room is an expanse of white marble, with a wall of glass overlooking the gorgeous river valley on the far side.

We’re here to celebrate my reelection as mayor of Sycamore Mountain; albeit six months after I won. We’ve barely been able to catch a breath since then.

Nick raises an eyebrow. “It’s not exactly hard when I’m married to the world’s worst secret keeper.” He takes my hand in his and winks; which unbelievably, even years later, makes my stomach flutter.

Still, I elbow him as we cut across the floor toward L’Aubergine, the resort’s flagship restaurant. “Excuse me. Professional secrets are part of my job.”

“Professional secrets don’t count. I’m talking about Mary’s second birthday party.”

 I laugh. “You wouldn’t have been able to keep that one to yourself, either!”

I’d insisted on planning our daughter’s birthday party myself earlier this month, refusing to tell Nick anything about it. “I want it to be as much of a surprise to you as for her,” I’d said.

It was the least I could do after leaving nearly all the domestic duties we normally shared to Nick for the past six months. Not that he minded.

But a week later, when I’d managed to snag the lead singer in Mary’s favorite local kid’s act to come to Sycamore Mountain to play at her party, I’d folded like a cheap lawn chair, gushing every last detail to Nick.

“How do you think she’s doing?” I ask now, checking my phone for the hundredth time today. Mary’s cherubic cheeks look up at me through the lock screen. Her glossy dark hair and thick lashes make her a dead ringer for her daddy, though her precociousness is all mine. And maybe my mom’s, who she’s named after.

But there are no texts from Dad, MacKenzie, and our nanny, all of whom are tag-teaming looking after Mary while Nick and I are on this much-delayed getaway.

“Probably no different than she was fifteen minutes ago,” Nick reassures me. He acts cool, but I see the way he beams at the image on my phone. His dad-pride knows no bounds. He’s got her photo—and mine—plastered all over Piccolo Baccio’s offices.

It’s fine, I know. She’s in good hands. But it’s still so hard to be away from her. While my job demands some travel, I rarely leave her for more than twenty-four hours.

I force myself to drop my phone back into my purse and focus on the amazing weekend we’re already partway through. Tonight, Nick made reservations at L’Aubergine, the hotel’s famous restaurant.

As we arrive at the entrance, I take in the gorgeous space. It’s enormous, but somehow cozy, too. Like the lobby, the room is dominated by a massive wall of glass overlooking the Quince River valley, only in here, the space is dimly lit. The tables are covered in white linen, and the dinner crowd is made up of men in sleek suits and women in gorgeous dresses of all shades. Soft jazz streams from hidden speakers, and servers bustle about, slipping in and out of the swinging doors to the kitchen.

Nick scans the restaurant as we step through the doors, but not in a casual way. He looks like he’s searching for someone.

“You think Augusta’s here?” I tease.

Now it’s Nick’s turn to throw me a side eye. “Hey, I still think it’s deeply unfair you actually talked to her when I spent half the day yesterday hoping to catch more than a glimpse of Neil Brock’s head at the other end of the swimming pool.”

Nick chose the Rolling Hills as the place to celebrate my reelection not just because it was stunning, and we’d read an article in a travel magazine about it recently, but because they were currently filming a season of Chef’s Apprentice here. It’s one of our favorite shows—an indulgence after Mary’s in bed. Though they clearly aren’t filming right this moment, yesterday I met one of the show’s contestants down in the spa. Her name was Augusta—a classy woman in her forties who everyone had pegged as the likely winner. Nick had nearly fallen over kicking himself that he’d chosen to do laps in the pool instead of joining me in the spa like I’d suggested. “Seeing the back of the show’s host’s head isn’t nearly as awesome as having a conversation with one of the contestants,” Nick had lamented with a sigh.

I reassured him it wasn’t much more than a ‘lovely weather’ type of conversation—the kind I had down to an art form as mayor, but he’d still moped for a good five minutes. About as much moping as Nick Malone can stand.

But that was yesterday. Tonight, Nick looks at me with a flicker of something like nerves in his eyes. “No,” he says in answer to my question about Augusta. “This surprise has nothing to do with Chef’s Apprentice. I arranged this before I even knew the show was filming here.”

My heart swells. “You’ve already done so much, Nick.”

My husband is quite possibly the most romantic man in existence. Last year, he’d even named a chocolate bar after me: Callie’s Choice.

“Well,” Nick says, his eyes back on me as we wait for our turn to speak to the woman taking names at the podium. “To be honest, love, I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about this one.”

I want to ask him what he means, but the hostess has already led the couple in front of us away, and it’s our turn to give our names to the woman at the podium. Except she appears to be in a heated discussion with a handsome man in a suit who appeared from behind us a moment ago. She glances at us and whispers something to the man that sounds like, Later, Eli. The man—Eli?—gives us a polite nod and strides out, though I see the muscle at his jaw flex. He’s upset.

“Welcome to L’Aubergine. I’m Reese.” Reese is pretty; early thirties, maybe, with blond hair in a tight bun at the top of her head and dressed all in black. Blazer, slacks, button-down, everything. Her nametag says she’s the restaurant’s manager. She smiles apologetically. “I’m so sorry about the wait.”

I don’t miss the glance she gives to the man’s back as he disappears around the corner. Like she really wanted to say I’m so sorry about him.

“No problem at all,” I say. I can’t help but be a little intrigued, though I chastise myself that it’s none of my business. It’s probably just that now that I’m happily married, all my relationship drama is confined to movies and books, which I don’t get enough time to indulge in with my busy schedule.

Reese is fully recovered, though. The ultimate professional. “Do you have a reservation?” she asks.

I feel like it’s unusual to have the restaurant’s manager on the floor, but I see from the easy way she smiles at us—relaxed now that the man is gone—that she likes interacting with people. I wonder if it’s the same way I love volunteering at community events at home, even though my assistant tells me I don’t have to do so many of them. It feels good to be hands-on.

I look at Nick—this is his ball game.

“Malone for four,” he says, returning her smile with a polite one of his own. “The other two are already seated.”

I frown, looking quickly around the room. “Nick?” I ask. I don’t see anyone I recognize. I’m only a little disappointed we won’t be alone—we already had a romantic dinner in town last night. But who on earth would we be meeting in Vermont?

But Nick gives a nod, and I track his eyes. There, at a table on the far side of the dimly lit space, is a couple.

My heart leaps into my throat.

But it’s not just because the man at the table is Jude Kelly, the famous tennis pro. Ex tennis pro, I guess. I knew he was part owner of this hotel—it was a bit of trivia Nick shared when he was booking it.

It’s the woman with him that has my throat swelling with tears. She’s got pale skin and long red hair, which is accentuated by the stunning sleeveless red dress she’s wearing. Only the way she wrings her hands when she stands gives away the fact that she doesn’t have the purely confident sex appeal of the kind of woman I’d think a sports star might have at his side.

But I’m not thinking of any of that. Because this is no stranger. I nearly sprint across the room in my heels, making heads turn. 

“Nora!” I exclaim, louder than appropriate in a restaurant. But I don’t care about the stares. I throw my arms around my old friend, squeezing her as hard as I can.

He found her.

It’s only when I pull away and see Nora’s tear-filled eyes that it occurs to me that maybe Nora didn’t want to be found. Her memories of Sycamore Mountain—of me—can’t be easy ones.

“Nora,” I whisper.

But she smiles and gives me another hug. “I’ve missed you, Callie. So, so much.”

We dissolve into more tears, but eventually manage to take our seats and do a round of introductions.

“Jude,” Jude says. No last name is needed, and he knows it. Jude gives me a grin that would probably have knocked the panties right off me if I weren’t already completely smitten with the man at my side.

As if in response, Nick’s hand slides over my knee with just the right amount of jealousy and possessiveness, which is to say, enough I know he’s staked his claim on me, but not so much he can’t be friendly.

But I hardly notice anything except Nora. “I want to know everything,” I say. I realize, now that she’s here, just how much I missed her. There was a time we were inseparable.

“Me too.” Her voice is as soft and shy as I remember.

We spend the next hour talking, letting the men go off on their own excited discussion about their favorite cities in Europe. As it turns out, Jude and Nora aren’t romantically involved, though Nora blinks when she says this, and I can’t help wondering if she wishes it were different.

“We’re best friends,” she says, and once I get over the little twang of guilt I get with this—I was her best friend once, and I effectively abandoned her for Nick—I realize it makes sense. The two of them are somehow a perfect match in their opposite-ness. Jude is exuberant and gregarious, but tones himself down to let Nora in, and slows down and agrees with her when she speaks, nodding vigorously. Nora, meanwhile, is pulled easily out of her shell just by keeping up with Jude. They’d make an incredible couple, actually. Though from the way she acts it doesn’t seem like Nora thinks that’s even in the realm of possibility.

When I ask her to come to the bathroom with me, I want to ask her about it, but she beats me to it, in a way.

“You knew right away Nick was it for you, didn’t you?” she asks shyly as we linger in the hallway, neither of us wanting to rush right back to the table.

“No,” I say honestly. “I mean, I fell for him right away, yes, but… I didn’t think there was a way we could work.”

Nora seems to chew on this as vigorously as she chews on her lip, thinking about it.

“Nora, it took us years and years apart to figure it out. Maybe we needed that time to grow up, or maybe it was a waste of time and we should never have separated. It’s something I think we both think about a lot. But it wasn’t until we came back together, until we both knew how to be our full selves around each other and were confident we deserved to be loved that it worked.”

Nora looks down.

“Easier said than done, I know.” I say softly.

Our goodbyes are hard, but we promise to keep in touch this time. “In fact, I’m going to make it impossible not to,” I say, asking her for every method of communication. Phone number, email, all her social accounts. She laughs, obliging, though she doesn’t have many. “You can always find me at the library,” Nora says.

That’s how Nick found her—a long trail that ended at the Quince Valley Public Library, where she’s a librarian. The perfect job for my smart, soft-spoken friend.

“So?” Nick asks when we get back to our hotel room. “Were you surprised?”

I kick off my heels. “I don’t think you could have surprised me more if… actually, I can’t think of anything.” I walk toward Nick, placing my hands on his chest and stroking his tie. “Thank you, Nick. For doing this for me. For finding her.”

“Thank you for giving me a reason to celebrate and to do this for you. I’m so proud of you, baby.”

“Ditto,” I say, rising up on my tiptoes. Piccolo Baccio has expanded all across the country—Nick’s even opening his first branch in Amsterdam next year. Yet he still finds time to put me and Mary first.

I give Nick a kiss. Not a tiny one this time, either, but a big, giant, heart-wrapping kiss. I hand him everything with that kiss—my heart, body, and soul.

And as Nick picks me up and takes me to the bed, I know the only thing that could make this more perfect.

“You know how you’ve been asking me about baby number two?” I ask as I climb on top of him.

Nick’s eyes go wide. “You said you wanted to wait until a year into this term!”

“It’s already been six months,” I say, undoing his tie. “Add nine months to that…”

Nick swallows, his eyes going soft. He’s wanted another baby since the minute he laid eyes on Mary. I think if it were up to him, we’d make a whole clan. But he’s always followed my lead, telling me from the beginning that none would be enough for him too, if that’s what I wanted.

“God, Callie, do you mean it?”

“I mean, there’s no harm in getting started with practice, is there?” I ask, grinning wickedly.

Nick’s pupils dilate. No, there isn’t. Then he surprises me by jumping up and flipping me on my back, making me squeal.

“You know what happens if I put a baby inside you tonight, don’t you?” he asks, running a hand down my side.

Heat clenches between my legs at his choice of words. “No,” I say, threading my fingers through his hair. “What?”

“We could have a baby born on Valentine’s Day.”

I laugh. It’s too perfect. “How did you make me love Valentine’s Day?”

“Easy. Chocolate. And maybe me making you fall in love with me again.”  

“I was already in love with you, Nick Malone. From day one.”

Nick kisses me then, long and hard, soft and slow. “I love you too, Callie McIntyre. Even more than chocolate.”

Then we’re both laughing, tumbling around together, love flooding every cell in my body. Me and my Valentine, Nick Malone.

—-

I hope you loved this bonus scene! Want more Claire Wilder HEA goodness? You can read Nora’s story right now in Play With Me. 

All books by Claire can be read as standalones.