Fight From The Heart: a small town romance (Heart Collection Book 4)

by L. B. Dunbar

  “You’re a dick,” Ethan states, venom in his voice, which matches the blood roiling through my veins. “Did you not see her condition? She just had an accident. She could have died,” he reminds me. “She could have lost the baby, and she doesn’t need this.” He waves his hand up and down before me.

  “What’s going on?” Ella says, rushing to Ethan’s side. She reaches out for me, but I slide along the wall, away from her. “Jacob, what happened?”

  “Pam’s pregnant.”

  My sister’s face quickly breaks into a blinding smile, beaming with excitement. “That’s wonderful.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?” My voice cracks as the shock settles in, and I vibrate with the anxiety of her rejection.

  We should talk. She was going to tell me. She was going to break things off.

  “Let’s evaluate this situation,” my sister says, learning all this new shit from her therapist. “You thought you’d gotten another woman pregnant. The woman of your dreams needed to accept this. She walks away from you to give you the space you need. You go into treatment and get yourself clean because that’s what you needed to do for you. And she’s been here waiting for you.”

  “Pam’s been waiting for me,” I slowly repeat Ella’s words.

  Let me love you, Jacob.

  My head lowers a bit, but I’m still breathing heavy.

  She made love to me and kissed my scars. She healed my heart. She’s been standing right in front of me.

  “Then you find out the truth. Mandi faked her pregnancy to keep you. She tricked you.” Ella continues to eye me, emphasizing her words, and letting the sad truth of my life sink in. “Do you think, just maybe, Pam might have worried you’d think she did the same?”

  “I would never—”

  Ella holds up a hand to stop me. “Uh. But you’re reacting right now.”

  “I’m in shock.” I state the obvious. My sister and I stare at each other until I have to look away.

  “Jacob, she has loved you unconditionally,” Ella reminds as if I should know this, but I do. When I think back on the years, the dedication to me and my work, to my house and our friendship, she’s always been there for me. And what have I offered her?

  “She’s taken all your crap for years, man,” Ethan interjects. “We didn’t even know who you were, but every time she mentioned ‘the man she worked for,’ we saw it in her face. It was written all over her. She was in love with you.”

  Ethan pauses to exhale in frustration and pulls his hair from his forehead to the top of his head.

  “And if you don’t get your ass back in that room and apologize, you don’t deserve her,” he adds. Ella glances up at Ethan and scowls. His face instantly falls, and he drops his hair.

  “Sorry, princess,” he mutters before leaning in to kiss her temple.

  Ella twists back to me. “You need to fight for her, Jacob. Instead of always fighting against life, it’s time to step up and fight for it. This is what you’ve been waiting for, a chance to be loved. A chance to give love.”

  “You don’t think I want this?” I’m confused. Of course, I want Pam. Of course, I want the baby, I just . . .

  My head turns back in the direction of Pam’s hospital room.

  She’s having my baby.

  I love her.

  What am I doing in the hall?

  Chapter 29

  Reactive Reactions

  [Pam]

  With Jacob still in the room, I curl to my side, which hurts like hell, but I just want to tuck into myself. This didn’t go as I had planned. Nothing has gone as I hoped. I wanted to tell Jacob on my own terms. Maybe after I heard the heartbeat next week. Then again, they ran an ultrasound as a urine sample showed I was pregnant. My family didn’t know to offer that information to the doctors as I hadn’t told anyone yet but Mae. Thankfully, the baby is protected, and my little peanut’s heart is pumping away. I, on the other hand, feel heartsick.

  “He’s just a little in shock,” the nurse says, still by my side. “Apparently, he didn’t know.” The question lingers in her voice, and I shake my head. With her still rubbing my hand, I wipe away the last of my tears, telling myself I will not cry over Jacob anymore. When he left me yesterday morning, I had this weird sensation something was going to happen, almost like a premonition of something bad occurring. Unfortunately, it had been my own stupidity. After going to work, I broke down from the emotional high of being with Jacob again. I told Mae everything from the seduction to my lack of telling him about the pregnancy.

  “What are you afraid of with him?” she questioned, truly concerned. In her eyes, Jacob had returned. He’d come back to me. She didn’t understand.

  “He doesn’t want children, or marriage, or even believe in love. I don’t want him to think I tricked him like Mandi tried to do.” It’d certainly been a shock to learn the truth. She tried to manipulate him into marrying her, and I didn’t want Jacob to think I’d done the same thing.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mae stated, still full of sympathy for my stress. “He loves you. I haven’t even met the man, and I’m certain he does.”

  Storming out of my hospital room seems to prove quite the opposite.

  “Lilac.” His quiet voice startles me, and I squeeze my already closed eyes even tighter. “Lilac, look at me.”

  I cannot look at him. Go away.

  “Lilac, please. I don’t want to say what I have to say to your back.” His voice is calmer, and the nurse continues to rub my arm, soothing me. She’s not telling him to get out, so I assume she sees something in him.

  I flip with a cry of pain, and Jacob’s eyes widen, but I dismiss his concern. “You have nothing left to say to me, Jacob. For over two years, I have given you my dedication and devotion. I’ve given you my heart,” I emphasize, poking at the hospital gown over my chest. “I’ve been loyal and faithful for God knows what reason, and I don’t need this from you. I knew how you felt. No love. No marriage. No children. I don’t expect anything from you. I just wanted to love you.”

  Dammit, the tears begin to fall again.

  “I wanted you to let me love you. I want you, but I don’t need you, Jacob, and there’s a difference. I can raise this child on my own. I just thought you should know the truth.”

  I try to roll back to my side but cry out again in pain. Jacob’s hand comes to my arm, keeping me on my back.

  “Are you finished?” he softly questions, and I huff while quiet tears stream to the sides of my face.

  “Lilac,” he begins, swiping a hand over his head and then reaching for my hand to entwine his fingers with mine. “I fucked up. I always do. I told you once if I ever had anything good in my life, I’d mess it up, and I did. Look at you.” He swipes a tear from my cheek while squeezing the hand he holds. “I’m wrecking you, and it’s killing me. I love you, angel.”

  The tears fall harder just when I thought they’d subside.

  “I love you, and I want you to love me. I want you to need me because I certainly need you. I don’t want to live without you.”

  Through blurry eyes, I try to focus on him. “What about the baby?”

  “Angel,” he addresses me, swiping his finger along the edge of my face. “You’ve given me life in more ways than one. I’m not upset about the baby. I’m in shock. And I thought you weren’t telling me because you were upset. You didn’t want me to know I’d put my demon in you.” His voice falters as he tries to joke.

  “It’s not a demon,” I admonish through the subsiding tears. He lifts my hand cradled in his and presses kisses to my knuckles.

  “Of course not. Any child of yours must be an angel.” More kisses cover our joined hands. “I’m sorry I lost it there for a moment.”

  The nurse reminds us of her presence. “If you two are good now, I think I’ll step out.” Jacob’s head turns to her, and she warns him directly. “No more funny business from you, or I’ll toss you out myself.”

  “I apologize for that.” He pauses, taking
a deep breath and then adds, “I’m going to be a dad.”

  The nurse grins, and I watch Jacob’s face morph from cautiously concerned to contagiously happy.

  “So I’ve heard,” she tells him. “Congratulations, Dad. When are you due?”

  Jacob turns to me, raising his brows in question.

  “January first.”

  “Just in time for the new year,” the nurse states, and Jacob’s dark eyes soften.

  “It’s already a new year,” he says, shifting to glance at my belly. “It’s a new life.”

  The nurse pats my arm before excusing herself, giving us the privacy we need.

  “I was surprised myself,” I finally admit once she leaves. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  “I didn’t think I’d want children because I thought I’d be like him. But you won’t let me be like that, and I don’t have it in me anyway. I am not my beginning. I will not repeat my past. I’m going to get both of those lines as new tattoos, along with a lilac right here.” He sits back and points at his right pec. “You’re my future, Lilac. You’ve changed my destiny. You’ve pointed me in the right direction after I’ve been on the wrong path for too long.” He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. “I do want this baby with you.”

  His other hand comes to my belly. “We’re going to have a baby.” His voice drops. “Through a condom. Despite the pill. I must have super sperm, and we’re having a baby. Us. Together.”

  “Are you really joking about your sexual prowess?”

  He lowers himself for the chair next to the bed, still holding my hand.

  “Do you know what this means?” he states, still focused on his other hand over my belly. I shake my head.

  “It means dinner, hand holding, and sex, all the time.”

  “Jacob,” I groan. He pushes down the blanket over me and pulls up my hospital gown.

  “What are you doing?” I choke out, stumped by his actions.

  “You’re having my baby,” he says to my belly, placing his palm flat over my stomach once more, spreading his fingers over my skin. I shiver at his touch. He lowers his face to my abdomen and kisses me. Tender. Soft. Telling. He continues to press his lips to my stomach over and over again.

  “My baby’s in there,” he coos to my skin.

  “Does this hurt?” His head pops up, eyes filled with concern. I shake my head, too flabbergast for words.

  “Let me love you, Lilac. Let me learn to love you and the baby.” He lowers once more for my belly, setting a kiss over the nonexistent bump, and then turns his head to rest on me. His arm over me tightens, and he closes his eyes.

  “I love you, angel, and I’ll fight for you, fight until the end to deserve your love in return.”

  I swipe at my eyes with my free hand, still holding Jacob’s hand. My heart has just ridden a roller coaster of emotion, and I’m drained. I need rest. I need not to think, but I’m also so full of love.

  “I love you, Jacob.” My free hand covers his head, swiping over his hair as his head lies on my belly.

  “I meant what I said the other day. I want to find you in my bed every night and wake with you every morning. I want to take care of you, Lilac, like you always take care of me. Let me try. Or teach me.” He sits up straighter. “Just don’t quit on me.”

  “I’m right here, Jacob.”

  “Move in with me.”

  “Jacob,” I drone. “We don’t need to jump ahead.”

  “We can step back. We can go on dates that don’t lead to sex. We can go back to hand holding. Just be in my house. Tell me you’ll move in with me. Promise me you won’t leave.”

  “It’s too much,” I tell him while laughter fills my voice. Can this really be happening?

  + + +

  Within a day, I’m sent home—Jacob’s home—because he refuses to let me go anywhere else. True to his word, as my body heals, Jacob tends to me.

  He gives me baths but doesn’t turn them sexual.

  He massages my body, avoiding the bruised areas, but doesn’t attempt to make them sensual.

  He holds me at night, kisses my shoulder or neck, but it’s nothing heated.

  It’s pure torture.

  He also does lots of hand holding.

  A week passes like this, and he’s romantic. As it’s mid-May, lilacs are in bloom, and he brings me handfuls that I’m certain he stole from other people’s yards as he doesn’t have any bushes of his own.

  “White, for innocence.” He’d hand me the flower and kiss my belly.

  “Dark purple, for passion.” He wiggled his brows, and I’d groan as I’m desperate for him.

  “And true lilac, for first love.” He swiped the flower at my nose before giving it to me.

  I also find poems on his pillow if I wake alone. My favorite of them is “Romance” by Edgar Allen Poe, about a man who didn’t believe he’d care for love, didn’t think it could happen for him, but when it does, he can’t stop himself from falling into it. It’s rather appropriate for my dark writer.

  Then one day, I wake from a nap with a poem titled “Evermore.”

  Not a poet myself, by trade,

  I’m taking a chance to persuade.

  A man of words in many ways,

  Yet I have not the ones to say,

  All that I feel and need and want,

  And so I cheat with words of yours.

  Dedicated to my heart, I

  Must now be true. The fact being

  I’m in love with you, my angel.

  To explain the depth of my love

  For you, unconditionally,

  I must admit my loyalty.

  And to fulfill my destiny,

  To keep you and mine safe with me,

  I promise to love evermore

  And ask you to forever be

  Mine.

  I sit up to discover Jacob in his writing chair beyond the bookshelf in his bedroom.

  “Who wrote this one?” I ask, finding its meaning abundantly appropriate. Jacob doesn’t answer but stands, setting his laptop on the floor. He circles around the bed and kneels next to it.

  “I wrote it,” he states sheepishly.

  “It’s beautiful,” I tell him, reaching out to cup his face.

  “You know, I want you to be with me for the rest of my life.”

  “Yes,” I reply uncertain where this is leading.

  Jacob leans back on his knees and pretends to pull something out of his pocket. He cups his hand as he presents me with the invisible something. Literally, there’s nothing in his palm, which he flattens but holds out toward me.

  “Play along?” he questions, and I glance up at him.

  I reach forward and take the air between pinched fingers like I’m picking up a delicate package.

  “It’s a box,” Jacob explains, and I nod as if I understand, as if I see it, which I do, but it’s not the kind of box I expect from him. I wipe away my imagination. I’m in his home for now. He’s accepting the baby. It’s more than I could have asked for.

  “Open it,” he suggests, but when I sit there dumbfounded, uncertain if the lid is loose and pulls straight upward or on a hinge and tips back, Jacob continues his pantomime. He pretends to flip the lid and present me with something. I’m confused, and the crease to my brow expresses it as I glance up at him again.

  “I want to clarify something before I do the actual asking because I want there to be no misunderstanding.”

  The crease of my forehead furrows farther. “Okay.”

  “When we were in New York, I went on an errand the day you went to the spa with Ella.” He shifts to dig in another pocket and pulls out something I can’t see with his hand fisted. “And I bought something, thinking it would represent a promise. A promise to try. A promise of hope. A promise from me to you.”

  I’m still sitting as if I hold an open box inside my hand—the invisible box—and its weight is suddenly real. Its shape I can feel pressing against my palm, which begins to sweat. I can almost se
e the box within my hand. It’s white, with a white cushion, but I can’t picture what it holds. I’d never imagine what came next.

  “But I’d like this to be more than a promise.” Jacob holds out the real item in his other hand. A square-cut diamond with small purple stones around it. Lilac-colored stones. “This is my proposal, Lilac. Let me love you. Teach me to be a better man, and I promise to love you in return. I’ll be loyal and faithful, trustworthy and true. I’ll fight for you every day, fight to deserve you if you’ll be my wife. Be my evermore and marry me, angel.”

  I stare down at the ring, placed where the invisible box rests in my palm. Silent tears stream down my face, and I glance up at him, finding his expression hopeful but hesitant.

  “I love you,” I whisper, and his face lights up. He rises higher on his knees at the side of the bed, hands curling into the blanket over me.

  “Is that a yes?” he questions.

  “Evermore. That’s a yes, Jacob.”

  He picks up the ring with shaky fingers, and I flip my hand so he can place it on my ring finger. We both stare at the sparkling gem surrounding by light lilac-colored jewels.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I whisper.

  “You’re beautiful, Lilac,” he says, and finally kisses me, really kisses me. Our mouths meld together, sipping and savoring one another. My hand cups his cheek while his arms wrap around my waist. Jacob stands and climbs over me with our lips still connected, and I tip back to take his body over mine.

  “Does this mean the hand-holding phase is over?” I tease. It’s been a week.

  “We are moving on,” he says, propping up on his elbows and brushing back my hair with one hand. “But the hand-holding phase is indefinite. I’ll always hold your hand, angel. You don’t even have to ask, or sometimes you might have to ask. Say Jacob, I need you.” His eyes pierce mine. I told him in the hospital I didn’t need him. I wanted him but didn’t need him. I lied.