The smile she’d practiced wearing all day suddenly felt frozen, stiff, ready to shatter into a dozen broken pieces. She could feel all eyes turning her way as Vince said Jake’s name. But how could she blame her father? Drew had kept her parents away from the house all day. That was the plan. They had no way of knowing Jake hadn’t kept up his end of the deal.
It was the past repeating all over again. Someone she cared about—worse, someone she loved—leaving her to pick up the pieces, to try to explain.
And dammit if she wasn’t about to cry!
“It has been nearly forty years since your mother and I fell in love,” her father continued, “but I still remember how that feels. I remember every time I look in my wife’s eyes, and I remember when I look at Sophia and Jake together.” He lifted his glass. “So I’d like to propose a toast. To my lovely wife, Vanessa, for the happiness she has brought to me during our marriage, and to Sophia and Jake for all their happiness still to come.”
The toast echoed all around her until the words found a rhythm with her breaking heart. Sophia and Jake…Sophia and Jake…
The tables seemed to start to spin around her like the teacup ride at Disneyland, and she took a step toward the stage with a somewhat crazed idea of taking the microphone and announcing to one and all that there was no Sophia and Jake; there never had been a Sophia and Jake; there never would be a Sophia and Jake—
A masculine hand holding a champagne flute reached in front of her before she could take a second step. “You’ll need a glass if you’re going to drink to our toast.”
Sophia spun around so quickly, she knocked into Jake’s arm, spilling some of the apple juice onto the sleeve of his pale-blue dress shirt. He set the glass aside and shook some of the liquid from his hand. “Wasn’t quite the way I planned it.”
Reality sinking in that Jake was back, that he’d come back, Sophia snapped out of the momentary shock into a flurry of motion. “Sorry, I’m sorry.” She took the second flute from his hand, set it aside and grabbed a napkin from a nearby table to start dabbing at the spot left by the juice.
“You’re supposed to drink it, Jake, not wear it!” Sam called out and Sophia realized her parents, her family, everyone had known Jake was standing behind her throughout the entire toast.
Standing behind her the entire time.
The urge to escape, to run in any direction, pulled at Sophia until she thought she might break apart. But then Jake reached out and took her hand, and everything inside her settled and stilled, disjointed pieces coming back together again.
Giving up on drying off his sleeve, Sophia snatched back her hand, took the napkin and hit him across the chest with the flimsy fabric. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have my brothers beat the crap out of you right now!”
After a brief tug of war with the napkin, Jake set it aside and led Sophia away from the rest of the party toward the gazebo she’d decorated with garlands of silk flowers for pictures later in the evening.
Sitting down, Jake pulled Sophia beside him. “I went to see Mollie.”
His ex-fiancée?
“Not a very good reason,” she whispered.
“I needed to see Josh.” He clenched her hands as he silently pleaded with her to understand. “I know what you said about accidents happening, but I needed to see for myself that he was okay. That maybe I hadn’t screwed up so bad that I don’t deserve a second chance.”
“Did you get to see him?”
His heartbreaking smile told her the answer. “Yeah, I saw him. He—he remembers me.”
“Of course he does. You were part of his life for three years.”
“I know, but he was so little, and I wasn’t sure. But he remembers. He even remembered the accident and had to show me how much better he is at riding a bike now—without training wheels.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I know that was something you wanted to teach him.”
“You know, it’s okay,” he insisted, even though she could see how the loss had wounded him a little. “I’m glad Mollie even let him look at another bike, let alone ride one. But…she’s different now. Happier and more relaxed. She really does love Roger. She admitted that she’d wanted to get back together with him when we were together. The accident was the impetus she needed to tell him how she felt.”
Sophia wasn’t ready to forgive the other woman so quickly until Jake added, “She said it would be okay for me to still see Josh once in a while. Kind of like an honorary uncle.” Happiness and hope shone in his eyes as he added, “If you don’t mind.”
Mind? That he could love another man’s child so much?
“No,” Sophia whispered, “I don’t think I’d mind that at all.”
“Well, then, I hope you don’t mind if I tell you your plan for us to see each other pretty much sucks.”
Sophia gaped at him in shock. “What?”
“I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to play phone tag or try to fit our relationship in when I have time.” Anger sparked in his golden eyes, and Sophia realized that was what he’d been hiding the night in the apartment above the shop. Frustration, not that she’d asked for too much, but that she had expected so little.
She’d forced him to the sidelines of her life, the same way Mollie had even though it was never what she’d intended.
“Oh, Jake. I am so sorry. I thought if I didn’t ask for too much, then maybe I’d have a better chance of holding on to at least a part of you. But you’re right. That never would have worked because the truth is, I want it all. Lover, husband, father, friend…everything.”
“It’s yours. I’m yours. I love you, Sophia. I spent years thinking I wasn’t a family man, but the truth is, I’m like one of those dusty old things on Hope’s shelves, just waiting for the right woman to come along.”
“You’re not so dusty or so old.”
“But you are the right woman for me. You and your baby are the family I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Marry me, Sophia. Let’s make this real.”
Sweet, swift happiness rushed through her. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
His kiss was filled with promise as he pulled her into his arms. “I love you,” she whispered as he lifted his head. From the yard behind them, she could hear the sounds of the celebration continuing—for one lifetime of love thirty-five years in the making and for another lifetime just beginning.
As if picking up on her thoughts, Jake said, “We better do this pretty quick. Your parents already have thirty-five years on us. If we don’t start soon, we’ll never catch up.”
“Oh, we’ll get there,” Sophia vowed with a smile. “Just wait.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0804-9
HER FILL-IN FIANCÉ
Copyright © 2011 by Stacy Cornell
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