For the Girls' Sake
Page 22
She wrapped both hands around the mug, willing its heat to give her courage. "I was wrong. I..."
His expression was shuttered, just like that. "You don’t love me."
"I shouldn’t have told you I do," Lynn corrected him. "I was pressuring you. We had an arrangement, and it was working fine. I..." She bowed her head. "I got scared."
"Scared of what?" Adam asked, voice gritty.
"I know you like me and...and want to be with me. At least I assume..." She stole a look at him and hurried on. "I was afraid after a while you wouldn’t. That I wouldn’t be able to stand it."
"You must have known I was falling in love with you," he shocked her by saying.
Afraid to grasp the hope that she had been nursing all along, Lynn looked up. "No," she said just above a whisper. "No, I had no idea." She squeezed her eyes shut. "But you don’t. You couldn’t make yourself say the words. ‘I care.’ That was the best you could get out."
He touched her at last, his hand cupping her chin. In a slow, deep voice, he said, "I love you desperately and passionately. I was just idiot enough not to know it."
“Not to know..." This felt surreal. A too-easy ending to a daydream. She didn’t dare believe him.
Adam’s mouth twisted. "Sit down. I need to tell you about Jennifer."
She obeyed, watching the expressions on his face, the anguish, the regret, the rueful awareness of how blind he’d been, as he talked about his young wife and their brief marriage.
"They kept saying she was dead. Wanting me to sign papers so that her organs could be harvested." He scowled. "What a word. Harvested. I signed, but deep inside I didn’t believe she was dead. She’d open her eyes suddenly and smile. Only she didn’t. They cut Rose—no, Shelly—out of her, and then the surgeons took Jenny away. I didn’t see her after they pulled the plug. I didn’t want to at the funeral home. I always thought an open casket was macabre."
"You never said goodbye," she said, understanding.
"I thought I had. But I dreamed about her. I missed her like crazy," he said simply. "I felt guilty when I met you and stopped missing her."
Somehow Lynn had set down the mug and was gripping Adam’s hand in hers. He held on so tightly her bones ached.
"I started falling in love with you that first time we met, at the hospital. I wanted to touch your hair." With his free hand he stroked it now, and she felt as if each strand was an exquisitely sensitive nerve. "When we were together last night, you said, ‘I want you,’ and it wasn’t enough. I felt like a jerk, but I needed you to say, ‘I love you.’ What didn’t occur to me was why I needed to hear those words."
“But when I did say them..."
Their grip shifted; their fingers curled together. "Do you know what I felt?" he asked. "Triumph. Exhilaration. She loves me, I thought. It took me five minutes too long to realize that I love you back."
"You didn’t come after me," she said painfully.
He made a sound that hurt to hear. "I had to...adjust. I’m a deliberate man. I like to be sure."
"But you are?"
"Jennifer," he said, "was my first real love. I want to believe we’d still be happily married if she had lived. But I’ve changed in these three, almost four, years. When I try to see her being the mother you are, I wonder. Jenny was used to having her way. A baby was a grand new toy to her, I’m afraid."
"I think," Lynn said carefully, "all women feel that way when they’re pregnant for the first time. The baby seems so unreal! Of course, everything will go the way the books say it will. You don’t really understand how unrelenting having a baby is until you’re on your own and it’s too late to chicken out. I saw that picture of her. Pregnant, I mean. She looked so proud and so happy. I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have loved Rose as much as you do."
His mouth tilted into a crooked smile. "Maybe so. But she’s dead. Part of me will always regret she didn’t have a chance to be a mother. We had such dreams. Reality is, I’m the lucky one. I have Rose and Shelly and you. I wouldn’t go back if I could. I want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life, hold you close every night, use our vacations to go to Disneyland with the kids. I want to argue with you, clean the kitchen with you, and grow old with you. If—" he swallowed "—you can forgive me for hurting you like that."
Lynn tumbled into his arms. "Oh, Adam," she mumbled against his neck, "I’m the one who almost messed everything up. I think it was just like with Brian. I wasn’t comfortable. I like...controlling everything. Always knowing where I stand. I got a little panicky, and I convinced myself I’d be better off the way I was before."
"Were you?" He held her away from him, his eyes dark, turbulent.
She laughed and cried at the same time. "These last months have been the best time in my life. Knowing you love me, too, is like...like..."
"Buying a thousand shares of Microsoft when it went public?"
The laughter won, though her cheeks were wet. "Something like that. I was thinking more of fireworks and Christmas in July and all those clichés."
"Fireworks," he said, his thumb teasing her lower lip, "we can manage."
His kiss proved the point. Giddy from relief and love, Lynn whispered, "Let’s go to bed."
"Mmm." Adam gripped her shoulders and set her away from him. "One last thing. I’d like to wake up next to you every morning, but I’ll settle for four mornings a week if you want to keep the store here. You need to know that."
"Thank you." She pecked him on the lips. "But I hate the drive, and I want to be with you. I might take a while off and think about what to do next. Or, hey, I might decide to take on Powell’s Books after all! In my own small way, of course."
"Uh-huh. And now—" he stood and held out a hand for hers "—your offer is sounding better and better."
They did, of course, pause partway down the hall to watch thankfully as their daughters slept.
"Right now," Adam said softly, his words tickling Lynn’s ear, "I feel blessed."
"Triply blessed," she agreed, and blinked away tears that were too joyful to shed.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460301319
Copyright © 2013 by Janice Kay Johnson
Originally published as WHOSE BABY?
Copyright © 2000 by Janice Kay Johnson
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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