Waiting for You (17 page)

She pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

There was a short silence. “Look at me, Erin.” When she opened her eyes again, he took a deep breath. “Did you think I’d turn my back on you? That I wouldn’t take responsibility for my actions?”

Responsibility. How could Jake know what a cold word that was to her? Her father had always acted responsibly, never knowing…or caring…that she was starved for something more.

But she couldn’t explain any of that to Jake. It wouldn’t change anything. She of all people knew you couldn’t make someone feel things they didn’t feel on their own.

“I didn’t want you to come home if you weren’t ready. I didn’t want you to feel trapped.”

He shook his head, obviously not understanding. “But you’re carrying my child. It doesn’t matter how I feel. I have a responsibility. A duty.” His eyes went to her stomach. “To both of you.”

The knife twisted. “You don’t have to feel responsible for us. I want you to know…” She cleared her throat. This part, at least, she had ready. “I want you to know that I’m fully prepared to raise this child alone. I don’t want you to feel obligated to support us financially, or to do anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to give up your freedom. I don’t want—”

“Stop.” His words cut through her prepared statement like a whip, and she stared at him with her mouth open.

He looked like he was the one who’d gotten a knife in the gut. “It sounds like you don’t want me to be any part of this. You …” He shook his head slowly. “You must think I’m going to make a pretty lousy father.”

Her heart spasmed in her chest. “I think…” Her voice wobbled, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I think you’ll be an amazing father. But I didn’t think you’d want to be one. I mean, at this point in your life. You didn’t…you didn’t exactly ask for this.”

His expression softened a little. “Neither did you.”

She shook her head. “No. But if this hadn’t happened…I mean…” She stopped. “Look, Jake. You haven’t called me once in the last four months. It’s not like I’m a factor in your life, or anything. You moved on, and I didn’t want you to feel like you were being…dragged back here.”

He cocked his head to the side. “So this is your way of punishing me? Because I didn’t call?”

Everything she said came out wrong. “No! I just…”

She scrubbed her hands over her face, suddenly exhausted. After a moment Jake spoke more quietly. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should call it a night. I’ve been riding all day and you look—” He paused, and then reached out to touch the side of her face. “You look tired. I’m sorry, Erin. I’ve been standing here yelling at you, keeping you out here in the cold—”

“You didn’t yell.”

For the first time, he smiled. “Maybe not technically.” His thumb moved softly over her cheekbone, and the gesture was so gentle she closed her eyes.

The last time she’d experienced physical tenderness was the night she and Jake had made love. A sudden emptiness swept through her, almost making her cry. She’d gotten used to him being away. To being alone.

She didn’t dare let herself crave contact with him. She took a step back, and he let his hand drop.

“When’s the last time you had a doctor’s appointment?”

“On Monday. The baby and I are both doing fine.”

He nodded. “Good. So…I’ll come by in the morning, if that’s all right. We’ve got a lot to talk about. What’s too early?”

She shrugged. “I’m usually up by seven. You can come by anytime after eight.”

“I’ll see you then. Good night, Erin.”

As she watched him walk away towards his motorcycle with his familiar long, loose-limbed stride, she felt a pang of anxiety. Maybe she should have suggested they wait a day or two before seeing each other again. If she wanted to protect herself, she needed to keep the boundaries firm between them.

Because when it came to Jake Landry, she was never more than a step away from making a fool of herself.

***

A father. He was going to be a father.

It was after midnight, and Jake was lying in bed with his head pillowed on one bent arm, staring up at the ceiling.

He was going to be a father. He kept repeating the phrase over and over in his head, as if that would help him wrap his mind around the new reality.

Because everything was different now.

He remembered the day he’d enlisted in the Army. He’d known he was signing up for something bigger than he was—that it would never be just about him anymore. He hadn’t realized until now how much he missed that feeling.

The feeling of being needed.

Of course, the challenge would be convincing Erin that it was okay to need him. To rely on him. Hell, just to include him.

He winced every time he remembered the conversation on her porch. Sure, he’d had some excuse for being upset. He’d been completely blindsided, not to mention pissed that Erin had kept the truth from him for so long. But as he’d been riding home, back to the apartment he’d left empty for six months, he kept picturing Erin’s face and wishing he’d reacted differently.

She’d looked like she was bracing herself for bad news—resolute and vulnerable at the same time. Like she was prepared for the worst, but with a kernel of hope flickering inside her.

He just wished he knew what the hell she was hoping for.

If she wanted him out of the picture, she was going to be disappointed. He wasn’t about to leave her high and dry—or the baby she was carrying. He had no clue where things stood between him and Erin, but he knew damn well where they stood between him and his child. He was going to be a father, and he was going to be involved.

He had to believe Erin wanted that, too. At least deep down. Maybe she’d just trained herself not to have expectations.

That was something he understood.

Well, she’d just have to get used to having him around. Because he was going to be there for Erin whether she liked it or not.

Her face appeared again in his mind’s eye, and he thought about the way she’d stood with her arms wrapped around herself. She’d looked every bit as beautiful as he remembered, but she’d also looked worn out.

Of course she was worn out. She was pregnant. She’d cut herself off from him and from his family, and had carried this burden all alone for six months.

He looked up at the ceiling again, picturing Erin asleep in her room. The room where all this had begun.

A fierce wave of protectiveness swept through him. He wanted to be there right now, watching over her.

It was the most basic urge a man could feel: the urge to protect the woman carrying his child.

And the best way to do that was to marry her.

He’d never imagined himself getting married. That was the kind of thing you did when you believed in the future; when you had faith that the world was a good place.

It had been years since he’d let himself think about the future. When you were a soldier in a war zone, there was a good chance you might not have one. And losing people he cared about had taught him that faith in the future was a sure path to pain.

But marrying Erin wouldn’t be an act of faith. It was simply the right thing to do, the honorable thing to do. What better way to take care of Erin and their child?

And it wouldn’t exactly be a chore, he thought, remembering the night that had started all this. The way she’d looked up at him, with so much trust and sweetness and desire…the way her scent had surrounded him…

No, it wouldn’t be a chore. Thinking about it made him feel…good. And restless, like he should be with her right now.

He threw off his covers and got out of bed. He couldn’t go to her house until morning, but sleep wasn’t an option and he wanted to do something useful.

Her face had looked thin, and there were dark smudges under her eyes. Was she eating enough? Getting enough nutrients? Vegetables and protein and all that?

There were twenty-four hour grocery stores in Des Moines. Instead of lying in bed thinking, which wasn’t exactly his style, he could do something practical. Like making sure Erin had plenty of nutritious food in her house.

It was his job to protect and care for her now. For the first time in a long time he had a mission, and he wasn’t going to screw it up.

Chapter Eleven

Erin overslept, probably because she’d spent half the night tossing and turning, thinking about Jake. The doorbell woke her up, and even though she’d been hoping to look a little more presentable before seeing him again, all she had time to do was throw on her bathrobe and slippers before going downstairs to let him in.

“Hi,” she said, looking from him to the half dozen bags he’d set down on the porch. “What’s all this?”

“I went grocery shopping. I hope that’s okay.”

“Um…sure. Although I do actually have food in the house.”

“I figured. But you can always use more.”

It was a cold day, and Jake was wearing a sheepskin jacket over a blue chambray shirt and jeans. He’d grown his hair a little longer in the last six months, and between that and the stubble on his jaw he looked like an ad for some kind of male outdoors thing, like work boots or backpacks or fishing gear.

Meanwhile, her hair was sticking up all over the place and she hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet. “I overslept,” she said, cinching her robe tighter as she stood back to let Jake in. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a quick shower.”

“I don’t mind at all. That’ll give me time to put away the groceries. I’ll make some coffee, too. Decaf.”

She nodded. “That sounds great.”

She disappeared upstairs with a feeling of relief.

When she came back down twenty minutes later, dressed in maternity jeans and a pale pink sweatshirt, good smells and the sound of something sizzling in a pan were coming from her kitchen.

Jake was standing at the stove, cooking an omelet and whistling. He seemed so much at home that she felt a little disoriented, like she’d accidentally walked into someone else’s life.

“Hi,” she said, a little hesitantly, and Jake turned and gave her a quick grin.

“Hey. Go ahead and have a seat—breakfast will be ready in two minutes.”

 Erin sat down at her small kitchen table, which Jake had set with her Fiestaware dishes. There was a pot of coffee along with cream and sugar, and she poured herself a cup while she watched Jake butter toast to go with the omelet.

Something was different about him. After a while, she realized what it was.

She was seeing the old Jake again.

He wasn’t exactly the same, of course. He’d never be exactly the same. A man who’d been through a decade of war would always carry the weight of that experience. But the way he held himself now…it was as if he’d found a way to bear the load without turning himself into stone.

“What happened to you in Texas?” she blurted out, as he dished up the omelets and set one in front of her.

He sat down, too, looking at her with one eyebrow up. “What do you mean?”

“You seem…different. Lighter, somehow.”

He seemed to think about that as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to describe it.” He paused, looking at her. “I saw a therapist while I was down there. I’ll be seeing someone up here, too. Erin, I have…” He hesitated again. “I have post traumatic stress disorder. I don’t know if you—”

“I know what it is.”

He nodded. “My symptoms aren’t as bad as what a lot of people go through, but…that’s why I woke up the way I did, the night I was here.”

“I know. I mean…I thought that might be the reason.”

There was a flash of remembered pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that. But after what happened, I figured it was time I did something about it. So I did.”

Her heart swelled. Going through her pregnancy alone had been a small price to pay for this.

“Jake, I’m so glad. Don’t you see why I didn’t want to tell you about the baby? If you’d come home, you wouldn’t have—”

He shook his head. “Nice try, but no. If you’d told me you were pregnant, I would have come home, yeah. But do you think that would have stopped me from getting treatment? Knowing about the baby would have been even more motivation.”

She bit her lip. “Okay, I made a bad decision. But I really did think I was doing the right thing.”

He took a bite of omelet before answering. “I know you did. Just like I thought I was doing the right thing by not calling you. Both of us were wrong, so what do you say we forget about the past and move forward?”

She felt tears coming and fought to hold them back. She couldn’t get emotional like this in front of him—she just couldn’t. She didn’t want the new phase of their lives to start with her sobbing like a fool. He’d think he had to take care of her and that was the last thing she wanted.

The first drop fell, and then the second. “Damn.” She knuckled away the tears. “Don’t pay attention to this, okay? It’s my stupid hormones.” She cleared her throat. “I think that’s a good idea. About us moving forward.”

He nodded. “Okay. Good. Then all we have to do is work everything else out, right? Should be a piece of cake.”

He grinned at her, and she managed to smile back.

“We’re in this together, Erin. Like it or not.”

As Erin ate her omelet, which was stuffed with mushrooms and peppers and was the most delicious thing she’d eaten in days, she was already afraid she would like it too much.

“I’ll get the dishes,” she said when they’d both finished.

Jake frowned at her as he rose to his feet, taking her empty plate from her hands. “Are you kidding? One of the things I get to do for the next few months is wait on you. So get used to it.”

His words sent a pulse of anxiety through her. “I don’t want any special treatment just because I’m pregnant. I can take care of myself.”

Her voice trembled a little, and for a minute Jake didn’t say anything. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “I know you can.”

His gaze moved to her belly and then back to her face. “But I missed out on six months of giving you special treatment. And I’m planning to make up for lost time.”

Her heart beat painfully in her chest. The father of her baby was telling her things that any pregnant woman would dream of hearing. A part of her wanted to forget everything she’d just said, and throw herself into his arms.