Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
As we walked back to the loft, I received a text from Matt.
Matt: Do you have plans tonight?
I frowned at my phone. I glanced over at Jackson, who was trying to wrestle a stick out of Chloe’s mouth. Chloe was in heaven. Jackson was the only person I wanted to spend time with.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” my voice sounded casual.
A minuscule twitch touched his eye. “Sorry, I have plans tonight.”
I knew he was lying. He followed that with an easy smile.
I smiled back, and we continued to walk.
“Have a good night,” he said when he got to his truck. The guy could not get away from us fast enough.
“You too.” I stood and watched as he gunned his truck backward. Well, I had just found the one thing that scared our SEAL. Telling him that you loved him sent him running in the opposite direction.
Upstairs, I texted Matt back .
Me: Just having a quiet night. Talk tomorrow?
Matt: For sure.
Chloe curled up to me on the couch and laid her chin on my knee. I started to cry. This was a colossal mess. What was I doing? Why was this so difficult? I felt like I was in a small sailboat in the middle of wild seas. Disoriented. Alone. Scared. The only thing I was sure about was this was all going to end very badly.
I was so stupid. Jackson was the only person willing to get into that boat with me, and he had offered to help me. And instead of being eternally grateful, I questioned his reasons and scared him off so bad, he jumped ship and swam away.
I had no idea what my problem was. I wished for about the thousandth time that my granny was here to counsel me. I missed her mischievous blue eyes that sparkled so bright. What would she tell me to do? She would have loved Jackson. I wasn’t so confident that she would have been as enamored with Matt, but Jackson would have scored high in her books.
I heard a car pull up and then there were footsteps coming upstairs. I dashed into the bathroom to wash my tearstained face.
“Emily?” Matt bellowed.
“Matt?” I stuck my head out the door. “What are you doing here?”
He carried some grocery bags. “Don’t say no. I was at the deli, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you sitting here all by yourself. So, I thought I would cook you dinner.”
“Matt,” I said weakly. All I wanted was some peanut butter toast and my bed.
“Don’t say no,” he pleaded. “You were there for me every single day through thick and thin. Let me cook for you. I don’t even have to eat with you. Just let me do something nice for you.”
I rubbed my eye. “I can’t promise I’ll be good company.”
“Come on, Em. It’s me. Just me. If anyone knows how to hang, it’s us.”
I sat at the island and watched as Matt cooked. He didn’t cook often, but when he did, he knew what he was doing. Tonight he prepared my favorite dish, sweet and sour chicken on brown rice noodles with an apricot ricotta salad on fresh greens. I tried to remember the last time he had cooked this particular dish for me, but it had been months.
He kept the conversation light. Talked about how he was going to go back to work soon. His firm had been kind to him throughout his accident. Next week he would start to work out with a personal trainer.
His phone rang.
“Hey mom….no. I’m just at the loft. Cooking dinner for Emily.”
She talked at length. Then he put his hand over the receiver. “Do you mind if we have one more? My mom is feeling kind of low.”
My mouth parted. I thought he would cook and leave me to eat in peace. The last person I wanted to see right now was Irene. I humiliated her son in public. The fallout promised to be tense.
“Are you sure she wants to see me?” I whispered.
Matt frowned in confusion. “Yeah, why not?”
Apparently, I still didn’t have the bead on how this family functioned.
“Okay.”
“Come on over mom. We’d love to have you.”
Irene took a cab over and gave me a warm kiss on both cheeks. She carried a bottle of wine for her and Matt.
“How are you feeling?” her tone sounded warm. My body felt tense from anticipating the worst.
“Uh, okay.”
“Oh,” she touched her chest. “When I was pregnant with Matt, I was sicker than a dog for the first six months. Couldn’t keep anything down. The only thing I could manage was rhubarb.”
This was not how I had envisioned this conversation going.
“Oh, wow.”
“My mother came up with at least a dozen different recipes. Rhubarb soup. Rhubarb juice. Rhubarb pie.” She bestowed another warm smile on me.
“Do you still like rhubarb?”
She peeled with laughter. “That's hilarious. Yes. I do. I still love rhubarb.”
Matt set the table for three and then ushered us to sit down. They acted so normally that it felt surreal. Hadn’t they read the memo that I had left Matt at the alter because I had gotten pregnant with Jackson.
Irene talked at length about her garden. She was looking forward to going to Turks and Caicos with her friend, and she was thinking of getting a dog when she got back.
We finished eating, and suddenly the conversation turned.
Irene carefully set down her wine glass and looked at me. “So, Emily. Have you given any thought to your next steps?”
The question caught me off guard. “I haven’t come up with a definitive plan.”
She rubbed her chin thoughtfully while she looked at me. “Raising a child alone is a big responsibility.”
“Yes.”
“Mom, we agreed to give her some time.”
I glanced at the two of them. “Give me time?”
Matt gave me a benevolent smile. “I meant what I said yesterday. About still wanting to marry you.”
“Oh. I wasn’t sure.”
Irene leaned forward. “I imagine that Jackson has been very honorable in offering to marry you and make an honest woman out of you.”
I swallowed but refused to answer .
“I know that Jackson has the best of intentions, but I worry about you marrying someone like him. You two are very different. And just with his dangerous job and being gone for so many months of the year.”
I felt disloyal discussing Jackson while he wasn’t here. “We haven’t made any decisions about our future yet.”
“Yes,” she smiled. “I’m sure you'll make the right decision.”
“Thank you.”
She looked at Matt. “Jackson was always so popular with the girls. In high school do you remember how many girls would phone or just randomly show up at our house?”
Matt laughed. “Dozens.”
“As a mother, I had to enforce the no bedroom, no closed door rule. He always had a wild side and matters didn’t improve when he joined the navy. With all the booze and his buddies to egg him on.” She shrugged and looked at Matt. “Who would have imagined that he would settle down before you, Matt?”
I had shown up to a gun fight with a wet napkin. I had no defense against this woman. She hit every scared nerve in my body.
She painted a picture of Jackson that I hadn’t yet seen, but I could easily imagine. An incredibly hot Navy SEAL with big muscles and navy friends and a long line of women willing to jump in his bed.
I remembered him turning on his charms towards Julie that night at my party. He had stood so close to her and made her feel like she was the only one in the room. Hot jealousy and incredible insecurity knifed through me. The man could get anyone he wanted. He was beautiful, had an incredible body and a job that men coveted and women swooned over. He even vocalized that he didn’t want a baby or commitment. And his reward was getting stuck with me?
How long would our marriage last? How long would he be able to sit in the box before he needed to break free? It wasn’t a question of if he would leave, it was more a question of when. I could write the book on how to play it safe in life. Jackson made his living running towards the most dangerous things in this world. Throw a crying baby into the mix, and he would be clawing at the walls of our marriage within a year.
Chloe whined and gave a sharp bark. Footsteps, taking two stairs at a time. I heard the door slide open. I did not turn around and instead watched Matt and Irene freeze in their tracks.
Irene recovered first, by touching her throat. “Hi, Jackson.”