Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jessica
Today had been surreal—to say the least. The only other time I’d felt like I was in a dream was when the pregnancy test I’d taken revealed two pink lines, and Jon acted like he didn’t know who I was after I told him.
But that’d been a nightmare. Kind of like the ride into work had been that morning.
But now it felt like something else.
Hope, maybe?
Excitement?
And of course, nervousness. Especially about how things were going to go with Alan and my parents tonight.
This was going to hit them out of left field; heck, it’d hit me out of nowhere. There was no telling how they were going to react.
Alan had left with his parents but walked back into the bakery’s kitchen at four-twenty-five.
“Are you almost ready?”
“No,” I said with a humorless laugh.
“No? How can I help?”
“I don’t know… not make me go home?”
I was only joking, but Alan’s face grew serious.
“I’ll never make you do anything, Jess. If you don’t want to go home, we won’t go. It’s that easy.”
If only it were that simple.
“I’m kidding. I’m just nervous how things are going to go tonight.”
He reached for my hand, and the minute our fingers touched, it felt like electricity was tingling through my body. It made it hard to concentrate on what he said next, but I think it was something like, “Let me worry about tonight.”
I replied, “That’s easier said than done.”
Alan looked me in the eyes when he said, “I promise it’s all going to work out.”
He sounded so sure, and I wanted to believe him. But there was a little voice inside my head making me doubt things were going to go as easily as he thought.
“What if it doesn’t?” I whispered. “I can’t marry Kevin.”
Now that I’d been given a choice, becoming the next Mrs. Roberts felt unfathomable.
He leaned down, and my skin broke out in goosebumps when his lips brushed my ear.
“If it doesn’t work out, we’ll elope. Either way, you’re marrying me, not Kevin.”
I actually felt relief when I decided to trust him.
Maybe I was a na?ve girl who hadn’t learned her lesson about trusting a man when he said he was going to marry me. But the alternative made me shudder.
Especially when we walked out of the bakery to find Kevin waiting in his car, ready to take me and Ruthie home.