Chapter 25 #2
He didn’t respond, but he held my gaze with interest while I walked toward him.
The only explanation for his actions was that he had caught some sort of second wind.
I knew he couldn’t have gotten much sleep with me around the campfire, because he was up so often stoking the fire.
I was guessing he’d had very little sleep at the hospital.
He wasn’t in his right mind, which meant I needed to tread carefully.
I was moving in three weeks. The last thing I wanted was for my heart to be lost to some flirtatious, unavailable cowboy.
So, in a very business-like manner, I gripped the bottom hem of his shirt and yanked it up past his stomach, where it got stuck at his chest. He maneuvered his arms and head out of the shirt, allowing me to pull it off of him.
With two fingers, I held it out in front of me before dropping it to the floor, next to a rumpled pair of jeans.
“I’m assuming this is where your dirty clothes go?”
We stood eyeing each other, toe to toe. We were so close that I could feel the heat emanating from his bare stomach. I could only be proud of myself for not venturing my gaze downward to see it.
Something in Jake’s demeanor had changed. Was it a distraction he needed? From his dad? Or his mom? This summer, he’d been relaxed about his teasing and even his touches, but this seemed more like…Jake unleashed. It was a bit disconcerting–in a spine-tingling kind of way.
As if he heard my thoughts, with a face rimmed with mischief, he raised his arms out wide again.
“I don’t sleep in pants either.”
With a flourish, I pushed him backward onto his bed before scampering past him, closing the door to his room at the sound of his deep chuckle.
I had no idea what to do with a four-year-old. Last night with Sophie had been relatively easy. There was an obvious schedule. After dinner, it was pajamas, a movie, snacks, and bedtime. But now, just after breakfast, the day ahead of us seemed looming and unnecessarily long.
But it turned out, Sophie always knew exactly what she wanted to be doing.
She decided she wanted to go on a princess walk outside so she could teach me how to wave like one before we got distracted by butterflies, chasing them around until Sophie became deeply preoccupied by an injured dragonfly lying on the grass.
After determining she needed to save him, she stuffed his semi-lifeless body into a mason jar before poking a few holes in the lid.
She then added a gigantic leaf for food and was satisfied she had done a great deed.
I was less satisfied, but by then, we were swinging.
And just as quick, she was finished outside and absolutely starving and needed a snack or else she would die.
When she told me that her dad always let her eat the marshmallows out of the cereal box for lunch, I decided I needed to put on my nonexistent maternal instinct and say no, for the first time all day.
As it turned out, Sophie was not a big fan of that word, but thankfully, I was able to distract her with the promise of a hot dog—along with the marshmallows for dessert after she had eaten her lunch. It was all about balance, I told myself as she reluctantly agreed.
After lunch, we sat on the couch because she insisted her dad always let her eat on the couch, and she munched on her small bowl of marshmallows. Marshmallows I had painstakingly retrieved one by one from the cereal box.
“Want to know a secret?” she asked, turning to face me with a melodramatic air.
I leaned in close, my voice matching hers. “Sure.”
“You can’t tell my daddy.”
“Okay.”
Her eyes were shining now. “I’m gonna marry one of the twins.”
I smiled, instantly delighted she would find me somebody worthy to share her secret with. “Which one?”
She shrugged. “Well, it was going to be Luke. But yesterday we were playing rodeo, and he was the bull, and I was on his back, and he knocked me off and didn’t say sorry, so I told him that I loved Wyatt instead.”
I feigned outrage at his crimes. “Was he upset?”
She nodded emphatically, her blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders.
“I’ll bet he was.” I breathed out a soft laugh. “But I think either one would be a good choice.”
I was under the impression we were still pondering that statement when she said, “Do you like Rapunzel?”
I thought for a second. “Is she the one with the long hair?”
Her face morphed into a gasp. “You don’t know?”
I slid lower onto the couch so our heads were nearly level on the cushion. “I don’t know very much about princesses.”
“She was locked in a tower and used her hair like a ladder.” She said this like it was something I should have known.
“Ohh, I’ll bet she’d be my favorite, then.”
“Can we watch the movie?”
I stifled a yawn and looked at the clock on the stove.
I didn’t know anything about babysitting children, but I was pretty sure that by this time of day, she hadn’t gotten enough vitamin D and had definitely not eaten enough vegetables.
But her eyes were so excited, and the past two days were taking their toll on me as well.
“My dad won’t care,” she declared adamantly with the slightest gleaming, mischievous edge to it that was very much like someone we both knew.
I bit back a laugh. But if Jake had a problem with it, I would have to ask for forgiveness rather than permission because the spark in her eyes had already won me over.
“He won’t?”
“No, this is his favorite movie,” she declared boldly and with much emphasis.
“Does he watch it with you?” I asked, trying desperately not to let myself get too carried away with the image of Jake Evans watching a princess movie with his daughter.
She nodded solemnly. “Like, every day. There’s a horse in it, and he loves it. Horses are his favorite animals.”
“Well, we’d better watch it, then.”
In a move as sudden as it was sweet, Sophie laid her head on my arm before tucking her legs onto the couch and curling her little body into my side.
She smelled like strawberries and cream, no doubt thanks to her shampoo.
I found the movie, covered us both with her blanket, and tried so hard to push away at a feeling that had been trying to break through for weeks.
A feeling I wasn’t sure would be welcome.
A feeling that could break me if it didn’t go away before the end of this summer.
Wanting.
The wanting of a life just like this one.
A life I wondered over the past few years if I’d ever have.
Watching princess movies with my daughter and talking about boys.
I wouldn’t be able to help her out much in the makeup department, but I could show her a few things on the basketball court.
The wanting soon became an ache in my chest, so I pushed the thought aside for another day.
And that was how I found myself giggling with this little charmer of a girl at all the best parts in her favorite movie—the first thirty minutes, to be more precise.
Soon after, her head began bobbing back and forth against my arm, the late nights and tumultuous few days for her and me both taking their toll.
I sank down lower, letting my feet rest on the coffee table, and wrapped my arm around her, holding tighter to this precious little thing.
I couldn’t imagine any woman selfish enough to leave this little girl.
To leave any child. To trade in moments like this for something else.
Jake was so guarded with who he let into Sophie’s life.
He was terrified she would experience deep loss again.
I had known this early on. And I had always respected that.
So, the past couple of months, I had tried to be a friendly neighbor, waving and chatting but not overstepping my role with her.
She let out a sigh, and her warm breath skittered across my arm. And there it was again.
That yearning.
My heart ached for what was to come in her life.
For all those moments that not having a mother might cripple her.
I hadn’t lied to Jake; there were so many amazing women throughout my childhood who had filled the role as best as they could.
And I was so grateful. But I never had dance parties in the kitchen.
I never had the Saturday afternoon movies snuggling on the couch.
The shopping trips. The sharing of secrets and crushes.
The tuck-ins and hugs and kisses goodnight.
So much of motherhood was in the details.
The small everyday bits. So much of it was in the security of knowing Mom was there.
Yearning.
This time, for a little girl I had no business yearning for.
I hadn’t meant to get attached.
But I began wondering if the whole idea of not getting attached to Jake Evans and his daughter was an idea based on an illusion. Which, by the very definition, was something impossible.
An impossible illusion.
As if the universe heard my musings, the door to Jake’s room opened.
It was too early for Jake to be up, and I was about ready to order him back to bed when he spotted us on the couch.
Instantly, I wondered how this might look to him.
Sophie, eyes closed, looking completely relaxed and snuggled against me, my arm around her little body, and with me, eyelids heavy, half asleep.
If Jake wanted me to apologize for this breach of our contract, I wasn’t going to do it.
Not today.
Not ever.
Finally, he padded closer, moving around the couch until he reached my other side.
He picked up the blanket and sat down beside me, scooting down until his legs rested on the coffee table beside mine.
He settled the blanket back over all of us before he lay his head back against the couch, leaving me with nothing except the heat from our arms pressed together and his closed eyes. With not one word of explanation.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
His voice was half exasperation without heat as he declared, “Apparently, I am now unable to sleep without you next to me. And since you refuse to sleep by me in there”—he nodded toward his bedroom—“I’m going to try this way for a while. See if it helps.”
He turned to look at me, and with a soft glint in his eyes, he motioned downward.
“My shoulder’s right here.”
It was a moment too soft for sarcasm. Too unguarded for teasing. Instead, a sea of flutters started deep in my belly, curling my toes and hitching my breath before this wave of euphoria took an epic dip and began soaring toward an incredible summit.
With one arm curled around his, the other wrapped around his daughter, I laid my head against his shoulder. He rested his head against the back of the couch, sighing as he did so, and I remember thinking it was strange how a sigh could have so much feeling attached.
And that was the last of my thoughts before we slept.