Page 96 of Embracing the Change

“Do you care that he runs it well?” I asked. “You don’t have many happy memories from there.”

“I care that my mom loved him. I care that he loved my mom. I care, if she was still alive, me doing that would make her happy. That’s what I care about.”

Jamie so very loved his mother, the beautiful Cordelia Oakley (I could also say she was beautiful, considering I’d seen pictures).

He told me the story, and I still felt the depth of the honor I’d experienced when he’d bestowed it on me.

The story was, after her passing, Jamie had found his mother’s journals. As such, he’d read about the love affair she’d carried on with the foreman of the ranch her husband owned. She’d also written about him asking her to run away with him.

She’d had three children by that time, and she was well-acquainted with AJ’s nastiness, not to mention the way he wielded his wealth as a weapon to perpetuate it, which she feared would mean she’d lose her children, so she didn’t feel she could.

Jamie’s real father couldn’t stick around and watch her husband treat her like a chattel.

He’d unknowingly left her pregnant with his son, found himself a wife and started his own family.

So, when AJ had finally set her free, she didn’t go to the man she loved to tell him what they shared. She didn’t want to negatively affect his life, because, by then, he had what he’d always wanted. A wife. A family. And his own ranch.

It was a tragic story, one Cordelia bore the brunt of, but through her journals, she’d unwittingly left some of it to Jamie.

I moved a hand to stroke his jaw and said carefully, “This plan of yours is keeping you from him, and your two brothers, and, darling, none of you are getting any younger.”

“I know,” he murmured.

“It’s also keeping all that from Judge and Dru.”

He said nothing to that, except emitting a soft grunt.

All right.

We were done talking about this.

For now.

I settled back beside him.

He curled his hand on my hip, the pads of his fingers digging in. “I want you to know, you’re heard, Nora. Let me think about it.”

“Okay, honey,” I whispered.

“Have a good night?” he asked.

“The best. Dinner was remarkable. The chefs there are very talented. And my company was second to none.”

He rolled into me so we were side by side, and then he tangled us up together, but he made no reply.

Then again, the physical reply he made worked very well.

“We’re spending a lot of time at my apartment after you proclaimed we’d eventually be living at your brownstone,” I remarked.

“And we’ll continue to do so until the bed I ordered is delivered. I can’t have you in the bed I shared with Lindy, and I can’t ask you to share that bed with me.”

God, I loved him so much.

Even so, I was me.

So I asked, “What if the bed you selected doesn’t fit with my decoration plans?”

“Then we’ll get rid of it.”

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