Page 5 of Inevitably Yours

Right, like that is ever going to happen. If I could forget it, I’d have done so by now and saved us all a whole helluva lotta heartache.

John’s eyes were already watering and the occasional sneeze interrupted the relative calm of that end of the house. The fact he wasn’t rapid-fire sneezing and his eyes hadn’t swollen shut yet was a testament to his immunotherapy working. But his allergies weren’t completely suppressed, so he spoke to Augusta’s back without fear of startling her.

“Where’s Skynyrd?” John hated to admit his fondness for that asshole cat, but he couldn’t help himself. Of course, his affection was based on the introduction to him rather than the cat’s glowing personality. He watched Augusta feed Lynyrd and speak to him as if he were a baby. His heart traveled back in time to that first moment she had looked at him with that sparkle in her eyes—a look that John now recognized, though he refused to use the word.

Augusta had called him frantic after hitting a stray cat during a storm. He showed up, and between the two of them, managed to get the damn thing to the vet, despite his allergy and brand new leather interior. The passenger seat, door panel, and console were replaced after that. Between the blood and the scratches, there was no salvaging them, but it was worth it. Augusta wouldn’t let the cat out of her sight ever since. That…thing was a terror to everyone except her. With her, he was a genuine pussy cat. She has that effect on males, even me.

That was the night John noticed she looked at him the same way she did the cat, like she recognized something loveable and redeemable that no one else could see. John believed once she saw that part of someone, she would never give up until she rescued them. But the hurt in her eyes he witnessed moments ago made him question if that were still true.

“Skynyrd is holed up in the back bedroom with Rick. They have become best friends ever since I brought Rick into the family. Isn’t that right, Lenny? Yes, it is. He has Rick, and I have you.” She kissed the cat’s snowy white head and gently lowered him to the counter, stroking his fur while he ate from the bowl of food she’d painstakingly prepared for him.

At some point, she quit talking directly to John and spoke to Lynyrd. Another wave of guilt crashed into him. He recognized her avoidance habits by now. He recognized a great many things; just because he was too much of a coward to say them aloud or even think them, didn’t mean he didn’t take note of them.

“Skynyrd has a friend? One he doesn’t shred or terrorize?”

Again, she spoke to John, by speaking to Lynyrd, “Uh-huh. I think rescuing Rick was the best thing to happen to Lenny and Skin, right?” I really screwed up this time. She cooed to the cat as he contentedly ate and ignored her. I’ve never been so jealous of a cat in my life.

“Skyn just needed a friend, and well, Lenny here is a loner, a real ‘Freebird,’ huh? Anyway, those two are like peas and carrots. They tone down each other’s negative traits, and they both leave Lenny alone to do his own thing. We couldn’t be happier, could we?”

Lenny maybe; Augusta, not so much.It was crystal clear she was deeply hurt, and John was so flustered, he didn’t know how to fix it for her. He knew what she wanted. Hell, he knew what he wanted, but it wasn’t that simple. Not anymore. Honestly, it would’ve never been simple, but at least it would’ve been doable at some point.

All John wanted to do was wipe that hurt from her face…bring that joy back to her that had always seemed so ingrained. She was never not-happy. Even when brooding over something she feared she did or shouldering someone else’s hurt—which she did often—she still seemed to be happy at her core. She had a poetic soul, one that wrung the beauty and joy from everything she experienced—the extraordinary, the mundane, and even the bad.

John wanted to bring back that look, wrap it in a bow, put it under a tree, and watch it return to her eyes as she peeled back the shiny paper. Dear Lord, she even has me thinking poetically. She gifted him with that look the night they rescued Skynyrd…and every day since until he threw it away with his pigheadedness and inability to accept this pregnancy and just be there for her. She needed him to rub her feet and bring her ice cream at two in the morning. He wanted to make love to her and watch her experience the heightened awareness of her own body during this amazing time in her life.

John shut that line of thinking down as quickly as it sprung up. That was not the path laid out before them. They chose their path over the last year and a half. Or rather, he chose it when he kept everyone at arm’s length, even Augusta. He chose it again when Tori and Erika orchestrated their master plan to get Augusta and Dax together. He had backed off in a failed attempt to make everyone happy; he was not a rock-the-boat kind of guy. Well, not anymore, anyway.

Once John realized Stacy and Dax had feelings for each other, it freed him from guilt to pursue Augusta. But his own personal issues gave him cold feet. Then, just as they were warming up, Gus chose not to give them a chance when she decided to carry someone else’s child.

Maybe when this was all in the past, there would be a trail for them, one they could walk together and see where it led, but John had his doubts. He didn’t know if he could watch her grow more beautiful each day with a child that wasn’t his.

Not again, never again.

As it was, his past was already tainting his view, and that hurt Augusta. John could tolerate a great many things in life, but hurting her wasn’t one. He just wanted to make her smile…and laugh…and scream with passi...No. He cut his thoughts off abruptly. That was not what she wanted from him anymore, and it certainly was not what he needed.

Knowing he was digging the hole deeper didn’t stop him from trying to explain. But how does a man explain his issues with her pregnancy to the pregnant woman? I guess it’s time just to tell her.Tell her about Deborah, tell her about…everything. Then she’ll understand why I can’t be in her life right now, his inner voice assured him. John was positive that voice was wrong, but what else was there to do at this point?

He felt he needed to clear things up with her before he left. John was flying Tori and Erika out to scout the possibility of a new store franchise for their clothing line, FORM wear—named for their friend Melanie, who they lost. Now that they were devoting more time to family and other pursuits, they were loosening the reigns of their baby and letting others handle the day-to-day operations.

John opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the sound of Linda Ronstadt asking when she would be loved. Augusta blushed and reached for her phone. If John’s heart were already in a blender, the ringtone pushed the frappe button.

Most people picked a song they loved for their ringtone, and John knew them all. Walker’s was “Tattooed Millionaire,” and Erika’s was “Walking on Sunshine,” and had been since he met them. With Tori, it changed weekly, but it was always a movie line or song. Michael’s was, of course, a Superficial Sinner song. The man loves the sound of his own voice. Dax’s was “FOAD,” and Stacy chose whatever was inappropriate and could irritate the most people. But Augusta, hers was fluid, always a direct reflection of her mood.

She had confessed that to him the one and only time they almost kissed had been interrupted by “Leather and Lace.” After blushing a most becoming shade of crimson, she admitted she changed it as often as was needed, and sometimes even more than once a day.

The reddening of her cheeks now, and the embarrassed look she cast through her lowered lashes, told him she remembered his knowledge about her ringtone and she regretted telling him. But John suffered the song’s meaning viscerally. She felt unlovable, and he couldn’t live with that. He wanted, no, needed to do something to let her know she wasn’t unlovable. Hell, she is the most lovable woman on the planet. It wasn’t that she was unworthy of love so much as he was unworthy of giving it to her.

In his panic over sealing the fracture in her heart, John blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Do you want to go to dinner with me tonight?”

Her shocked reaction morphed into one of hope. The false hope his invitation gave her made the realization of his error settle in the pit of his stomach like gas station sushi. He meant it one way, should have elaborated, but she took a whole other meaning. Just one more way you keep hurting this girl, you asshole.

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