Page 113 of Burning Love
“Like what?” her mother asked, frowning.
“I don’t know. If he says it and it’s not what I want, then it will hurt too much. It’s best to just let things play out.”
Her mother shook her head. “That makes no sense at all. Do you love Jace?”
“I do,” she whispered and knuckled a runaway tear off her cheek.
“Have you told him?”
“No. I don’t know how he feels. He’s thirty-seven years old and has never been with a woman longer than three months. We are just over two. He’s never taken a relationship seriously and I know it has to do with his mother. He can’t forgive her for what she did to him.”
“I understand where that might be hard,” her mother said. “But she had her reasons, right or wrong.”
“They were wrong. But what she did makes it hard for him to open up. I know it.”
“He’s shown no signs of opening up at all?”
“I met his family two weeks ago. A few days after our doctor’s appointment. He went with me to the appointment. He wants to go to them all.”
“That is all positive,” her mother said. “He wants to be part of it. Not just concerned when the baby comes but of your healthcare.”
“He’s nuts about that. He’s always asking if I’m drinking enough. He texts me daily to see how I’m doing. He calls at night to talk if I don’t see him.”
Jace wanted to see her daily, but it didn’t always work out.
He was at the firehouse or he was working late with his father too.
She had a job.
They didn’t need to be in each other’s space all the time. She didn’t want them to get on each other’s nerves or sick of the other one yet.
And she didn’t want him to want to be with her more only because of the baby.
“That’s great,” her mother said. “What areyoudoing to show you love him?”
“We are spending more than double the time together. I’m the same way I’ve been. We talk about me, but not the baby. I mean, we talk about if it’s a boy or girl. Those things.”
“But not the important stuff.”
“It’s early.”
“Don’t be stubborn, Talia.”
“I get it from you.”
“Sad but true. How long are you waiting until you tell everyone about the baby?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t even want you to know yet. No one knows but the three of us now. We wanted to wait until the end of the first trimester.”
“Will you tell Jace that I know?”
“No,” she said.
“Why don’t you have him come to dinner tonight.”
“He’s working and if he came to dinner, now that you know, you’ll let it slip. You just can’t help yourself.”
Her mother laughed. “I can’t. But I’m still excited. You’ll figure it out, Talia. I know you will. But don’t wait too long either. You have a bad habit of that. When you don’t want to decide something, you put it off until it comes to you. You’re on the clock now.”
