by Katie Meyer
“Want another burger?” Ryan asked as he flipped a sizzling patty on the grill.
The smoky smell of the meat tempted her, but she was full to bursting from the one she’d already had, plus baked beans and coleslaw. “No thanks, I’m stuffed.”
“Too full for ice cream later?” he teased. “That’s a shame, I bought your favorite kind.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’ll find room. I just need a little time to digest.” She stretched out her legs along the deck steps where she was playing a half-hearted game of fetch with Goldie. “And thanks for cooking. Again.” He was by far the better cook and had taken over most of the meal prep duties.
“Hey, my reasons are purely selfish. I figure if I feed you well you’ll have more energy for later.” The heat in his eyes left no doubt as to what she’d need that energy for. Not that she was complaining. Her body was sore in all the right places, but she’d never felt so relaxed, so at peace. No doubt there would be challenges in the future as they adjusted to parenthood, but knowing she’d have Ryan by her side not just as a co-parent but as her husband, by her side forever, made it all seem so much less impossible than it had just a few days ago.
Drowsy from the sun, the meal and a serious lack of sleep, she laid her head on the stair railing and let her eyes drift closed. Goldie, accepting that their ball game was over, agreeably lay down on the bottom step, her head a warm weight on Jessica’s feet.
When the doorbell rang, interrupting the droning of the bees and the soft hiss of the grill, she forced herself upright.
“Don’t,” Ryan said, turning down the burners. “You rest, I’ll get it.”
She eased back down, sending him a smile of gratitude. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” She watched him jog toward the gate that connected the backyard to the front, enjoying the view, before closing her eyes again. Maybe she’d just take a little nap while he finished with the dinner clean up. She was right at that delicious space between half-awake and full-on sleep when she felt a shadow over her.
Looking up, she found Ryan with a large envelope in his hand, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“What is it?” she asked, but she already knew, her stomach sinking as dread washed over her. How stupid of her to let him answer the door when she knew this was on its way. But then, she’d been expecting it to come by regular mail, not a delivery service.
“You tell me.” He sat beside her and handed it over. “I had to sign for it—a courier brought it from that big shot legal firm with all the billboards. He apologized for taking so long, said it was supposed to have been delivered Friday. He said you were expecting it.”
She took the envelope, marveling that something that had seemed so important, so monumental, could be contained in such a small package. Just paper and ink, and yet it had the power to change her life.
“Jessica, why were you expecting legal papers? What’s going on? I know we said the marriage was temporary, but you agreed to wait until the baby was old enough for daycare before ending things. If those are divorce papers...” Something that sounded very much like fear thickened his voice.
“No, of course they aren’t divorce papers.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, wiping sweat from his forehead despite the mild September weather. “Man, I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions like that. It’s just I’ve waited so long, hoping you’d feel what I do, and I thought maybe...” He laughed, “Obviously the lack of sleep has made me stupid. I know you wouldn’t keep anything important like that from me.”
Guilt turned the meal she’d eaten into tar in her stomach, heavy and awful and impossible to dislodge. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. How could she explain to him that she had done exactly that? No, she hadn’t filed for divorce, but she’d kept secrets. She’d fully intended on taking the inheritance money and leaving. She still could.
Except she couldn’t imagine anything worse than living without him.
* * *
Ryan stroked a strand of hair from Jessica’s too-white face. Either he’d really hurt her feelings, or he’d worn her out more than he’d realized over the last two days. “Hey, I didn’t mean it. Forgive me, okay?”
She slowly shook her head. “No. I mean, there’s nothing to forgive. This isn’t on you. It’s on me.”
His hand dropped. “What are you talking about?” Had he been right about her wanting a divorce? Even if he had, surely she wouldn’t want it now, right? Not after she’d admitted she loved him. Hands shaking, he picked the letter up. “What’s in this, Jessica? What’s got you so upset?”
“It’s financial paperwork.” She laughed, a dull, lifeless sound full of irony and regret. “So I can access my trust.”
“A trust? Like, money?” None of this made any sense. They’d talked about how tight it would be for her to live on a cop’s salary as a single mom. Never had she said anything about having money socked away somewhere. Money, or a lack of it, was why she’d been living with her mother, why she’d needed scholarships for school. When had that changed?
“Yeah, a lot of money, actually.” She smiled, but it fell flat, never reaching her eyes. “I inherited it from my grandmother a while back, but I don’t get access to it until the birth of my first child.”
“Oh. Wow.” He tossed the idea around in his head, and found he didn’t care. He almost dropped the subject and went back to the grill, but something niggled at the back of his brain.
Jessica had rejected his initial proposal of marriage. It was only when he’d pointed out the financial benefits that she’d agreed to the idea. But that didn’t make sense—not when she knew she had a big chunk of cash coming as soon as the baby was born. If this inheritance was as big as she’d implied, then she must have had another reason to say yes to him. What was it? And why did she look so miserable now? They said money couldn’t buy happiness but it usually didn’t make people this actively miserable either.
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you aren’t telling me.” As soon as he said the words he saw the guilt on her face. Hell, how bad could it be?
“It’s just, Grams had some stipulations. That’s why there’s been so much paperwork. This has been processing for ages.”
“What kind of stipulations?”
“I have to prove that I’m married in order to get the money.”
He froze. “And you knew this when I proposed? Is that why you agreed to marry me, so you could get your inheritance?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
“And when you got it? What were you going to do then?” She didn’t answer, she didn’t need to. His blood heated, but this time the fire was fueled by anger, not lust. “You were going to leave, weren’t you? Everything we agreed to, raising the baby together, staying together for a year, you didn’t mean any of it. You were going to take Grandma’s cash and leave.” How could he have been so dumb? He’d thought he was being smart, convincing her to marry him, coming up with a plan to raise the baby, biding his time until she realized her feelings for him so they could build a future together...and all along she’d had her own plan—one that didn’t involve him. She’d played him for a fool, and he had let her do it. Furious, he shoved off the step and headed inside. He needed to get away from her before he said something he regretted.
He let the back door slam behind him, only to hear it open again as Jessica followed him in. Goldie’s nails clicked on the hardwood floor as she joined them, sensitive enough to pick up on the tension in the air, even if she didn’t understand the storm brewing between her owners.
“Ryan, wait. Please.”
He stopped, turning slowly to face her. “What, Jessica? Is there something else you haven’t been honest about? Any other lies I should know about?”
“I never lied to you, Ryan.”
He shook his head. “No, I guess you didn’t. But
you sure as hell weren’t honest with me.” He grabbed his keys.
“Where are you going?”
He tried not to hear the tears in her voice. This was his time to be upset, not hers. “I don’t know.”
“When will you be back?”
He shrugged. He didn’t have a plan. Goldie snuffled his hand, looking for an invitation to go with him. “Sorry, girl, not this time.”
“Please, Ryan, don’t go. I know I should have told you, but this doesn’t have to change anything. It doesn’t have to change how we feel about each other. I love you, Ryan. You have to believe that.”
A sad sort of chuckle forced its way past the lump in his throat. “I wish I could. But how can I? How can I believe anything you say, when you’ve been hiding something like this for months now? You had so many chances to tell me, and you didn’t.” He opened the front door and then paused. “And you know what? If you had told me from the start, I would have understood. I would have helped you get the money. I just wouldn’t have wasted my time falling in love with you.”
She was crying when he closed the door. And damned if that didn’t hurt him more than his own broken heart.
* * *
Watching Ryan walk out of the house, out of her life, was like having a body part ripped off. It physically hurt—more than when she’d broken her leg on her brother’s skateboard as a kid, more than when the drunk had fallen on her at the bar, more than the stupid Braxton Hicks contractions she’d started having recently.
More than losing her dad.
Until now, losing her father had been the worst thing that had ever happened to her. First, when her parents split up and he’d left, and then again when he’d died. She’d thought nothing could ever hurt as much as the hole his death had ripped in her heart. But the pain of losing Ryan was every bit as sharp. It didn’t make sense—she and Ryan had only had a few days to truly explore what they meant to each other. But somehow, discovering love and then having it taken away in such a short time didn’t diminish the effect, it heightened it.
And the worst part was that it was her own stupid fault. She could have said no to the inheritance and Ryan’s proposal and just seen what happened naturally. Or she could have told him about it, and let him decide if he still wanted to marry her, knowing she was doing it only for the money.
Only that would have been a lie too.
She’d put plenty of energy into pretending otherwise, but the truth was, she’d had feelings for Ryan from the start. It had just been easier to call it chemistry, or hormones, or plain old lust than to accept that she might have honest-to-goodness emotions tied up in their complicated relationship. How broken was she that she’d pushed away the most perfect chance at a family she could imagine? Was she really that afraid of putting her trust in someone? Did she need to be in control that badly?
Sinking to the cold tile floor she knew the answer was yes. She’d been more comfortable with planning a life as a single mother than the uncertainty of trying to form a family with Ryan, had chosen predictability over a chance at true happiness. “Goldie, that’s messed up.”
The faithful dog’s tail thumped on the ground at the mention of her name. She was a good dog, and great emotional support, but not much of a conversationalist. And Jessica needed to talk this through, to hear someone tell her it would be okay. Because right now, it was hard to imagine how it could be.
Cassie, after Jessica made her promise not to say anything to Alex, led the rescue team, showing up at the front door only minutes after getting Jessica’s tearful request. Dani and Sam arrived shortly after, the former carrying ice cream and the latter with two big boxes of pizza. Soon the kitchen was filled with chatter and curse words and the aroma of tomatoes and oregano. Accepting the plate of food Dani pretty much forced on her, Jessica sat at the table and let herself feel grateful for the bond she had with these women, knowing that if anything could mend the sharp pieces of her broken heart it was the friendship they shared.
“Jessica, I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Dani apologized for the umpteenth time. “I should have warned you that the paperwork might come via courier.”
“You had no way of knowing, and even if you had, it wouldn’t have changed the end result—not really. I couldn’t have hidden the paperwork from him forever. The truth was bound to come out.”
“Still—”
“Stop it. You’ve been an incredible help. I wouldn’t have even known how to get access to my trust without you there to translate all that legalese into English. No, the only person at fault here is me. I betrayed his trust, and he can’t forgive that.” Heavy mozzarella curdled in her stomach. “And I don’t blame him.”
“Well I do,” Sam argued, the pretty blonde’s fair skin flushed with indignation. “You were scared. You two barely knew each other, and you did what you thought was best to protect yourself and the baby. He needs to understand that your motives were good, even if it wasn’t the right decision.”
“And I think he will, in time.” Cassie’s was the calming voice of reason, her posture relaxed as she petted Goldie. “You blindsided him, and he reacted strongly. But if he loves you he’s going to be just as miserable as you are over this. You just have to give him some time to realize that holding on to a grudge doesn’t help either one of you. Sometimes men can be slow that way.”
Jessica shook her head. “I don’t know. Remember, I’m the one that kept denying what was going on between us. He was up-front right from the beginning, but I pushed him away.” She shoved her pizza away, her appetite gone. “Why did I do that?”
“Because if you pushed him away, he couldn’t choose to leave.” Dani’s matter-of-fact pronouncement had Jessica’s head whipping toward her.
“What do you mean?” Could it be that stupidly simple?
Dani shrugged. “You were afraid of being let down, of being left alone like your mother. So you just never let him in. The whole ‘you can’t lose what you never had’ thing.”
The truth of the young lawyer’s words packed a punch, stealing Jessica’s breath as she flashed back on every interaction she’d had with the men she’d been involved with. In high school she’d been too busy with softball practice and track team to date. In college she’d dated a man she’d known was going to move away—a planned escape, a clean ending with no hurt feelings or entanglement. And in the academy she’d used her focus on her career to hold everyone at arm’s length. The ice queen, they’d called her. Only Ryan had managed to break through the walls she’d so carefully put up. And even still, she’d walked away after their one-night stand, unwilling to even try to make things work. If he hadn’t ended up taking a job in Paradise, if she hadn’t gotten pregnant...and even then, even after agreeing to marry him, she’d found a way to sabotage things.
Ryan was right to be furious with her. Hell, she was furious with herself. She’d let her unresolved feelings about her father torpedo their chance at happiness. Now the only question was, what was Ryan going to do about it? She was a realist—their romance was over. But would he stick to their initial agreement, or was she about to find herself pregnant and alone?
* * *
It was past midnight when Ryan found himself sitting in his own driveway staring at his front door. He was tired, he was pissed off and he just wanted to crawl in bed until his next shift. But he needed to deal with Jessica first. Walking out hadn’t been a very mature reaction, but he’d been too upset to care. Hell, he was still upset, but even as angry and hurt as he was, he knew it wasn’t fair to Jessica to leave her in the dark about what came next.
If only she’d shown him the same courtesy.
But she hadn’t. She’d let him think they were working together toward a common goal when all along she’d been using him. For money.
It was that last part that hurt the most. Money was why his mother had married his stepfather so quickly. Money was why his stepf
ather had been so insistent on pushing him toward a law degree rather than the police academy. And now he knew Jessica had chosen money over a real chance at a relationship, that she’d cared more about her inheritance than about being truthful with him.
And that he couldn’t get past.
Part of him almost would rather she have cheated. Better to lose her to a flesh and blood rival than the cold seduction of cash.
The street was dark but there was a light shining in the kitchen window. He’d half hoped she’d be asleep, but given the number of night shifts they worked they were both night owls. Something he’d heard might come in handy when the baby came.
It was his concern for the baby that allowed him to keep his emotions in check when he found her sitting at the kitchen table, her feet tucked up under her as she absently stirred a cup of tea. “I’m sorry I walked out like that,” he announced.
Startled, she stared at him for a minute. “You’re apologizing to me? I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“You should be.” He didn’t want her to think otherwise. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still angry as hell, but that doesn’t excuse my reaction.”
“Oh.” She looked down into her mug, as if searching for answers in the steaming liquid. “So now what?”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “I honestly don’t know. I’m angry, Jessica. And hurt. I trusted you, and you betrayed that trust, so on top of all that, I feel stupid for believing in you. And I don’t like feeling that way.”
She nodded slowly, her face expressionless. “I understand. I can be gone tomorrow. And I’m sure we can get the marriage annulled. Dani would know the details on that.”
“Damn it, Jessica, I’m not kicking you out.” He paced the kitchen, almost wishing he was that big of a jerk. It would certainly make things easier. “And I’m not going to annul the marriage. Yet,” he added. “If I do that before the baby is born, you’ll lose out on your inheritance. I’m a lot of things, Jessica, but I’m not spiteful. I thought you knew me better than that. But I guess if you did, you’d have told me the truth in the beginning.”