Dreaming of His Snowed In Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,51

She can’t really function outside of an institute. Thankfully, there’s one near where we were, and she has a scholarship to stay there. That’s how I ended up on my own.”

“Hazel?”

“Hazel’s personality seemed to be becoming affected by my mom’s depression. And even though seeing her brings those images to my mind, the images in the window, I couldn’t not take her.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. And now you can see why I said I was never getting married, never having children. I’ve already lost a family once. No person should be expected to go through that again.”

All the breath seemed to leave him, although not necessarily in one fell swoop. His lungs just started deflating. The air kept going out, and he couldn’t seem to pull anything in.

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, definitely.

But it also made a lot of sense. He couldn’t deny that either.

“The joy of the Lord is your strength. That’s good. That’s Bible.”

“I know.”

“So you think God doesn’t want you to have a family? You think he wants you to make the decision you made about never having one?”

She whirled on him, her mouth open, anger in her eyes, just that fast. But she didn’t get any words out.

Slowly, he could see she was giving credence to his words. Thinking about them. Rolling them over.

“It’s funny, because until a week or so ago, I said the exact same thing. I’ve never been interested in getting married and having children. Maybe it was the darkness I saw in the world, was a part of, that made me feel like I didn’t want to bring kids into that. But I guess the little guys who are sleeping in my house right now made me feel like maybe my life has been a selfish one.”

He wasn’t sure whether he should add more or not. She had never given any indication that she had any kind of feelings toward him at all. But after what she told him, he felt like it was probably necessary for him to say something dangerous.

He brought his other hand up, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles before enclosing it in both of his, like protection.

“I always enjoyed our sparring. I don’t even think I would have admitted it, but I always looked for you in church, and maybe walked by you, just so we could exchange barbs. It was fun. I felt like we were both goofing off, and we both knew it, and neither one of us had to worry about hurting anyone’s feelings.” He didn’t think he was wrong about that. “But working with you the last few days, I realized that whatever that feeling was, the one where I look for you and enjoy bantering with you, had worked its way into more. And I get that you might not want a husband and family, and after suffering that loss, I can’t blame you. But if there’s anyone in this world that I can do that with, it would be you. I...”

He almost said it wouldn’t take much for him to fall in love with her, but he had to shut that thought down.

She wasn’t ready for that.

He most certainly wasn’t ready for it either.

Chapter 18

Was she actually tempted to close the distance between West and her?

It’s true they’d been working well together with the children, and their bantering had become more fun than sarcastic, but that tug of attraction that she’d been fighting had become stronger and she wanted to...?

Step closer...step into his arms.

She needed to hold on to the banister to steady herself. Because yeah, she could see herself doing that.

Maybe she should say something. Something that acknowledged what he said. That maybe she was feeling the same.

But she couldn’t think of something that wasn’t too revealing. After all, she’d dredged up all of those old memories and spoken about them for the first time in a really long time, and maybe she was just feeling emotional.

Maybe she should be clear about where she stood.

“I guess you can understand, after everything I said, why I don’t have any interest in getting married or having children. I love them. Children that is. It is not that I don’t think about getting married sometimes too. It’s just...”

“You don’t ever want to go through that again.” His words sounded flat and almost matter-of-fact.

“That’s exactly right.”

“I guess I’ve had thoughts like that too. Because of losing my parents. Man...” He ran a hand through his hair, back and forth over his head, before dropping