Make Me Yours (Bellamy Creek #2) - Melanie Harlow Page 0,91
He seems happy, but he goes silent a lot too. And when I ask if he’s okay, he says he’s just thinking about the house or something at work, or he gives me the dreaded ‘I’m fine.’”
She nodded. “It kind of makes sense, you know? The whole ‘waiting for disaster’ thing? Looking at you like he’s worried you’ll disappear? He’s probably nervous about feeling so happy. Like, he’s looking around for the anvil about to drop on his head because that’s what happened when he loved someone before.”
“You might be right.” I thought for a moment, chewing my lip. “He said something else once, and I never forgot it. He was talking about Mariah, and he said, ‘She’s learned that love doesn’t protect you from loss.’ Like it was a fact.”
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love people,” I said, frustrated that she agreed with him.
“No, and he wasn’t saying that. He was saying that love isn’t some kind of magic shield you can wear that will prevent you from getting hurt. In fact, love makes you more vulnerable to pain.”
“Blaaaaair,” I moaned. “You’re not helping. You were supposed to tell me I’m being paranoid.”
“Sorry. But I don’t think you are.” She set her cup down and reached for my hand. “Listen. You’re in love with a man who suffered a horrible loss, out of the blue, on the happiest day of his life. He wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t a little scared of falling in love again.”
“But he’s not saying that.”
She gave me a look. “Are you kidding? What man is going to volunteer to talk about his emotional baggage when you ask if they’re okay? Remember that episode of Friends where Ross finds out Rachel and Joey are a couple and he’s all ‘I’m fine’ over and over again, but it’s obvious he isn’t?”
Despite everything, I smiled. “Oh yeah.”
“Cole is kind of like Ross here. He’s just working through it. Take a breath, okay?”
I did what she said, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly. “Sorry. Maybe you’re right. I guess I’m still learning things about him. I get nervous when he goes quiet. And it’s still hard for me to believe that after all this time, he’s really mine.”
“Get him talking about old man baseball. That’ll perk him right up.”
I burst out laughing. “I bet you’re right.” Then I picked up the scone and took a bite. “Thanks. I feel better.”
Cole and Mariah met me at the bakery, and we strolled up and down the streets of downtown Bellamy Creek, which were all decked out for the holidays. Strands of lights stretched across Main Street. Boughs of evergreens adorned every streetlamp. Wreaths hung on every door. Christmas carols played in every shop.
As we walked along, Cole held my hand, and some of the unease I’d felt earlier dissipated. When people we knew stopped on the street to say hello, he didn’t let go. When we went into a store to look around, he’d show me something that he knew would make me laugh, or drop an arm over my shoulder, and once he even kissed my forehead.
I decided Blair was right, and I was being paranoid. So what if he occasionally seemed a little broody? So what if he didn’t tell me everything that was on his mind? So what if he needed some time to realize that there was no dragon waiting to snatch his happiness away?
What mattered was that I was the one he’d been willing to fight for. That we were together now. That when he looked into his future, he saw me. Us. A family.
I would continue to show him patience, love, and understanding.
I wanted him to feel safe with me.
Twenty-Five
Cole
“Mariah, come on,” I complained Saturday night. “You’ve been sitting between us all day.”
I’d had the day off, and we’d taken Mariah over to a neighboring farm, which offered horse-drawn sleigh rides. She’d wanted to sit between us in the sled, and we’d said of course, the three of us cuddling up beneath a thick wool blanket. Afterward, we’d returned to town for an early supper, and Mariah had requested to sit at the counter of the Bellamy Creek Diner. We’d laughed when she insisted on the counter stool in between us. Back at our house, we were going to watch The Grinch, and once again, she was claiming the couch real estate between us.