Mom Over Miami - By Annie Jones Page 0,15
eyes.
She stretched out her legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Including you?”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms and refused to look at him.
He jiggled her shoulders and rested his head to hers. “When it comes to this stuff you’ve written about your everyday adventures, yes, including me. I can’t help it, Hannah, its funny. You’re funny.”
“Case closed. I am a joke.”
“Okay let me rephrase that—your writing is funny. It’s…it’s…”
“Clever?” She borrowed Jacqui’s description, because of all the things she could think to call her work, she could accept “clever.” Not too pretentious. Not too humble.
“Yeah, clever.” He kissed her temple. “You’ve got a lot of potential, kid.”
Potential? The intended praise didn’t help to unknot a single muscle. “Potential to make a great big whopping fool of myself.”
He pressed his lips to her ear, pulled her closer still and murmured, “Or to succeed at the thing you’ve wanted to do since before I even met you, Hannah. This may finally give you the chance to be a writer.”
A writer. Her breath caught high in her chest, straining her voice to the bare essence of a whisper. “I have always wanted to be a writer.”
“I know.” He pulled away just enough to turn her face to his.
When he gazed into her eyes, she saw love and sincerity mingled with something she rarely allowed herself to acknowledge—pride. Her husband practically glowed with pride over her abilities.
She looked away, unable to accept his endearing admiration. “I don’t deserve to call myself a writer for this. What did I do, after all? Just typed out a few flippant notes to my family.”
“What you did was what you always dreamed of doing, Hannah. You wrote something—and someone liked it.”
“Wish you’d stop that.”
“What?”
“Making me feel good about all this. Sadie tricked me. I don’t want to feel good about any part of this.”
“But you do.”
She wriggled her back to the wall and scrunched her shoulders up like a child preparing for a tickle attack. And like that child, she couldn’t hold back the slow grin that worked its way from deep inside her being to her tightly closed lips.
“I knew it.” Payt laughed and hugged her again. “And I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
“Relieved? Why?”
“Why? You’d ask that of the guy who has carried years’ and years’ worth of guilt over you quitting college and putting your personal goals aside just to help me pay for my education?”
“Just to help you become the man I knew you could be. The man you felt God had called you to be.” She laid her hand alongside his cheek.
“Yeah, but you were the one who sacrificed for my goals.”
“I didn’t mind.”
He kissed the inside of her palm.
A delicious shiver shot through her whole body. She relaxed, just a little, then held her hands up and out to indicate their surroundings and said, “Besides, look what all I’ve gotten in return.”
“Yeah, a great, big, smelly, empty house.” He grinned.
“Hey, this house may be smelly, but it’s anything but empty.” She swung her legs over his and laid her head on his shoulder.
“No, it’s not empty. Far from it.” He rubbed her back in a few brisk strokes, then tangled his fingers in her hair. He kissed her cheek once and then again and then, before he kissed her one last time and murmured, “Nevertheless, I think there’s still some room around here for your dreams, Hannah.”
“Dreams? I have everything I ever dreamed of.”
“Except—”
“No exceptions.”
“What about writing?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin to pursue it, Payt.”
“You’ve already begun. Contact the Guardian News and offer to write a column for them.”
“A column? About what?”
“About the things you write to your sisters. About you, your life. About the kids. Maybe even now and then about your strong, intelligent, romance-novel hero of a husband.”
“About me? About my life?” Didn’t he understand? Exposing herself as the total, unmanageable mess of a person she was hardly made up the stuff of her dreams. In fact, it was her worst nightmare. “No. I don’t think so.”
“But you’ve got so much talent.”
“Really?” Okay, she had an ego—even if it wasn’t a very big one. “You think I have talent?”
“Don’t you think you do?”
“I…I try not to think about myself very much.”
“And if that statement there doesn’t prove you have a natural flair for drama and fiction, then nothing does.”
Her mouth fell open. She couldn’t blink, much less speak.
Then a primal, overwhelming urge filled her chest, until she thought it would explode. “I don’t even know where to start