Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,136

it with you. And I’m headed straight for pain.”

He started to say something, and she held up her hand and said, “Please. Let me try to say this. I just realized something. Something about how I felt when I saw you come in the door. About how I feel every time I’m with you. I can’t just date you and hope for the best. If I go any further down this road, I’m going to be so …” Another pause, but there was no way out except straight through this. “You’re not just going to be the father of my baby. You’re going to matter too much. It’s going to hurt so bad to fall in love with you, and I can’t go there. I can’t spend another four years of my life throwing my heart away. I can’t spend one more year like that, not when I know that you aren’t a staying-around guy, because you told me so. And that’s OK,” she hurried on. “You get to be any way you need to be. It’s your life. But what I need is for us to be friends.”

“Friends,” he said slowly.

“Yes. I care about you. I care about Annabelle, and I want to help you both. And you’re right that these next months are going to be …” Her chin wobbled, and she did her best to firm it up. “Hard for me. That I’m feeling financial pressure. That the thought of finding someplace to live in Portland that I can afford, trying to figure out how to take a couple months off to recover and be with the baby and still help Dyma, how to pay all that out-of-pocket medical, even if I have insurance, and how to help my grandpa, too, scares me to death. I’ve run the numbers every way I can, and I still keep coming up short. You can’t even sell plasma if you’re pregnant.” She smiled to show him it was a joke, and he didn’t smile back. She thought, finish it, and did. “I don’t see how Dyma doesn’t end up having to take a year off school to save money and help me with the baby, and I can’t stand for her to have to do that. I can’t stand it. She should get her life. She’s not the one who made my choices, and she shouldn’t have to pay for them. So …”

This was crazy. This was terrifying, because there was no way that worked without hurting.

Then do the thing that hurts least.

“So,” she went on, “I’ll take your offer. Because I almost have to, if I’m honest, but also because I’d be helping you, too. That’s what’s going to let me do it. I’ll live in the guest quarters, and Dyma and I will be like … like caring neighbors. I can do that. But I have to guard my heart, and I have to guard my pride. So you and I are not having sex. I’m not kissing you anymore. You’re not touching me anymore. We need to be friends.”

42

Doing It All Wrong

When they finally emerged from Jennifer’s bedroom, Blake and Dakota were on the couch watching baseball with Oscar, who was in an easy chair and looked like he missed his recliner. Jennifer said, “I should have invited your dad, Dakota, especially if I’d known you guys were going to end up watching sports. Except that I don’t have a big enough table.” Trying to be breezy, like she was embarrassed to imagine the others thinking she and Harlan had spent the last half hour all tangled up in each other, making slow, sweet, passionate love while her grandfather and her daughter and his sister and his ex-quarterback, who was also her boss, sat outside the door pretending not to hear. Which was, actually, exactly what he’d wanted to do. Minus the other-people-hearing part.

Although, since all of her makeup was washed off, her eyes were still puffy, and her skin was still blotchy, he doubted anybody was actually thinking it. Some women could cry and not look messed up. Those women weren’t redheads.

He asked, “Where are Annabelle and Dyma?”

“Finishing the dishes,” Oscar said. He still didn’t look all that friendly. Well, Harlan guessed he could understand that. He hadn’t exactly covered himself with glory at any point here.

Jennifer said, “I’ll go get them,” and did it.

Blake looked him over. “Got to say, you look like hell.”

“Well, yeah,” Harlan said. “Figures.”

“Oh, nice,” Dakota said. “Give him a break,