You Know I Need You (You Are Mine #4) - Willow Winters Page 0,20

taken four of them now, just to make sure the pink line turns darker each time.

At least I’m not crying and wallowing in despair. I’m simply crazy with worry. My hand gently rubs my belly.

“At least I have you,” I whisper in a sweet, sorrowful voice as I rest my hand on my lower belly. I want a doctor to tell me it’s real. That I really do get to have a baby. This little one who will love me, and I can love them back and give them every part of me.

As I take another sip of the tea, watching Jake at the counter, I start to think that maybe it was supposed to be this way. Maybe I don’t have enough in me to love both a child and my husband. God must’ve known it and that’s why Evan left me.

I nod my head before pulling the mug back to my lips quickly to hide my face from Jake. There’s a reason for everything, isn’t there?

He sits down slowly, and I know he saw; I can see it in his eyes.

“Sorry,” I say and shrug. “I read this manuscript earlier and it shredded me,” I lie.

He hands me my cookie and I feel foolish for a moment, but then he says, “Really?”

I nod like a fool.

“You want to talk about it?” he asks, and I get the impression that I could tell him anything. I think I could tell him the truth right now and he’d know it’s exactly that. I could spill my guts to him and say it’s all something I read in a book. And he’d let me. He’d give me that bit of kindness.

I’m so grateful for it.

But I’m not ready.

I shake my head, my hair spilling over my shoulders as I do. “Maybe another time.”

He nods, peeling back his muffin wrapper enough so he can take a bite. “Good thinking,” he says after he swallows. “Very good call on the muffin.”

My shoulders rock gently with another small laugh as I take a bite of my cookie, once again feeling the ease that Jake gives me.

“It’s okay to not be okay, do you know that?” he asks me.

I snicker and pick at the cookie.

“You can roll your eyes and laugh, but it’s true,” he says as he peels at the wrapper, exposing more of the treat as he talks.

“If I’m not okay, though, that means I need to talk about it.” I point my finger at him and pick off another small piece of the cookie. “And I don’t want to,” I say smartly and pop the bit into my mouth.

“Nah, you can be not okay, but talk about something else instead. That’s a thing, you know?”

“How’s that?”

“It’s okay to let something bother you, that’s all I mean.”

“You authors speak in code, do you know that?” I use his phrase right back at him.

Now he’s the one who laughs. “Well, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not really okay. I’m sort of running from my own problems. But now I’m okay, ’cause I’m here.”

“Here in New York?”

“Just here,” he says and gives me a small smile, but I read the real answer in his expression. Here with you.

“So, what are you running from?”

“Are we sharing stories?” he asks me in return.

“I’m not sure how much sharing I’m willing to do,” I tell him honestly.

“You afraid you’ll wind up in a book of mine?” he asks with a sly smile then adds, “One second, before you start I just wanted to grab my pen and paper.”

He acts like he’s reaching for an imaginary bag on the floor and I let out a loud laugh, then cover my mouth with both my hands as a lady looks up from her phone at me with a pissed-off expression from across the room.

Jake likes the laugh, though. Enough that he smiles widely as he settles back into his seat.

“You don’t have to tell me anything. I just want you to know that you can be not okay around me. I get it. Some days I’m not the best, and it’s nice to just go out and get a chai … and a muffin.”

“Like today?” I ask him.

“Yeah, like today.”

“I have a hard time getting a read on you, Jake,” I tell him.

“What do you want to know?” he asks me.

“What do you want from me?” I ask him then immediately regret the blunt question. It’s rude and risks losing him and the only distraction I really