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“Doesn’t matter.” His eyes said he adored her any way at all.
Nina’s stomach curled. “You look great, too, Jack.”
He took a deep breath. “May I come in, Nina?”
“Oh!” She expelled the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She felt as skittish as a teenager on a first date, wanting everything to be perfect yet frightened of doing the wrong thing, going too far, not going far enough. It was silly. They’d had a baby, for heaven’s sake, yet somehow the remembered intimacies made it worse. So much hung in the balance.
“I’m not going to jump you, Nina,” Jack said softly. “I realise you need time.”
He understood. Relief and pleasure coursed through her, resulting in a brilliant smile. “I’m glad you came, Jack.” The words bubbled from her as she stood back and waved him in. “I’m sorry about last night, pushing you out so—so…”
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “It must have been a big strain, the baby, me, everything.”
“Yes, it was. I didn’t know what to think,” she blurted.
“We’ll work it out, Nina.” His eyes were serious, wanting her agreement.
Her heart swelled with hope, and the love they had once shared shimmered through it. She wanted to throw herself at him, hug, kiss, make love with wild abandonment, revel uninhibitedly in the joy of being together again, of touching, feeling, knowing he was her man and she was his woman. She shut the door and forced herself to be sensible.
“I’d like that, Jack,” she said with overwhelming sincerity.
The air between them was suddenly hyper-charged with hopes, dreams and desires. Jack seemed to teeter forward on his toes, then rocked firmly back on his heels. His hands lifted towards her. He clapped them and said heartily, “Well, how’s the kid been today?”
The kid.
It cleared Nina’s mind of its heat haze, but she didn’t take offence at the term this time. Jack meant well. He was trying. “Fine!” She smiled. “She loved her bath. You should have seen her, Jack. It was so…”
Her throat seized up as the realisation hit her she was blathering on like a besotted mother who had no conversation bar her baby’s trivial activities. It was one of Jack’s criticisms of the effect of having children.
“Go on,” he urged.
She swallowed. Her mind seized up. She couldn’t think of anything bright to say. “You’ll think I’m a vegetable.” The words slipped out on a helpless sigh.
“Nina, I want to share everything with you. Don’t shut me out.” The anguished plea in his voice, in his eyes, tore at her heart.
“But you said…”
“Forget it. It doesn’t apply to us.”
She shook her head, unable to sweep the argument that had parted them under the carpet and pretend it never happened. “I don’t want to bore you, Jack.”
“You won’t.” He stepped forward, his hands lifting instinctively to her upper arms to press persuasion. “Seeing your face light up with joy, your eyes dance w
ith delight—it could never bore me, Nina. I want to know what’s behind the happy glow. I want it to spill over onto me. It’s warm and wonderful and…” He expelled a long breath, and his thumbs fanned her flesh, wanting to draw her into him, enforced restraint allowing only a gentle caress. “Please don’t hold back from me.”
Her chest felt as tight as a drum, and her heart was playing percussion instruments on a wild scale. The desire in his eyes played havoc with any control she had, yet some thread of sanity wove through the swarm of feelings, reminding her what had triggered this passionate outpouring from Jack.
“You mean you want to hear about Charlotte’s bath?”
“Yes. Anything. Everything,” he replied vehemently.
She gave a nervous little laugh, her lashes sweeping down as a wave of self-consciousness increased her inner turmoil. “It’s nothing, really,” she dismissed in an agony of doubt.
“Nina, don’t throw it away.” A gentle finger tilted her chin, drawing her gaze to his. He smiled an appeal. “You always made such fun out of telling me what you’d been doing. Let me enjoy listening to you again.”
She tried to relax, tried to respond, but it felt hopelessly flat now. It would sound forced and false. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’ve gone cold on it.”
“Let me get you a drink.” He released her and strode into the kitchenette, talking brightly, trying to coax her into being her old, natural self with him. “You used to keep sherry. Are you allowed a small tipple or do we stick to cups of tea? Tell me what you’d like.”
