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Yes, it would, it was his emotions he was worried about. “How about you?” he asked her. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work today?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I called Principal Sawyer and she’s got me covered until this afternoon.” She checked her watch. “That gives me just over six hours to wake myself up.”
“Two full Americans. One with poached egg, one with scrambled. Enjoy.” The waitress spoke in a monotone, not that he could blame her. It really was too early in the morning to be showing any enthusiasm. The waitress disappeared as quickly as she had arrived, leaving Ember and Lucas to breathe in the delicious aroma of bacon and eggs.
“Can I ask you a question?” Lucas asked as he picked up a piece of bacon. “That’s if you’re ready to talk about things.”
Ember smiled at him, and it filled him with joy. “I’ve been ready all night,” she told him.
Lucas licked his lips, tasting the salt of the bacon clinging to his skin. “Can you tell me what happened at the party?” he asked her, picking up his mug and swallowing some coffee. “One minute we were having a good time and the next I felt like I’d lost you. And though I’m glad we’re here together now, I don’t want you hanging around me because you have a misplaced sense of owing me something.”
She rolled her lip between her teeth – something he’d noticed she did every time she was deep in thought. The same way he ran his hand across the back of his neck – at least according to Griff, strange how they all had their tells. He wanted to know all of hers, to study her until he knew her inside out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get enough of her.
“I’ve been thinking about Saturday night a lot,” she ad
mitted, looking at him through her thick eyelashes. “And I’m so sorry I lost it while you were with me. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t apologize to me for that,” he said. “Didn’t you tell me last night that we can support each other at different times? Maybe Saturday night was my night.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Well I appreciate it, but I can’t help but wish that you didn’t have to see me like that. You must have thought I was crazy.”
“I was worried about you. I’d never seen you like that. You looked broken.”
“I wasn’t broken,” she said, her eyes catching his. “I was shocked, I think. Real shock. The kind that freezes you and means you can’t form a coherent thought.”
He nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been there, too.”
“With the baby?”
“Yeah. The next time I went out to a call after the baby died I froze completely. That’s when Chief Simons told me to take some leave.”
She pulled her gaze away from his, looking almost ashamed. He wanted to reach out, tip her face up, and make her look at him again. He missed the warm depths of her eyes. “There was something I should have told you back then,” she said, her voice soft. “You confided in me and I should have confided in you, too.” Finally she looked at him, and he could see the clouds behind her stare. “It’s weird, because my shock was about a baby, too.” She took a deep breath, as if to steel herself. “Just before Will left, I realized I’d missed two periods. I took a pregnancy test and it was positive.”
“You were pregnant?” he asked her, his mouth dropping open. He hadn’t expected that at all.
“As it turned out I wasn’t. I was one of those one in a million who got a false positive. But for a little while I thought I was, and I told Will about it. Turns out he didn’t want to have a baby with me. In fact, he didn’t want to be with me at all. I was getting all excited about bringing a new life into the world, and he was silently working out how he could get out of being a dad.” She smiled sadly. “A week later I saw the doctor, he took another test, and that came up negative. There were no signs I’d ever been pregnant at all.” She ran a finger along her bottom lip, deep in her own thoughts.
“So he left you because you had a false positive?” Lucas wanted to strangle Will Martin all over again. It was only the fact that they were out in public that Lucas stopped from saying exactly what he thought about the man.
“That’s what I thought. He left because I wanted a family and he didn’t. But then on Saturday it turned out everything I thought was wrong. He did want a baby, just not with me.”
“I wish you’d told me about this before,” he told her, his heart aching at her sadness. “I would have understood.”
“I know that now. But I was confused about us, about where we were going. I was afraid of showing you who I really am, scars and all.” She looked down at her plate. “You may have noticed that I’m not great at talking about personal things.”
He put his silverware down and reached across the table for her hand. He held it gently in his. “Don’t ever be afraid of being truthful.” There was another question in his head, one that wouldn’t disappear no matter how much he willed it to. “And while we’re talking about the truth, can I ask you one more thing?”
She nodded at him to go ahead.
“Are you still in love with him?”
“With Will?” she asked, sounding horrified. “No, not at all.” She rushed on, as if she wanted to reassure him. “I haven’t been in love with him for a long time. And I certainly wouldn’t have gotten involved with you if I still felt something for another man.” This time her smile had no sadness to it. “I’m a one-man kind of woman.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Lucas replied, the heaviness in his heart dissolving away. “Because I’m a one-woman kind of guy, and the woman I want is you.”
She blinked, then her smile widened. “Is that right?”
“Yeah. If you’ll have me.” He was hoping she would, hoping that the way she’d taken care of him last night was a result of the fact she cared about him. “I’m not much of a catch,” he told her, wanting to be as truthful as he could. “There will be more weeks like this one, more fires like the one at Santa Maria. Sometimes I’ll come home so tired I won’t be able to string two words together.” His eyes softened. “But if I can only say one word, it will be your name. Because you’re all I can think about.”
