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Jack dipped his chin. “First, it shows that you were interested in me long before I really had the chance to get a glimpse of you.”
Great.
Just what I needed… to feel even more embarrassed than I already did.
I looked away from Jack and stared at the remaining pie on the coffee table.
“Dakota?” Jack called.
“Yeah?” I replied, returning my attention to him.
“I like that, so there’s no need for you to feel any shame or embarrassment over it.”
He liked it.
And since I’d promised myself to take him at his word, I let go of the humiliation and asked, “What’s the second thing?”
“When you reacted the way you did when you saw my sister earlier today, I think it shows me that you still want someone to call your own. You can tell yourself it’s not the case, but you still want a family, sweetheart. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”
Tears had filled my eyes, because every word he spoke was true. The thought of other women coming by and being with Jack meant that he wouldn’t be mine. He could never be the man that I made a family with. Granted, I thought we were a long way from that even being a possibility, but the only thought in my head at that time had been that he wasn’t going to be a man who would be interested in being tied down.
“I really do want a family, but the thought of being hurt again trying to hold on to someone terrifies me,” I rasped.
Jack reached his hand out to me, curled his fingers around my wrist, and tugged me toward him. My body collided with his, and his arms wrapped around me in a tight hug. All I could do was hold on to him with everything in me.
Silence fell over the room, and it just felt good to be back in Jack’s arms.
I thought that our conversation might have reached its end, but as he held me against his chest, Jack shared something that I never imagined I’d hear him say.
“I want a family, too, Dakota, and I’m just as terrified about it as you are,” he confessed.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
I tipped my chin up and offered a small smile. “What happened in your last relationship?”
“My wife was four months pregnant with our first baby when she got into a car accident and they both died,” he revealed.
My body instantly tensed as shock and horror moved through me.
If I had been tasked with coming up with ideas for what Jack had experienced in his former relationship, what he just shared would not have been in the top ten.
He was married. His wife was pregnant. She and his baby died in a car crash. I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around what he had just shared.
I pressed my palm into Jack’s chest, pushed myself away, and looked at his handsome face.
“How are you even functioning right now?” I asked him.
“It’s taken me a very long time, and like I said, there are times when it’s still so hard to cope with,” he answered, the sound of his voice making my heart shatter inside my chest. The look on his face was just heartbreaking, and I could see how much this was affecting him. “It’s the reason I left the big city and came back home. I just couldn’t be there any longer.”
I moved my head from one side to the other, feeling nothing but sorrow for this beautiful man. No wonder he said he felt terrified. I couldn’t even come to grips with it, and I didn’t know the woman. “Jack, I… I’m so, so sorry for your loss. I can’t even begin to imagine going through something like that.”
Sorrow was still marring his features and his voice, but somehow, this incredible man managed to look on the bright side. “Thank you, Dakota. I’ve been fortunate to have some great people around me, who’ve been looking out for me the last three years. That’s why you’ve seen my sisters showing up as regularly as they do. I insist that I’m doing alright, but they just can’t seem to accept that and feel the need to check on me all the time.”
I smiled, even as I felt the guilt move through me. I’d given him such grief, threatening to take away what we’d found in one another, and it couldn’t have been clearer to me that it was something that I not only needed but that Jack did, too.
“I’m so glad you have them. And I feel like an even bigger fool for reacting the way that I did earlier today,” I said.
