AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They picked up all the pizza supplies, and began the drive back.
She put the groceries away while he took the larger items up to the nursery. And she started unpacking all of it and arranging it.
She felt genuine excitement when she looked around the nursery. More than excitement. A deep well of love like she’d never known. And she wondered if it would be a little boy or a little girl. The Sullivans were all girls. It would be interesting to see a boy. Her heart clenched when she wondered if a boy child would look like her father. But she imagined that was something she would just have to deal with.
She carried the genetics of a person who made decisions she didn’t like.
Gus had to live with that.
She would love this child. And she would teach them to do different. To be different. Gus and the way he loved the land, the way that he cared about doing the right thing. His commitments... He would instill those things in their child.
And she would...
Something in her heart faltered just then.
When she tried to think what she would teach this child.
Well, she was headstrong. She cared a lot about things. She loved. Very fiercely. She would love them, the way that she loved Gus. And she would teach them...
How will you show them what they deserve?
This growth hurt so damn bad. Because she knew now that she had to demand more. That she couldn’t hide, or run or deflect.
It wasn’t who she was anymore.
She swallowed hard, pushing that thought away as she went downstairs. “The cooking lessons are starting,” she said.
They went into the kitchen, and Gus pushed his sleeves up, pushed his cowboy hat back. “Okay. Where do we begin?”
She smiled, trying to push her doubts away. Trying to push her issues away. But it was strange how that completed nursery had filled her mind with images of not just having a baby, but of what kind of mother she would be.
And she thought more about what Fia had said. Worry that she would be abandoned. Worry about the kinds of things that hurt and concerned her.
She didn’t worry that Gus would abandon her. She didn’t.
She didn’t worry about being like their mother.
Although she had to wonder. What it would be like to have this one-sided love with Gus for years on end.
What it might do to her over time. And what kind of mother it might turn her into. What kind of person.
“First let’s start with the crust,” she said.
She got out a recipe and mixing bowls, and pretty soon both she and Gus were covered in flour.
“I’m thinking it’s going to be a remake of the pancake fiasco,” he said.
“Maybe we should’ve started with hamburgers.”
“You just had one for lunch.”
“I can’t get enough of them.”
He had his hands in the mixing bowl, moving the ball of dough around, and she reached hers and put them over his. He went still. His movements going stiff.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
