“Right,” she said. “It’s amazing, after such a night and an early morning wakeup, how quickly the more normal morning hours can go.”
“Do we need to go anywhere today?” he asked, looking over at Danny. “Do you need anything for Danny?”
“Since we picked up groceries yesterday,” she answered, “in theory, we’re fine for a couple days.”
“Good enough.” He tapped the table, wondering if he should ask her.
“Something is obviously on your mind,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”
He looked at her with a smile. “You know me too well if you understand that already,” he joked.
“Well, you have this pensive look on your face.”
“It’s early, and this is pushing it,” he said, “but I’ve already gotten yet another phone call from my grandfather, wondering when I was bringing you around.”
She stared at him in surprise, then laughed. “Are you an only child by any chance?”
“I am at that,” he said, with a wry look. “They’ve been after me for a long time to get married and to have a family.”
“That’s not necessarily a good thing in this circumstance,” she said, “because I have Danny.”
“But what you need to understand,” he said, “is that my parents died, and my grandparents took me in. So they would not be unhappy at all if I hook up with you and get to inherit Danny.”
“But will they accept him? Oh, my God,” she said, shaking her head. “That just feels …”
“Yes? What does it feel like?” he asked, his gaze direct.
She stared at him in surprise. “I’m caught between laughing and being horrified,” she said, “because we barely know each other.”
He reached across the table with his open hand and watched as she placed her hand in his. He smiled. “But what we do know is what matters.”
She stared at him and looked down at her hand, then tried to pull it back, as if realizing what she’d done.
But he closed his fingers around hers and held her safe. “So, I get that it’s fast,” he said, “but I don’t think fast is bad here with us.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I dated my husband for years before I married him, only to find that was a huge mistake.”
“In that case,” he said, “maybe you should go with your instincts. Start off a little more daring with somebody you don’t really know. Yet you do know what matters.”
She settled back, looking at him.
He could see the shock and the wariness in her gaze. “It’s just meeting them,” he said, starting to grin. “If nothing else, you’ll get them off my back for a while.”
She burst out laughing. “But they’ll have expectations,” she said, “and I don’t want them to get hurt either.”
“Understood,” he said simply, “and that’s why I really like who you are as a person.”
“You hardly know me,” she reminded him.
“I know that you stayed married even though you weren’t happy. You probably married because of the biological clock ticking away at you, and, when you found out you were pregnant, you were over the moon. The minute he wasn’t happy about it, you chose to walk away from all that money and the security just so you could have your son,” he said. “Abortion was never in your plans. You are twenty-nine-years old. You never sought a degree. You’ve been working at the same job for a year, though not necessarily happily—kinda like your marriage. You’re looking for something else, but you just don’t know what yet. You’re at the point of figuring out the rest of your life after coming out of the nesting period,” he said. “You’re close to your sister, and you tolerate your mother, which most people would say you deserve a medal for.”
She burst out laughing at that and nodded.
“You tend to be a person who goes along with everything until somebody does something you can’t live with.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very nice assessment,” she said.
“You’re a wonderful mother. You adore Danny, and you would do anything to keep him safe,” he added. “You’re in a very tough position right now, but you’re holding your own. Considering what you’ve been through the last three to four weeks, I think you’re doing a wonderful job of keeping it all together.”
“You still don’t know anything about my hopes or wishes or dreams,” she challenged. “Or my history.”
“You weren’t close to your mother. You probably didn’t have very much of an association with your father at all. You were tentative about getting into the relationship with George, but you also took a long time to leave him, both because it was the first time you’d had a dominant male in your life,” he added. “You were good in school, but you weren’t the top of your class. You didn’t have any driving ambitions to get a college degree. I suspect that what you really wanted was to be a mom.”
Her shoulders sagged as she listened. “How can you even know any of that?” she asked in wonder.
“Reading your body language, added to the little bit I do know about you,” he said. “The thing is, none of that defines who you are. Inside, you’re warm, caring, honest, not money-driven in the least, and the person who matters the most to you right now in your world is your son,” he said. “I can get behind all that.”
She just stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Well, at least that bit of assessment sounded better than the first.”
His lips quirked. “You’re funny, and I like you,” he said. “I respect where you’re at in life, and, more than that, when the chips are down, you’re not one to walk away. You stand your ground, and that means a lot.”
Chapter 15
Jessica heard his assessment of her in disbelief. Because Greyson was right on. She didn’t have a clue how he knew about her father or her mother, but that was also the truth behind why she
