man’s favorite—meatloaf and mashed potatoes—for her first home-cooked meal. She wasn’t sure of Dev’s vegetable preference, so she did a medley, along with a salad. There was strawberry shortcake for dessert and an assortment of ice-cream flavors in the freezer, in case he didn’t like the shortcake.
She’d shopped early, then had spent the rest of the morning getting to know Dev’s neighborhood and finding things like the closest dry cleaner and drugstore. After that, she’d been on her own. Alone. Completely alone.
She wasn’t used to having a house to herself. At her parents’ house, there was always someone around. But here…not so much.
She found herself waiting for Dev’s arrival with an eagerness that had a lot to do with finally having someone to talk to, but when he walked through the door to the garage, she wasn’t sure what to say.
Her parents usually came home together. On the rare nights they didn’t, her mother hugged and kissed her father. But that didn’t seem right. Smiling at Dev and asking about his day felt weird, as if she were in some play somewhere.
“Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes,” she said. “Do you usually change into something casual?” She motioned to his suit. “I mean, you have time. Or I can hold dinner.”
“I’ll change later.” He put his briefcase on the floor, leaning against the end of the cabinets and loosened his tie. “Settling in?”
She nodded. He looked good, she thought as he slipped off his jacket, then went to work, rolling up his shirtsleeves. A little wrinkled, but still handsome. She liked the way his stubble shaded his cheeks and jaw.
“I’ve found most of the necessities of life.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked, his gaze intense.
Feeling? What would she be…Oh. “You mean the baby.” She touched her stomach. “Honestly, I don’t feel anything. I don’t know when I’m supposed to start having symptoms and it’s not like I want to ask my mom. I did make a doctor’s appointment for a prenatal checkup.”
“Good. When is it?”
She told him.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “We’re in this together, so I’m interested in information, too.”
Going with her? “You don’t have to.”
He smiled. “I want to be there through all of this.”
His words gave her a warm kind of glow in her tummy. “Okay. That would be nice. I’ll admit I was a little scared. Just because I’ve never done this before.”
“Me, either.”
She served dinner and they sat at the round table. Dev told her about what had happened at the office that day. When he was finished, she said, “I’ve signed up for summer school. I’m taking calculus.” She wrinkled her nose. “Math is not my thing, but it’s required, so I decided to get it out of the way in one intense, horrible six-week period. I go for three hours a day, four days a week. I start Monday.”
“That’s a lot of calculus.”
“I know. I don’t want to think about the homework, but I keep telling myself by the middle of August, it will be over.”
“This is excellent,” he said, cutting off another piece of meatloaf. “I’m now officially won over by your cooking, but don’t worry if you don’t have time once you’re in school. Getting your education should be your priority.”
“And the baby.”
“The baby won’t arrive until next year.”
She nodded. “I guess I’ll be due in early March.”
“So you can go to the fall semester and then take the spring semester off. And graduate the following January.”
She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I like that. The baby will be what, six months old when I go back to college? Day care won’t be a problem. There’s a great program at our church. My mom will love being able to see her first grandbaby whenever she wants.”
Whoa—this was a little too much to be dealing with right now. “Speaking of my mom,” she said, deciding for her own peace of mind she needed to shift topics. “She called today. She still wants to do a big party, but that’s going to take some putting together. In the meantime, she would like to throw us a wedding shower. Probably just for girlfriends, if you don’t mind.”
His trapped expression cleared. “I think it’s a good idea. You and your friends will have fun.”
Typical guy, she thought with a smile. “But the thing is, we need to register. People are going to want to buy us gifts. I went through the kitchen and you already have everything. But there’s only one set of china, so maybe something for special occasions?”
“I don’t care about that kind of thing,” he said. “Noelle, pick out what you’d like to have. Then you can take it with you when this is over.”
The “this” being their marriage. “You’re not interested at all?” she asked, a little surprised by how disappointed she felt.
“You’ll have fun choosing things like china and sheets.”
Not by herself, she thought glumly. Maybe Rachel or Crissy would want to help. But that wasn’t the same as having Dev doing with it her. After all, he would be eating off the plates, too.
“I did have something I wanted to ask you,” he said, setting down his fork and looking at her. “I should have brought this up before. Do you want to speak to a grief counselor about Jimmy?”
He wouldn’t pick out china but he was offering her therapy? “I’m okay,” she told him.
“I can get you some names. I wasn’t sure, what with you having the baby and all.”
“Thank you.” She sipped her water. “I know Jimmy and I dated for a while and we, well, you know. He had talked about getting married and all, but…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t think we were really in love with each other.”
Dev stiffened in his chair. “We don’t have to talk about that,” he said gruffly.
He seemed uncomfortable. But why? Because she was being realistic about her relationship with his brother? Did that upset him? Did he want to believe they’d been madly in love? Or was he judging her for sleeping with a man without being sure she loved him?
“Dinner was great,” he said as he rose and carried his plate to the counter. “I brought some work home, so I’ll excuse myself.”
And with that, he was gone. She didn’t think she was going to see him again that evening.
Separate lives, she thought. That’s what they were living. While she hadn’t considered what their married lives would be like, she’d never thought she would be so…lonely. She felt lost in this big, beautiful house, living with a man who didn’t want to have much to do with her. Lost and alone and not sure what to do about it.
Chapter
