when Grace was right. For whatever reason, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t make relationships work. And having something not work with Leah was never going to be an option.
LEAH DECIDED TO skip working on rewiring for the morning and focus on errands. Errands that could plausibly wait until, oh, say, next year, but she wasn’t going to let herself dwell on that.
Because, yes, of course she was avoiding Jacob after last night. What the hell else would she be doing?
Leah sighed heavily and glanced at the stoplight. It was getting close to lunchtime. Usually when she was doing errands downtown around lunch and Grace was working, she’d text her and see if she could take a lunch break.
Leah didn’t feel much like seeing Grace right now, either. Or Kelly or Susan, the rest of her MC family who would be back at the big house with Jacob, Susan doing her administrative duties or Kelly working on the interior design of the Council Bluffs project.
If she went back to MC and talked to them, she’d be tempted to tell them about Jacob kissing her and hell to the no.
She didn’t know why she kept saying it like that. He hadn’t really kissed her. Okay, he had, but it was his let’s-get-the-weirdness-out-of-our-system plan. Because if it was a real kiss you didn’t say, “Now that’s out of the way” directly after as if it was some dreaded chore you’d finally crossed off your list.
But damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Quick. Surprising. Completely out of left field, and she still couldn’t stop playing it over and over in her head. She hadn’t even reacted in the moment. She could not read anything into it.
But that was exactly what her idiotic mind was doing.
The play of shadows. The contrast of cold air around her, except where he’d touched his mouth to hers.
Aw, crap, this was trouble.
Maybe what she really needed to do was plan a breakup. It was still a lie, but she wouldn’t have to do this stuff.
Of course, then her mother would hover. Ask if she was okay. Start hinting Leah should move back to Minnesota so someone could watch after her. Just in case.
Just in case.
As an adult she could find more understanding in her mother’s smothering. As a teenager it just felt like an affront, but now she could see it through the lens of a mother desperately worried about her daughter’s health. A legitimate worry considering.
Leah wanted to be able to let that understanding make her easy with it. Accept it without having to make up a boyfriend. Maybe even accept it enough that the thought of moving back to Minnesota didn’t make her throat close up with anxiety.
But she lacked whatever decency would allow that.
She needed her space, her autonomy. She’d never be considered 100 percent healthy, but she was the healthiest she’d ever been. She managed her allergies and her asthma, except for when she was cleaning the other night. She took her medication, only occasionally indulged in alcohol. Ate rightish. Exercised more often than not.
It had to mean something. Not just that she could take care of herself, but that she wanted to. Needed to in order to be happy.
Leah drove back to MC with a heavy weight in her chest. It was strange that this impending visit from her family could twist her up in knots, push all those old insecurities and suffocating feelings to the forefront when all she wanted was the family that had caused those feelings.
She wanted Mom to send her care packages with homemade nut-free cookies. She wanted to talk with Dad over a car engine. She wanted to tease her big brother about being as straight as an arrow stick in the mud.
She’d lost all that in the self-destructive years. The support, the comfort, the family. She didn’t want their suffocating ways of showing they loved her, but she did want their love.
Maybe it was too much to ask for. Maybe she simply wasn’t cut out for it.
She groaned into the silence of her truck cab. Once she pushed it into Park, she rested her head on the steering wheel.
She was not going down the self-pity hole. If the past seven years had shown her anything, it was that she was capable of building the life she wanted. So, all she had to do was keep working at it.
And if that meant things getting momentarily weird with Jacob, well, she’d survive it. She’d survived a lot more than some weird inappropriate crush and a fake relationship.
On a deep breath and determined shoulder straightening, she stepped out of her truck and walked into the back entrance of MC.
Voices drifted through the mudroom from the kitchen.
“You’re so good with babies, Jacob.”
Leah stepped into the kitchen and immediately wished she’d gone to her work shed instead. Because Jacob standing in the middle of the kitchen holding Kelly and Susan’s one-month-old girl was just... Was this some kind of karmic punishment for lying to her parents?
But of course, there he was, holding a freaking adorable baby on his hip. Might as well have a puppy lying at his feet and dinner he made on the stove. While doing the ironing.
Well, not with the baby nearby.
Get a grip, you lunatic.
“Hey, you didn’t tell me it was a baby day. I would have put off errands.” Probably not, but she was happy for her friends. Adopting little Presleigh had been something the pair had been working toward for a long time.
And here they were, a pretty little family. She’d focus on that instead of Jacob cooing at a baby. Because, really, karma was a bitch.
“You want a turn to hold her?” Kelly asked.
“Oh, she’s going to need to firm up a bit before you let me near her.”
Susan rolled her eyes, but smiled.
God, babies made her uncomfortable. All that love and need and...expectation. She’d done a pretty good job of hiding that fact from Kelly and Susan, using humor to mask her discomfort. Lack of experience to excuse holding or interacting too much with the gorgeous bundle of blankets.
“How can you be afraid of babies?” Jacob demanded, smiling broadly at Presleigh.
Leah was pretty sure this was killing her. “I’m not afraid. They’re just all soft and...bobbly. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“It’s easy.”
“Oh, don’t push her. It is something to get used to if you haven’t been around babies much. I think it took me a week to stop shaking every time I picked her up.” Kelly gave Leah a reassuring smile.
Presleigh fussed and Jacob easily maneuvered her onto his shoulder, crooning soothing words and patting her back.
Leah was pretty sure her ovaries exploded.
