them, but never Greg. There was only one picture of Greg. He stood with Duffy in front of a Christmas tree. They might have been eight or nine. Slender bodies, pants that were too short for their long legs and T-shirts they didn’t fill out. They were both grinning and holding baseball mitts.
Duffy wasn’t as heartless as he appeared, which meant neither was Greg. Warmth blossomed in Jessica’s chest.
“All clear.” Duffy returned and removed his boots. “The house is only eight hundred square feet.” He began pointing. “Kitchen that way. The three doors over there are my bedroom, the bathroom and my home office. You can sleep in my room.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.” Jess sat on it, sinking-sinking-sinking, realizing too late she should have taken a bathroom break first. Otherwise, the sleeping-arrangement standoff was going to be short-lived.
“Yeah. That’s not happening.” The mischievous Duffy had gone, replaced by the resolute man she’d first met. “You’ll take my bed. I’ll change the sheets.”
“No. Really. I’ll be fine right here.” She grunted attractively—not—as she lifted her legs onto the couch. It proceeded to swallow her in the crack. “I couldn’t get up if you asked me to.” But she would if Baby bounced one more time on her bladder.
He leaned on the back of the couch and stared down at her with hauntingly familiar, caramel-colored eyes.
“You were sleeping,” Greg said, leaning on the back of the couch. “I didn’t want to wake you.” She’d reached for him and he’d taken her hand...
“Did you remember something just now?”
“Not enough to be meaningful.” Had she looked at Duffy the way she’d looked at Greg? Her body felt as overheated as an oven set to broil. She tried maneuvering into a more upright sitting position so that Duffy could sit, too. The couch almost won the battle. “Greg had a great couch.” Cup holders and everything.
“Sold it.” Duffy knelt by the fireplace, where there was split wood ready to be lit. Again she noticed his economy of movement, even when he started a fire.
When Greg moved, there’d been bold statements and unleashed energy. There’d been excitement and noise. Drama and passion.
Tired and wet, Jess appreciated Duffy’s calm. “So you went through Greg’s stuff and there was nothing about me?”
“Nope.” He stood, leaning on the mantel and regarding her. Steady. Oh, so steady.
She frowned as an image teased the corners of her mind. “Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think I gave him a picture of us at a...um...a local food festival?”
“Nope,” he said again, not pulling any punches.
The image sharpened. “It might have been in a heart-shaped silver frame. On his mantel.” Or was her memory influenced by the pictures in the room and Duffy next to the fireplace?
“I found a heart-shaped frame, but it was in his desk drawer.” His gaze slid to the pictures on his right. He repositioned the Christmas photo. “The frame was empty.”
Jess felt empty, too, as if someone had carved out her heart. “Why would Greg do that?” she whispered, rubbing her belly, where Baby’s little knee or hip was protruding, creating a numb spot.
Duffy was back to studying her. He would have made a good trial lawyer. “Didn’t you find pictures of you two on your phone or social media?”
“I shut off my social media accounts when I went to culinary school because I didn’t want to be tagged in something that would haunt me later.” The few friends she still had from foster care and high school could be irresponsible and post things that could cost Jess a job. “And since I’ve been on a budget, I’ve had a little cheap phone, nothing fancy.”
“You made it easy for him.” Duffy shook his head. “You said a week before the accident your bank account was drained. Greg probably destroyed everything that tied you two together.”
“I don’t want to believe Greg was like that.” That she’d meant nothing more to him than the money he could take from her.
Duffy sank into the other couch corner, but he was tall and had long legs. He didn’t sink as far as she did. “Why is it so important to you that you meant something to him?”
“Because of Baby. Every child deserves to be loved.” She shifted again, but Baby didn’t like it. A round of kicking ensued, delaying her explanation. “Every baby deserves to be created from love.” Jessica had no clue if she’d been created from love or not. Her mother had abandoned her in a homeless shelter when she was nine.
Duffy stared pensively into the growing flames.
Did he agree? Did he think she was a gullible fool? “Say something.”
“I was just thinking that my parents tried for a long time to have a baby and then they had twins.” His gaze landed on her belly. “Do you want the baby? Are you going to keep it?”
Give up Baby? If she could’ve launched herself out of the couch, she would have. “I’m excited to be a mother. I can’t wait to swaddle this baby with love.”
“But children are such a huge responsibility in terms of time and money.” There was more than a note of caution in his voice. There was certainty. And rejection. But not of her.
“Are you saying you don’t want kids because they’re inconvenient and cost a lot?”
He hesitated, staring at her as if weighing how much he should admit to, and then he nodded.
Jess glanced from the pictures of his family, and then back to him. “You never want kids or a family?”
He didn’t so much as flinch. “I might get married someday, but no. I don’t want any additional responsibilities. I don’t even have a dog.”
“Or a cat,” she murmured, inexplicably saddened. “Why not?”
* * *
BECAUSE DUFFY WANTED a break from responsibility. Permanently.
After fifteen years of struggling to make ends meet, the thought of having a child, of being responsible for another life for eighteen years plus, had Duffy’s muscles drawn tighter than a guide wire strung from post to post in the vineyard.
He didn’t have to answer Jessica, but he felt compelled to.
“When I was fifteen, my dad was in an accident at work. It put him in a wheelchair.” Duffy gestured toward the photos on either side of the fireplace. “He qualified for worker’s compensation. And he got a lawyer who sued the company for a long-term settlement. But it took years for that money to come in. Years.” In the meantime, for a teenager there’d been uncertainty, fear and shame as little by little everything he’d taken for granted had been stripped away—nice clothes, dinners out, the promise of a car when he earned his license. “My mom had to hire someone to care for Dad so she could work. I got a job to help out. And Greg... Well, he always said he had a job, but he never contributed money to the household.” The words stung. “He’d come home with things he’d found ‘by the roadside’—a new television still
