“You’re such a coward,” I taunt. He takes my hand and guides me as I sit down next to him. “I might need a forklift to get me back up.”
“I’ll help you.” He leans over and kisses me on the forehead. Then he cringes. “I’m so sorry. I keep forgetting you’re not mine.” He shakes his head and looks at my belly. “It should be so obvious. I mean, seriously, you have that.” He motions toward my big stomach. “It’s right in front of you, like a basketball. But bigger.” He stares at it.
“It’s okay, Jake. You can kiss my forehead. Or my cheek. You can touch my belly. It’s all right. I promise.”
“It’s not all right,” he complains. “You are not mine. You’re someone else’s. I keep forgetting that.” He quietly tosses his line in the water and stares hard at his bobber.
“I’m not anybody’s, Jake. Not anymore.”
His head jerks up. “What?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain.”
He hands me a fishing pole. “Start at the beginning. How did you meet your husband?”
“Oh, that’s easy to explain.” I let out a breath. “I met Jeff at basic, right after I joined the military.”
“Love at first sight, right?” His green eyes don’t meet mine.
I rock my head back and forth like I’m thinking about it. But I don’t need to think hard. “Pretty much. Then we got pregnant right away. With Gabby.”
He just sits staring silently ahead.
“We haven’t seen one another in eighteen years, Jake. You can’t fault me for falling in love with my husband.”
He nods. “I know. I just wonder what might have happened between us if we’d never stopped writing to one another. If we hadn’t let that fizzle out, where would we be now?”
“There’s no way to know that.” I set my pole on the dock next to me and squeeze my hands together. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t take it back. I loved him. The way I felt for my husband eclipsed what we had at sixteen. That was puppy love compared to what it feels like making a family with someone.”
He grunts.
“You loved Laura, right?”
He finally meets my eyes. “What I feel for you right now eclipses what I ever felt for her.”
My belly drops down toward my toes. “You don’t mean that.”
“It’s stupid, I know.”
I lay a hand on his knee, which is jumping in place. “It’s not stupid. It’s just not real, either.”
“It’s real,” he says.
“Okay…” I say slowly.
“Let’s fish,” Jake says. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“I’m going to beat the pants off you, Jake,” I tease.
He grins. “You want my pants off, Katie, you just let me know. You don’t have to outfish me for that.”
I can’t hold back my grin. “You suck.”
Jake bumps my shoulder gently with his. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says.
“Me too.”
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