Page 8 of Inevitably Yours

Dinner was awkward, at best, and John knew Augusta could sense it, too. The bouncy, bubbly pixie he picked up had slowly morphed into a somber, empty-laughing woman on a bad date.

John wanted with his whole heart to fix it but couldn’t seem to figure out how. It was a mess he created all on his own, and now he had to figure out how to clean it up.

As much as he tried to deny it, he had known for a long time that Augusta had feelings for him. Not just the family type feelings he shared with all the Reid clan and their patchwork family—which he was now firmly a part of too—but deeper feelings. Deep, as in foundations, the kind which built futures and 401ks. Over the last year and a half or so, he had done nothing to discourage it, although he should have; he did not feel the same way about her.

The moment that thought formed, his heart rejected it. He was attracted to her; she was a beautiful young woman after all, but, deep feelings? John hadn’t had deep feelings for a woman in a long time, and at this point in life, he didn’t think he was even capable of such. He had boarded up that well years ago. A profound sadness engulfed him because he believed that well to have run dry.

John’s gaze drifted up from his plate of pasta, across the checkered table cloth, and landed on the face that made him question that ability, and not for the first time.

It’s physical, nothing more. It’s not love. I can’t possibly be falling in love. It seemed like he doubted himself more and more each and every time he looked deep into her arresting green eyes, flecked in gold and ringed in amber—a unique hazel worthy of the woman who bore them.

Hmm, I guess I do know their color, after all.John failed to notice how his staring made her even more uncomfortable until she started spouting the merits of the pasta yet again. John let her ramble, not because he enjoyed her being on edge, but because she was adorable in her flustered impromptu lesson on what affects the acidity of the tomatoes, making choosing those grown in the right condition as much of a culinary art as preparing them.

“Dang it!” Augusta suddenly stopped chewing, rested her fork on her plate with a clank, and wiped her mouth with the napkin from her lap. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she glanced down her front. John tracked every movement with interest, curious what prompted her outburst. When she looked from side to side as if to see who noticed, his curiosity piqued.

At his raised eyebrow, Augusta blushed and whispered, “It seems with pregnancy comes many increased hungers no one tells you about.” Still at a loss, John remained silent but raised his other eyebrow in question as well.

“You know, the girls?” Nothing. “Apparently, they like to eat as much as the front of my shirt does.”

“I don—” was all he got out before understanding smacked him in the face when Augusta did another cursory glance around the dimly lit dining room, then thrust her hand between her breasts and retrieved a strand of linguini. She began chuckling as she used her napkin, wetted from her water glass, to remove the sauce left in its wake.

John thought he groaned aloud. Of course, if he did, Augusta made no indication she heard him, so maybe it was all in his head after all. Thank God, because any encouragement would cause her disappointment in the long run. Even so, his eyes were riveted to the slight bounce of her breasts while she wiped the valley between.

She had tilted forward in an effort to shield herself from the other diners’ view, but it gave him a front row ticket and drew his attention to the increased size of her perfect bust line. Yeah, right, that’s why you noticed, you perv. She is young and pregnant, so stop ogling her. It’s bad enough you sniffed the shirt she returned to you and thinks it smells like her. He had inhaled it as soon as he pulled out of her driveway.It smelled fresh and clean, like laundry, but also held a hint of cucumber and kiwi, just like Augusta herself. It was reminiscent of innocence…something I haven’t had in a long time.Fresh and clean…and not for the likes of me.

As hard as he tried to discourage himself, his eyes returned again and again. While Augusta’s laughter increased, John’s stress level decreased. A nice, balanced couple. Wait, what? No, not what I meant at all. He simply loved that she found amusement in things that would frustrate most people. Wait, not love, poor word choice. He appreciated it. Better.

“Well, they won’t need to eat for another six to eight hours, so we’re good,” she joked.

John stared.

Augusta resumed her meal with enthusiasm, and John continued to stare.

“You know,” she said, pointing her fork at him. “I should have just left it for a snack later. It would save me the midnight raid of the pantry.” Augusta chuckled low and to herself. John…stared.

Once their dinner was a distant memory, Augusta was having an after-dinner mineral water to John’s typical Lagavulin. The momentary ease to the previous awkwardness had lifted, and the uncomfortable, blind-online-disaster-date feel returned with a vengeance.

John needed to man-up and say what needed to be said, for her sake and for his. Drawing this out wasn’t helping any more than him being in her daily life. He had convinced himself he was only being active until Marco and Andy got settled closer, but he recognized it for the half-truth it was.

If it’s the right thing, then why does it feel like the exact opposite?Augusta pushed herself from the table just a bit, bringing her belly into view, causing John’s imagination to take a flight of fancy, but the past grounded it before it soared too high.

Hardening his visage and his heart, he spoke, “Augusta, I think we need to talk.” The pause was for him to collect himself, but it torpedoed his resolve instead. Her face fell, and he was overtaken by a palpable pain. He hadn’t even spoken the words, yet she knew what he was about to say. She always seemed so in tune with him.

The sigh that broke the silence held so much information and an almost physical weight. When it left her bow-shaped lips, it settled on his heart like an anchor, dragging it back down to a dark place where it had resided for far too long.

Augusta stood, tossing him a defeated and disappointed look. “Can this wait until you get me home? If I know you, and I think I kinda do, this is not going to be a pleasant revelation for me, and I prefer not to break down in public.” John rose from the table the minute she did and berated himself for not seeing her intention and getting her chair. He could at least do some of the gentlemanly things his mother insisted he learn.

He retrieved her small Coach bag from the back of her chair, handed it to her, and gestured toward the door. Instead of walking ahead, she slung her purse over the opposite shoulder and looped her arms through his left arm intimately before her head dropped gently to his bicep. “Besides,” she breathed low, “just let me pretend for a few more minutes,” her voice dropped to a barely there whisper, “that you could love me as I am.” She had spoken so impossibly low, John convinced himself he’d heard her wrong.

And the blender just kept whirring and whirring, grinding and chewing away at his heart.

For a daythat started out with so much promise, it had sure ended with the absence of even a sliver. Gus could read the writing on the wall; John was pulling back even further, but that’s not all she saw.

Gus had also noticed the way he stared into her eyes as if he could see beyond her pregnancy. She heard his breath hitch when he saw her in the low-cut vintage Chanel. None of her friends here had seen her dressed like that before. Once she moved to Florida and had no one harping on her to dress for success even if she was just buying groceries, Gus had refused to even wear a dress…until now. John was worth dressing up for.

John’s appreciation and affection didn’t stop there. More than once, she’d caught that glimpse of what she thought could be love, at least what she wanted to be the possibility of love. If not that, the seeds of a deep affection that could be cultivated into love, just like with her. That is, if she could have found a way to keep John from digging them up the minute he realized they were there, struggling to grow.

It was witnessing that which was the real rub. Catching glimpses of the possibility only hurt that much more. It wasn’t that he was blissfully unaware of it, which was the belief she had been operating under for the last six months. That she could deal with. She had schoolgirl fantasies of leading him down the path of discovery and watching when he became aware of his feelings.

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