Page 5 of Calling from the Heart
“Everyone’s going to stare…” He stroked his belly.
“Oh, baby, this is Friendsgiving. These are our friends. They’ll be staring at me too, but no one is going to be mean.”
“Okay…I—” She kicked and rolled, and he extended an olive branch. “She’s moving. Would you like to feel?”
“I would.” Jeb let him put one hand on his belly, his expression akin to a man about to touch a snake. Which made him chuckle.
“She doesn’t bite. I promise.” He moved Jeb’s hand to where she was playing soccer.
Jeb blinked, and then a wondering sort of expression dawned on his face. “She’s moving. You know for sure she’s a she?”
“Yeah. I went for the ultrasound Monday. She’s a little girl.” Your little girl.
“Oh, wow.” That hand was warm and firm on his belly, Jeb not at all scared, he thought. Not now. “Wow. I hope she has your eyes.”
“I hope she has your smile.” Owen was not going to cry. Not.
“Come to supper with me, baby. That’s all. One day at a time, okay?” Jeb gave him a smile, those dimples he loved making Jeb look so much younger. Happier.
“One day at a time. Okay. I can’t promise not to cry.”
“So? You’re all preggers.” Jeb went to the kitchen. “You want to bring… Sprite?”
Since that was almost all that was in his fridge, it was a good call.
He just hadn’t been hungry. Sprite was calories, if not nutrition.
“Sprite it is.” Jeb pulled out an unopened bottle. “Ta-da. Something to bring. Do you have shoes?”
“I do own shoes, yes.” He slipped on his boots and his coat, because it was cold out there. This whole thing was insane.
“I thought I remembered you having some.” Jeb was grinning now, teasing him, and he dammit, why did helikeJeb so much. Not just love him, but like him.
“Shut up. I’ll beat you.” Neither of them were worried about that, but it felt good to threaten.
“Mmmhmm. Promises, promises.” Jeb carried the Sprite, then steered him toward the door. “I’ll drive. That way you can just relax on the way.”
Relax?
He’d been avoiding his friends for a couple of months now.
Jeb opened the truck door for him, helping to boost him up. “Don’t look so nervous, baby. These are your friends. Have they been calling? Checking on you?”
“They’ve been trying,” he said, not without guilt.
“Well, then, they care.”
“I do too. I just didn’t know what to do.” He’d been ostriching.
“I know. I can tell.”
What did that mean? Okay, maybe Jeb had seen all the blankets and pillows and boxes of Kleenex.
“I just needed to be able to focus on work. The kids depend on me.”
“Of course they do, baby. I wasn’t being an ass.” Jeb got them moving, more carefully than usual, he noticed. And he had to bite back a grin.
He didn’t know what to say. Whether to bitch or laugh or what.
