Page 106 of Bountiful
Zara had suspended a baby seat off the stone countertop, but it took Nicole a few minutes to be convinced to sit in it. Zara set down some bites of chicken and French fries on a placemat. When the baby saw the food, she agreed to be confinedagain.
“Thank the lord,” Zara said, clippingherin.
“Long day?” I asked, putting a hand on her lower back. I ached to touch her. The night we’d spent together hadn’t gotten her out of my system at all. It had made me cravehermore.
“Long day. Long week,” Zara said, dipping her hand into a paper bag and pulling out a foil-wrapped burger. “Here you go. You don’t strike me as the picky type, so I got you one witheverything.”
“Thanks. That’s perfect.” It was bonkers that Zara and I had only had dinner together a couple of times—the wedding and her family’s Sunday lunch. Standing at the counter side by side, we ate in silence for a few minutes, while Nicole stuffed her face, too, with greatenthusiasm.
“Still like the house?” I asked, admiring the way the late afternoon sun slanted throughtheroom.
“I love it desperately,” she saidimmediately.
Swear to God, that made me feel ten feet tall. “Glad to hear that. You didn’t seem so sure about the whole ideabefore.”
“It wasn’t the house,” she said quietly. “It wasowingyou. I owe everyone in my family. No—everyone in mylife. I didn’t want to add you tothelist.”
She said that with her spine straight and her dark eyes boring into mine. And that’s the moment when I finally understood that I loved her. I’d probably loved her a long time, but I’d been too chickenshit to use that word, even tomyself.
“You don’t owe me anything, baby,” I said softly. “I want you to have this place. In fact…” I stepped across the roomy kitchen, opening empty drawers until I found what I was looking for—an envelope with a copy of the deed inside. “Here. This copy isforyou.”
Zara opened the envelope and pulled out the document. Her frown deepened as she flipped through the pages. “Both our names areonhere?”
“That’s right.” My lawyer had known what to do. “Joint tenants with rights of survivorship. If anything happened to either of us, the other one gets the houseautomatically.”
Her dark lashes lifted, and her gaze met mine. “You could have just willed it toNicole.”
I shrugged, because I supposed she was right. But I wanted Zara to have a house. Hell, I wanted her to haveeverything. “It makes me happy to do this for you, gorgeous. I hope you like the house. And I hope you’ll let mevisit.”
“Thank you, Dave.” Her cheeks stained pink. She took the last bite of her burger and then crumpled up the wrapper. “I got fries, too,” she said, changing the subject. She set the bag between us, like a deep-friedbarrier.
Fuck that. I pushed the bag aside, leaned in and kissed herjawline.
Never one to beat around the bush, she captured my face in one of her sleek hands. Turning her chin, she kissed me once on the mouth. But then she pushed my face away. “I can’t, Dave. I want to, but Ican’t.”
“Whynot?”
She glanced over at her chewing baby before looking me straight in the eye again. “Once upon a time, you and I were wonderfully, gloriously casual with each other,” she said. “It was a temporary thing, and that wasfinewithme.”
“Right.” I chuckled. “I haven’t forgotten that you threw me out everynight.”
Her smile was sad. “The thing is, I can’t even do that anymore, because now we’re not the only two people involved. I have someone else’s feelings toconsider.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to understand. “You don’t want me hanging around because you don’t think I’m good for Nicole?” Didn’t she see I wastrying?
“That’s not it.” Zara shook her head. “And I love having you around.” She sighed, as if it had cost her to tell me that. “But what I want isn’t very important anymore. I can live with all kinds of uncertainty in my life, but I won’t do that to Nicole. I’m a big girl.She’snot.”
“Okay. I get it.”Sort of. “It’s just that I missed you like crazy, and I don’t see what it hurts to let you know. I don’t mind remembering why I liked you so much, or how we ended up having a childtogether.”
“I missed you like crazy, too,” she whispered. “But the other day you asked me what I needed from you. And I didn’t give you ananswer.”
“Yeah? Lay itonme.”
“Okay. I need you to decide if we’re really on your list,ornot.”
“My…list?” Now I definitely wasn’tfollowingher.
Zara picked at invisible lint on her sleeve. “When I was a little girl, sometimes my father was around, and sometimes he wasn’t. My mother was way too patient with him. He strung us along. And then eventually he went away for good. The last time I saw him I wasfourteen.”
