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Ultimate Cedar Cove Collection
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Год написания книги
2019
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“The father?”
“Out of the picture,” she said, not wanting to mention Jon’s name.
“Oh, Maryellen…”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, putting on a brave front, “really I will. Mom, I’m almost thirty-six years old. I can take care of myself.”
“But…”
“It took some adjusting, but now that I’ve accepted this, I’m happy.” The joy was decidedly absent at the moment with tears making wet tracks down her cheeks.
“We always had this connection, Maryellen,” her mother said. “I knew. Somehow I knew.”
“We didn’t always, Mom.”
Grace looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“If we had this special connection fifteen years ago, you would’ve known then, too.”
Her mother stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.
There, it was out—a piece of the truth that she’d assumed would remain forever buried. Her sin, her pain, the guilt she’d carried with her for all these years.
“You were pregnant before?”
The lump in her throat was so big, she could only answer with a nod.
“Leave it to you to wait until the last minute to put up a tree,” Olivia teased Jack as he took the first package of decorative balls from a shopping bag. Actually, Olivia thought it was rather a sweet gesture on Jack’s part. Eric had briefly moved out but was back, much to Jack’s relief. He’d bought the Christmas tree in an effort to lift his son’s spirits over the holidays and Olivia had agreed to help him decorate it. This had entailed buying lights and decorations, since Jack hadn’t bothered much with Christmas since his divorce.
Eric had grown progressively more depressed at the approach of Christmas. Jack had done what he could to pull his son out of his melancholy but to no avail. Two days before Christmas, he invited Olivia over to decorate a Christmas tree while Eric was out. They hoped the surprise would jolt him into a more cheerful frame of mind.
“I kind of like this pitiful tree,” Jack said, stepping back to examine it. The branches all seemed to be bunched on one side, while the other side was almost bare.
“It’s a Charlie Brown tree for sure.” In Olivia’s opinion, this was the sorriest-looking evergreen in the lot, but she agreed it held a certain appeal. She’d brought some leftover ornaments, along with a CD of Christmas music, and they were in business.
Andy Williams’s voice crooned as a small fire blazed in the fireplace. “So?” Jack asked, rearranging the string of twinkling white lights. “Are you doing anything special after this?”
“I was thinking I’d let you take me to dinner.”
“The Taco Shack?”
Olivia sighed. Nine times out of ten, that was the restaurant Jack chose. “Do they still owe you for advertising?”
“I can eat there for another twenty years.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Jack hung a plastic gingerbread man on a drooping tree limb. “You like Mexican food, don’t you?”
“Sure—but I enjoy the company more.”
Chuckling, Jack grabbed her around the waist, preparing to kiss her. Olivia certainly wasn’t objecting, but then the door opened and Jack stopped abruptly. He loosened his grip and Olivia nearly fell to the floor, catching herself just in time.
“Eric,” Jack said, sounding startled. “I didn’t expect you for a couple of hours.”
His son walked into the room, looking about as gloomy as a man can get. He didn’t appear to notice that Olivia and Jack had been in the middle of a kiss.
“You picked up the mail?”
Eric nodded.
“What happened?” Olivia asked. The boy seemed to be in shock.
Eric slouched forward and dropped the mail on the coffee table. “I heard from Shelly.”
“She wrote you?” Jack seemed encouraged by this development.
“No…” Eric covered his face with his hands. “She sent me a picture.”
“A picture?” Jack frowned. “Of what?”
“The baby,” Eric supplied. Then he straightened and looked them both full in the face. “Correction, babies. Shelly’s having twins.”
“Twins!” Jack fell back onto the sofa.
Eric reached for the top envelope and withdrew a folded paper. “See for yourself.”
Jack clambered to his feet. He took the paper and examined it, with Olivia glancing over his shoulder. Sure enough, the fuzzy photograph revealed two distinct fetuses. They were positioned in such a way that it was easy to detect the sex. “Both boys from the look of it,” Jack announced.
“Shelly didn’t include a note with the ultrasound results?”
“No,” Eric said, “but when I got this, I thought we should talk, so I drove over to the apartment…”
“And?” Jack pressed.
Eric ran his hand over his face and didn’t seem to know where to start. “The thing is, I love Shelly. These last few months have been hell, the two of us being separated like this.”
“They’ve been hell for me, too,” Jack muttered, and Olivia elbowed him in the ribs.
“Did you have the chance to talk to Shelly?” she asked sympathetically.
“I told her the truth,” Eric said. “I love her, I’ve always loved her. I don’t care if the baby—the babies are mine or not, I want to be with her.” He rubbed his face a second time and Olivia thought he might break into tears. “I can’t do any better than that, can I? I’ve already given her my heart. I offered her my forgiveness, too. What more can I do?”
Olivia groaned. “She doesn’t need your forgiveness, Eric.”
“They can’t be my babies,” Eric cried. “But I’m willing to make them mine, if she’d let me.”
“She refused?” Jack was clearly outraged. “The woman needs to see a shrink! You both do.”
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Книга дельная. Без воды, приводятся реальные кейсы и способы их разрешения. Много практичных полезных советов и методик. Кое-что уже испробовала в дел...
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