He shook his head, patently appalled at how she had thought. “Amy, you’d always have a say in it. I’ve respected your wishes. I’d never not respect them,” he argued, fiercely dismissing what probably seemed to him a gross allegation.
“I realise that now,” she acknowledged. “But I was too frightened to see it then. I kept pushing you away from me, trying to protect myself. I tried to cling to the idea of spontaneous combustion. It was like an excuse. But you said it more truly a few minutes ago... something big slipping out of control.”
“But our child...” he burst out in angry confusion. “Didn’t the baby we made...and its future...deserve some re-thinking?”
“I’ve been frightened of that, too, pushing it away from me,” she confessed.
“But you want the baby. You said...you assured me...”
“That I wasn’t thinking of a termination,” she finished for him, leaping ahead, anxious to get it all out now. “I couldn’t, Jake. Not because it was my baby. This will probably sound unreal to you, but from the moment the pregnancy was confirmed, I thought of the baby as yours.”
“Blaming me?”
“No...no...” She shook her head vehemently, anguished by his misunderstanding. “I meant...you have this power, Jake. It...it clouds everything. I didn’t think of it as my baby. Not even an entity by itself. It was like a bond you’d made with me. A tie. And I see-sawed between wanting the link with you and being frightened of what it might mean to me.”
“Frightened... you’re frightened of marrying me?” He looked repelled by the idea.
“I was. I’m not anymore,” she cried in a fluster. “Don’t you see?” she pleaded. “There was no way out because of the baby. And if you hurt me... it’s like a trap. I can’t bring myself to let you go...yet you have the power to damage me far more than my father ever did. For far longer.”
“You have the same power over me,” he said tersely. “Don’t you realise that?”
It jolted her. She hadn’t realised it. Hadn’t even thought of it. Yet she’d seen the hurt she’d given him, was watching the pain of her rejection working through him now as she pleaded her case.
“The power goes both ways,” he said less harshly. “It’s up to both of us not to abuse it.”
She rubbed at her forehead. “I don’t know what to do. The baby...” She looked down at her stomach, touched it tentatively. “It’s still unreal to me as mine. Maybe I’m not maternal. I wanted it to belong to your family. I don’t think I know how to be a mother. My own mother...” She raised anguished eyes. “...She was too frightened of my father to stand up for us.”
“It only takes love, Amy. Freely given.” He grimaced. “Maybe your mother didn’t feel free to give it. But there’s no reason you can’t. At least to our child.”
Freely given...he’d said that to her before...the night they’d made the baby...their baby. She wished she could feel good about it, that it wasn’t some kind of a trap for either of them. Maybe that would come. She hoped so. She needed to feel good. Good enough, anyway.
Jake still didn’t know all he had to know, and she had to tell him. No more lies. No evasions. Her eyes ached with the need to reach him as she said, “I do want you, Jake. I’ve wanted you for so long... I said I didn’t want to go to bed with you but that was another lie. I lied because I didn’t want you to know how much I had thought about it, how much I wanted it Wanted you...”
She could read no reaction from him. He was completely still. Whether he was absorbing what she said or shutting it out she couldn’t tell. She felt drained from the effort of unburdening herself to him, yet the compulsion to draw him back to her would not let her rest.
“Today, when you kissed me under the mistletoe... I wanted to believe what you made me feel was forever. It meant...too much. It scared me again. And then you said...it was only a Christmas kiss...”
“No,” he denied vehemently. “I said a man was entitled to kiss a woman standing under a mistletoe on Christmas day.”
“So I screwed that up, too,” she said helplessly. “I guess I’ve made it too hard for you to believe me now.”
“What’s too hard for me to believe, Amy?”
Not too hard. Impossible. But she said it anyway.
“I love you, Jake.”
It was true. She loved everything about him, loved him so much it hurt. Her heart was bleeding with all she felt for him. And it hurt all the more because he hadn’t said he loved her. He wasn’t saying it now, either. He just stood there, staring at her with seemingly unseeing eyes.
Maybe he didn’t love her and was shocked by her confession. She’d assumed...but it could have been his ego hurt by her blanket rejection, not his heart. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Because she needed... Dear God! She needed his love. She couldn’t marry him without it.
“Jake...” His name scraped out of her convulsing throat. She swallowed hard. Her hands lifted in agitated appeal. “...If you don’t love me...”
He moved then. Before Amy could take a breath she was wrapped in his arms and held so close she could feel his heart beating and his warmth flooding through her. She wrapped her own arms around his neck, buried her face against his broad shoulder, and hung on for dear life as tremors racked her body and her mind slipped into meltdown, knowing only that Jake had taken her back, he was holding her safe, and they were together again.
He rubbed his cheek against her hair, tenderly soothing. “Don’t be frightened of me. Not ever, Amy,” he said, his voice furred with passionate feeling. “If you’ll just open your heart to me, I’ll listen. We’ll work things out together. That’s how it should be.”
He’d forgiven her. The relief of it went through her like a tidal wave.
“Maybe I should have spoken...instead of holding back,” he went on, his own torment pouring out. “I guess we all try to protect ourselves from hurt. You’d been with Steve for so long... I was wary of a rebound effect I wanted you free and clear of him, Amy, before I told you how I felt.”
How could she blame him? She’d given him so little to work on.
He sighed, his warm breath caressing her ear. “I’ve loved you for a very long time. I can’t imagine not loving you.”