Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 21094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves.
“Jane?” he answers.
“Hey.” I breathe out heavily.
“Are you okay?”
I laugh. “Yeah, I’m okay. I was hoping we could talk.”
I swear he’s at the bottom of the stairs because I can hear his voice through the phone and in the house. “Do you want me to come up there?”
I want him to come up here and hold me, but I can’t ask him that. “No, let’s just talk. Like we used to.”
He clears his throat. “Okay. Let’s talk.”
“I’ll start. I’m sorry you were jealous, but I want you to know you have no reason to be.”
He huffs out a breath. “I know that. I was being ridiculous. I wish I could blame it on lack of sleep, but I’m going to be honest, honey. I think no matter how much sleep I have or how well rested I am, I will never be okay with another man looking at you.”
My lower belly pulls. “Same.”
His voice is louder in the phone. “Same?”
I lie back on the bed and grip the phone a little tighter in my hand. “Yes, same. I was ready to leave as soon as we got there. I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to keep my friends anymore because they were all checking you out.” I pause for a second and huskily tell him, “I didn’t like it.”
I swear I can hear the smile on his face. “The only person I want checking me out is you.”
“Well, that’s something you don’t have to worry about.” I can feel the embarrassment of my confession heat up my cheeks, so I continue. “So why have you not touched me since the night you got home? I even tried sneaking into your room one night, and it was locked. You can’t keep pushing me away, Grant.”
He gruffly explains, and I can imagine him running his hand through his hair as he does. “I’m not pushing you away. I’m keeping you safe. You deserve better than me, and I’m trying to hold back until I’m right.”
My heart seizes in my chest. “You act like you’re broken, and you’re not. You don’t need to be fixed to deserve me or to want me.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm myself. “You don’t understand. You say one thing—that you want me and want to be with me—but then you do another. You putting your guard up with me makes me feel like we’re doomed already. You’re supposed to be able to lean on me and me on you. That’s what a marriage is supposed to be about.”
He grunts, and it makes me wonder if I’m getting to him or not. He’s been so closed off these last few days. “Are you happy you’re home?”
“Yeah, but I wish things were different. I wish I was different.”
I know he’s talking about the nightmares, and I don’t blame him. I wonder how different our reunion would have been without them, but it doesn’t make me think less of him. “Ask me now.”
He hesitates. “Ask you what?”
“Ask me if I’m happy you’re home.”
With bated breath, he asks me, and his voice stutters getting it out. “Are you happy I’m home?”
I can hear the nervousness in his voice, and it kills me. He has no idea how I feel about him. “Yeah, I’m happy you’re home. No more worrying if you’re safe or not. I have all these dreams about our future, and since you came home to me… I want them even more.”
“What dreams? You haven’t told me anything about this.”
I roll over on the bed and run my finger along the bedspread. “Actually, I have told you. I mean, sort of.”
He swears. “I promise you, Jane, if you told me, I don’t remember, and I really think that’s something I’d remember.”
“I wrote to you.”
He’s quiet for just a minute. “You did write to me, and I read every letter multiple times, but you never talked anything about our future or what you wanted in those letters.”
I cover my face with my hand. I can do this. Not only can I do this, but I need to do it. “I never sent them to you. I wrote them to you and kept them in a diary. Everything I was thinking is in that book.”
“Where is it?”
“I put it in a box under your bed.”
I can hear him get up from the squeaky chairs and then hear him stomping through the house toward his bedroom. There’s a bunch of shuffling, and I know he’s on his knees under his bed. I can imagine him picking it up and setting it on the bed. “I think if you read some of that, you’ll understand what you mean to me, Grant.”
“Thank you for this. I don’t know what to say.”