“Dinner’s ready?” she asked instead.
“Yes,” Jack replied, nodding to Brett as he moved past them and set the large pan on the picnic table. “Sabrina will be down in a minute.”
Jack leaned against the table, his eyes moving from Donovan to Brett. “How ya feeling?” he asked.
“Better than ever,” Brett replied. “I like your girl.”
Donovan’s eyes slid away, and she watched the kids as they clambered out of the water and ran toward them.
She wanted that. She wanted to be Jack’s girl.
She wanted his baby.
She thought of Brett and Sabrina and their bittersweet, tragic story. Maybe Brett was right. Her story wasn’t over. Maybe everything keeping her and Jack apart didn’t matter. Maybe Cooper’s threats didn’t matter and the whole mess with Derek, that awful night from five years ago? Maybe it was time to tell Jack that story.
Maybe it was time for Donovan to write her own story. Time for her to face some hard truths. To admit to past mistakes and take a chance on the only man she would ever love.
Of course the question was, did she have enough balls to do it?
Chapter Nineteen
* * *
It was just before eleven when Jack and Donovan headed up to his place, but it felt much later. He was dead tired. He was running on little sleep, and a full day on the water with the kids hadn’t helped.
It had been one hell of a weird day, and he was just about ready for it to be over. He’d barely exchanged two words with Donovan since the morning, but he’d felt her eyes on him more than once throughout the evening. Something was up, a shift in their universe and something was about to happen. He could feel it.
But what?
He watched as she cradled Coco and picked her way along the path in the dark. Her hair was loose, the long blond tangles falling halfway down her back and the breeze played with the ends. Dressed in one of his old sweatshirts, she looked so damn small—no wonder his protective instincts were kicking in. There were solar lights along the path but still, the steps were uneven, and he was ready to catch her if she stumbled.
She didn’t, and he followed her inside the house. He’d left one lamp on near the leather sofa and long shadows filled in most of the great room. She walked a few paces and then paused, absently petting Coco as she turned to him. The shadows made her eyes look huge and mysterious, her mouth so damn kissable that his mind started to wander to places it shouldn’t. And that hair. Jesus that hair. She looked as wild and untamed as when he’d first met her.
Coco hopped out of her arms and sniffed around Jack’s feet, his little body trembling with excitement. The dog barked once and then ran to the sofa, tail wagging fiercely before he settled down, little tongue out and panting as if he’d just run a quarter mile.
Donovan licked her lips, bit on her bottom one, but her eyes never left his. The silence between them felt so big that it was loud and alive and full of hard things.
“I should just…I’ll head up now,” Donovan said softly, turning toward the stairs.
“No. Wait.” Jack blew out a long breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “I…we need to talk.”
Donovan took a few seconds before she turned back around. She opened her mouth as if to say something but then closed it before she could get any words out. He let that dark and heavy silence wash over him again, watching her closely, waiting for her to react.
But she kept silent, so he plunged forward, speaking the things that he’d been thinking about all afternoon.
“This is wrong, Donnie. All of it. I should never have forced you to come up here with me. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He sighed. “Obviously I wasn’t and I apologize for that. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Her eyes slid away, and he clenched his fists together. He needed for her to understand.
“You don’t want to be here, and I’m not the guy who’s gonna force it. Not anymore. I don’t have time for the kind of bullshit we’re playing at. I’m not that guy. I never was.”
He crossed over to the kitchen and scooped up a small plastic bag. “I got this when I was in town.”
“What is it?”
She was close. Not only could he smell that sweet scent that was all Donovan, but he felt her. Like an imprint or a brand seared into his flesh.
He turned back to her, angry and not really knowing why. “It’s a pregnancy test. Says it can give a reading as early as seven days after conception, which from my way of figuring is right about now. Take it and then we’ll know for sure.”