Page 50 of Colorado Bride
She didn’t hesitate but ran into them, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Are you really happy?”
A little fear darkened her thoughts that since he didn’t love her…yet…that he wouldn’t love the baby.
He rested his head against the top of hers.“Of course.I’m thrilled.I’ve wanted to be a father for a while now.That was my motivation for getting married in the first place.To start a family.”
“You just thought it would be with Melissa.I understand.”
She felt the shift in his stance as he stiffened his spine and then relaxed it again.
“Emily, I did think my fatherhood would be with someone else, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m very happy that you are to be the child’s mother.You’re much kinder and I believe want this baby almost as much as I do.”
“More.This child means the world to me.”
“Me, too.”
“Then you’ll love the child?”
He hugged her a little tighter.
“Ah, is that what you’re worried about?Of course, I’ll love him or her.I do already.How could I not?He…or she…is a part of me, too.”
“But you don’t love me.I thought that might make a difference.”
“That fact doesn’t make any difference.I like you an awful lot, as much as I can like anyone.But I just don’t know how to love you.I’m not sure what love is.I thought I loved Melissa and I admit she hurt me when she jilted me.I don’t think it’s possible to have those feelings again, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be married to you and have children with you.I do.Understand?”
She looked up at him and shook her head, her heart aching.
“No.Not really.But I accept your belief as something I can’t alter right now, though I do plan on changing your mind some day.”
“You can try, but I don’t see a transformation happening”
“That’s okay…for now.”
“Let’s go back up to the house.I want to tell Mother.”
She closed her eyes and frowned.
“Do we have to?”
“Go to the house or tell Mother?”
“Tell your mother.I don’t think the announcement will go as we think it should.She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you—she just doesn’t like you very much.”
They walked toward the house arm in arm.
“She hates me and wishes I were Melissa.”I wished she liked me.In my dreams I always had a mother who wanted me.Now not only did my real mother abandon me, but my mother-in-law would like nothing more than to put a stake through my heart..
“I don’t deny that she’s being difficult, but a new baby might make her less quarrelsome.”
“I doubt it.I bet the news will make her treatment of me worse.”
“How can it get any worse?She could start ignoring you completely I suppose.”
“That would be welcome.I can only hope that behavior is the result, and she leaves me alone instead of telling me how great Melissa would be at such and such.”
