A welter of pointless longing and grief for her lost hopes churned inside her. No matter how whiny and bratty a child was, she deserved a mother and a father to love her.
But if love between a man and woman never lasted, what hope did any child have of growing up with an intact family? Kelsey had always promised herself she’d give her own child a very different childhood than she herself had endured.
How could she manage that if love never lasted, she thought now looking into little Amelia/Nellie’s contented face. Could a loveless marriage provide a child with the kind of nurturing shelter she deserved? People who stayed together just for the child?
***
Acutely aware of Jared’s hand at the small of her back, Kelsey lead the way into the small, exclusive restaurant tucked into a darkened, below street level space in upper Manhattan.
“This way, sir,” the maître D murmured, gathering two menus in his hands.
They followed him into the seating area, the lighting subdued and atmospheric, the conversations of the other diners muted and hushed as if there was a volume control in place.
Kelsey heard the thump of her own heart against her breast and knew she was being overly-emotional. The heightened feelings stirred up by their hospital visit just needed some time to settle, she told herself as they were seated.
Opening the menu, she tried to wrestle her tangled up feelings into manageable order.
Every woman wanted the fantasy of bearing a man’s child and reaping the joy of his love—every woman who had any interest in bearing children, that is. As a life choice, parenting had always been attractive to Kelsey. On some level, she wondered if she were longing to live out an improved version of her own childhood. Surely, that wasn’t the best reason to have a child.
But then she’d see a baby like little Amelia/Nellie and feel flooded with longing. Even the occasional tantrums kids through in Bloomingdale’s didn’t keep her from wanting children. Kids got overtired. They went through rough phases. There were bad moments in every worthwhile endeavor, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a beautiful experience.
Their waiter appeared next to the table then and took their orders before dematerializing.
Kelsey smoothed the napkin in her lap, her gaze lifting to Jared’s.
He watched her from across the table, a smile playing on his lips.
“You have a wonderful family,” she said abruptly, trying to keep the husky note of longing out of her words.
His smile widened. “Yes, they are.”
“It must have been wonderful growing up together.”
“Most of the time,” he acknowledged, his gaze still on her face, a glimmering amusement in his eyes. “There were rocky times. I don’t submit easily to authority, my parents tell me.”
“I can imagine,” Kelsey murmured. She couldn’t imagine him submitting to anyone, even the parents he so obviously loved.
“My father wanted to string me up a few times.”
“I doubt that,” she said with a quirk of her lips. “He’s not a man who seems inclined to lose his temper.”
“No,” her husband laughed. “But I tried their patience a few times just in the process of discovering the world.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Alcohol? Drugs? Petty thievery?”
Jared shook his head, the faint smile still playing on his lips. “Nothing in the legal territory. I just had to make my own decisions about things rather than take their word that I wouldn’t like it. They didn’t want me to take a job when I was in high school—said I’d miss out on too much. But I took the job anyway.”
“And did you miss out?” Kelsey propped her chin on her hand and studied him. He’d have been a handful as a child. Was in fact, still too much man to manage.
“Of course,” he said, shrugging. “But I had money which made up for a lot of it.”
“Raising a child is such serious business,” Kelsey said somberly. “So many mistakes to be made.”
He reached across the table, taking her hand in his. Lightly clasping her, he drew his thumb across the back of her hand. “Maybe, but it looks like a lot of fun to me. It’ll be interesting to watch Carla and Mike raise this kid. Carla has always been a tomboy. I’ll bet this baby likes ruffles and bows.”
“It always seems to work that way,” Kelsey agreed, trying not to notice the connection of their fingers, intertwined now. Trying to ignore the rush of heat and longing for things she couldn’t even understand. “Carla was probably a tomboy because she wanted to keep up with her brothers. Don’t tell me that you and Brian weren’t rowdy.”
He laughed, the flickering candlelight leaving half his face in shadow. “We were wild, but Carla not only held her own. She was frequently the instigator. My mother knew better than to blame everything on her sons.”