Forged of Steele Bundle (Books 1-4) - Brenda Jackson [135]
Leah passed in front of a store window and stopped. Then she noticed what had grabbed her attention. It was a baby store with a number of items on display. She pulled her jacket closer around her and not for the first time she remembered the dream she’d had to let go of years ago.
She would never have the baby she always wanted. A little one she could bounce on her knee, sing lullabies to and sprinkle with the scent of baby powder. She had dreamed about this child of hers for so long and how he would look up at her with dark-brown eyes and the same smile that had gone straight to her heart—like his father’s had done six years ago. There was nothing that could even make her think of staying in Newton Grove until she had met Reese the summer before her senior year of high school.
Love and caring hadn’t meant a damn thing to her until then. The only thing she wanted to do was hurry up and graduate and haul ass, go as far west and away from Tennessee as a plane ticket could take her.
Then, in a slow, methodical process Reese had broken down her defenses. He had done something no one else had been able to do—he’d understood her loss. He had listened when she had wanted to talk about her mother. He had understood her pain and sense of loss because he had experienced those same things himself when he’d lost his father at sixteen. With patience, care and understanding, he had made her fall in love with him in a way that was so complete that she hadn’t thought of leaving town. The only thing she had wanted to do was to hang around, marry him and have his babies.
But now that was a dream that would never come true. Although there was no physical reason why she couldn’t have a child, she would never be able to let a man touch her that way. At one point she had thought about artificial insemination, but a lot of things prevented that. First, she didn’t have the money and her insurance would not cover such a procedure. Second, she would still have to take off her clothes for the procedure, and she couldn’t do that in front of anyone. Third, the thought of carrying a baby from someone she didn’t know was a turnoff for her. The only man’s baby she’d ever dreamed of having was Reese’s.
Feeling a knot settling in her throat, she wiped a hand across her face, swiping at the tears that she couldn’t stop from flowing down her cheeks. Life was cruel, but considering all the hard times she had given her father while growing up, maybe in the end she had gotten everything she deserved. With that thought more tears began to fall.
Reese had just walked out of the café holding a steaming cup of coffee. It was early and the air was brisk, but nothing smelled better than fresh roasted brew in the morning. He headed for his parked truck, determined to be at the construction site before the men got there this morning. He needed to go over yet another change Marcella Jones had made, but at least thanks to Sebastian Steele, it was a change she would be paying for.
He liked Steele, although he knew Jocelyn hadn’t yet gotten used to the guy hanging around. But he felt fairly certain that once she saw he wasn’t one of the bad guys she would be okay. His handling of Manuel’s situation had proven that he did have a heart.
Reese was about to unlock his truck door and get in when something made him look to the right. He blinked, thinking he was seeing things. Standing a few doors from the café was a woman whose profile so closely resembled Leah’s that it was startling. And the more he stared at her, the more he began to realize that it was Leah.
He would know her anywhere, the woman who years ago had stolen his heart, just like he would always remember the one night he had made her his in a way no other man had. It had been special for the two of them