Only Through Love: A Cane River Romance Novella by Mary Jane Hathaway Page B

come visit Charlie. He felt his face warm and jerked a
thumb toward the back of the store. “Don’t get up. I’m just going to go browse.
Alice thinks I play Ultimate Voyager all night but I do read, especially after
a hard day at work.”
                The
corner of her mouth pulled up. “Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own
troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.”
                “H.G.
Wells,” he answered. “I never thought about it that way. Maybe I love science
fiction because it takes my mind of my own troubles.”
                “I
think all reading is that way,” she said and started to sit up. He held out a
hand and for a moment she stared at it, confused.  Then she grasped it, letting
him pull her straight out of the chair without disturbing the baby.
                “She’s
utterly beautiful,” he said, peering closer.
                Charlie
cocked her head. “Men don’t usually gush over infants.”
                “Don’t
they? Am I gushing? I don’t think I really noticed them until my cousin Emily
had her little boy. We came to visit them in the hospital and he was so…” He
held out his hands about six inches apart. “But it wasn’t just his size. I kept
looking at my cousin, then at this little human, and couldn’t believe she had
grown him inside her, so perfectly, so completely.” He looked up, hoping that
didn’t sound lame. There was something about Charlie that made him say the most
ridiculous things.
                 “I
always thought babies were the combination of two people, but then I met Aurora
and realized how she’s her own person. Even inside Alice, she was dependent but
completely separate, all her own DNA, fingerprints, blood type. It’s mind
boggling.”
                “We’re
an impossibility in an impossible universe,” he said.
                “Ray
Bradbury,” she said, and laughed, a sound of such loveliness that he stopped for
a moment, surprised that he was the cause of it.
                “I
have more,” he said, hoping for another laugh.
                “Alice
quotes a lot of old poetry. I really miss talking science fiction with
someone.” As soon as the words were out her mouth her smile started to fade away.
                Maybe
she thought he would assume she wanted to make it a regular conversation. He
didn’t mind, but apparently she did. Of course she hadn’t meant him,
personally. “I bet you miss your college friends. Gideon told me you’re taking
a semester off.”
                She
was glaring now. “I didn’t realize my school schedule was such a topic of
curiosity.”
                “I―
no, he just mentioned― because Alice told Henry, who said to…” His voice
trailed off as he realized it sounded as if they were gossiping about her.
                If
she could have shot death rays from those dark eyes, he had no doubt she would
have. She clutched Aurora to her like a shield. “I don’t have to explain my
choices to anyone.”
                “You
don’t. I agree.” He wished he could go back two minutes to when she was
laughing and not angry with him.
                The
fight seemed to go out of her. “I’m sorry. I don’t need to be snippy with you.
You’re not the root of the mess.”
                He
wanted to ask who that unlucky person was, but he was too relieved it wasn’t
himself. “It’s okay. No problem.” This was the moment all his studying came
into play. She was clearly in seven different kinds of pain. He should ask
probing questions, ask her to sit down and tell him the whole story. He
couldn’t seem to open his mouth. She deserved someone who could really help
her, not a parrot.
                She
met his eyes and he could see a struggle there in her gaze. Uncertainty, fear,
desperation, and