Angel's Rest(92)

“Doormat? Excuse me?” He didn’t like that all. He didn’t treat her like a doormat. Did he? Guilt snaked through him, but this time he refused to accept it.

“Work with me here, Callahan. See, I need you to understand me, too. While I definitely have a wish-upon-a-star side to me, the bottom line is that I’m a pragmatic kind of girl. I like a road map. I saw what living without one did to my mother. She put up with a man’s mistreatment for years, and it cost her the entire life she could have had with a man who deserved her.”

“You think I mistreat you?” he asked, annoyed.

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. Look, the path we’ve started down is uncharted territory, and there’s not an atlas for us in the self-help section of the bookstore. Believe me, I’ve checked. Advice for WOWs doesn’t really help in this case.”

“Wow?”

“Wife of a widower. See, it’s the added letters for the acronym that makes it dicey. I’m a PWOW or PWT-WOW or APWT-WOW. Accidentally-pregnant-with-twins wife of a widower. That puts an entirely different spin on the situation.”

Technically he wasn’t a widower any longer since he was married to her, but he thought it best not to bring that up. She appeared to be on edge. “Nic, maybe we should go inside. Get you some warm milk. It’ll help you calm down.”

Jen had always liked warm milk when she was pregnant.

She scowled at him, and he recognized he’d sounded patronizing, but she did look a little wild-eyed at the moment.

“Stop it,” she snapped. “See, here’s the thing. I understand that we have happened too soon for you. In a perfect world, you would have had a lot more time to let go of the past relationship before attempting to begin a new one. Unfortunately, our world isn’t perfect.”

“Tell me about it. My wife died.”

The barb visibly hit home, and as he saw Nic flinch, his feeling of guilt intensified. Before he could apologize, she continued, “I get that the grieving process for you will be full of fits and starts. But like it or not, I’m part of your life, which automatically makes me part of your grief. I understand that Jennifer is always going to be part of our relationship. I think I can deal with that, but only if we to learn to talk about her. I won’t ignore the ghost in the room. Not anymore.”

Gabe rolled to his feet and shoved his legs into his jeans. “I think I need that warm milk.”

With a shot of whiskey in it.

She followed him inside wearing only a blanket wrapped around herself. “You are healing, Gabe. Slowly but surely. I understand that you’re not yet ready to move on. But that’s as far as my mind reading goes. See, I don’t know if you’ve decided to sleep with me now because you’re ready for physical intimacy and any woman would do.”

“Hey now.” He jerked back at the low blow. “I’ve never given you cause to think that.”

“True. So maybe it’s not that I’m handier than a whore. Maybe I’m simply your rebound girl. Maybe when you finally are ready for emotional intimacy, you’ll want it to be with someone other than me.”

“Where did this come from?” Dammit, he’d felt so good just a few minutes earlier. Why was she ruining it? “You make me sound like a real ass, Nic.”

“No, you’re a man. Sometimes that’s just the same thing,” she fired back. She took a deep calming breath, then continued. “I can’t have it be a surprise, Gabe. For our babies’ sake, and, frankly, because I have strong feelings for you myself, I’m willing to roll the dice with you. But I need you to give a little in return. The times in my life when men have been able to hurt me are when I didn’t see the trouble coming.”

Strong feelings? What were strong feelings in her book? He skipped the milk and grabbed the vodka from the freezer since it was the closest available alcohol.

“You need to communicate, Gabe,” she continued. “It’s important in every aspect of our marriage, but especially when it comes to sex.”

Strong feelings. He scowled at her. Was that her way of saying she loved him?

Feeling cornered, he lashed out. “You want to communicate about sex? All right. Fine. You give good head, Nic.”

“You are such a jerk, Callahan.” She lifted her chin and gave her hair a regal toss. “It’s a good thing I’m a vet and understand how wounded animals lash out. Of course, I also know what to use to put them down. Maybe you should remember that.”