Jack felt her words sink into him like arrows. “What do you want, Melanie?” When she remained silent, he took the pillow and forced her to look at him. “What do you want?”

“I want a marriage like my parents have, where what they do, they do together. And not just for the kids, but for themselves, because they loved each other first.” She swallowed hard. “I want to be loved because I’m me, Jack, not because I’m Juliana’s mother.”

“But you are her mother, and that’s not going to change.”

A leaded feeling coated her heart just then. “And she’s the reason you’re still here.”

His features darkened. “Not true.”

“And how would I ever know that for certain?”

“You won’t. You just have to trust me.”

She scoffed and pulled free. Jack felt helpless, watching her close the door again and secret away the key just when he’d managed to find the lock.

“I think your being around is just making this harder on both of us, Jack.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

She looked up, still as glass. His gaze locked with hers for a moment, then he stood and headed to the door.

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She rose and rounded the back of the couch. “Where are you going?”

At the door he stopped, his hand on the knob, his gaze clinging there. “I don’t know.” He looked at her, wanting a magic wand to make things perfect and realizing they never would be. “All I know right now is that I want you in my life like there will be no tomorrow. I care about you and I love my daughter. I’m sorry it’s not enough. I was just trying to make things right for our baby.”

“Jack.”

“I’ll see you later.” He stepped out and closed the door.

Melanie stared at the door, a knot working up her throat as she sank slowly into the nearest chair, stunned. What have I done? she thought. What now?

Outside the door Jack stopped, wanting badly to turn around and walk back inside. To take Melanie into his arms and kiss her until she couldn’t argue with him anymore. He left the porch and climbed into his car, driving toward his sister’s place. Every mile he put between him and Melanie didn’t help. But she did have a point. She was the mother of his child and nothing would change that. And Jack had to ask himself if that was all he wanted from Melanie. Their names on a license? What did it mean, in the long run, to marry her for the sake of a name? To keep old women like the one in the park quiet? He pulled into Lisa’s driveway and shut off the engine, sighing back into the seat. When had he thought of marriage as just names? When had it come down to that between him and Melanie? Jack knew why he wanted his daughter to have his name, but was he ready to tell Melanie?

He slammed out of the sports car, marching to the door and throwing it open. Inside it was dark, and the loneliness that he’d lived with for years screamed back at him. He’d handled it with a fair amount of ease in the past, but the thought of getting a call that would take him away right now made his stomach clench. He didn’t have a normal job. He didn’t have normal hours, for that matter. It was get a call and go do the job. Up until now he hadn’t been afraid of dying, either. Now he was. Because Juliana needed him. Melanie didn’t. She’d proved she could handle anything on her own. It also meant that when he had to leave, she could handle it all. He snorted to himself. Yeah, you act like you matter, he thought.

If they married, she’d be a Navy wife, and she’d also have a ring on her finger that would keep her from finding someone she could truly love. Oh, God, he thought, dropping his head back against the closed door. The idea gouged his heart. Deeply. Was he asking too much of Melanie to sacrifice her chances for his need to give his daughter his name?

It was actually comforting to know that nothing would stop Jack from being with his daughter. But then, loyalty was one of Jack’s better qualities. He came around when she wasn’t home and left before she arrived. The completed play set in the backyard wasn’t the only reminder that he’d been in the house. He did the laundry, cooked and then, like a magical partner disappeared. Diana had no problem telling her how wonderful Jack was to the baby, but that, too, Melanie didn’t have to hear secondhand. It showed in Juliana, the way she looked around for him.

And Melanie missed him, craved to look into his eyes, to see him here where she could share with him. Oh, hell, she thought. She needed him, she wanted him, and while she struggled with her feelings, it wasn’t until she took her daughter to the doctor for a follow-up appointment that Melanie got another cruel taste of what Jack had been arguing about for the past weeks.




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