The Color of Joy by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online Page B

other constantly.”
    He touched his forehead to mine. “It won’t be the same if I can’t touch you and hold the baby when he comes. Or she, if it’s a girl.”
    I smiled as a warm, loving glow spread through my body. “The time will fly by and she’ll barely be three months old when you come home. Think how incredible that will be. Everything will be great and…” I stopped for a moment, wondering if I should tell him about Sylvie now or wait until I was certain she was actually coming.
    “What is it?” Jake’s brows pulled together with a look of suspicion. It was impossible to hide anything from him.
    Backing away, I moved to heat up the spaghetti. “I got a call from Sylvie tonight,” I explained as I peeled the lid off the container. “John just broke up with her.”
    “Uh, oh…” Jake replied ominously. “Was she all right?”
    I shrugged. “Jury’s still out on that one.”
    “How long did it take you to talk her off the ledge?” he asked.
    I slid him a knowing look as I placed the spaghetti container inside the microwave, set it for two minutes and pressed start. “It was touch and go for the first twenty minutes on the phone. She wouldn’t stop crying, so I went over there. Surprisingly, once I got there, she seemed to have pulled herself together. I talked to her again about going back to school or getting a new job and for the first time ever, she actually seemed keen on the idea.”
    “Really? That’s a switch.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    Jake sat down at the table. “Do you think she’ll actually do something like that?”
    “Well…” I reached into the cupboard for a plate and set it on the counter. “I sort of made her an offer.”
    Jake looked at me with trepidation. “What kind of offer?”
    “I suggested that if she wanted to quit her job at the bar and take a course to get a diploma in something, she could move in with me while you were gone. To save money.”
    His eyebrows lifted. “You invited her to live here? For nine months?”
    The beeper went off and I opened the microwave. “I know, I know. I’m still not sure if it was the brightest move, but I really want to help her, Jake. I just want her to be happy, and even though things are fine now, I’ll probably need some help later on when I’m as big as a barn and I can’t rake the lawn or carry the garbage out. And I’d like to have someone here for when I go into labor and need to get to the hospital.”
    Jake thought about that for a minute or two. “Would you make her your birthing partner?” he asked. “I thought you might ask your mom.”
    I filled a glass with water at the sink. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I’m still working through issues like getting Sylvie out of her lease or helping her figure out what kind of program would be good for her. And who knows? She might not even want to come. You know how she is. She doesn’t handle change well.”
    I served the hot spaghetti onto the plate, sprinkled some parmesan cheese on top and carried it to the table with the water.
    Jake picked up his fork to dig in. I sat down across from him.
    “What did she say when you told her you were pregnant?” he asked knowingly, lifting a brow.
    I let out a sigh. “She congratulated me of course, but I could tell she was shaken up. She wasn’t expecting that.”
    We both knew that deep down, Sylvie had never gotten over the heartbreak of her first love and the abortion she later came to regret. Jake was no stranger to her emotional ups and downs. He’d been there at my parents’ house when she went upstairs to the attic in the middle of a family dinner. The next thing we knew, she was lugging a box of her childhood toys outside to set fire to it—because clearly, in her mind, she was never going to be blessed with children of her own.
    “Do you think she’ll be able to handle seeing you go through a pregnancy?” he asked.
    “She doesn’t have much choice. Whether she lives with me or not, it’s