The Summer of Bells: The Essences Saga - Book #2

Summer: Chapter 35

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Chapter Thirty-five

Somehow I missed the lounge chair my butt aimed for and landed on the linoleum floor. “Wh-what?”

“I asked him that if he married you, if you two would adopt my baby,” she said slowly to clarify herself. “He didn’t tell you, did he?”

“No.”

“He should have.”

“You’re right about that,” I muttered, still flabbergasted. “He was going to ask me to marry him,” I added.

“Was?”

“It never happened,” I said.

“Then how did you know he was?”

“I figured it out. He’d been carrying the ring around in his pocket…that night at the river park.”

Her crazy-green eyes lit up. “Ah. That explains the fight I saw you two having in the front yard that night.”

“We didn’t fight. We had a heated discussion about our futures.”

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…”

“Then it must be a turkey at a costume party,” I finished with a smile. She laughed and then winced. Another set of contractions came into play and we worked through them.

“You don’t want to marry him.” A statement, not a question.

“It’s not that,” I said. “I do want to marry him. It’s just that…”

“That?” she prodded gently. I gazed at her. She was fifteen years old. But somehow she reminded me so much of Jennie. Those even looks, those knowing smiles that seemed to guess more than what appeared on the surface.

I couldn’t tell her the real reason. I was an immortal human. Marrying Silas would be cruel to him. In twenty years, when he was fifty-something, I would still be thirty-two in the eyes of the world. And when he lay on his deathbed, I would still be the young woman everyone saw. How could I do that to him?

“My job isn’t conducive to marriage,” I finally said, weakly.

“Bullshit.”

The laughter escaped my lips. Nicole was sassy. Her mother was right on that account. “Watch your mouth,” I said, and she smiled.

“It’s true, though,” she added. “You’re using your job against him. You’re hiding behind it.”

“And I’ll continue to hide behind it to protect him.”

“Protect him from what? Your fear of commitment?”

Fear of commitment? To use Silas’ favorite phrase, “Ah, hell,” I muttered.

The hum of monitors filled the room. A nurse popped in to check the contraction read-out and commented on the increase in times. “Another two hours, I should think,” she said kindly and left with the soft whisper of her scrubs trailing behind her.

“How come you never talk about yourself?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve noticed that you always deflect the conversation from your past. Is there something in there that you’re ashamed of?”

Yes, so much like Jennie, I mused. How I missed that petite girl, and wished she was here to lend a shoulder. I’ve used that shoulder as a leaning post all too often, and in the months before she stopped talking to me, I’d become to rely on it.