“Or maybe I’m just glad to see you.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I figure it doesn’t hurt to carry it in case I come across someone who might have an allergic reaction.”
Perhaps he knew someone else who was deathly allergic to nuts, but I suspected that was for me. He wanted to be ready.
I could barely get the next words out. “I’m glad you came over. That we cleared the air.”
“Me, too.” He turned at the door and held my gaze, clear and true. “You look good, Francesca. Pregnancy suits you.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, and for a moment I was tempted to say, “stay. Be here so I can tell Violet you’re the dad. You’re the one.”
But that would be absurd. Wishful. Besides, Vi knew me too well. She would see my lovelorn expression and figure out that I was in love with the father of my child.
What a disaster.
“I have one more gift.” He slipped a small, wrapped box out of his jacket pocket and placed it in my hand. “Text me about the doctor’s appointment.”
“Okay.”
For a moment, I thought he might kiss me. For all my insistence that we were friends and nothing else, I would have welcomed it. A holiday kiss under the—well, I hadn’t put up mistletoe, but I could have imagined it was there.
But he was conscious of our secret, and with the reflexes that made him a star on the ice, he left before I could beg him to stay.
I unwrapped the gift, not carefully as I had done with the others, but frenzied and completely unlike me. It was a jewelry box. With shaky fingers, I opened it and found a charm embedded in velvet.
A silver snail with a black pearl for its shell.
Ten minutes later, when Vi knocked, I was still standing at the door, stunned at Jason’s generosity and thoughtfulness.
And with none of my presents wrapped.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jason
* * *
“Jason, are you nervous?”
On the wheeled stool, I spun back toward the exam table and ground to a halt.
“Why would I be nervous?”
Franky squinted at me. “Because you’ve fondled all the equipment, spun around on that chair like it’s an amusement ride, and pretty much babbled nonstop since we got here.”
What did she expect? This was an important appointment, the first one that gave us the all-clear for the baby.
“Just want to know everything’s okay.”
She grasped my hand. “We’ll know soon enough.”
And right after, she was leaving for Boston. I was supposed to be cool with it. I most definitely was not. But a surefire way of pushing someone away was begging them to stick around.
The door opened and an older Southeast Asian woman came in. I’d met Dr. Patel before because she had been the OB for all of Theo’s kids.
“Hello, you two.” Official introductions were made while the doctor washed her hands and fiddled with some of the buttons on the monitor. “How are you feeling, Franky?”
“Not bad. A little nauseous and tired, but I’m eating well”—she raised her eyebrow at me, healthy lunch provider—“and I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. At least, not according to the books I’ve read on the topic.”
The doctor nodded. “Okay, feel free to raise your shirt so we can take a look.”
