“I don’t usually shove my tits in someone’s face when I’m being friendly.”
“You can do that to me if you like,friend.” He isn’t going to let me let that go.
I roll my eyes as I walk down the carpeted hallway. I wasn’t jealous. I just don’t want the father of my child to be harassed by perfectly ‘friendly’ nurses.
He’s teasing but we have become friends of sorts in the past few weeks. He texts me almost daily and he’s been at my house every Saturday night and even a few weekdays if he can get away. He’s dragged me to nearly every historic home within driving distance and I follow him around as he tells me facts as he learns them from the audio guides. I never would have imagined that I would be friends with Jackson Harper but I also never imagined I’d be carrying his baby either.
We’re just two friends who are expecting a baby in five months time. It doesn’t need to be more than friendship, although I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that ached to feel his mouth on mine again.
We walk past an array of doors, each one propped open as families visit their loved ones. It’s still a foreign concept to me, visiting her here instead of the home she lived in for my entire childhood. But once my granddad passed, my parents said she was too vulnerable to live on her own. I thought they meant that she could move in with them, especially since my room has been empty since I moved out nearly ten years ago. But her house was sold and she was moved in here before I even had a chance to shop around for her.
The door is propped open but I don’t step inside, staying out of sight around the corner for a breath.
Jackson comes up behind me, his chest lightly pressing against my back. His hand comes to lightly rest on my arms and his head rests lightly on my head. “You okay, pretty girl?”
I tilt my head to look back at him, his cap pulled low over his eyes and his dark curls resting on his shoulders. He looks at me with gentle eyes, that charming sparkle still glinting from the corners.
I nod before gently pushing the door open. “Nanny? It’s Rosie.”
She’s facing away from us, sitting in the wing back flannel armchair overlooking the garden. In her lap is a heap of yarn and a crochet hook clutched in her shaking hands.
“Rosie!” she exclaims and I release the breath that was trapped in my lungs. She looks the same as she did the last time I saw her.
Smiling, I cross the room, falling to my knees at her feet as I take her shaking hands in mine. “How are you Nanny?” I push her gray hair back from her eyes as I take her in. Age spots and wrinkles line her face, but her warm chocolate eyes are the same ones I’ve looked into my whole life.
“I’m better now you’re here, sweetheart.” She pulls her hands out of mine and raises her crochet hook, “I went wrong, you have to fix it for me.”
Laughing I tug the hook out of her hands. “I will, but first I need you to meet someone.”
I glance over my shoulder at Jackson. He’s lingered by the door giving us a moment but steps forward at my nod.
“Well, aren’t you a treat,” Nanny says, her eyes widening. “I see my granddaughter’s got my taste in men.”
“Nanny.”
Jackson laughs as he approaches, taking her hand andpressing a kiss to the wrinkled back of it. “Lovely to meet you Betty. I’m Jackson. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Nanny clings onto his hand, not letting him go as she turns to me. “Don’t tell me you’ve had a man like that in your bed and you’ve been talking about your old Nanny.”
I blush crimson as Jackson laughs. “Nanny,” I hiss. “Stop it.”
“So, Jackson, how long have you and my favorite granddaughter been together?”
My eyes just about pop out of my head. Granted, I’ve never even brought any friends to see Nanny apart from Anya, and I’ve never introduced her to any boyfriends before but still. I saidfriend,didn’t I?
Jackson opens his mouth to say God knows what, but I interrupt. “We’re nottogether, Nanny. We’re friends.”
Jackson, still holding her hand, leans forward and whispers conspiratorially, “I’m working on it.”
Nanny giggles–giggles!
“What are you working on there?” Jackson asks, gesturing to the yarn on her lap.
“It’s going to be a baby blanket for Glenda next door’s great-grandson. I’ve nearly finished but I’ve gone wrong somewhere so I had to unravel it all.”
She picks it back up with shaking fingers but instead of offering it to me, the person in the room who actually knows how to crochet, she shoves it in Jackson’s hands as he takes a seat in the opposite armchair. “You have to pull at the yarn until these rows of stitches come undone.”
Jackson studies it intently, before using deft fingers to undo the stitching. “I’ve got it, like this?”
