Читать книгу Finding Glory - Sara Arden - Страница 15

CHAPTER EIGHT

HAD REED BEEN about to kiss her? Gina wondered.

The more important question was, would she have let him?

This kind of complication was the very last thing she needed.

She pressed her fingers to her lips, imagining just what she would do if he did kiss her. After kissing him back, of course. The part of her that wanted to know what it was like to kiss Reed Hollingsworth hadn’t grown out of it, perhaps never would.

She’d spent much of her teen years wondering what it would be like if he ever turned to her, if he ever leaned over ever so slowly, what it would be like. Would her world explode or dry up until it was nothing but dust?

Would his kiss be like a man’s or a boy’s?

She’d been infatuated with him as a girl, but now that she was a woman, all of those thoughts and feelings came rushing back tenfold.

But for him, she wondered if it was part and parcel to playing house with her. He suddenly had this ready-made family and maybe he figured she was just part of the deal. Take her, keep her happy, or maybe it wasn’t even that blatant.

Gina flopped back onto the blanket and stared up at the bright, endless ocean of sky. A gentle breeze played over her hair.

She’d spent so long trying to make sure any prospective boyfriends understood that Amanda Jane was part of the package, she forgot that she wanted someone else to want her for herself, too. She’d always kind of assumed that was a given.

Nothing could ever be so easy with Reed. He made her doubt herself on all fronts without even trying. In fact, he’d been nothing but encouraging and she found that she desperately wanted his approval.

She’d never worried about anyone’s approval but her own.

Until now.

Now her stupid brain wouldn’t do anything but think about why he’d almost kissed her, and what would’ve happened if he had, and if it was a sign from the universe that Amanda Jane had called out to him when she did.

Didn’t she have enough on her plate?

Apparently not.

She watched father and daughter play in the ball pit. The easy affection that had blossomed so quickly between them. Gina decided that maybe he’d be a great father, if he’d let himself.

Then Gina decided that she might be the most horrible person on the planet.

It was always in the back of her mind, sometimes the front, that Amanda Jane was her niece. Crystal had been her mother. Gina’s poor, tragic sister. It hadn’t had to end like it had, if only she’d fought more, done more...

But thinking about Crystal having this with Reed...days like today. Moments like the last one where he’d almost kissed her, it made her jealous. As jealous as she’d been when they were in high school and she kept waiting for Reed to notice that she was pretty, too. That she was smart. That she was the one who really wanted to be with him.

For the first time, Gina thought that Crystal hadn’t deserved these moments.

Who was she to judge? She knew Crystal’d had her own demons to exorcise and she knew there were things that lived in the shadows of memory that had always had a tight fist around her sister’s throat. She wouldn’t trade places with her for anything in the world.

And she couldn’t build her dreams on the hopes of her sister’s pain and suffering.