Read Loving Kate (Acceptance #3) for Free Online

shoulders. “Sorry, but it’s true. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just, oh hell. Daniel, so help me God, I know you’re angry but be careful with her heart. She’s going to want to help and if you let her get attached to this baby and don’t forgive her...”
    She pauses to take a deep breath, exhaling it loudly. “All I can say is it’s one thing for Kate to be Auntie Kate, it’s another thing for her to be here helping you and hoping for a future. If you can’t give her the future, Daniel, don’t let her hope. Stay away from her. Keep your distance. She’s lost too much in her life to go through this, too.”
    Gently, she passes Lucas to me and places a tender kiss to his cheek. “If you need something, call the house. I left my phone at your house. See you guys later.”
    I’ve only seen Jess emotional a few times and they were all circumstances when she was worried about Kate. This was no different; she was wiping away her tears as she left. Of course I feel like a complete asshole in her wake.
    “Stop. You can’t change your feelings, but you are going to have to decide pretty quickly how involved you’re going to let Kate get with this baby, Daniel,” April tells me softly.
    “Tell me something I don’t already know. I don’t know what to do, April. I don’t want to keep her away from Lucas. She already loves him. I need time to think, to adjust, and to figure out how this new life is going to work.”
    She motions for me to sit on the couch while taking a sleeping Lucas from my arms and placing him in the baby bouncer. She’s a fucking natural; the kid doesn’t even flinch. If Jake sees her do that he won’t stop until he convinces her to have his baby.
    “Daniel, I love you. You are my best friend and I’m not going to sugar coat this for you. Somewhere deep down inside you know that Kate and Mike are through. In that same place, you also know you’re going to eventually forgive her. If it were me, I wouldn’t keep Kate from Lucas, but I would distance myself from her instead. You guys can eventually bridge that gap if you choose to. But if you keep her from Lucas and she’s going to be in his life anyway, well, that’s just cruel. And if there’s one thing you’re not, Daniel, it’s cruel.”
    “I’m scared, April. I’m terrified of the anger I have. I’m terrified of what I’m going to do when I see her with Marc. They’re friends like you and I, so seeing them together is inevitable.”
    April wraps me into a big hug and when she releases me, she tells me the good news. “Marc left town for a few weeks. I don’t think I’m supposed to know that but I overheard Jess and Kate talking about it when I got there this morning.”
    “Did he run from Kate?”
    That son of a bitch! If he hurts her, so help me God…
    “No, I didn’t get that impression. Just something about a vacation he had planned that he didn’t tell her about. Use this time to calm down, Daniel. Bond with Lucas, just enjoy being a dad, and leave the worrying and the anger for another time, okay?”
    April is always the smart one. “Okay.”
    April ends up staying here most of the day. She spends a lot of time teaching me endless things about babies. How she can tell the difference between a hungry cry, a diaper change cry, and an attention cry, I’ll never know. They all sound the same to me. Maybe she’s just really good at guessing.
    It’s almost six o’ clock by the time she leaves to go home. I loved spending the day with her, I needed that. But now that she’s gone, I realize I’m starving and fully exhausted. Just as I stand to go look for something to eat, there’s a gentle knock on the door. Thankfully, whoever it is knocks softly because I just got Lucas to sleep again.
    As I open the door, Kate looks up at me apprehensively.
    How the hell did we get here?
    “Hi. Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”
    She’s afraid I’m going to tell her no; the fear in her eyes is