Surrogate and Wife by Emily McKay

you.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œWell…you know how you are.”
    â€œNo.” He gritted his teeth. “Apparently, I don’t know.”
    â€œYou need to save people. Be the hero.”
    â€œI need to save people?” Jake repeated. Then he scoffed at the idea. “I don’t need to save people. That’s ridiculous.”
    Stew and Beth gave each other an amused look.
    â€œI don’t need to save people.”
    Stew used his spatula to transfer the burgers from the grill to the waiting plate. “Sure you do. It’s why youbecame a firefighter. It’s why you agreed to marry Kate. It’s—”
    â€œI agreed to marry Kate because it was the right thing to do. She needed a husband and she needed someone to take care of her while she’s pregnant.”
    â€œRight,” Stew said. “And you want to be the one who takes care of her, because you need to save people. It’s not a bad thing.”
    â€œIt does explain why you’re having so many problems with Kate,” Beth said. “She doesn’t need anyone to save her. She hasn’t since she was a little girl. She doesn’t need anyone, period.”
    And that—Jake realized as he drove home later that night—was the crux of the problem. Kate didn’t need anyone’s help. Not even his.
    Maybe Stew was right and he did need to be a hero, because it drove him crazy that Kate didn’t need him.
    In some ways, the realization relieved the tension that had been eating away at him the past month. Kate had been getting to him. After all, she was a beautiful woman and they were living together. The physical attraction he felt for her was only natural.
    But this was more than purely sexual. He thought about her all the time and had to resist the urge to call her at work. Just to check in.
    He thought about ways to tease her. Things he could say just to get a rise out of her.
    His growing attachment to her had become quite a problem.
    But now…now he had a clue what was really going on. Stew was right. He needed to be a hero.
    He’d married Kate so he could help her, and she wasn’t letting him. All he had to do was get her to accept his help and—presto—his Kate obsession would disappear.
    Â 
    He crept into the house a little after eleven, expecting Kate to be in bed already. So he was pretty damn surprised to find her stretched out on the sofa, remote control in hand, a late-night rerun of a crime drama on TV.
    She slept through him turning off the TV and pulling the remote from her hand, but woke when he tried to cover her with the throw from the back of the sofa.
    â€œYou’re home.” She wiped at her eyes with her fingertips as she sat up. She looked delightfully sleepy, mussed by her nap. She was dressed in baggy pajamas. Pink with fat ladybugs scattered across them. He’d never seen her in her pajamas before, since she always dressed before leaving her bedroom.
    For that matter he hadn’t seen her barefoot since that first morning. He glanced down at her feet. Sure enough, they were bare. Slim with high arches and red-painted toenails. Ladybug-red.
    He never would have guessed her for red toenails.
    She must have caught him looking at her feet, because she quickly hid them as she sat cross-legged on the sofa.
    He forced his gaze back to her face. “You didn’t have to wait up.”
    â€œI wasn’t. I just—” She frowned and glanced toward the TV. “What time is it, anyway?”
    â€œAbout eleven-thirty.”
    â€œThat late?”
    He wasn’t sure if the hint of accusation he heard in her voice was real or a figment of his guilt. Either way, his knee-jerk reaction was defensive. “I called.”
    â€œI know. But you shouldn’t feel like you have to report in. You can stay out as late as you want.”
    Having apparently said what she’d needed to say,