A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

“I’m a traditional kind of guy,” he told her. “I still believe in marriage and family...sticking together even when the newness wears off. I believe in a love that brings you together, and then, later, keeps you together, in spite of temptations or momentary yearnings for excitement,” he admitted, something that he hadn’t ever expressed out loud.

She wasn’t going to be a part of his life. It made talking about his feelings seem...safer somehow.

“My parents are in their seventies,” he told her. “They’re still healthy and active, but little things are starting to crop up—one just recently went on a low dose of blood pressure medication, for example—and yet they take things on together. The old saying, two heads are better than one—it’s like two lives, joined together, are better than one.”

“If you’re somehow trying to convince me that my choice to raise this child as a single parent isn’t good enough...”

“I’m not.” He looked her straight in the eye. “And I apologize. Of course you have no need to know anything about me and I overspoke...” He put his glass on the empty coaster on the table. Time to go. To find a way to get beyond the past and on with his life.

“Oh, no, I’m the one who’s sorry.” Her words stopped him as he’d been about to stand. “Seriously.” She shook her head. “I have a tendency to get defensive,” she continued. “Probably comes from knowing that you have to watch your own back. And...funny that you should mention my need to know something about you...”

Her words ended midstream and she was looking at him as though sizing him up for some kind of project.

His curiosity was piqued.

And he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

* * *

Craig Harmon was a genuinely nice man. The impression came home to her again. More and more she was getting the impression that he really was no threat to her at all—as he kept asserting.

But all of his talk about family, about tradition—she b

elieved he was being sincere. She believed him.

He was doing everything he could to reassure her that she had nothing to fear from him. Her life, her choices, were anything but traditional. He didn’t want her. Or her child.

Just as she had her life plans, he had his. The complete antithesis of hers.

And he had no need to take what she had, even if he could. He wanted to fall in love. Get married. And have children traditionally with his wife.

She wanted to do what she could to give him peace of mind. One person to another. She’d be a jerk not to want that. They weren’t just biological components. Even Angie would agree, would want her to do the right thing. To show some of the compassion she was sometimes too quick to feel where others were concerned.

Her sister was even more of a bleeding heart than she was.

“I never knew my father,” she said clearly, turning in her chair, one foot pulled up with her, as she faced him more directly. It was scary, opening up to him. And yet, felt good, too. With their pre-established boundaries—he was a safe place. “It was hard sometimes, growing up, not knowing who I came from. Not knowing if some of my traits were his. So...since you’re here, it seems kind of a nice idea for me to know a bit about you, whatever you want to share...so that I can fill in the blanks for my son or daughter someday, when the questions come. I’m fully aware they inevitably will.”

He lifted his ankle across the opposite knee, his forearms relaxing against the sides of the chair, seeming to take a silent assessment of her.

And she had a second to understand how she must have been making him feel—wondering whether or not to trust. Looking for ulterior motives?

Or was that just her?

And why did she care?

“Does your father know you exist?”

“I lived with him for the first year of my life. I don’t remember him. And my mother...my sister and I never mentioned him to her. Not ever. It upset her too much.”

“Did he die?”

“No.” She didn’t need to get into that.

“You said your sister, Angeline, is a year younger than you.”

He’d learned that when she’d told him about her sister’s involvement with the baby, that Angeline was the child’s legal guardian and held medical and legal power of attorney were anything to happen to Amelia.

“Right.”