A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

“But what?” It truly was a gorgeous place. As gorgeous as the man who’d bought it so that it would be available for the boy he’d raised to come home to it...whenever.

“I don’t know, that’s why I asked. Your expression... Is there something about the house you don’t like?”

Okay, if they were going to know each other, even casually, he was going to have to quit reading her like that proverbial book.

They pedaled slowly. Amelia concentrated on the warmth of the sun on her cheeks, mingling with the cool breeze in the seventy-degree air.

“It’s truly a beautiful place,” she told him, meaning it. And if he was going to read her, he’d have to know that, too. “The lawn is immaculate. Like a Disney movie scene.”

“Thank you, I work hard at it.”

“You did it yourself?”

“I mowed it yesterday, before I came to your place.”

Shirtless? She immediately rejected the first thought that occurred to her. And was left with the second, which was that she liked the idea that he mowed his own grass.

“You have a riding mower?” she asked. Duane had had one. And then had hired a kid to ride it twice a week.

“Yes, and a push one, too. It’s easier around the trees.”

She hadn’t thought of the challenge presented by so many trees. Thought how much easier it would have been to just cut them down rather than mow around them every week.

And admired the guy who chose to keep them.

“So we’re agreed the yard is lovely,” he said teasingly, and then more seriously, “but what don’t you like?”

“From what I could see, which wasn’t much, I liked it all.” She had. And then added, “For someone else.”

She paused and then continued.

“I don’t believe in storybooks.” Didn’t matter if he knew. If he liked her or not. The only thing that mattered was him being satisfied that she was going to be a good parent for his child.

“Homes like that...they give me the heebies. So many times, the stories that go on inside them aren’t at all how they appear from the outside.”

“Let me guess, you grew up in a home like that.”

She nodded. “Yep,” she told him, and pedaled hard enough to pull in front of him.

* * *

“Maybe if you were inside my house, you’d see that healthy love can live there.” Craig didn’t know why he’d caught up to her when she so clearly needed a moment. Why he was pushing when she was giving him so much more than she had to give.

Amelia shook her head, but didn’t look his way. “You think I haven’t been inside a lovely home without a sad tale inside?” she asked him, and he realized he’d short-changed her with his latest assumptions. “I’ve got a couple of high school friends who grew up in my neighborhood who now have their own fairy-tale homes,” she told him. “I love visiting them. I love their houses. I just don’t ever, ever want to live in one.”

He thought of her condominium—which easily matched the square footage of his home—and felt like he wanted to change her mind. Knew that he had no business even entertaining the thought.

“I’m great visiting my friends’ homes,” she said. “I’m even fine visiting the home I grew up in. My mom and Duane are still there. But the thought of living in one of them...it makes my chest tight. Like I’m chained down.” She gave a huff. “For someone who needs you to know that I’m fine parenting material, I’m suddenly sounding slightly neurotic,” she added, but didn’t stop pedaling just as fast.

“I didn’t have a fairy-tale childhood,” she told him. “You already know that. I’ve risen above my past. I’ve taken control of my destiny, rather than blaming others for my pain, but you don’t come from bad without any scars.”

He’d circled them back around to the exit, cutting off the back half of the neighborhood, and she slowed to a stop as they came to the small gate. Swipe card in hand, Craig looked over at her and found her gaze locked on him. Completely open-eyed, looking him straight in the eye.

“I’ve got issues,” she told him. “I’m aware of them. And I tend to them. My home doesn’t have a yard. Or an attached garage. And it’s not the only one in the building. But it’s as large, as quiet and, to me, as beautiful as any home on this street. I feel safe there. Secure. And I feel life around me, too. Other people, with other stories, facing other challenges, all of us getting through it all separately, but together, too. I need that. Other people, strangers, living their lives in and around mine.”

Her honesty struck him hard. In a deep way. Good and bad ways. In some ways he felt so connected to her, oddly, almost ethereally—in part, he knew, because she was carrying his child. But in other ways, she was the antithesis of everything he wanted.

A woman having his child who was not his wife.