Was the pregnancy what had changed him? At least somewhat? Was there more to their divorce than just their dichotomous ways of dealing with life’s tragedies, which ultimately blew their emotional trust in each other?
“I’m concerned, Mal,” he said after a lengthy silence had fallen. “Really concerned. All weekend, the more I think about it, the more concerned I get. To the point that I’m not sure I can give you my support. Not with such a huge unknown.”
So she’d do it alone. She’d already made that decision. And she’d known from the beginning that she might not win his buy-in.
Still, she could feel the weight of sadness come back, trickling into the outer recesses of her heart.
“I’m worried about what you’d do if you lost a second child.” The depth of compassion in his tone was something she hadn’t heard in a long, long time.
“There are never guarantees, Braden. He or she could be hit by a car or a bolt of lightning. The point is, I’m not going to let the past rob me of my future.”
Which was exactly what she’d told Tamara she shouldn’t do.
Exactly when the words had become her mantra, she didn’t know. She just knew that she felt the truth on a soul level.
“But why play with fate when you have a choice?”
Again, she had no ready answer so she thought about what he was saying, instead. She’d asked for his input. Having his support meant more than him just agreeing with everything she said and did.
She valued his opinion and she wanted him to care enough to speak up.
“You need a full family medical history,” he said. “Or as complete of one as you can get. Way more than the general things the sperm bank provides. You need to know if his grandfather was prone to anxiety attacks or his entire family were unmotivated sloths.”
“Right, so what do you suggest I do, Bray? Put an ad in the paper for sperm that comes with that kind of extensive history?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what?”
It was only when she asked the question that she remembered he’d said he had a solution to her problem. A plan that would tend to his concern.
“You let me be your donor.”
A wake from an incoming cruise ship in the distance hit the boat and she grabbed the rail, holding on so tight her knuckles turned white.
Chapter Four
She was staring at him, clutching the rail, mouth open, looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
He hadn’t. Exactly the opposite, in fact.
He had to do this. He might not want to do it. Didn’t like the messiness.
But he had to do it.
He owed it to Mallory.
“You’re already going to be fighting the fear of another loss,” he said, keeping things practical because he knew that was the only way to get through this. Through any tough situation. “You’ll need all of the reassurances you can get. During your first pregnancy, you worried about the fact that you don’t know your own family history. Knowing mine helped calm those fears.”
She’d closed her mouth but was still staring.
“It’s not conclusive that genetics have any link to SIDS, but we know that there is no evidence of it whatsoever in my family.”
Shoulders drooping, she’d lost all appearance of happiness. Though that was not his goal, it was often the outcome whenever they had a real conversation. Still, he couldn’t drop this.
“There are no guarantees, Mal, we both know that, but I’m as close to a guarantee as possible when it comes to healthy genes.”
After Tucker’s death, he’d had complete genetic testing done on himself, including familial screening, which he’d paid for. The results had shown that he and his family had absolutely no predispositions for any of th