The Baby Arrangement (The Daycare Chronicles 3)

“If he’s involved, and his reasoning is sound, are you sure you aren’t letting your past rob from your future?” she asked, her gaze steady.

“I’m confused.” Mallory stared back. “Isn’t that what I’d be doing if I accepted his offer?”

“Is it?”

She’d like to have been able to get irritable with her friend and move on. But that wasn’t why she’d called Tamara.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I turned him down. Thursday, at lunch. He told me he was leaving the door open. He reiterated all the reasons it was a good idea. He said nothing had to be done for a few months and just wanted me to think about it.”

“So are you?”

Obviously she was. She had some pretty incredible news to share, and here she was, rehashing the whole Braden thing again.

“I want to do it,” she said. “I just want to make certain I’m doing it for the right reasons.”

“Then take the time he’s given you. Revisit it from time to time over the next couple of months. See if your feelings change.”

She smiled, feeling her clarity returning. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Tamara smiled back and made a crack about being glad to have the excuse to get away from cleaning out the shed. The baby, Diamond Rose, was spending the afternoon and evening with her paternal grandparents. Tamara just wanted to be home in time for bath, bottle and bedtime.

Mallory grinned. Hugely. She couldn’t help it.

“I have other news,” she admitted, sitting forward. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re what?” Tamara squealed loudly enough for all of the neighbors to hear. Jumping up, she tilted the table and spilled tea from both of their glasses. “You’re pregnant?” She stood there, hands on her hips, staring at Mallory, who nodded, still grinning inanely.

“But...who’s the father?”

She didn’t even hesitate as she told Tamara about her plan to have a child. The trips to the fertility clinic. The decision to use insemination.

“You’ve been working on this for months and never said a word?”

“I didn’t need clarity,” she said. “When I was ready, I just knew I was ready.” She stood and Tamara grabbed her up in a nice long hug. One she’d been craving since she heard the news.

“You want to see the nursery?” she asked, taking her friend’s hand and leading her back into the house, through the living room and down the hall. “It’s been hard not telling you, but I wanted to wait until I was pregnant first. They said it could easily take up to six months and there was no point in anyone else wondering and waiting every month.”

“Except that I would have been happy to share that with you, so you weren’t going through it alone.”

She hadn’t been. Braden had known.

But Braden’s part in the process was the one thing she hadn’t shared. Nor did she share it as her friend oohed and ahhed over the nursery, lingering a bit as she touched the crib, the swing cover, causing Mallory to wonder if maybe Tamara was thinking about trying one more time to have a child of her own.

“Just don’t hold out on me when the fear hits,” Tamara said, standing close as she held Mallory’s gaze. “You know it’s going to come.”

“It’s already started.”

“Don’t go through it alone.”

“I won’t.”

“No matter what time of day or night.”

She’d answered a couple of middle-of-the-night calls from Tamara during the past months.

“I promise.”

She swore she’d call her friend anytime she needed her, then answered all of Tamara’s questions about the insemination process, the doctor’s instructions, her due date. The one thing she still didn’t do was tell her friend that Braden was her sperm donor.