“Believe me, baking a few cookies isn’t nearly what I had on the agenda for today,” Susan quipped dryly.
Standing, Michael went for the phone. “Would you mind if I called her myself?” he asked Susan, waiting for the number.
“Yes, I’d mind!” Susan stood, too—but very slowly, Michael noticed. “I’m not a child who needs looking after,” she muttered.
“She really did say there’s nothing to worry about,” Seth added, resting his head against the back of the chair. “The babies are fine. Susan’s fine.”
Still uncomfortable, Michael turned to Seth. “Did you ask if there’s any reason Susan shouldn’t stay here alone?”
“I asked,” Susan snapped. Fainting certainly did nothing for her disposition.
“And?”
“None.”
“She said there’s no reason at all,” Seth elaborated.
Michael wished his friend’s words had reassured him. But they hadn’t. The pressure in his chest grew until he knew his time was up. Susan could have been in serious trouble that morning, and she’d been there all alone. He couldn’t take a chance that something like this would happen again.
Which meant that whether he chose to or not, he was going to have to come to terms with living a life he’d never wanted. Being a man he’d never needed to be.
He just didn’t know how in hell he was going to pull it off.
“You AND LAURA set a date yet?” Michael asked later that afternoon. He and Seth were in the nursery, assembling the furniture Susan had purchased sometime since Michael’s last visit.
“She wants to wait until after Susan has the babies,” Seth said easily. “She wants Susan to stand up with us.”
Michael froze, crib directions in hand. “You’ve actually asked her to marry you?” He’d been ribbing Seth, not expecting a serious answer.
“Yep.” Seth pushed his way under the crib, clutching a screwdriver.
Grabbing a wrench, Michael held the bolt Seth was twisting a screw into. “I’m happy for you, man,” he finally said. And shocked. He knew Seth and Laura were seeing each other again, but the last he’d heard, Seth was still holding out on tying her kids to an absentee dad.
Seth looked up, wearing the stupidest grin Michael had ever seen. “Yeah, me, too,” he said sheepishly.
The bolts on the first crib finished, Michael went back and double-checked every one of them. A tiny life was at stake here.
“My work satisfactory?” Seth asked, laughing at him. He was standing across the room, the pieces of the other crib spread at his feet.
“Smart-ass,” Michael said, wishing he felt a little more like laughing himself.
Without directions this time, they silently set to work on the second crib.
“So, what made you change your mind?” Michael asked about halfway through.
“The kids,” Seth grunted, twisting a bolt so tight Michael was surprised the screw didn’t break right off. Seth was making damn sure Michael didn’t have to check his work a second time.
“I thought the kids were the reason you weren’t asking her to marry you.”
“They were until a couple weeks ago, when Jeremy broke down one day on the soccer field. He thought I wasn’t marrying his mom because I didn’t love him and Jenny, didn’t want to be their dad. He thought they were keeping her from being happy. It suddenly became clear to me that while having a man at home every night might be good for them, having a father who loved them was more important.”
Michael wished he could believe it was that easy.
“Besides,” Seth said from beneath the second crib. “I’m home every weekend. I can still coach, help them with their homework, take them to the zoo, keep tabs on their friends.”
Michael wasn’t home on weekends. He was lucky if he made it home long enough to turn on some lights.
“And if they act up during the week, I can yell real good by telephone.”