SEAL Baby Daddy

I shook my head. “The thing is, I really like her. And Ava is adorable and amazing, and I still am kind of shell-shocked to find out that I have a kid.”

“As you should be,” Sadie said seriously. “But you have to take care of that little girl. She needs her daddy.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I’m working on it.”

“Are you and Harper still in a relationship?”

“We put that on hold for now,” I admitted. “And I think that’s for the best, but at the same time, I want to figure things out between us. Sooner, rather than later.” I shrugged. “We’re going to have a picnic in the park on Saturday and talk about everything. Try to figure things out without having to get lawyers and things involved.”

“That’s good,” Sadie said encouragingly. “Must be hard for you to stop seeing her, though, huh? I thought for sure that she was your wife, or at least your fiancée. The two of you were so close to one another.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it. It sounds super girly. But from the time that I met Harper, I just kind of knew that there was no way I was ever going to be able to forget about her. She’s just special.”

“So are you going to start seeing other people, then, if you’re not seeing each other?” Sadie asked curiously.

I shook my head. “To be honest, I’m still waiting for Harper to realize that we’re perfect for each other,” I told her. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to do that, but I have hope. And I sent her flowers,” I admitted. “Both of them, actually. Harper and Ava. Exotic flowers for Harper, and something that was just plain pretty for Ava.”

Sadie shook her head. “You’re a really good guy, Bradley.”

I snorted. “Not always,” I said. “But I do my best.” I had to admit that I was warmed by her praise, though. It was the closest I had ever gotten to someone telling me that I was nothing like my father.

Sadie and I finished our walk-through of the new building. “I can’t wait to get this place up and running,” I said, excitement coursing through my veins. There was still something missing; I still wanted to share all of this with Harper, but things felt good at the moment.

Like everything might really work out.

This was the best that I’d felt since I’d come back from overseas. And I could tell Sadie felt it, too. I led her back to my truck and headed back toward the old training facility, where we still had plenty of work to do, but I couldn’t resist looking back in the rearview mirror, cataloging everything about the new building.

This was definitely an exciting time in my life. Career, family, and everything else. It all seemed to be coming together in a way I had never imagined I might want. But I was pretty damn happy about it all.

35

Harper

Saturday morning finally came around, and I couldn’t help panicking a little. I couldn’t decide if I should bring Ava with me or not. I knew that Ace probably wanted to see her. And she was his kid, after all. Plus, I doubted he would storm off again if Ava was there like he had before. Anyway, I could use a little time with Ava, and she would love to go out on a picnic on a bright, sunny day like this. She could play on the playground while Ace and I talked. She wouldn’t have to hear anything about the fact that he was her dad.

In the end, though, I decided that it was probably best that she not be there. Who knew what would happen between Ace and me? If we started fighting, I didn’t want her to see it. I ended up leaving her with Maisie and going alone to the park.

I was still feeling unsure about this whole meeting. I knew that I owed it to both of us to at least talk things through with Ace, but it was hard to steel my nerves for this. I kept thinking about everything that I owed him. There were three years of Ava’s life that he was never going to be able to get back. But we couldn’t start a healthy relationship with the feeling that we owed something to one another.

Somehow, we needed to find a way to level the playing field.

I had blamed him, initially, for getting me pregnant. I knew that no birth control was 100 percent, but it had felt like he had somehow planned it. That was part of why I hadn’t wanted to tell him about Ava right away. Because I’d been angry with him, like this was somehow his fault more than mine.

I liked to make excuses for that one. With all the hormones rushing through my body, I hadn’t been thinking clearly.

I knew that it wasn’t Ace’s fault. It takes two to tango and all of that. But even beyond that, it was hard to blame someone for something that ended up being such a good thing in my life. I’d had to make changes in my life plan because of her. I’d had to make sacrifices. But if I went back and did it all over again, I would do things exactly the same way. I’d always wanted to be a foreign correspondent, but to be honest, I liked being here in Boston, right up the road from Mom, covering things that were important to people in my community. It was just as fulfilling as anything I had done in Kuwait.

And that was what this really came down to, in the end. Part of why I was scared to tell Ace about Ava was that he hadn?

?t had to make sacrifices in the same way. I didn’t think he would understand what I had gone through. I had thought he didn’t want kids, that he wasn’t prepared ever to make those same sacrifices.

And to be honest, that was what had hurt me the most. It was knowing that I couldn’t rely on him. That he wasn’t there to be my partner.

What I had forgotten was that he was a military man. He was disciplined. He’d made sacrifices I could never even fathom. They might have been different sacrifices, sure, but underneath it all, we had walked two very different paths to get to the same place.

At least, I hoped we were in the same place. That was why I needed to talk to him, to finally figure out what he was thinking. I was done trying to guess what was going on in his head.

Ace was already there when I arrived, sitting at a picnic table by himself.