The Moment of Truth

“I was telling you what I was going to do.”

“But every single thing you said affects me, too.”

He supposed it did. Of course it did.

Breaking eggs into another bowl, she added sugar and started beating the mixture together by hand.

“Don’t you have a mixer for that?”

“Yes. I’m choosing not to use it.”

“What are you making?”

“Chocolate chip cookies.”

Dare he hope she’d share some with him? He knew better than to offer to buy some from her. Offering to pay her hadn’t gone over well when she’d been in a good mood.

She whipped the sugar and egg mixture until it was practically liquid, and then dumped the other bowl of stuff into it, beating that to a pulp, too. When he started to wonder if the cookies would become pudding instead, she added chocolate chips and handed him a spoon.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Follow me to the table,” she said. Setting down the bowl, she reached into a cupboard and pulled out a long thin sheet like the one he’d found among his kitchen things.

He’d mastered the art of house cleaning. Knew all about laundry now. But he’d yet to tackle the whole cooking thing.

And now his nightly internet reading was going to be about babies. Pregnancy.

Cooking was going to have wait a while longer.

“Take dough on your spoon like this,” she said, filling her spoon with a glob of dough from the bowl. “And drop it on here. We’ll do five down and four across, spaced evenly.”

That was all she said. Doing as he was told, Josh spaced his dough blobs in line with hers. His were a little smaller than hers at first. And then a little bigger. She didn’t complain.

She didn’t speak, either, until two sheets of cookies were in the oven.

“We’ve got eight to ten minutes,” she said.

Dana brought over two more sheets and proceeded to fill those, as well.

“You told me that you couldn’t be relied upon,” she said as, with a quick flick, she dumped dough from spoon to pan.

“I...”

“After we had sex you were quite clear about the fact that we couldn’t have a relationship. That I couldn’t count on you. Not that I’d expected a relationship. And when you found out I wasn’t on the pill, you said that you couldn’t be a father. That you couldn’t take on—”

“I know what I said.” He wasn’t as proficient at the flicking, but he was getting his share of cookies down on the tray. “And I meant every word. I’m not suggesting that you and I have a relationship. I’m telling you that I can’t turn my back on my child.”

“How are you going to be a father to my child and not have some kind of a relationship with me?”

“Obviously we aren’t going to be strangers,” he said. “I don’t want to be. I consider you to be my closest friend in Shelter Valley.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. Shouldn’t have said that.

Dana’s spoon had stilled.

“You’re suggesting that we have a platonic relationship whereby we are friends having a baby, but other than sharing the baby, we have no commitment to each other.”

Maybe. He didn’t know what the hell he was suggesting. “Right.” He liked the no-commitment part. He could handle that.

She started flicking her dough again.

“What about if I meet someone I want to date?”

“While you’re pregnant? I mean, dating, well, going out is one thing, but you aren’t suggesting you’d have sex with someone else, not while you’ve got my child in there....”

He sounded like a two-year-old. Not like a man who controlled million-dollar deals in a boardroom filled with men twice his age.

“I agree. That’s a bit much,” she said. “So, since you’re so set on doing this fifty-fifty, I’d like your agreement that you will also be celibate during the nine months of my pregnancy.”

“I—”

“If you’re going to go to the doctor with me, you’re going to be seeing me in intimate situations. I can’t agree to allow you that access if you are also, simultaneously, seeing another woman in intimate situations.”

Cookies forgotten, he stared across at her. Was she as hot as she’d just made him?

Dana’s tall lanky frame was bent over her cookie bowl.

“Furthermore,” she continued, sounding like some kind of boardroom executive and turning him on even more in the process, “if you intend to accompany me to doctors appointments, then everyone in town is going to know that you’re the father of my child instead of just you knowing. Likewise, if you intend to be the baby’s father in practice in addition to on the birth certificate, then everyone in our lives is going to know that you fathered my baby. I can’t make that knowledge known if you’re stepping out on me while I’m carrying your child. That would be too humiliating and I am going to have enough to handle in the coming months without adding more strain. Afterward, we can have a mutual breakup, but I can’t allow myself to be humiliated and pregnant at the same time.”