A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

A woman who never intended to marry. A woman he admired more than he’d ever thought possible.

Who turned him on in ways no other woman ever had. Turned him on because she was looking at him from beneath a bike helmet and still exuded a strength that spoke to him.

“Fair enough,” he told her. “But I was thinking...” He let them through the small gate and started slowly toward their cars. “How about if we make this our thing, three times a week—the bike riding? We’ll just meet up—you get the exercise you need without dying of boredom, and I get to reassure myself that everything is going well with your child. It’ll be my way of checking in, and to find out if the baby needs anything that I can help with.”

“I could just agree to call you if the baby needs anything.”

“You could.” He slowed his pedaling as their cars drew close. “Or you could ride with me, enjoy the exercise and have something to tell your child about me when she grows up and has questions about her ‘Y’ component.”

They were both using “her” more often now. Was that somehow a sign that she was having a girl? A daughter?

Biologically, his daughter?

He was a doctor. A man of science. Was this thought-stream a sign that he was losing his mind?

“Can we try this another time or two before I commit to three times a week?”

The air was crisp and sweet as he pulled in a healthy dose, feeding his lungs. “Sure,” he told her. “And if it helps you make up your mind, it won’t be forever. I wouldn’t recommend riding at all during your third trimester.?

?

He’d already told her that. The night before.

And warned himself that if he didn’t watch himself he could lose his mind.

Over her.

Chapter Twelve

They rode every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday for the next six weeks. Sometimes their journeys were mostly silent, consisting of brief hellos and then the quiet they both craved after long days at work. Sometimes, usually on Sundays, they talked a bit more—generic conversations that left her frustrated sometimes, but mostly peaceful, too.

And other than those rides, they never communicated at all. No phone calls. No texts. Each time they rode, they determined the location and time of the next meet, and they met.

She was even getting used to the effect his body in riding gear had on her. Figured that eventually it wouldn’t faze her anymore.

When her pregnancy hormones settled down. That’s all it was. The hormones. Craig Harmon was no different than any other man. He just was the only one in her close proximity and so perfectly handsome, while her hormones were raging.

Every time they met, at different spots depending on where they were riding, Craig asked how she was feeling, his gaze landing on her stomach.

And always, she wore a baggy T-shirt so he couldn’t see the way her belly was starting to fill with a baby. The child was hers. Not his. She needed to keep that designation firmly protected.

She’d had her sixteen-week ultrasound. He’d known when it was, but hadn’t asked how it went. Just posed his usual, general query about how she was feeling and stopped there. She’d said, as she always did, that she was just fine.

Angie had been with her for the ultrasound. They’d heard a healthy, strong heartbeat. Had cried a little. She didn’t want to know the sex. Not then.

But as her body continued to fill out, as more and more evidence that her son or daughter was really growing inside her—her child, her family—she grew more and more curious. Now that the baby was viable, not just test tubes and doctors and biology...

Angie thought she should find out so she could start buying clothes and things for the nursery. And yet, she hesitated, and she couldn’t figure out why.

Craig had talked to her about the sex of the baby that very first day they’d met. He’d seemed to want to know, too. It was a valid response. She understood that.

But every time she picked up the phone to call the Parent Portal, to have someone look at her chart and tell her, she got butterflies in her stomach and turned her thoughts back to work. It began to weigh on her—this indecision—because she didn’t understand it.

She talked to Angie about it one day as they sat over lunch celebrating a newly signed contract with the lace maker in the south of France. Her sister thought maybe she was hoping for one sex over the other and was afraid of feeling disappointed.

It made sense—especially for Amelia, who couldn’t stand to, in any way, not be perfect for those she loved. And yet, Angie’s theory didn’t ring true.

Imagining a life raising a son was equally as heady as imagining a life with a daughter; each was different in some ways, and gloriously the same in others. They both brought exciting and wonderful possibilities.