A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

“So how does knowing the sex of the baby in your lifelong plan change anything?” Craig asked, as though finishing her thought.

She thought about the question. It was one she hadn’t asked herself. One Angie hadn’t even touched on. Maybe because it was irrelevant. How did knowing the sex change things?

It didn’t really. Just... “It makes it more real,” she said. Which was a great thing—having her dreams coming to life. So that wouldn’t be the cause of the tension. Would it?

As tension started to seep into her, she looked over at him, needing to know he was real, too. That he was there as a donor, but also as her friend.

Needing to know how he seemed to know her so well. Or at least read her well.

“I’m afraid to believe it’s going to happen.”

“Why?”

“Because if I believe and then something goes wrong...”

She was scared to death to believe she was really going to have a family of her own. To believe that healthy love would live in her home.

Because she was scared to death she couldn’t ever have that—a healthy, loving home. That such things were for other people. Not her.

Their faces were so close, their mouths both open, as though either of them was ready to speak. Amelia had no thought, no plan, no warning before she leaned just enough to close that distance. Her lips touched his lightly. Tentatively. For a brief second he made it more than that, filling her body with an ache it had never known, and she jerked back.

“The baby’s not viable yet,” she blurted loudly what she’d only been acknowledging to herself. Needing to pretend that she hadn’t just done what she had. Needing him to let it go, as though it hadn’t happened. They didn’t need this...couldn’t chance ruining what they were building for the baby by letting sexual attraction get involved. “I don’t want to believe...” She had to stop to catch her breath, to focus on what she was saying and not on him. “To name him, to fall in love, until I know the baby is viable.” That was it. And it made perfect sense.

At least something did.

“You think you haven’t already fallen in love?”

He wasn’t smiling, but his expression was kind as he looked at her, and then at the hands she’d unconsciously placed on her stomach. He was letting her off the hook. Letting the kiss go.

Amelia sat up as a surprising spurt of tears sprang to her eyes.

Hormones. It was just hormones.

Or he was right. She’d fallen in love with her baby before she’d said she could, in spite of herself—and maybe fallen a little bit in love with her baby’s father, too.

Chapter Fourteen

Craig knew something was wrong the second he saw Amelia’s face on Tuesday of that week. There was nothing overt, no frown or worry lines. She smiled, greeted him as usual, went immediately to the bike he had standing in the parking lot waiting for her. It was a lack of something that caught his attention. She seemed slightly vacant. Like she was wearing a facade to complete her day.

He had had a hectic day with four patients calling in for emergency appointments, in addition to an already full schedule. He’d had to order extra blood work for

a man not much older than himself, a man who was married and had two little ones at home. He was hoping that the test was merely going to show them that nothing was wrong, but his gut was telling him differently. That young family might not have a lifetime together. It was one of the moments he wished he was anything but a doctor.

And that day it carried another weight attached to it. He was feeling for a father who might not be around for his kids and for kids who might not get to have their father around...and in a sense, that was his own fate. And the fate of his child.

They were riding in the neighborhood closest to Amelia’s condominium, as both of them had been pressed for time and had planned only a forty-five-minute spin. They’d made that decision on Sunday as they’d returned from their short stay at the facility shack. The dark clouds had dispersed within fifteen minutes and no rain had fallen—as predicted.

Amelia had been different on the ride back, too, he reminded himself. Something he’d pondered probably more than necessary in the time since.

All to no good resolution. She had such walls around her, and as much as he felt compelled to penetrate those walls, to care and be there for her and show her that the world offered unending possibility for happiness, he knew that his place in her life required that he not penetrate anything where she was concerned.

The knowing didn’t stop him caring, unfortunately. Which wasn’t keeping him in the best of moods, either.

And yet, there he was, ready to trek around a neighborhood with her, eager to, rather than getting in the more rigorous coastal ride his day called for. He seemed to be some kind of masochist where this woman was concerned.

Because he cared. No going back on that one. He’d acknowledged it. He had feelings for her. They were there.

“You ready?” She took off before he did, leaving him to follow her. It had happened before. They took turns leading the way. So why did it bother him that afternoon?