LITMIR.BIZ

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in her child...if, in spite of the testing he’d had done, she still thought his genes were partially to blame for what had happened, then he wouldn’t force her. Couldn’t force her. And he didn’t even want to try. He just wanted this to work out for her. Most of the process was completely out of his control, except for this one small area where he could possibly positively affect her chances.

      “Can I think about it?”

      Her question came right when he was giving up.

      “Of course.”

      “On the deck? In the sun?” She was already crawling her way off the bow, giving him too good a view of her ass as she did so.

      Way too good.

      Hard in the wrong place, he set about baiting his line. It was time to do some real fishing. And not for the things he couldn’t have. Or things that no longer existed.

      * * *

      Weak in the knees, Mallory made it back to her lounger without incident. Sinking into the woven chair, she kept on her sunglasses just in case Braden was looking. And she refrained from wiping the tears from her cheeks for the same reason.

      She’d just been given a second chance. From the minute she’d met her ex-husband she’d known that she’d wanted him to be the father of her biological family. To someone who’d grown up an orphaned foster kid, whose own mother hadn’t even known who’d fathered her, biology was important.

      So important.

      As important as Braden Harris was to her.

      She couldn’t let him do this. Couldn’t use him this way. It was his guilt playing with him. She knew that.

      Just as she knew that keeping your baby in your room was a key SIDS preventative. She’d studied them all, from the Mayo Clinic to the American Academy of Pediatrics and every blog or message board she could find in between:

      Place baby on back, not side or stomach.

      Remove all fluffy bedding.

      Keep crib as bare as possible.

      No prenatal smoking.

      Good prenatal care.

      Pacifier at night after four weeks of age.

      Breastfeeding.

      And baby in your own room for a minimum of six months, better if it was twelve.

      Not in your bed but in your room. It had to do with waking more easily, among other things. Logic then followed that if she’d been home that night Tucker would have been in his smaller crib in their room, where he’d been every night since his birth. She’d have been there, too. Which could have prevented SIDS.

      Braden had done his own reading. He had to know this, too. And he was offering to give her what she wanted in order to appease his guilt.

      Maybe it would be kindest to give him a way to atone and move on.

      How could she put him through fathering a child he didn’t want? How could she ask him to experience the pregnancy with her, knowing what it would probably cost him? How could she hurt him any more than he’d already been hurt, loving him like she did?

      Unless...if atoning set him free...

      She tried to doze, to let the sun take her to the peaceful place outside of pain, and ended up thinking about Tucker instead. The sound of him laughing. The first time he’d laughed Braden had been at work. She’d been alone with the baby, coming at him again and again with funny noises, stopping just short of reaching him to pull back and start again, reveling in the way his eyes had followed her every movement.

      Braden had missed the whole thing. Tucker had been asleep when he’d arrived home that evening and though Braden had gone to wake him, she’d told him not to. It would have been too hard to get the baby back down. Feeling as sleep deprived as she had been, the admonition hadn’t been completely without warrant, but what would it have hurt in the long run? Yeah, she’d been exhausted, but it wasn’t like she’d had to get up to go to work. She’d still had another month of leave ahead of her. Even if the baby hadn’t laughed again that night, Braden would have racked up more minutes of memories to feed him in the years that followed.

      Someone like Braden probably wouldn’t access those memories like she did. And when they came to him, calling up a wealth of emotion, they might be more a hindrance than anything else.

      So maybe someone like Braden, someone who was happier shutting out emotion than letting it in, would be the perfect sperm donor—if he really didn’t want another child of his own.

      But what if he only thought he didn’t? What if, once they got into it, once she heard a heartbeat and then started to show, once the baby started to kick, he found out he really wanted it all again, too?

      She tried to find the idea abhorrent but couldn’t.

      Because if Braden could be the man she’d thought he was, there’d be no more perfect scenario than having his baby.

      Which was the true problem, she acknowledged, lying there with her eyes closed, the sun beating down on her, the gentle sway of the boat rocking her.

      The real problem was her. What if she got pregnant, heard the heartbeat, started to show, felt the baby kicking her...and wanted Braden to get excited about all of those things because it was his baby, too? What if she fell in love with him all over again?

      What if she started to fall back into who she’d been? A woman who’d been ashamed to cry because her husband didn’t like emotional outbursts. One who’d curtailed her most exciting moments when he was around for the same reason.

      One who’d grown to relish her time alone with her baby so she could gush and be all intensely moved by the miracle of him and just feel complete.

      No, she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t have Braden’s baby.

      That settled, she concentrated on the slow rhythm of the boat’s movement and tried to drift off with it.

      But she lay there, wide awake as a thought struck her.

      She had to put the baby first.

      Always.

      In the end, she didn’t matter at all. What mattered was her baby’s health. His or her best chance at a long and happy life. Braden was right. With a sperm donor there were many unknowns.

      She herself was an unknown, too. Yes, she’d had her own genetic testing and didn’t carry any alarming signs, but her family might. She had no way of knowing if there was a history of cancer. Or liver or kidney disease. Or slowly developing areas of the brain that regulated breathing.

      Not only could her baby develop something, but she could, too. What if kidney failure ran in her family? Or car accidents?

      Sitting up, Mallory opened her eyes, taking a minute to bring herself back mentally to where she was. The ocean. The boat. Fresh sea air and sunshine.

      Car accidents weren’t genetic.

      But they did take people unexpectedly, leaving loved ones behind to fend for themselves.

      In her case, it would leave her little one with no known family at all. He or she would be just like Mallory, a foster.

      Rising, she made her way back to the front of the boat. Braden was sitting with his forearms resting on raised knees, looking in her direction. His line lay limp before him. There wasn’t a single fish in the basket close by.

      With a raised brow, he seemed to ask if she’d reached her decision.

      “I have a question.”

      “Okay. If I don’t have the answer, I’ll see what I can do about finding it.”

      The reply was so Braden she almost teared up again. And smiled, too. He tried. He really, really tried hard.

      “If something were to happen to me, would you be willing to

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