“It’s for the baby, but you can snuggle it until he gets here. Or she.” Bash shook his head like he was embarrassed. “The flowers are for you. Anyway, I want to take you to your doctor appointment if you’ll let me. You should have a cheerleader waiting out in the sitting room when you’re through.”
To hide the single tear that was streaking down her cheek, Emerson stepped into the sunlight, slid her arm around his neck, and hugged him as tight as she could.
He hesitated for a moment, but then his hands rubbed up her back, and he rested his cheek against the top of her hair. In an instant, she felt good and whole and secure again. She’d thought she’d lost him. And yeah, it didn’t make any sense for her to feel so attached to a man this soon, but some part of her had adored him since the day he’d paid her that genuine compliment in the library.
“I’d like for you to be in the waiting room,” she whispered thickly. “I want that very much.”
Taking his hand, she led him into her duplex. While she put her flowers in a vase, Bash looked at the pictures on her wall. “She looks like you,” he said, pointing to Amanda.
“She’s my younger sister. The kids are my nieces, and the guy with the big, goofy grin beside my sister in that top picture is my brother-in-law.”
“Three cubs,” he said, moving as he looked at each picture.
“Yeah, would you believe she was the one who never wanted a family? When we were growing up, my sister would give these elaborate speeches at the dinner table about how marriage was an outdated, meaningless ritual and that monogamy was unnatural and yada yada. But then she found Chris when she was twenty-one, and he changed her tune quick.”
“But you always wanted kids,” he murmured, squinting at a Christmas picture of her sister’s family.
“Yeah, I wanted the family, but it didn’t work out like it did for Amanda.”
“Does that make you angry?”
“No. It makes me sad sometimes when I spend time with them because they’re so happy. There is no loneliness in that family, you know? And I watch my parents with their granddaughters, and they’re always asking when I’ll settle down and give them more, like I haven’t been trying for long-term relationships. And I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, I just accepted it wasn’t happening for me and decided to go get a family myself. My parents and my sister are frustrated with my decision to use a donor, but it’ll be different when I have a baby. They won’t remember how he or she came to be. They’ll just love it.”
“You’re a strong woman,” Bash said, honesty pooling in those striking eyes of his. “Strong and brave, and I like you even more now.”
The stretch of her smile felt good after the last day of stressing about how they’d parted at the bar. She loved how he always said what he was thinking, and she loved even more that his head was full of nice thoughts. He was a good man. Maybe the best she’d ever met, and something inside told her she had only scratched the surface with him. “I don’t want you to leave if I get pregnant,” she admitted in a rush. Softer, she said again, “I don’t want you to leave.”
Bash was to her in an instant, and she gasped at how fast he was. His hand cupped her cheek. “I won’t do that. I can’t.” Leaning into her, he kissed her lips, then pulled away with a sweet smack. His eyes were still closed when he eased back, but there was a smile on his lips now. “I forgot how good that feels with you.” He inhaled deeply, and his shoulders relaxed on the exhale. “Come on now. I won’t have you late to the doctor.”
Feeling utterly drunk on that kiss, she set the vase of roses in the center of her kitchen table and floated after him in a daze. She almost forgot her purse, but remembered at the last minute when she didn’t have her key to lock the door. Outside, Bash held out his elbow formally and pulled her hand against the crook.
“I like your dress,” he said as he led her toward a gun-metal gray Dodge Ram.
Emerson looked down at her cream-colored sundress with the pink floral print. “It’ll probably sound weird, but it felt right dressing up for this.”
“Hell yeah. You’re meeting the vial of your baby daddy’s jizz today. One of those little tadpoles could turn out to be your baby. It’s a big fuckin’ deal.”
She giggled and bumped her shoulder against his arm. God, she really liked Bash. A huge part of her still couldn’t believe he was okay with this and supporting her, but under this big, burly, muscled-up exterior was a sweet and understanding man.