Her Billionaires(135)

Josie looked at them all as if they were aliens. “But you have to know!”

How had they gone from just learned about the existence of this tiny being to having a fight about her already?

“Maybe we can both go on the birth certificate?” Dylan asked.

“What—like you each contributed half a sperm? Biology doesn’t work that way,” Josie wisecracked.

“I know how—”

Buh bum buh bum buh bum. They all turned to look at the monitor. A large wet spot grew around Laura’s eye on the pillow, her chin quivering and chest shaking a bit.

“Out!” Josie ordered. “All of us! We can come back and fight another time when Laura’s stronger.”

Shit. She was right, as much as Mike was loathe to admit it. He looked at the clock; was it really not even 7:30 a.m.? Man. He’d lived five lifetimes in four hours. He walked to the head of the bed and bent down, stretching to give Laura a kiss on the temple.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who is so, so sorry, Laura. We should have told you.”

“I should have told you,” she whispered back, reaching for his hand. The joy of this moment made his own heart grow, and his fingers reached down to stroke the baby.

“We’ll be back later. We’re here for you.” He knew he shouldn’t speak for Dylan—that was a bridge he still needed to cross—but the words were reflexive, born of years of knowing he could speak for two.

Dylan came from the other side of the bed and kissed her cheek. “Me too. I’m sorry, Laura, for letting you down.”

A smile. “It’s all good.” Yawn. The baby’s heart rate settled back down.

Click. The door opened and Mike saw Josie leading the way. By the time he and Dylan had stepped out, Laura was snoozing, as it should be.

Buh bum buh bum buh bum.



A dad. Daddy. Dylan fumbled with the idea that he might be someone’s daddy. Images of his own father, still strong and hearty at seventy, flipped through his mind. Fishing and hiking and swimming and camping. He knew how to parent a boy, all rough and tumble and energy.

A little girl? He wasn’t exactly the princess tea party type. A lump in his throat seemed to push on his tear ducts and make his eyes leak a bit as he and Mike and Josie left Laura’s room.

“You’re covered in soot,” Josie marveled. He looked down at his forearms. Yep. Nothing new. After a year on the force he had found that his cuticles always had a few flecks of black in them. Professional hazard. “You literally carried her out and saved her life.” Hair wild and eyes tired, she smiled at him, a genuine, earnest look that made her quite beautiful, transformed. “Thank you. You saved them both.”

Both. A baby girl. He washed his face with his hands, kneading the skin, willing his brain to focus, as if he could massage it into place. “What are we gonna do?” Open-ended question. One that no one had an answer to, but he had to ask it anyway.

“This is a start.” For the first time, he got a good look at Josie. SpongeBob pajamas and sockless, with flip flops. What a fashion plate. Then he remembered—3 a.m. She had sprinted like they had, and he felt a combination of extreme fatigue and gratitude. Too bad he’d been too stupid to take Josie’s advice when she’d flung it at him that night at Jeddy’s. Thank God Laura had a good friend through all this.

A look at Mike, who was looking at him. A shared smile. Maybe this would be OK, he thought.

How were they going to raise a child? Nausea settled in. Or maybe that was just hunger. Josie rubbed her eyes and took a good look at herself, head tipped down. Chin on chest, she started laughing, a coarse, harsh sound.

“Man, I gotta get home and make sure those cats haven’t destroyed everything. And I need to sleep. My shift starts at three.”

“You work in a factory?” Dylan asked. She had a hard look to her, like someone who was streetwise. Yet when she softened and smiled, she seemed delicate and intellectual. What a chameleon.

“I’m a nurse,” she said flatly, as if she were offended he thought her working class.

“Cool. I’m a paramedic.”

“No—you’re a billionaire,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

Deadly stare. “And you’re a—” The rest of his sentence was cut off by Mike, who wrapped an arm around his shoulders and steered him away from Josie.

“We’ll be back in a few hours to check on Laura and talk about our daughter,” he said, soothing the simmer that threatened to bubble over in Dylan. Another hand on his shoulder, then a matching one on Mike’s.