“This will be her favorite one,” Laura predicted, taking the little pink rabbit from him and laying it down next to Annie. “It's her first gift from Daddy.”
“It sounds so strange when you say it,” Daniel laughed. “ ‘Daddy.’ I thought it would be a while before anyone called me that.”
“Yes, she took me by surprise too,” Laura laughed. “Being a mother was a long way off in the plan.”
“I screwed up your plan?” Daniel said guiltily.
Laura shook her head. “No,” she said sincerely. “This little angel is my world. She's the new plan.”
“I bought some things for her,” Daniel said, gesturing to all the bags he'd brought in from the car. “I wanted to make sure she had everything. There's formula and diapers and some clothes for when she grows. Sam got her these tiny little shoes. They are so cute. We'll have to set up a play date with his twins. I want to make sure my girl has friends looking out for her.”
Laura smiled. Daniel's talk of play dates and fire engines made a feeling of incredible happiness swell up inside her. This was the future she'd dreamed of for herself and her daughter. Even though Laura had had her moments of letting her thoughts wander to Daniel and craving a man's presence, she didn't realize how alone she'd felt as a single parent until the father of her child had suddenly appeared again.
“I'm glad you're back,” she said meaningfully.
“I won't leave you again,” Daniel promised.
He meant it, too. Thoughts were churning in the fireman's mind as he got in his car to drive to his parent's house. This last twenty-four hours had been something of a whirlwind and he still felt like the earth was spinning a little too quickly. The only thing that had been able to bring it to a standstill was looking at his perfect little girl. She was beautiful. Even the thought of her brought a smile to his face. It didn't matter that he hadn't expected to be a father and that Annie wasn't planned, because when she took hold of his finger with her tiny little hands, something in him made him instinctively want to protect her and love her forever.
Then there was Laura. Wow, Laura. He had never expected to ever see her again, let alone find out that he had fathered a child with her. He'd thought of their one night of passion a million times over the last year and every time she came to mind he had felt a heated and strange feeling of longing for her. Nobody had ever made him feel as alive as she had and he'd been seeking that feeling of electricity and complete connection ever since.
The thought made him feel guilty once more, and not because he'd left Laura alone, but because he felt a spark with her that was lacking with his current girlfriend. He and Stacy and been on and off now for several years. There had been times when Daniel had thought he'd loved her and times when the feeling was much closer to contempt.
Stacy was a beautiful woman, but mean-spirited and demanding. When he'd first met her, Daniel had been attracted to her confidence and ability to command a room, but the attraction had soon faded when he realized that what seemed like confidence on first impression was actually a control freak under the veneer of self-assurance.
Daniel wasn't sure what had kept him coming back to her over the years. Part of it was habit, he knew, and another part was the feeling of duty he had towards her because they'd been together for so long. Not that it had been a smooth ride. Stacy was possessive of him and she was definitely high maintenance.
There had been a time when he was younger, when he'd found her jealousy flattering and he had enjoyed the way he could command her attention, but as time passed, and the arguments had become more frequent and had needed less and less fuel to ignite, he began to realize that she was simply insane. Every time he so much as looked in the direction of another woman she would be on his back; weeping and crying about how he didn't love her.
The fact was that the only reason he was still with her, despite all the arguing and suspicion, was because he was too soft-hearted to break up with her. Every time he tried she would scream and cry and he would lose his resolve. Of course, there were moments when he saw flickers of a girl he had used to admire in Stacy, when she was in a good mood or when she did something romantic off the cuff. Then he told himself that he still loved her, even though the times when her voice gave him a headache far outweighed the times he found comfort in her arms.
Then of course there was his mother, too. She was desperate for him to find a nice girl and settle down because a man of his age should have a wife and a family... In fact, it was his mother that he wanted to see first. She had told him a thousand times that she wanted grandchildren, but Daniel didn't know how she would feel that Stacy would not be the mother of her grandchildren, and that her son had gotten a stranger pregnant.