The Accidental Daddy. Meredith Webber

could only stare at the stranger. The stranger whose baby she was, apparently, carrying.

      Slowly and carefully, she went through it all in her mind and she understood that it could have happened.

      But had it?

      Shouldn’t she check?

      Too late now to phone the clinic—

      ‘Shouldn’t they have got in touch with me as soon as they found out?’ she demanded, as the enormity of it flooded her body. ‘Didn’t I deserve to be told? To have some kind of apology, some support?’

      Max stood up and came across to where she sat, sitting down beside her and tentatively resting a hand on her shoulder, wanting to comfort her and not knowing how.

      Wanting to hold her and tell her everything would be all right—make promises he had no right to make and that she would probably reject anyway.

      He’d insisted on being the person who told her—and all because he’d wanted to check out whether she’d make a good mother. Guilt was niggling in his gut.

      That had been a really big mistake. But how was he to know he’d be instantly attracted to her? Love at first sight was nonsense. He knew that!

      ‘That’s my fault,’ he admitted, shoving the L word to the very darkest corner of his brain. ‘It was only this afternoon, and it seemed to me you deserved to be told in person. I offered to do it. In fact …’ he gave a rueful smile ‘… I insisted. The guy who runs the clinic went through med school with me. I didn’t give him much choice. Unethical, but there it is. Once I came down from the ceiling, I figured if you had to have some of the truth, you might as well have the lot. Including who your father’s baby really is.’

      It was a reasonable explanation, he decided. She knew it all now. He could walk away.

      But something was happening he didn’t understand. On top of the attraction thing, there was bit of him that had suddenly become illogically, irrationally possessive of the baby. Possessive and responsible …

      Remember, he told himself, he’d decided no kids.

      ‘You offered to do it?’ Joey prompted, and he battled to get his thoughts in order so he could get back to the conversation.

      ‘I told them I was sure you’d be in touch with them, but I believed—I mean, the shock alone—I thought—’

      ‘I’d have fainted, or gone into labour or—Heaven only knows how I might have reacted—am reacting …’

      Joey threw up her arms and leaned back into the soft cushions at the back of the lounge, edging just a little away from the man who was causing a great deal of uncertainty in her body as well as total confusion in her mind.

      ‘I’ve no idea what to think,’ she said, then she turned to Max. ‘Do you?’

      He shrugged his broad shoulders by way of reply and she told herself it was the shock that made him seem so attractive. She’d had a shock and he was here to support her—of course he’d seem attractive.

      ‘Not really,’ he said, ‘although we obviously have to think about the baby. I mean, if you don’t want a baby that’s not David’s, his sperm is still there and you could try again. I could probably take the baby—my mother and sisters could possibly—’

      ‘Take the baby?’ Joey’s reaction was as instinctive as a bear protecting her cub. She was staring at him in horror. ‘You’d take the baby and I could just try again? This is my baby we’re talking about. Okay, so David—or presumably you, but I’m not accepting that until I’ve talked to the clinic—might have made a contribution, but this is my baby!’

      ‘The contribution is half and half,’ said her visitor, who’d shifted a little away from her in obvious discomfort.

      ‘And who’s been carrying it around for months, and not having a glass of wine, and eating good food, and walking up a million steps so it stays healthy? Not to mention morning sickness and indigestion and not being able to get comfortable enough to have a decent night’s sleep? Tell me that, then tell me it’s half and half.’

      ‘Well, not quite,’ Max admitted, ‘but it’s still my baby.’

      So he was one of those stubborn men, Joey thought. And then thought, irrationally, I hope our baby hasn’t inherited that trait—although the green eyes would be nice …

      Our baby. It was a weird thought.

      ‘Which leaves us where?’ she demanded, upset all over again now she had to worry about the baby being stubborn—and her reactions to this man.

      She was mulling this over when Max replied.

      ‘I’m not trying to take it away from you.’

      ‘Gee, thanks.’

      ‘But I do want to help.’

      ‘I don’t need …’

      And then he had another of those light-bulb moments. Crazy, irrational, but the thought was there. A solution that would let him wander but would still give him a say.

      He’d nearly done it twice. Maybe he could …

      ‘Joey, I’m not much of a catch because I’m not around much,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m called away at inconvenient times. I live independently. But if we both were to be parents … If there’s no one else for you … I suppose … Maybe we could get married. You know, a marriage of convenience—so the baby had a father … I could contribute—’

      But Joey was staring at him as if he was out of his mind. ‘Is that all marriage means to you?’ she managed. She rose, her face blank with incomprehension. ‘Marriage … This is nuts. No, it’s beyond nuts. You come here and tell me you’re my baby’s father, and then you calmly decide we can say a few vows but not really mean them, and you can head off, duty done, only you’ll have a child and a little wife back home? You’ve said you’ve broken off with two fiancées, and I can see their point. If marriage means so little …’ She gasped and put her hand to her back. ‘No. That’s none of my business. You are none of my business. I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you. Anything my baby and I do is up to us; we don’t want some phantom mountain-climbing husband and father wafting in and out of our lives when he feels like it.’

      ‘I didn’t mean—’

      ‘No. You didn’t mean because you didn’t think. This has been as almost as much a shock to you as it is to me, but the answer, believe it or not, is not to take lifetime vows. Max, you need to go.’