For Their Baby. Kathleen O'Brien

he understood the wry reaction instantly. He shook his head at his own stupidity. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course it’s harder, much harder, for you. It’s your body that’s changing. Your life that’s completely disrupted—”

      “My uniforms that need to be dry-cleaned.”

      “Yes.”

      Their gazes met. A welcome moment of harmony. It felt like an oasis in the desert of this difficult journey. Neither of them spoke right away, as if they were both afraid another word would make the feeling break like a mirage.

      “Kitty—”

      She held up her hand. “No, it’s all right, David. I know it’s hard to accept. Hard to believe. And you’ve got a lot of things to consider. I’m sure you’ll want to talk to your lawyer before you—”

      “No.”

      She stopped cold. “No?”

      “No. I don’t need to talk to Colby. I don’t want Colby’s advice. I know what I want to do.”

      She held her breath.

      “I want to marry you.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      KITTY FLUSHED, turning her face away slightly. “Don’t make a joke of this, David. We—”

      “It’s not a joke. I want to marry you, if you’ll have me. We can work out the details with Colby and with your lawyer. We can consult every lawyer in San Francisco, if that’ll make you feel safer. I want to do this.”

      She could tell he was serious. “But…why?”

      The question seemed to surprise him. “For the baby, of course. It may be old-fashioned, but I don’t want my child to be illegitimate.”

      “It’s the twenty-first century, David. Terms like illegitimate aren’t just old-fashioned. They’re dead. Why would you marry a complete stranger just because—”

      “Because I think our child deserves a shot at having a family. I think he deserves a chance to have a mother and a father, both at the same time, not on alternate weekends. We created this child. Don’t we owe him something?”

      She nodded, struck by the intensity in his voice. She knew how he felt. Once she wrapped her mind around the idea that she was going to be a parent, she saw all the terrifying power of that relationship.

      She suddenly realized that, sometimes, all the clichés were true. As a mother, a woman would drag the evening star out of the sky for the baby’s first birthday candle if she thought it would make him happy. She’d work till she bled, and negotiate with God, and lie down on the proverbial railroad tracks. Well, not her mother, maybe. But normal mothers. And thank God, she already knew that she would be a better mother than her own. Her pregnancy had already triggered a ferocious, protective passion for her unborn child.

      “We owe him everything,” she said. “But marriage won’t necessarily—”

      “No, I know. It won’t necessarily fix anything. I have no idea if we can make it work. It’s a dark-horse long shot at best. But we should at least try. For a while—a reasonable try. We can put together a contract, so that you can be sure you’ll be protected.”

      He drew a long breath and put his hands, palms down, on the counter. “What do you say, Kitty? Will you do it? Will you give this crazy thing a chance and marry me?”

      She hardly knew what to say. What was the “right” answer?

      She looked into his gorgeous blue eyes and remembered the feel of his hands on her naked skin. She thought of the baby, no more than a delicate pea inside her, waiting with an absolute, unthinking trust. Growing silently, preparing to be born and loved.

      But she also thought of her restless mother and her wounded father. And all the barnacle men who came after, right up to the unspeakable Jim Oliphant. She thought of the dragon dad she’d just waited on, who wanted everyone to believe he possessed the model family, though his son had anxious eyes and his wife was afraid to talk back to him.

      She thought of all the brutal dramas that were playing out right this very moment, invisible behind neat doors and elegant lace curtains.

      What, in the end, did marriage guarantee? Especially a marriage without love?

      Not a damn thing.

      “No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

      His blank face told her how shocked he was. She almost laughed. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that she’d turn him down, had he? He’d come here so confident, like Prince Charming holding out the glass slipper. Every princess in town itched to wear it, so just imagine how ecstatic and grateful the little cinder maid would be!

      And, in some ways, it was the fairy-tale ending. From unemployed bartender to lawyer’s wife. From sooty rags to society pages. Wasn’t that every struggling unwed mother’s brass ring?

      But she wasn’t every unwed mother. How little he knew her!

      That was, of course, the point. He didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. They’d gone at this thing all backward.

      At that moment, Cheyenne, her replacement for the evening, came in.

      “Just let me clock out,” Kitty said. “We can talk outside.”

      He nodded grimly and backed away from the counter. She went through the motions of turning the store over to Cheyenne, then met David at the door. They strolled out onto the boardwalk without speaking.

      She tried to read his expression. When the shock of being turned down wore off, what kind of emotion would take its place? How he behaved right now might tell her a lot about who David Gerard really was. Would he be angry, insulted to have his generous offer rejected? Would he use it as an excuse to wash his hands of her? Would he be polite, but secretly relieved?

      Of all the men she’d ever met, he was the most difficult to figure out. For a couple of minutes, he didn’t speak at all. He moved to the railing and leaned his elbows on it, as if this were any lazy afternoon and he wanted to watch the water.

      She joined him there, pulling her sweater close around her chest. The winter sun sparkled on the waves, but didn’t provide much warmth. The wind was loud in their ears.

      She started to say again that she was sorry, but she stopped herself. If he had a petty temper or a fragile ego, she wasn’t going to play beta dog, rolling over and showing her belly. She wasn’t asking for David’s charity, but for his partnership. The child she carried was his.

      A gust of wind caught her curls and began to play rough. She grabbed the longest ones and tucked them behind her ears. She clenched her jaw, so that she wouldn’t shiver, and so that she wouldn’t say anything before he did.

      Finally, he took a deep breath and turned to face her. “I’m not sure what to say. I might have expressed myself badly. You don’t have to answer right away, of course. Maybe it would help if you took some time to think it over.”

      “I don’t need to think it over,” she said. “I can’t marry you. The truth is, I hardly know you.”

      He didn’t quite let his gaze drop to her stomach, but one corner of his mouth turned up, acknowledging the irony. “Fair enough. But I promise you I’m healthy, law-abiding and relatively sane. If you’d like, I can provide references.”

      “This isn’t a job application.” She smiled, in spite of herself. “Although I’ll be darned if I know quite what it is.”

      For a second, he smiled, too. Then his face sobered, and he reached out to touch her wrist with cold-tipped fingers. It was a gentle contact, and she felt no urge to pull back.

      “It’s the biggest decision we’ll ever have to make,” he said. “One that will change our child’s life