The Baby Arrangement. Tara Taylor Quinn

      In his know-it-all, youthful arrogance, each time she’d mentioned her “clock goals” he’d pointed out that women were having babies successfully in their forties now. His way of deflecting the tension she’d begun to bring to their marriage after three years of still using birth control. They’d been establishing their businesses, and both had wanted to wait for children until they were secure.

      It might have been more manly to deal with the tension. To acknowledge the validity of her feelings and sit with her as she felt them.

      Sit with her. She wasn’t the only one who’d had some counseling after Tucker’s death. Sit with her. It had been what his counselor had told him he should have done when Mallory’s grief had flooded their home to the point that he’d had to escape.

      He hadn’t been able to fix things. Hadn’t known how to help. What to do.

      What she’d apparently needed was for him to sit with her. Just be there while she grieved. Be willing to be in her grief with her. Whatever that meant. He got the words but he’d never completely figured out the concept.

      Nor the next one. Let her into your grief.

      The whole counseling thing hadn’t lasted very long.

      Wandering to his desk instead of heading back to bed, he sipped from his milk and stood in front of his computer—an identical setup to the one he had at his office and linked to it.

      But work wasn’t calling him.

      Insemination was.

      For a few minutes, earlier that night, he’d been with the old Mal. The one who didn’t carry grief with her everywhere she went. From the way her eyes had lit up, even the way she’d held herself, it had seemed at first that he’d been sitting with the woman who’d blown his life away with her beauty, her contagious good feeling. He’d been in love all over again, there, for just a second.

      For just a second he’d forgotten that he’d robbed her of the chance to kiss her baby good-night for the last time. To change him for the last time. Bathe him. Feed him. Hold him. Rock him to sleep. That had all been done by the nanny.

      The next morning, the coroner had already been to the house by the time they’d arrived home. And Mallory’s breasts had been leaking Tucker’s food all over the place.

      No matter how many times you relived it, the picture was always the same. He sipped his drink.

      For just a second, earlier that night, Mal had seemed to be soaring again, instead of sagging.

      He couldn’t take that from her. No matter what misgivings he might have. No matter how valid they might be.

      He was still staring at his computer, his milk almost gone.

      If he was going to support Mallory in this venture, he needed to know everything there was to know.

      Heading off for some boxers he came back and set to work.

      An hour later, he had her on the phone.

      “Braden? It’s two in the morning! What’s wrong?”

      “You never said when you were going for your first procedure.” Or what kind it was going to be. “For all I know, it’s first thing in the morning. I wanted to chat a second before it happens.”

      “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she reminded him. “My appointment’s on Monday, after work, unless I don’t ovulate as expected.”

       Not that far off, then.

      “I called tonight’s meeting. When were you planning to tell me about this?”

       Whoa, buddy. You don’t sound like a friendly and supportive ex-husband.

      “Before tonight...or last night, now,” she said. “But when you called Wednesday, asking to meet, I figured Friday night was fine.”

      He moved on, letting himself slide on the over zealousness of his questioning due to the lateness of the hour and shock of her news.

      “I assume, given the circumstances, your ability to conceive, your age and your excellent health that you’re considering either ICI or IUI,” he said, looking at the screen of statistics in front of him. Intracervical insemination. Intrauterine insemination. And there was intravaginal, too.

      “Really, Braden? At two in the morning?”

      “IVI is cheaper, by far, less invasive and less painful, but chances of conceiving the first time are considerably lower. ICI is still cheaper and less uncomfortable. But IUI has a slightly higher success rate. I think you should go with that. The less raised hopes and disappointment here the better.”

      “I’m fully prepared for this to take several months.”

      She yawned. And sounded slightly amused, too.

      It was two in the morning.

      His nearly naked body yearned during the second it took him to remind himself that it was Mallory he was talking to. The woman who had no interest in being a wife once motherhood was in the picture.

      Mallory, who’d been unable to feel any desire for him at all since their son died.

      Because she felt guilty for how great it had been for her that night.

      That was new knowledge that he’d process at some point.

      That night had been the best sex of his life, too. He didn’t feel bad about that.

      “How about a meet-up sometime this weekend?” he asked.

      “Fine.” Another yawn.

      “I’m taking the boat out on Sunday,” he told her. “You want to go fishing?”

      “I’d rather lie on the deck and soak up some spring sunshine.”

      Right. He knew that. She’d gone out with him plenty of times. She’d never caught a fish and had only tried once or twice after he’d bugged her to the point where she’d given in.

      If she had a boy, who was going to teach the kid to fish?

      Knowing Mallory, she had some kid’s fishing development group already lined up.

      “Seven too early for you?” They’d have plenty of time on the boat for talking.

      “Nope.”

      He could tell her about his L.A. plans, too. “Meet me at the dock?”

      “Yep.”

      “Okay. We can—”

      “I’m going back to sleep now, Braden. Good night.”

      He caught her chuckle just before the call went dead.

      * * *

      In leggings, a short-sleeved, oversize black shirt and tennis shoes, her dark hair tied back in a ribbon, Mallory boarded the fishing boat Braden had already owned when she’d met him eight years before. She carried a plastic bowl of cut fruit in her hands.

      He was on board with a plate of doughnuts.

      Looking at each other’s goods, they laughed. “Some things don’t change,” she said, not as worried as she might have been about spending leisurely time with her ex-husband.

      Surely, after three years of successful friendship, she and Braden could handle a few hours alone on the ocean. He probably wouldn’t even leave the harbor.

      He’d set a lounger for her on the deck, maybe the same lounger she’d used in the past.

      She’d brought her own towel and dropped it on the lounger while he did what he did with his bait.

      She opened the food, set it out on one of the benches with the little disposable plates, napkins and plastic forks she’d brought. He started the engine, fixed himself a plate and backed