A Baby for the Bachelor

That had probably not been the best way to put that and the minute the words were out, Marti regretted them. This was all just so hard and complicated.

But Noah didn’t seem to take offense. In fact, he did the opposite—his temper seemed to recede and in its place he became conciliatory.

“I’m not questioning whether or not the baby is mine. The timing is right. I don’t remember a whole lot about that night but I do remember that we were drunk enough to take the risk of not using protection. You’d already told that artificial insemination story to your brothers—I don’t think you would have done that if the father was someone you know or were involved with. And another one of the few things I recall is you saying more than once that night in Denver how that wasn’t something you’d ever done or ever did—and that struck me as true. Plus, while I don’t know much about you, what I’ve seen doesn’t make me think that you’re someone who would try to pass off someone else’s kid on me.”

Apparently he thought higher of her than she’d been thinking of him in the last several hours. It helped Marti to calm down slightly.

“Thanks for that at least,” she said. “And I didn’t faint on Friday, it was—”

“I know, it was a dizzy spell,” he said with the first hint of a genuine smile—and it was only a hint. “But when I saw you go down I thought you’d passed out.”

They both sipped their coffees and after a brief pause, Marti said, “So why did you go to a lawyer today?”

“To find out what I needed to do to protect my rights.”

“Your rights?”

“As the father. I’m not trying to figure a way out of this, Marti. I want to make sure I have a firm footing in it.”

That surprised her.

And then it alarmed her. In her wildest dreams she hadn’t thought there was any risk of the father of this baby doing anything that might take it away from her in some fashion.

“What does that mean?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“This is a big deal to me,” he said with enough gravity that she didn’t need any more convincing to believe he wasn’t taking this lightly. In fact, he said it with so much gravity that it made her wonder if there was more motivating him than she knew.

But he was still talking and this was all too important for her to let her mind wander.

“I realize that I’m as responsible for this as you are,” he was saying. “And I’m not one of those people who can ignore that I’ll have a kid floating around out in the world and just go on about my business as if I don’t. There’s no way I’d let you go through this alone, and once the baby is here, I want to be a father to it. I want to be a part of its life.”

“Okay…” Marti agreed with reservation because she still wasn’t sure exactly where he was going with this. “What did you have in mind?”

“First of all—I want to know that you aren’t going to have an abor—”

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m having the baby.”

“Great.” Noah looked relieved.

“And second of all?” she said.

His face broke into a bigger and even more genuine smile. “As long as there is