Page 39 of Accidental Baby Daddy

“But it’s the risk that makes it all worth it,” she replied with a knowing look, patting my hand.

I smiled at her. Everything with Lexie always felt high-stakes, exciting, worth doing. Maybe that was why I just couldn’t let her go, even though I had truly wanted to a time or two.

It was just that so much of my life was predictable, easy, reliable. Even parenting wasn’t usually all that exciting because my kid was easy to take care of. I realized abruptly that Lexie gave things life, and color, and made stuff fun for me. I hadn’t experienced much of that since she left.

How had I missed that before?

My head was all over the place as I drove Trent home and put him to bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even right up to when I closed my eyes that night to go to sleep, I was thinking about Lexie.

I wanted her to stay in Wagontown. For good.

What that meant for me, I didn’t know.

Chapter 13

Lexie

Acouple of weeks had passed since I’d last seen Oliver or his little boy. It was mostly because it was tourist season in Wagontown, and the grocery store had me running around in circles. I had plenty of hours right now at work, but that would die down as summer waned into spring, and by then, I was hoping to have Oliver’s bartending job as a means of income.

God knew my little paycheck at the grocery store wasn’t going to get me out of this godforsaken town. With my first check, I purchased myself a cell phone. The only numbers I had in it were Oliver’s, his grandmother’s, and Gillian’s. I found myself grateful that I didn’t have Dick’s number memorized, and that he didn’t have this new number.

I texted Gillian with my new number, and she immediately called me. I couldn’t help but smile at the exuberance in her voice.

“We have to celebrate!”

“Celebrate a new phone?” I asked with a chuckle, but she didn’t join in.

“You’re moving up in the world, Lex. You’ve got thatcabin, you got a job, and now you’ve got a new phone. We should celebrate your newfound independence.”

Although I hadn’t exactly told her about how controlling Dick was, I felt that Gillian got the idea, knowing how he’d isolated me from my family and friends.

She seemed to want to make a big deal about me getting away, and why shouldn’t I let her? I didn’t have a shift at the grocery store for two more days, and Oliver hadn’t approached me about starting at the bar just yet. I assumed he was still getting things together, maybe even remodeling. It could be weeks.

“All right,” I agreed. “Let’s celebrate.”

“Just you and me. We’ll go out.”

“Where?”

“The Pig, of course,” she said, as if there wasn’t half a dozen other bars in Wagontown.

I couldn’t complain. After all, I’d frequented the Pig when I was younger, and it still held a lot of nostalgia for me.

“Let’s eat first,” I suggested. “I’m starving.”

“Bonnie’s it is!” Gillian cheered.

Bonnie’s was a local wing place where they had all kinds of crazy flavors and Gillian had loved it since we were kids.

I couldn’t help but smile at her excitement. We chatted for a moment longer before I hung up to get dressed.

I decided on a simple milkmaid sundress, even though I didn’t have a ton of cleavage to fill it out. I loved the shape of it though, and I figured my toned legs would make up for the lack of cleavage.

It wasn’t like I was dressing to impress, exactly, but it’d been a while since I’d been out, and I wanted to look nice.

You’re healing, a voice whispered in my head. Iwouldn’t admit to myself that the reason so much of my confidence had come back was Oliver’s admiration. Dick had made me feel average, normal, boring, unremarkable. Oliver made me feel desirable, special, unique, and sexy.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked really pretty. I realized I hadn’t thought that in years and tears pricked my eyes. How had I let that jerk make me feel so small, so unloved?

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