Page 6 of Maybe My Baby

The soup was perfect when she checked on it. And the smell didn’t make her queasy anymore. All good on that front. She opened a bottle of wine, poured herself half a glass, and then froze after she took the first sip.No wine, Ginny.Good grief. How much else was going to change overnight?

When the doorbell rang at 5:45 p.m., she was mostly prepared. All she had to do was pop the biscuits in the oven a few minutes before they were ready to eat.

Donovan stood on her doorstep holding a sheaf of yellow roses. He grinned at her. “Hey, Sunshine. These are for you.”

She stared down at the bouquet in bemusement as she backed up to let him enter. “What’s the occasion?”

“Our first date was nine months ago tonight.”

“Oh. I guess it was.” She was embarrassed that she hadn’t remembered, but honestly, she had bigger fish to fry. “Let me get a vase.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she muttered.

As she rummaged under the sink, Donovan lifted the lid on the pot. “Hot damn. I love this soup.”

Ginny straightened. “I know it’s a million degrees outside, but I turned the AC down. You don’t mind, do you?”

He put his arms around her from behind and squeezed. “Are you kidding? Your soup and biscuits? I’d eat those if it was a hundred and twenty and we were camping in Death Valley.”

She leaned back against his chest, feeling the wave of comfort roll over her. Something about Donovan always made her feel safe and protected. She’d had a wonderful childhood. Nothing about her life was dark or bad. But he offered a steady, masculine presence in her life she hadn’t known she needed.

While the biscuits cooked, the two of them set the table and poured drinks. Donovan didn’t blink when Ginny chose milk. He opted for the sweet tea that she always made fresh and kept in the fridge.

They chatted about nothing in particular as they ate. When Donovan was buttering one last biscuit, Ginny knew the time had come for some straight talk. “I was flattered and touched when you asked me to move in with you,” she said quietly.

He looked up, his expression guarded. “But?”

She swirled the tines of her fork through the honey and butter residue on her bread plate. “But I need to work out a few things before I make a big step like that.”

“I didn’t know it was so complicated.”

Maybe it wasn’t before this week. “I have to decide if I want to keep operating the ice cream shop.”

He sat back in his chair and frowned. “Seriously? I thought you loved Peaches and Cream.”

“I do. But think about it. Moving in with you helps my bottom line for right now. Still, I’m guessing there will be more rent increases to come. There’s not a lot of profit margin in ice cream. Maybe I need to do something that’s more sustainable in the long run.”Something that isn’t quite so demanding for a woman with a newborn.

Donovan shrugged. “It’s your call, of course. But do you suppose the landlord might be open tosellingthe building? If you could buy it, you could rent out the upstairs floor to a lawyer or somebody like that to help with the mortgage. And it would give you several tax breaks you don’t have now as a renter.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

After they cleaned up the kitchen, they ended up on the sofa in her tiny living room. Donovan propped his feet on the coffee table and Ginny curled into his side, feeling content...mostly.

Except that she still hadn’t told him about the baby.

“May I ask you a personal question?” she said.

He chuckled, making his chest rumble beneath her cheek. “Ask away.”

“What made you decide to settle in Blossom Branch?” He had told her about being an army brat and how his mom died when he was sixteen. In fact, he’d told her a lot about his childhood, but not so much about the later years.

Donovan didn’t seem to mind her question. “When my dad was stationed at Fort Benning, I was almost out of high school. One weekend a buddy of mine brought me here with him to visit his grandparents. I guess I fell in love with Blossom Branch that very moment. It was the kind of idyllic place I had never experienced growing up. People here put down roots.”

“That’s true. What happened after high school?”

“I had a scholarship to play football at the University of Georgia. I was a running back. Decent, not great. But after a couple of years, I realized the classroom stuff was stifling me. I had lived in eight countries by then. Traveled the world. Seen things most of my classmates could only imagine. So I dropped out.”

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