Page 28 of Christmas with the Baby Daddy

I didn’t want to make this worse. He was already so clearly torn up about being discharged. About not having a direction or purpose. If he couldn’t want to stay in town for more than a month now, he wouldn’t want to after he learned that he had a kid, either. His wanderlust, his need to do bigger and more important things, would always rule.

Besides, I feared how much he’d hate me for never telling him and lying by omission. I mentally cringed at his reaction to the fact that I never took the initiative to contact him and tell him this huge news that he had a son.

“I…” I rubbed my brow, looking out the passenger window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh.” He sounded so disappointed, but not mad like he’d push it.

As I focused on not making eye contact, he drove past the post office. “Oh, crap.”

“What?”

I sighed and pointed. “I just realized what I forgot.”

“Huh?” He slowed for a stop sign on Main Street. Half the route was set up with barriers for the upcoming town holiday event.

“I kept thinking I had forgotten something, and seeing the post office reminded me. Jenny got a little package for me—a Christmas gift for George that I had sent to her so he wouldn’t find it. She gave it to me at the party since it had just come in and she knew I’d want to wrap it soon. But I set it on a shelf at the venue and I forgot it.”

“Oh. I can turn around.” He said it after he’d already begun to do just that, pulling a U-turn at the intersection without any other cars nearby.

“Really, you don’t have?—”

“It’s fine.”

I nodded, seeing that he wouldn’t have offered if he hadn’t wanted to. The ride back to the venue hall was quiet, but I wasn’t brave enough to attempt small talk again.

He pulled up at the rear entrance to the venue.

“I’ll just hop out and grab it. The doors should still be open.”

“Yeah. Looks like someone else is taking things in for something.” He leaned down to peer out my window, and as I turned toward him, I realized how close his head was to mine. His cologne hit my nose. His heat, so inviting and solid, teased me. Inches parted us, and it was too risky of a position for me to dwell in.

“Yeah, there’s another party tomorrow night.” I hurried to open the door and escape, but in my haste, I slipped on the runner board.

“Oh, shit.” This time, he didn’t stay in the truck. As I fell into a pile of snow, cushioned but embarrassed, he darted around to help me up.

“I swear, I’m not usually this clumsy,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “Fooled me.” His hand gripped mine securely and he hoisted me up. He overestimated how much force was necessary, though. Yanking me up so quickly, with too much power, he forced me to lurch into him.

We both stumbled back on the sidewalk, but before I could relish the firm feel of being in his hold, his hard body like a wall to anchor me, he chuckled and stopped us from falling together.

“Whoa,” he whispered, glancing up. Then he grimaced. “Not again.”

“Not again is right. I can’t stay on my feet around you,” I joked lightly.

Then the words registered and another furious blush burned my skin.Oh, my God.I didn’t need him to assume I was thinking of how else he’d gotten me off my feet—and underneath him on a bed.

“No. It’s—” He groaned, not releasing me as he scowled in the direction of the parking lot.

Reagan carried a box, but upon noticing us, she beamed at him and approached.

“Not her.Again,” he muttered, holding me closer.

12

ZACH

Reagan strode up, swaying her hips like this was a path across a runway, not a stroll through a parking lot. She looked even more polished than she was when she smiled at me at the school earlier. High boots. Short dress, her coat open and flapping in the wind. She had to be freezing, but maybe she really didn’t have blood running in her veins because she seemed to refuse sacrificing comfort and warmth for looking good.

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