Page 78 of Christmas with the Baby Daddy

“Blake?” Footsteps sounded nearer, and I wiped my hand over my face. It was Zach, and boy, would he be in for a rude awakening to see me like a mess like this.

“Oh, sweetheart…” He lowered, dropping to his knee to brush my hair back from my face. “You really are sick.”

I nodded, cringing up at him.Or not…

“I was worried when it looked like you wouldn’t make it to the presentation at school.”

I groaned and hung my head as he squatted next to me, rubbing my back.

“Oh, no…” I closed my eyes as I suffered the guilt of missing George’s school program. Of all things to miss, this was the worst. If it was just an ordinary project, it would be all right. But this one had that family tree. It was all about family, a touchy and sensitive subject for him because as far as he knew, it was just me and him in this world.

“I missed it!”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re sick.”

“No.” I shook my head as he hugged me. “I’m a horrible mother. I wasn’t there when he needed me, and of all projects and topics, one about family and I wasn’t there!”

“But I was.” He kept me tucked close. He sat on the floor now, wedging me onto his lap where I slumped, grateful and greedy for his secure embrace. I went still at his confident words.

Sure, he was at the school. Cole had hired him to help out there. But…

I sat up, staring at him and not daring to let my mind go there.

“Look.” He seemed calm, lifting his phone. “He asked me to take a selfie of us.”

I gasped at the screen as he turned it around for me to see. My pulse skyrocketed. I couldn’t breathe deep enough. I had been shocked to learn I was pregnant, but this…

Zach and George smiled into the camera. George held his poster proudly. There was my yellow leaf. Amanda was orange and Jenny was brown. And on the same level of branches directly over where George had written his name was another yellow leaf withSgt. Zachary Westwritten on it in Zach’s strictly neat, all-caps penmanship.

“You…”

“I know, Blake.”

I covered my mouth, scared and bewildered all at once. But he was smiling in that selfie. He wasn’t mad?

“You told George?”

He shook his head. “When I told him that you wouldn’t be there because you were sick, he was so sad. I told him I’d be there. And when he told me I wasn’t his dad, I said that maybe I could be.”

I nodded, letting tears fall freely. I couldn’t hold them back anymore. “You are.”

He sighed, still rubbing my back gently. “I wished I’d heard it from you first.”

I furrowed my brow. “Who…”

“Reagan. I overheard her talking shit while I helped set up the library. She fessed up that Rory wanted—” He closed his mouth tight and looked off to the side, mad.

“Huh?”

He faced me again. “Rory wanted to know who George’s dad was before ‘he’d marry you and pretend to be George’s father.’”

I gasped. “No. No fucking way. I wouldn’t ever consider marrying him!”

A slight smile touched his lips. “I know. But he was so curious that Reagan had Brent steal George’s water bottle for a spit sample so he could run a DNA test.”

Again, I gasped, livid.

“That was my reaction too. Anyway, it matched George to West family info from around here and they figured that meant me.”

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