Page 6 of Be My Baby

Millie shuddered and shook off the melancholy. She couldn’t afford to spiral emotionally. She’d deal with it if and when it happened. Until then, she had to focus on her end goal.

A baby. Creating that family she so desperately wanted. Anything else was secondary. If she was lucky, Max would say yes. If she was super lucky, he’d want to be part of its life. Knowing him, if he agreed he would want to know the child.

A shiver of anticipation washed over her, spearing her from the base of her skull to her toes. That would be the most wonderful thing she could hope for—Max agreeingandbeing a bigger part of her life. Could it lead to more? A real smile widened her mouth as she looked to the dance floor. Who knew, but the possibility ofmoredrew her like a moth to a flame.

“Let’s dance, ladies.”

Chapter Four

Max leaned againstthe doorway of his younger brother Gabe’s massive shed. He’d spotted their father’s ute parked out front as he’d driven up the farm’s long driveway.

Ed Jameson was at Gabe’s most days of the week. It was as if his father had taken it upon himself to be Gabe’s personal assistant when Gabe had bought the place, the timing corresponding perfectly with his father’s retirement from his own farming. Gabe himself appeared to be in a consult in his veterinarian practice room, directly across from him on the other side of the shed.

Good.He wasn’t likely to come out unannounced too soon.

His father came out of the lunchroom with a steaming mug in his hand. He looked up to see Max and a huge smile widened the older man’s mouth. The man he looked most like.

“What’s my first-born doing out here so early in the day?”

Max shoved off the metal post and motioned outside. He didn’t often come out to Gabe’s farm during the week, or this early in the day. “Can I talk to you privately for a minute?”

Ed’s eyes narrowed a little, but the smile stayed on his face. “Of course.”

Max flattened his lips and shoved his hands in his pockets. He walked over to the corner of the shed, where Gabe wouldn’t hear their conversation if he came out of his surgery while they spoke. He glanced at his father, who looked a little worried as he came closer.

Max sent him what hopefully passed as a smile. Ed’s expression didn’t change, but his shoulders relaxed.

Max rubbed his nape and gazed out at Gabe’s herd, happily grazing in the summer sun. “I have a hypothetical question to run by you.”

Ed raised a dark eyebrow, so similar to what both he and Gabe did that it was almost comical. “Oh?”

“Say I have a friend who is turning forty this year, and saythatfriend has a close female friend who is also nearing that age. Both are single. Both are family-type people who would like nothing more than to have their own partner and or children. Both are quite… lonely. What would you advise the male friend to do if he was asked by the female friend to, ah, contribute to making that family possible?”

Both of Ed’s eyebrows rose as Max’s words sank in, so far that they almost disappeared up beneath his thick, messy fringe. He leaned back against the warm metal siding beside him and sipped from his steaming mug of tea, his expression surprised, but considering.

“Do you mean marriage? She proposed?” Ed asked.

Max couldn’t look his father in the face, his own heating a little. “No. Just a child. She wants a baby.”

“Oh. I see. That’s a shame.”

Ed’s mouth twisted and his forehead furrowed as he thought. “I’m assuming they’ve known each other a long time, and trust each other?” At Max’s nod, he continued. “A few things: would this friend be expected to contribute to the child’s upbringing, either financially or with care; would the family of your friend have knowledge and access to the child; and thirdly—the most important I believe—does the friendwanta child with the female friend?”

Max rubbed his biceps and stared at the cows, contentedly grazing and oblivious to the turmoil running rampant through the man beyond the sturdy fencing across their driveway. He valued his close relationship with both his parents, but he could always rely on his father to get to the heart of a situation and give an unbiased opinion, even if he didn’t always agree. And man, did he need his father’s calm point of view right now.

“The first is unknown but I would think a certain amount of both is to be expected, and warranted. Both are financially secure. The second goes without saying. I don’t think my, ah, friend, would be happy with anything else. His family are too close to be excluded. And the third… yeah. Yeah, I think he does.”

Max took a deep breath and looked up at the clear blue sky above them. “I think he’d like that a lot.”

Ed slurped at his tea and nodded. “I see. Does this friend have feelings for his female friend? Feelings she may not know about?”

Max tried hard not to look at his father. They both knew exactly who he was talking about. His father knew he and Millie had been close for years.

“Yes. He recently realised he feels more than friendship toward her. That feelings he had a very long time ago hadn’t actually disappeared, just kind of… faded for a while. There’s a slight problem, though. This friend’s late, ah,ex, wife made him promise to stay away from this female friend in the future. She was fine with him having a future relationship, but specifically named this woman as someone she wouldn’t approve of.”

His father frowned. “Why on earth would she do that? Weren’t they friends?”

Max nodded and rubbed at his jaw. “I’ve often wondered that myself. It was out of left field.”

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