Page 2 of Be My Baby

“She wouldn’t stay. You know that, right? She never does. It’s like she has a time limit on her emotions. You’d only get hurt. Isn’t this,” she gestured to herself, “enough pain?”

Max blinked and shook his head, Lucy’s gaunt, illness-ravaged face fading from his mind. He pushed away his lingering confusion at Lucy’s words that day. Millie wasn’t like that. He knew it. Lucy had known it. It didn’t make sense. He sighed to himself. Rehashing the past wasn’t particularly helpful.

Millie fiddled with the napkin holder that sat near her on the bar was weird. Millie never fiddled, was never anything other than poised, sophisticated, and immaculate.

“I need to ask you something. I would’ve come by after hours, but…” She held up her hands.

She worked office hours, and he opened the Cow at eleven every morning, often not closing until two in the morning on the busy weekend nights.

He’d go upstairs to the apartment above the tavern, shower, then fall into bed only to do it all again the next day. The only time he’d be home when she could come by would be before heading to work, when he’d be dead to the world.

“What’s up?”

He and Millie had been friends for a very long time. She’d been Lucy’s best friend. He and Luce had married when Luce was thirty. He’d known Millie fairly well before that, though, through Luce’s close friendship with Ryan, then through Millie’s own relationship with Ryan, one that had ended disastrously.

He’d helped pick up the pieces afterward, and the fallout had lasted years.

“For my present? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, for a very long time, and I think the time is right. I’m financially secure, I have a good job, and I own my home.”

She sat straighter on the stool and smiled at him. He almost forgot how to breathe as the impact of that smile hit full force.

“I want you to give me a baby.”

Chapter Two

Millie refused tolet Max see how terrified she was as she answered his question.

“You want a what-now?” he gasped. His face paled, then his cheeks flooded with colour.

She held his gaze, as shocked as he appeared to be, and pretended that she wasn’t shaking like unset jelly inside.

“A baby. We’re both single. You told me only a few weeks ago that you don’t have any intentions toward anyone here in the Crossing, that you’re free. I’m getting older and I’ve wanted a child for years now. Seeing Darby… It’s only reinforced that it’s the right time.”

Max looked like he hadn’t taken a breath in minutes. He just stared at her with that rabbit-in-headlights startled expression.

“I’ve done plenty of research, and I’ve had check-ups with Doc. I’m healthy, I’m fertile, I’m ovulating on time most months. There’s never been a better time for me to go ahead with it. I don’t want a donor through an impersonal service—I want toknowthe person. Know their personality, their good points as well as the bad. I don’t want the baby’s father to be some random stranger who could’ve lied about everything. I want it to be a man I know. Agoodman.”

Max sucked in an audible, ragged breath. His colour was fading to something resembling normal.

At least he isn’t going to have a heart attack on me.

His eyes still had that too-wide, shocked look about them, though. “A-and how…”

Millie drew a deep breath. It had taken her months to get to the point to have enough nerve to ask him. This was the bit she knew best. “It would be easy. I’ve been tracking my base temperature and ovulation for months. I know when I’m fertile. So, I would just let you know, and you could come over and I give you a jar. I have a home insemination kit ready to go.”

She watched his face, trying to gauge what his reaction—besides outright shock—might be.

“Millie, I—”

Loud laughter sounded behind her as Gabe and Simon pushed through the double front doors to the Cow. Max stepped back and shoved a shaking hand through his hair, his eyes bouncing to his brothers.

Dammit!

She’d hoped to have enough time before their shift began to get some kind of answer from Max, but it looked like they were early. His gaze fell to hers, the bright blue piercing and direct. “W-when…”

Did him asking that mean he might actually think about it?

She didn’t want to get her hopes up. “At this point, two days after my birthday would be best.”

---