Page 107 of Time Out

“Good. That’s good. That’s wonderful.”

“What’s wrong now?” He was starting to pace, scraping a hand through his hair until it was totally disheveled.

“I thought of something, but I don’t want you to freak out.”

“Okay…”

“I want to move. Out of the city. I want our baby to have a home and space to run and not grow up with a cement patio, and I want him or her to have all the things I did growing up, and—”

“Davis.” Oh dear sweet goodness. This man was having a day and a half for sure.

“What? Don’t you want that?”

“Of course I’d love that. It doesn’t mean we have to have it today.” I laughed and tried to get him to see how ridiculous he was being, but he only scowled at me.

“We need more space, especially with Ruth, and what’s going to happen with your other siblings, and then we’ll have our child. We can’t have them in the city, and I can’t fit them all in my condo.”

My siblings?

“What are you talking about?” I jumped off the exam bed. There had to be a better place to have this discussion, but since he’d started it…

“Your little brothers and sisters, Maggie? What do you think will happen if it’s discovered your dad has been abusing children? Or at least the girls?”

“He’ll go to jail?”

“And be out in a few years, might not be able to have contact with them, but who would take care of them? Your mom, who allowed it to happen? Your brothers?”

Well, crap. I hadn’t considered any of this.

I wrapped my hands around Davis’s still flailing in the air until he relaxed, exhaled a breath that practically shook the room.

“Let’s go home and talk about this, okay? We don’t know anything yet.”

He scolded me with a look that basically told me to get on the same page with him, that I was being naive, and maybe I was. But we had more immediate concerns. My sister. This baby. His career. He had a month left of games if they made it to the Super Bowl.

That’s where I needed him focused.

“I want to show you and Ruth something. Then we’ll go back home and talk.”

I was thinking of finishing a pregnancy and getting him through the rest of his season. He was thinking of moving and taking in my siblings if it came to that?

Who was this man, and how did he get a gazillion steps ahead of me?

Chapter 32

Davis

It was all perfectly clear. The night Maggie showed up at my door telling me she was pregnant was only weeks ago and felt like a lifetime. There was too much happening, too quick, and while I appreciated her protests earlier of wanting to go back to the condo and hang out with Ruth all day, she’d reluctantly agreed to this idea of mine.

She hadn’t even considered what would happen to her siblings, but I’ve thought of little else since Ruth arrived at my home, timid and scared, and so screwed up with the mindset of what women did versus men. I wanted to prove to all of the people in Maggie and Ruth’s family that life didn’t have to be that way, and there was one sure-fire way to do such a thing if it came to that.

Was I a twenty-three-year-old who not only recently found out he knocked up a girl but was now preparing to build a life with her and her family if it came to that?

Hands down.

Without question or hesitation.

Yes.

---