Page 20 of Miracles and Marriage
She was embarrassed he knew about her criteria.
“Yes.”
Zoe blinked and stared at him. “What?”
“I am interested. Uncle Hal’s death changes a lot of things for me. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. I’m the last of my family. When I die, there will be no one to mourn my passing, no one to carry on with knowledge of me in their minds and memories. I want a child, maybe more than one, to be on earth when I’m gone. And I want their mother to be someone I can trust.”
“What about one of those women you’re always dating?” she asked.
For some reason Zoe had trouble wrapping her mind around the idea of Calwantingto father her baby.
Yet, wasn’t that what she was looking for? A man like Cal to be her baby’s father? Maybe that was the key—a manlikeCal, not Cal himself.
“Let me tell you about the last woman I dated. Suzanne Victor was—is—beautiful. She dressed fashionably, could carry a conversation with anyone in Washington and has a beautiful apartment. Her parties are legend. But she’s a cold, unfeeling woman who wants nothing more than to be feted and idolized.”
“Oh. That’s why you stopped seeing her,” Zoe guessed, surprised by the cold assessment.
“No, I stopped seeing her because she killed our baby.”
Zoe couldn’t breathe for a moment. Had she heard him right?
“You two had a baby and she killed it?”
She’d never heard anything like that from Cal.
“She became pregnant and aborted the child because she didn’t want stretch marks marring her skin and didn’t want morning sickness interrupting her life. I didn’t know until the deed had been done. I can never forget. It was pure vanity on herpart. A thoughtless, self-centered action that gave no thought to anyone else.”
Zoe didn’t know what to say. She yearned for a baby so much she couldn’t think of anything else. How could a woman abort her own baby for such a frivolous reason? She didn’t understand.
“My mother sacrificed her life so I could be born,” Cal continued. “You’re risking your health holding off that operation to have a baby. I want someone like that to be the mother of my child. Not some vain, selfish, self-centered woman who’s more concerned with dresses and parties than the health and well-being of a child. I added to your list on a whim. Or maybe it was fate without knowing what was coming. Not that it matters. Did I pass sufficiently that you’d consider me for your baby’s father?”
“This is awkward,” Zoe said. “I mean, you know what I want, but somehow I thought I could meet some new man and lead up to it more subtly than this. Are you sure you aren’t reacting to the strain and stress of the last few days? The shock of losing your uncle will take a while to get over.”
“Getting over the initial shock won’t change the facts. I’m thirty-six years old, you know that. If I haven’t found someone before this, what are the chances I find someone before I’m too old to be a father?”
“It isn’t something you wanted before,” she said dryly.
“Because I thought I had all the time in the world.”
“So did I. Life’s showing me differently. But you can pick and choose.”
“I pick you,” Cal said.
Zoe blinked. Her heart began to race as she gave full rein to the image of her and Cal trying to make a baby. She clenched her hands into fists and looked away, into the blackness of the backyard.
Could she do this? It was one thing to say she wanted to find a man to make a baby with, something else to actually go through with it. Time was ticking by. There’d be a day soon when she couldn’t stand the pain and would have to give in to the inevitable. She’d either do it with a baby or without, but she knew it was coming.
“Let me think about it overnight, if that’s okay?” she said at last.
What was there to think about? She couldn’t do this. This was Jedidiah Callahan, a man who dated sophisticated women, traveled the world, knew CEOs and senators, for heaven’s sake.
And he wanted her to believe he wanted to father her baby?
“Fine.” He stood.
She rose beside him.
“Want to order pizza for dinner?” he asked.
