Page 136 of Secret Squirrel

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I wasn’t sure they’d really consider you.”

“You weren’t sure, or you didn’t want me to take the kid?”

Her gaze snapped to mine and her eyes narrowed. “This has nothing to do with me. This is your decision.”

I huffed out a laugh. “Wow, so I go from being in a relationship with you to being on my own. That was fast, even for you.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she argued. “Duke, I can’t be a factor in your decision. The truth is, even if you decide you want Theo, they may not give him to you anyway. But I can’t be the reason you make a decision. This is about a little boy and whether or not you want him in your life.”

“You’re in my life,” I pointed out.

“Yes, I am, but whether or not you take this kid won’t affect my decision to be with you.”

The tension in my chest eased at her declaration. Raising a kid that wasn’t even mine might not be what she wanted, but she wasn’t saying it was a deal breaker either.

“What do you want?”

What did I want? That seemed like a ridiculous question. I had no idea what I wanted. Hell, I didn’t even know it was a possibility until five minutes ago. And now that the drugs were starting to kick in, it made everything sort of fuzzy. “I can’t answer that right now. I just found out it was an option.”

“What do your instincts tell you?”

I thought about it, but my instincts were all over the place at this point. I was hopped up on pain meds and nearly died just a few days ago. I was in no place to make a call like this.

“My instincts tell me that I did the right thing by going after him. They tell me that I would have been a great dad had I taken the opportunity to get to know Theo. But Carolyn took him away, and for whatever reason she chose to do that, I missed that chance.”

“Do you want that chance again?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered quietly. “It would be good for him to be around Jenna. She loved Carolyn so much.”

“But?”

“But he has two parents right now who want him. That fucking FBI agent gave me a report on them. They’re good people. They gave up a lot to have that kid in their lives.”

“That doesn’t mean he should be taken away from his family.”

My eyes flicked to hers. “Family is who you choose.”

She nodded in understanding.

“The truth is, I didn’t want to be part of his life for the last five years. I was happy knowing the kid wasn’t mine, because I didn’t want anything to do with Carolyn. All I felt was relief when she left. And to take the kid from people that want him feels wrong. I may have fought to get him back, but they risked everything to get him in the first place.”

I felt her hand slip into mine. “It sounds like you’ve made a decision.”

I swallowed hard. It was fucking hard to admit those things out loud, but I had to consider Theo and the life I wanted him to have. I wasn’t strong enough for him when it mattered. I had no right to take him away from a couple that desperately wanted him now.

“I think so.”

* * *

“What the fuck is this?” Bowie asked as he came storming into my room, shaking me awake.

“Ow.” My tone was one of boredom more than anything. I was fucking sleeping, and he stormed into my room to wake me up. That was just fucking rude.

“You just disappear off the face of the earth and I have to hear about it after you wind up in the hospital?”

“I—”

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