The Right Reason To Marry

Not dating, exactly. “Uh, yes. I was. We’re not, um, dating anymore, though. But we are friends. And that’s a good thing. Because, as it turns out...” Was she blowing this? Most likely. She forged on anyway. “We will all probably be seeing a lot more of Liam because he is the new baby’s father.”

Ben said nothing.

Coco was incredulous. She set down her fork. “Our baby’s father?”

“Yes.” It was official. She was a terrible mother who needed lessons in how to share awkward, confusing information with her own children. “Liam is our baby’s dad.”

Coco frowned. “Is he going to come and live in our house?”

“No, honey.”

“But doesn’t he want to be with the baby?”

“Yes. Yes, he does. And he will be here often to see the baby. And when the baby gets older, the baby will probably stay with Liam some of the time.”

“Oh,” said Coco, and picked up her fork again. “Okay.” She stabbed herself another big bite of mac and cheese.

Karin glanced across at her dad again. He gave her a shrug and a reassuring smile.

Ben, who understood the mechanics of reproduction, asked the question she’d been dreading. “How come you didn’t say who the baby’s dad was when I asked you before?” He’d asked several months ago, not long after she’d made the announcement that he and Coco would have a new brother or sister.

Because I’m a lily-livered scaredy-cat, she thought. She said, “Well, sweetheart, as I said then, I wanted to talk to the baby’s dad first.”

“You took a long time to talk to him.”

Ouch. “Yes, I did. I’m sorry about that, I really am.”

Ben tipped his head to the side, pondering. “Why? Were you nervous, to tell him?”

Understatement of the decade. “I was, yes.”

“But now he knows and he’s happy that he’ll be a dad?”

“I haven’t asked him that question. But he seems very determined to be a good dad.”

Ben was still looking kind of troubled over the whole situation.

But Coco wasn’t. “Our baby will like having Liam for a dad,” she declared. “Liam’s nice—and I finished my dinner. What’s for dessert?”

Otto chuckled. “I think there might be a full carton of chocolate ice cream in the freezer.”

Karin brushed Ben’s arm. “Want to go talk about this in the other room, just the two of us?”

Ben shook his head. “Thanks, Mom. I’d rather just have some dessert.”

On Sunday, Karin went in to work at Larson Boatworks, the boat-building and refitting company her dad had started thirty-five years before. Karin ran the office.

That day, her dad kept an eye on the kids at home so she could spend several hours tying up loose ends on the job before the baby came. When she got back to the Cove late that afternoon, her dad reported that Liam had dropped by.

“Should I call him?” she asked.

“He didn’t say to ask you to.”

“Did he mention what he needed to talk to me about?”

Her dad gave her a look, indulgent and full of wry humor. “I’m not sure he knows what he needs to talk to you about.”

For the rest of that day and into the evening, she kept thinking that she probably ought to call Liam, check in, ask him if he had any questions or anything. Somehow, though, she never quite got around to picking up the phone.

Monday, her leave from work began. Her dad dropped the kids at the bus stop and then went on to work.

It was nice, having the house to herself. She took a half hour just deciding what to wear and ended up settling on a giant purple T-shirt dress with an asymmetrical hem.

Really, she didn’t want jeans or leggings wrapped around her balloon of a belly today, so she settled on thigh-high socks in royal blue with her oldest, comfiest pair of Doc Martens boots on her feet.

Once she was dressed, she felt suddenly energized, so she vacuumed and dusted and rechecked the baby’s room for the umpteenth time, making sure everything was ready. Around eleven, just as she finished assembling two large baking dishes of lasagna and sticking them in the freezer to reheat when needed, she heard the doorbell ring.

It was Liam. He had a pink teddy bear in one hand and a blue bear in the other.

“I forgot to ask. What are we having?” He smiled that killer smile of his, and she felt way too glad to see him.

She laughed. “It’s a boy.”

And just like that, he threw the pink bear over his shoulder and handed her the blue one.

The man was too charming by half. “Thank you—and I think we should save the pink one, too.”

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?” He pretended to look alarmed. “We’re having twins, aren’t we?”

“Oh, God, no. I just meant it seems wrong to leave it lying there on the front step.”

He went and got the pink bear. “Fine. The baby gets two bears.”

It seemed only right to offer, “Would you like to see his ultrasound pictures?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She ushered him in. As he brushed past her, she got a hint of his cologne, a scent of leather and sandalwood that caused a sudden, stunning remembrance of the two of them all those months ago, naked on tangled sheets.

He paused in the arch to the living area and glanced back at her. “Something wrong?”

“Not a thing.” She shut the door and followed him into the first-floor living area.

In the kitchen, she put the blue bear down on the counter. He set the pink one beside it as she went to the double-doored fridge, which was covered with family pictures and artwork created by both Ben and Coco. “Here we are.” She took the two ultrasound shots from under a strawberry magnet and handed them over. “These were at eighteen weeks.”

He studied them. “Wait. Is that...?” He slanted her a grin.

“What sharp eyes you have, Liam Bravo. Yep. A bona fide penis—and I have a video of that same procedure. Want to see it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She stuck the pictures back on the fridge and led him to the table where she’d left her laptop. He laughed in a sort of startled wonder as he watched his son wave his tiny arms and feet, yawn and suck his thumb.

After he’d seen the whole thing through twice, he glanced up at her. “You said you were all ready for him. Does that mean he has a room and everything?”

She grabbed the two teddy bears and gestured toward the hallway to the bedrooms. “Right this way.” He followed her as she explained, “We’re lucky this house has so many rooms, including five bedrooms on this level. I had a sort of craft room/home office in one.” She led him to the end of the hall where the door stood open. “Ta-da!” She put the bears on the dresser by the door.

“Wow.” Liam seemed really pleased.

And out of nowhere, she was recalling one of the depressing fights she’d had with Ben, Sr., before Ben was born.

Bud, as everyone always called him, had kept promising to help her paint the tiny closet of a spare room at the apartment they’d shared back then.

Somehow, though, he never found the time to keep his promise. Bud had loved the life of a commercial fisherman and he was always out on a boat, working the fisheries up and down the Pacific coast, from Southern California to Alaska. He just kept saying “later,” every time she tried to pin him down as to when, exactly, he would put in some time on the baby’s room.

In the end, she fixed up the room herself, though not until after they’d had a doozy of an argument over it—one in which they both said a lot of things they shouldn’t have. It was always like that with her and Bud. They would argue bitterly.

And then Bud would go off to work and be gone for weeks.

In the end, she’d tackled the nursery nook alone. When Bud came home, she showed him the finished product. He’d waved a dismissing hand and said it looked “fine” in a dead voice that communicated way too clearly how trapped he felt.

Liam’s voice drew her back to the present. “The mural is amazing.”

Covering the whole wall behind the crib, the mural included a snowcapped mountain, a starry night sky, an airplane sailing by the moon and tall evergreens standing sentinel off to one side, everything in grays, greens and silvers.

“Northwest outdoorsy,” Liam said. “I like it a lot.”

She rubbed her belly. The baby was riding really low and she’d had some contractions.

He was watching her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. This baby is coming soon.”

His eyes got bigger and he straightened from his easy slouch in the doorway. “As in now?”

She waved a hand and chuckled, thinking that this visit was going pretty well and she was glad about that. “Relax. Probably not today.”

“Whew.” He gazed at the mural again. “You paint that wall yourself?”

“More or less. Stencils. You can’t beat ’em.”

He shifted his gaze to her. He had a way of studying her, like he was memorizing the lines of her face. He used to do that months ago, sitting across from her at whatever bar they met up in, or later, naked in bed. One night, she’d teased that he should take a picture. He’d promptly grabbed his phone off the table by the bed and aimed it at her, snapping off two shots.

She’d demanded he delete them, because who needs naked pictures of herself on a guy’s phone?

He’d handed her the phone. She’d seen then that he’d only taken close-ups of her face. And when she glanced up at him, he gazed back at her so hopefully, like it would just be the greatest thing in the world, to have a couple of shots of her grinning, with total bedhead. She’d agreed he could keep the pictures—and then grabbed him close for a long, smoking-hot kiss.

Liam was still watching her. “Have you chosen a name for this baby boy of ours?”

“No, I have not. I kind of thought you might want input on his name.”

Apparently, that was the right answer because he granted her a beautiful smile. “Thanks. I’ll be thinking about names. I’ll make up a list of ones I like. We can talk it over.” Solemnly, he added, “I read all about baby daddies. I don’t want to be that guy.”

Her heart felt like someone was squeezing it. She hardly knew what to say. “You have other children?”

“Huh?” He seemed horrified. “No! Wait. I get it. You mean ‘baby daddy’ as in a flaky guy who has kids by different women, but I wasn’t so much referring to the multiple baby mamas aspect. I meant a flaky guy, yeah. But in this case, a guy with only one baby, a guy who’s basically a sperm donor with minimal involvement—that’s what I don’t want to be. I want to be on board with this baby, available, helping out. I want to be there, you know? Tell me you know that.” He seemed so intense suddenly, as though it really bothered him that she might not understand his sincerity about pitching in.

“Hey, really. It’s going to be okay, Liam.”

“I hope so.”

“It really is. I know I dropped the ball in a big way by not telling you what was going on sooner. I should’ve pushed past all the crap going on in my head and gotten in touch.”

He watched her way too closely. “What crap, exactly?”

Uh-uh. Not going there. “My point is, I promise you that we will work together. You don’t have to freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out,” he said vehemently—and a bit freakily.

Was this all going south suddenly?

And just when they’d both seemed to be feeling more at ease around each other.

She kind of wanted to cry, which was probably just hormones. But still. She really did want to get along with him. “Okay. You’re right. You’re not freaking out and I shouldn’t have even hinted that you were and I’m really, um...” Her already weak train of thought went right off the rails as she felt something shift inside her—a gentle shift, yet also a sudden one, a tiny pop of sensation deep within.

And then something was dripping along the inside of her thighs.

Frowning, she looked down, which was pointless. Her giant belly blocked her view and whatever was dripping down there, it was only a trickle. So far, her thigh-highs seemed to be absorbing it.

“Okay,” said Liam. “Something’s happened. What?”

She made herself look straight into his startled blue eyes and she put real effort into speaking calmly. “My water just broke. Would you mind driving me to Memorial Hospital?”

Chapter Three

Even more stunned than he’d been for most of the past few days, Liam croaked out, “Drive you to the hospital? Yes! Yes, I can do that.”

“Great.” With a low groan, Karin gripped the crib rail and lowered her head.

“Karin, are you...?”

She put up her free hand. “Just a contraction. Hold on...”

He stood there in the doorway waiting, feeling completely useless, as she panted and groaned some more.

Finally, she let go of the crib rail and looked straight at him. “Where’s my phone?”

“I think I spotted it on the kitchen counter?”

“Right.” One hand under her enormous stomach, she lumbered toward him. He fell back from the doorway so she could get by and then trailed after her as she made for the main room.

In the kitchen, she snatched up the phone. “This’ll only take a minute. I’ve got a group text all set up—to Naomi, Prim and my dad. All I need to do is hit Send.” The woman amazed him. Was there anything she wasn’t ready for? She poked at the phone. “There. I’ll call my doctor on the way—now get me a bath towel. Try the hall bathroom, first door on the left. I’ll meet you at the front door.”

“A towel?” He just stood there gaping at her because somehow his feet had forgotten how to walk.

“You want me to leak amniotic fluid all over the seats of that fancy blue Supercrew pickup out in front?”

“Uh. No?”

“Then go.”

That got him moving. He raced off and returned with the towel. She had a suitcase ready, just waiting in the hallway. He took the suitcase and helped her into her coat. She grabbed her purse from the table by the door and off down the outside stairs they went, pausing midway for her to weather another contraction.

At the truck, he threw the suitcase in back, spread the towel on the seat and helped her in. She was already on the phone with her doctor as he turned the pickup around and headed up the hill behind the house.

At Memorial, he learned that the doctor was on the way and they were ready for Karin. They whisked her into a labor and delivery suite and let Liam tag along.

Luckily, he’d studied up on what the father should do during the birth. He’d learned that his sole mission in the delivery room was to be a source of strength and support, to be as patient and attentive to his baby’s mother as he possibly could.

He really tried to be that, even though when her girlfriends showed up, he was mostly relegated to staying out of the way as they stepped up on either side of her to comfort her and coach her through her contractions. They fed her ice chips and helped her to the bathroom when she needed it. The whole thing took hours, with the doctor in and out, the delivery nurses, too.

Once he asked if he could take pictures.

Naomi turned to him and spoke gently, “It’s so great that you’re here, Liam, but Karin doesn’t want you taking pictures of her lady bits.”

“I would never do that,” he answered fervently. “Just...maybe of the baby and then maybe of Karin with the baby and then maybe I could hold him, too—I mean, after he gets here, of course?”

On the far side of Karin, Prim was stifling a giggle.

Naomi grabbed him in a hug. “Isn’t he adorable?” she asked Karin and Prim as she let him go.

He was trying to decide whether or not his manly dignity had just been impugned when Karin said, “Of course you can take a few pictures with your son.” She met his eyes directly and he knew she was remembering that night in February, when he’d snapped a shot of her in his bed and she’d assumed he’d gotten more than just her face.

“Terrific,” he replied, suddenly just crazy happy, right there in the delivery room, crazy happy and sure that everything was going to work out fine, though exactly what “fine” entailed he had no clear idea.

Things got messy soon after that. There were fluids and a little blood and Karin’s groans started to sound more like screams and angry shouts.

But then the baby’s head was crowning and everything sped up. As soon as the little guy’s shoulders emerged, it was all over. The rest of him slipped out quick and easy. He was so tiny and wrinkled and red, covered with sticky whitish goo, wailing as the doctor caught him and laid him in Karin’s waiting arms. Naomi grabbed Liam and pulled him around to stand in front of her, right next to Karin and the naked infant on her chest.

On Karin’s other side, Prim stepped back so the nurse could wipe some of the goo off the baby and the doctor could deal with the umbilical cord. All Liam could do was stand there and stare.

He’d never realized how much he wanted children.

Not until this moment, when he actually had one—yeah, he’d had vague yearnings in the past year, to get more serious about his life, to get married, start a family.

But only in a generalized sort of way.

Until today.

Today, he knew exactly what he wanted—to be a father to this perfect little miracle he and Karin had made.

“Take a picture, Liam,” Karin teased softly as she stroked the baby’s shoulder, her hand gliding down the fat little arm to the tiny fist. Instantly, the baby wrapped his itty-bitty fingers around her thumb and held on.

Liam got out his phone and snapped a few shots.

The nurse gave him a towel to put on his shoulder. She let him hold his son for the first time. That was amazing, though it didn’t last long.

He passed Naomi his phone and she got a few pictures of him with the baby. Too soon, the nurse took the little guy back and gave him to Karin again and she nursed him for the first time. Liam thought maybe he should turn away, give her some privacy. But she didn’t seem concerned and nobody else cared. He watched as his son latched right on and went to work, the fingers of his right hand resting on the upper slope of Karin’s breast, opening and closing as he sucked.

Liam watched not only his newborn son, but his son’s mother, too. He stared and marveled and thought how, from that first night they’d had together last Christmas, she’d been constantly keeping him at arm’s distance, giving in to the attraction between them, yeah. But then, once the hot times were over, pushing him away.

And what about the last few days since he’d found out about the baby? She’d continually reminded him to take his time, think it over, figure out just how involved he wanted to be.

As though a man could choose his level of involvement when he became a father.

There was no choosing with something like this. When it came to fatherhood, a man needed to be all in.

And he was. In this. Going for it. All the way.

Okay, he got it. He knew he had no idea, really, what the hell he was doing. But he could learn. And he would learn. One way or another, he was making it work with Karin. He damn well would create a family with the mother of his child.

Last Friday, that first day he found out she was pregnant, he’d stuttered out a half-assed proposal of marriage. She’d said no before he even really got the words out.

No wasn’t going to cut it.

She glanced up from the baby and into his eyes. “Liam?” She seemed alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

“Not a thing.” He felt so calm, so absolutely determined. He held her gaze, steady on. “Marry me, Karin,” he said.

Karin was wasted, completely exhausted.

She’d done this twice before, yes. But experience didn’t make having a baby feel any less like pushing out a watermelon. She just wanted to lie there and nurse her newborn and be grateful that labor was over, thank you very much.

But no.

Liam had to go to the marriage place. Hadn’t they already agreed that marriage was no solution to anything?

And did he have to be so sweet about it? Sweet and determined and handsome and even-tempered and so damn helpful.

Liam Bravo was a dream.

Someday, he would make some lucky woman very happy.

But that day was not today and that woman was not her. No way was she going to be the one that Liam Bravo married because he felt he had to.

After the ongoing disaster with poor Bud, she’d had this fantasy that someday, maybe, she would actually get it right. In that lovely, impossible illusion, she’d imagined finding a man who would love her just for her, and then fall in love with Ben and Coco, too. That man would marry her for love and love alone. Duty and obligation and doing the right thing wouldn’t even enter into it.

Later, they would have a baby or two, maybe. Like normal people do.

As of now, she was reasonably certain her fantasy was never actually going to come true. But that didn’t mean she would settle for less.

Liam was still standing right beside the bed, staring down at her and the baby as though he could will her to agree to his well-meaning but totally unacceptable proposal.

The doctor had left the room and the nurse and Naomi and Prim had fallen dead silent the moment Liam said the M word.

“Would you all give Liam and me a moment alone?” Karin asked her suddenly speechless friends and the too-quiet nurse.

“Of course.” The nurse gave her shoulder a pat.

And the three women filed out the door so fast you’d think there was a fire. Or maybe a gas leak.

“Liam...” Karin kissed her baby’s head and shifted a fraction so he was settled more firmly at her breast.

The man beside her bent closer. He was so good-looking, with those fine blue eyes and that mouth that made her think of deep, wet kisses. He also just happened to be kind and thoughtful and determined. Everything a woman could ask for in a man.

“Just say yes,” he commanded. “It will work out. We’ll be happy, you’ll see.”

Was she even a tiny bit tempted?

Of course. She was a heterosexual single mom. What was not to adore about Liam Bravo? The guy was practically perfect—at least right now, as he stared down at his newborn son after the excitement and drama of birth. Blinded by the wonder of new life and eager to do right by his child and his child’s mother, marriage would naturally seem like the only choice to him.

The resentment, the growing certainty that she’d trapped him, the longing to be free of her—all that would come later.

Except it wouldn’t. Because she wasn’t going to marry him. No way. “Liam, we’ve been over this.”

He shook his golden head. “We haven’t. The other day, you said no before I even got the question out.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you out, but my answer wouldn’t have changed no matter what you said or how convincing you were or how patiently I waited for you to finish saying it. I’m not getting married just because we have a baby together. I need you to believe me when I tell you that.”

“Listen.” He straightened and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Don’t give me an answer right now. Take your time. Think about it.”

“Liam, I’ve already—”

“Think about it.” A thread of steel had crept into his tone.

She had no need to think about it. Zero. Zip. Nada. She’d already given him her answer. Twice now. But he wasn’t listening and an argument right now wasn’t going to be good for her, for him or, most important, for their baby, who’d just been ejected from the warm, quiet safety of her womb. “All right. We’ll talk about it later. If you need to. But my answer won’t change.”

“Just tell me you’ll think about it.”