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A nurse came in, took her blood pressure, and made an announcement Carly couldn’t follow about protein in her urine and ultrasounds and the doctor’s schedule. Jamie listened. Carly decided to delegate listening to him. The nurse left.
“Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think of Isadora?”
“Isadora Short?”
“Too pretentious?” She’d had trouble with names. None of them sounded quite right.
“I like Isadora Callahan better.”
She snorted. “When you have a baby, you can call her that.”
His arm tightened around her, and he pressed his face into her hair. “I am having a baby, Carly. With you.”
She thought maybe she ought to have an objection to that. Something about her independence, or his lack of resolve. Except here they were together, and she didn’t want to be independent if it meant she didn’t get to have Jamie. Plus, he seemed to have returned from L.A. with resolve to spare.
“Are we getting married, then?”
“I’d like to think so.”
She let that sink in. Marry Jamie Callahan. Share the Wombat with him. Share her whole life with him. The possibility settled in her bones and became inevitable.
This was where they’d been headed from the beginning. They’d started on the laundry room floor, and now they were here. How improbable.
How lucky.
He smoothed his hand over her stomach. “What are we going to call him if he’s a boy?”
“Not Jamie.”
“God forbid.”
“I was thinking of Austin, after my grandfather.”
“Austin Short?”
“Maybe Austin Callahan.”
“Yeah, that works.” She could hear the smile in his voice. Full wattage this time.
He pushed himself up on an elbow so he could lean over and kiss her forehead. “I love you, Carly.”
“I know.” She did. She had all along, really.
Telling the truth was part of being brave. So she told him. “I love you, too.”
She’d never said the words to him before.
He pushed up the sleeve of her hospital gown a few inches and kissed her bare shoulder. “I know.”
They lay there together, and even though her skin itched and her head hurt and she was more frightened than she’d ever been in her life, she was happy, too. This was her man. Jamie Callahan. Of all the crazy, impulsive decisions she’d ever made, he was the very best one.
“Jamie?” she said after a minute or two. “I’m not changing my name.”
He laughed. “No. No, you wouldn’t, would you?”
