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His face harsh, he sighed. “It wasn’t personal, Melissa. I don’t want a baby with anyone.” His gaze dropped to where she cradled her belly and he winced. “I—I—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted. “Don’t make up something about wanting this baby, James. Tell me the truth because I know something happened somewhere along the way that’s made you feel this way. What was it? Did you get some girl pregnant during high school? Is that it?”
It’s what she’d always wondered in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t believe she’d found the strength to give words to her thoughts.
“If only.”
The bitter sadness in those two words squeezed her heart at whatever burden he carried. “Please, tell me so I can understand,” she pleaded.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“There’s no point in this, Melissa. We should be deciding on things like custody and where the baby is going to go to school, holidays, that kind of thing. The past doesn’t matter.”
This brought the custody issue to the fore-front of Melissa’s mind once again. Besides, he wasn’t going to tell her his reasons. She bit her lower lip, battling her frustration that he still hid behind that wall, refused to let her inside, battling very real rising panic.
Not once during her dreams of wanting Ja
mes’s baby had she ever envisioned her child not being with her during the holidays, during every day.
“I plan to breastfeed,” she warned him, just so he’d know it would be months and months before the baby would be able to be away from her for any extended amount of time.
“Good.” He didn’t seem bothered by her announcement, but that might have been from relief that she’d let her questioning go. “It’s what’s best for the baby, but I have to admit that I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll tie you down more. You’ll have to be the one to do the feeds. The baby will need to be with you.”
“So you agree that it’s best for the baby to stay with me until he or she is weaned?”
He took a long time answering. “I agree that we still have to figure out custody. I’ve talked with a lawyer and she says—”
Melissa’s breath caught. “Wait a minute.” All thoughts of James’s past disappearing, she threw her hands up to stop him, to try to get a handle on what he’d said. “You’ve talked to a lawyer?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Last week.”
Last week. They’d talked on the phone how many nights since then? “You didn’t say anything. We’ve talked every night and not once have you mentioned seeing a lawyer.”
“I didn’t think custody an appropriate topic to discuss over the phone. Some things should be done in person.”
Still, the fact that he’d seen a lawyer made the possibility of him fighting for their child all the more real.
What was she thinking? Of course, James would fight for custody. Hadn’t she known that from the moment she’d seen the tenderness in his eyes when he’d watched the ultrasound monitor?
“For the record, I understand that our baby will need you more than me during the first few months while you’re nursing.”
Understanding of him, she seethed. How could he have talked with a lawyer and not told her?
“I’m going to nurse until—” the kid goes to college, she thought “—I feel it’s the right time to wean.”
He nodded, eyeing her suspiciously, and she wondered if he’d read her mind. “I’m sure there’s a lot about parenting we both need to learn.”
She bit the inside of her lip, hating the strained atmosphere between them. Hating even more that she’d played a huge role in causing that strain and now she stood to lose not only him but possibly their baby.
And he hadn’t even wanted a baby.
“What did your lawyer say?”
