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“It worked for months.”
Unable to resist, she ran her fingertip over the baby’s cheek. “But not with you being happy.”
“I wasn’t happy because I didn’t know how you felt, because we were growing apart. Because we hadn’t been honest with each other. You on how much you wanted a family, me on the reasons why I didn’t.”
“Cailee’s death wasn’t your fault,” she quickly assured him.
Glancing at the sleeping baby in her arms, he nodded. “If I could do it over, I’d hold Cailee every moment of that night, but I can’t relive the past. I can only make sure I don’t repeat the same mistakes in the future. Luckily, we know much more about the causes and prevention of SIDS than we did seventeen years ago. I know that.” He touched her cheek. “But I have decided to give up my job at the ER.”
She gasped. “You can’t do that.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you for a while but…” he shrugged “…I already have.”
“I thought you were just on leave.”
“Last week they needed to know if I planned to come back and I told them that I was going to do whatever it took to be with you, the mother of my child and the owner of my heart.”
“James, you’re not planning to stand twenty-four-hour-a-day vigil over me and the baby, are you?”
He smiled softly and shook his head. “I just want to be closer, to be able to be here when you and the baby need me. You’re both too precious for me to be away, working all the time.”
She digested what he was saying. “But your teaching? Your research?”
“I enjoy what I do, but if it’s necessary to make things work, I’ll give them up, too.”
Melissa repositioned the warm bundle in her arms. “You’d do that for me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“James, I was wrong. So wrong about so many things. I should have talked to you about how I felt rather than throwing myself into my work. It’s just what I’ve always done, how I’ve dealt with things beyond my control. But I don’t need my work. I need you and our baby. You don’t have to give up anything in Nashville. I could be happy anywhere in the world so long as you’re by my side.”
“That would be Sawtooth, Tennessee, because I’ve become quite attached to Caren Little and her sleeping disorder,” he teased.
Melissa frowned, wondering what he was talking about and why he’d bring a patient up at a time like this. She also wondered how she could have ever not known where her heart belonged when it thudded so hard just for him.
“James, what am I going to do with all those little-boy clothes?”
“Save them for next time.”
“Next time?”
“You do want more than one, right?” His eyes searched hers. “Because I predict you’re going to contract Mrs Little’s sleeping disorder in about a month.”
“A month?”
Smiling wickedly, he nodded. A month. Melissa blushed. About the time her body would allow her to become sexually active again.
“Marry me, Melissa. Make me whole, have my babies, and spend your life letting me love you and our children.”
Her vision blurring with tears, happy tears, she nodded.
Far away in the distance, they heard the wail of the ambulance. Soon they would be on their way to Dekalb.
“We’re going to make this work, aren’t we?” she asked, a smile playing on her lips because in her heart there was no need to ask. She knew the answer. It shone brightly in James’s eyes when he looked at her and their daughter.
“Oh, yeah, Dr Conner.” He leaned forward, kissed her squarely on the mouth. “We’re going to work out beautifully. This time we have love on our side, and that’s a surefire prescription for a happy ending.”
