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Braden had done his own reading. He had to know this, too. And he was offering to give her what she wanted in order to appease his guilt.
Maybe it would be kindest to give him a way to atone and move on.
How could she put him through fathering a child he didn’t want? How could she ask him to experience the pregnancy with her, knowing what it would probably cost him? How could she hurt him any more than he’d already been hurt, loving him like she did?
Unless...if atoning set him free...
She tried to doze, to let the sun take her to the peaceful place outside of pain, and ended up thinking about Tucker instead. The sound of him laughing. The first time he’d laughed Braden had been at work. She’d been alone with the baby, coming at him again and again with funny noises, stopping just short of reaching him to pull back and start again, reveling in the way his eyes had followed her every movement.
Braden had missed the whole thing. Tucker had been asleep when he’d arrived home that evening and though Braden had gone to wake him, she’d told him not to. It would have been too hard to get the baby back down. Feeling as sleep deprived as she had been, the admonition hadn’t been completely without warrant, but what would it have hurt in the long run? Yeah, she’d been exhausted, but it wasn’t like she’d had to get up to go to work. She’d still had another month of leave ahead of her. Even if the baby hadn’t laughed again that night, Braden would have racked up more minutes of memories to feed him in the years that followed.
Someone like Braden probably wouldn’t access those memories like she did. And when they came to him, calling up a wealth of emotion, they might be more a hindranc
e than anything else.
So maybe someone like Braden, someone who was happier shutting out emotion than letting it in, would be the perfect sperm donor—if he really didn’t want another child of his own.
But what if he only thought he didn’t? What if, once they got into it, once she heard a heartbeat and then started to show, once the baby started to kick, he found out he really wanted it all again, too?
She tried to find the idea abhorrent but couldn’t.
Because if Braden could be the man she’d thought he was, there’d be no more perfect scenario than having his baby.
Which was the true problem, she acknowledged, lying there with her eyes closed, the sun beating down on her, the gentle sway of the boat rocking her.
The real problem was her. What if she got pregnant, heard the heartbeat, started to show, felt the baby kicking her...and wanted Braden to get excited about all of those things because it was his baby, too? What if she fell in love with him all over again?
What if she started to fall back into who she’d been? A woman who’d been ashamed to cry because her husband didn’t like emotional outbursts. One who’d curtailed her most exciting moments when he was around for the same reason.
One who’d grown to relish her time alone with her baby so she could gush and be all intensely moved by the miracle of him and just feel complete.
No, she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t have Braden’s baby.
That settled, she concentrated on the slow rhythm of the boat’s movement and tried to drift off with it.
But she lay there, wide awake as a thought struck her.
She had to put the baby first.
Always.
In the end, she didn’t matter at all. What mattered was her baby’s health. His or her best chance at a long and happy life. Braden was right. With a sperm donor there were many unknowns.
She herself was an unknown, too. Yes, she’d had her own genetic testing and didn’t carry any alarming signs, but her family might. She had no way of knowing if there was a history of cancer. Or liver or kidney disease. Or slowly developing areas of the brain that regulated breathing.
Not only could her baby develop something, but she could, too. What if kidney failure ran in her family? Or car accidents?
Sitting up, Mallory opened her eyes, taking a minute to bring herself back mentally to where she was. The ocean. The boat. Fresh sea air and sunshine.
Car accidents weren’t genetic.
But they did take people unexpectedly, leaving loved ones behind to fend for themselves.
In her case, it would leave her little one with no known family at all. He or she would be just like Mallory, a foster.
Rising, she made her way back to the front of the boat. Braden was sitting with his forearms resting on raised knees, looking in her direction. His line lay limp before him. There wasn’t a single fish in the basket close by.
With a raised brow, he seemed to ask if she’d reached her decision.
