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Staring at email he wasn’t comprehending, Braden had to stop himself a second. Was he hoping Mallory didn’t get pregnant?
Did he want this venture to fail?
He wanted her happy. That answer came to him quite succinctly and he recognized the absolute truth of it.
And if it took a baby to make her so?
He wished it didn’t.
But if it did?
He wanted her happy.
Satisfied with where his internal dialogue ended, he answered three emails in as many minutes. One from an investor. Two from contractors regarding the L.A. property.
Mallory was making her new life.
He was making his.
* * *
She didn’t look any different. Logically he’d known she wouldn’t and yet, as Mallory climbed back into the passenger seat next to him just as the sun was starting to set, he was struck by how normal she looked.
As though he’d expected her to sprout horns or a baby rattle or something.
She strapped herself in and as the seat belt crossed over the front of her body, he remembered another time, another doctor’s office parking lot. They’d just come from her thirty-nine-week checkup. She’d begun to dilate. They’d had an ultrasound and Tucker had been head down and in position. Mallory had been talking nonstop as she’d guided the seat belt beneath her belly bulge and clicked it closed.
He’d looked at the huge belly sticking out there and for the first time had had a sense that there was going to be another human being in his family. That stomach wasn’t just Mallory’s thing. Just something she wanted and would be great at. It was a human being, ready to join them.
Them, not her.
He’d been scared to death. Afraid of what the change would do to the “them” that worked so perfectly, in his opinion.
And afraid that he wouldn’t be as great a dad as she’d be a mom. Afraid that he’d disappoint her.
He’d also been strangely elated. And uncomfortably moved. That bulge was about to become his son. Having never had a dad or a brother, that new male advent into his family had suddenly been huge. Visions of fishing and sports and doing business together had started to pop up at the most unexpected times.
They’d always made him grin inside. Lifted the weight of the loads he carried. He’d never had another man to step in and be the man of the house if the need ever temporarily arose.
“What?” Mallory’s voice broke into his thoughts, bringing him back to the moment. She was looking at him, concern on her brow.
“What, ‘what?’”
“You’re staring at me. And you had a funny look on your face.”
He could tell her the truth. But then things could get messy.
“I’m just wondering how it went,” he improvised. It was the truth. He had been wondering about that, in the midst of the rest of it.
“Good,” was all she said.
He wanted more.
But didn’t ask.
* * *
Braden didn’t say a whole lot as he pulled onto the vacant property he hoped would be the newest Braden Property Management acquisition, and put his SUV in Park. Motor still running, he kept the headlights on, shining toward the center of the property. It wasn’t quite dark, but almost.
