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“Why not?” Laura challenged simultaneously. “Seth’s been more of a father to my kids than their own father ever was. He was over every weekend, coaching ball, playing with them, making them feel important.”
Michael’s face was resolute. “Our marriage couldn’t survive with one of us working out of town, and I hardly think parenting takes less time and commitment than marriage.”
“How do you know our marriage couldn’t work?” Susan said, staring at Michael. “You never gave it a chance.”
“You knew as well I did that it wouldn’t have survived, Susan, or you would never have agreed to divorce in the first place.”
“That’s beside the point, anyway,” Susan told him, leaving Laura to wonder if Susan had ever really given up on her marriage or just given in to Michael. “We. were dealing with you living in another state, working full-time in another state. Seth lives here. He’s home every weekend. He just happens to travel, too.”
“All I can tell you is the man believes he can’t be a proper father and do what he does, too.”
Laura’s heart was beating fast again, though not with fear. With an emotion she was afraid to name. “He’s told you that?” she asked. Michael sounded awfully sure.
Glancing at Susan, Michael bowed his head once, slowly, and raised it again.
Laura took that for a yes.
“And that’s why he left us?” She looked from one to other, hope an unfamiliar flower blossoming inside her. Taking her breath away.
“I think so,” Michael said.
“Me, too.” The tears in Susan’s eyes won Laura’s heart forever. “If he’s been contemplating quitting his job to be a father, I’d say there’s little chance it’s anything else.”
“Do you know where he is today?” Laura whispered, tears flooding her own eyes.
“At home.”
Laura minded her manners enough to down her tea in one long gulp, and then, with embarrassing haste, grabbed her purse and ran. She had a very stupid man to set straight.
And then she was going to spend the rest of her life loving him to distraction.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“AN Sooz! An Sooz!” Susan’s stomach roiled as two-year-old Joey barreled into her.
How’d she ever get herself into this?
Grabbing him up, she pretended her back didn’t hurt as she settled him atop the mound of her stomach. “You’re supposed to be sound asleep, little man,” she said, heading back toward his nursery.
She’d been looking forward to this evening ever since Scott and Julie had asked her the previous week to baby-sit for them. She’d been eager to get a taste of the joys she’d been anticipating all these months.
She hadn’t figured on Joey having his own plans.
“I wet,” Joey announced, right about the time Susan started to feel an uncomfortable warmth seeping through her maternity blouse.
“You sure are wet,” she said, hugging the little body against her. After all, it wasn’t his fault she’d let him have three glasses of water that first hour after she’d put him to bed. He’d looked so darn cute, holding that cup by its handles.
“I wet,” Joey said again, nodding his head.
Ignoring the tug on her back muscles, Susan hauled the toddler up to his changing table and set about repairing the damage. Getting the clothes off him was the easy part. But then, instead of lying there quietly the way she thought he was supposed to, Joey started squirming around. He almost got away from her as he tried to chase a butterfly that was pasted to the wall above the changing table. Susan grabbed his ankle just in time and returned him to his back.
He made it all the way to his knees when Susan reached for a new sleeper. He’d been after the laughing Pooh bear that time.
“The wallpaper comes down off my nursery walls tonight,” Susan muttered, thinking of all the colorful things dancing across the twins’ walls at home.
Joey started to cry when she forced him back down to the table. “Shhh,” she said, drawing imaginary lines on his belly to distract him. After several tiring minutes of coaxing and fighting surprisingly strong little limbs, Susan finally had him lying still.
Prepared now, she placed her body half on the active child as she slid the dry diaper beneath him.
