“I know,” I say. “And I’m glad she is. There was a chance she wouldn’t make it, but the doctors said she was strong. Small but strong. And she has made it. She’ll be a year old soon.”
I haven’t made any preparations for her first birthday, though.
“And she isn’t ours?” Dax asks me.
“No,” I answer. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Well, your sister’s dead, so I thought she couldn’t be your niece.”
“Even though I told you she was?” I ask him.
Dax doesn’t answer. I can guess his answer, though – that he no longer believed any of the things I said after he found out I’d been lying to him. I don’t blame him for that.
“You also said she was yours,” Dax says.
I did? Oh, right. I said that last night.
“And then Emily said that you hadn’t been with any other man, so…”
“Emily told you that?” I give Dax a puzzled look. “When? Last night?”
“Just a while ago,” he answers. “We were having coffee together at the diner.”
They were?
“Not on purpose. I stopped by to get coffee before leaving town. Emily walked in and sat with me. She had a lot to say.”
I can believe that.
“So Emily told you I hadn’t been with anyone and you thought Shanna was yours. Ours.”
If it didn’t sound so absurd, I’d laugh.
Dax shrugs. “Well, we did have… we had sex before we broke up.”
“Which was a year ago,” I point out. “Minus the nine-month pregnancy, that would make Shanna three months old. I know she’s on the small side, but you didn’t realize she was older than that when you were taking care of her?”
Dax shakes his head. “Nope.”
Now I know why Mom used to say men know nothing about babies. I guess she was right.
I draw a breath. “Anyway, just to make things clear, Shanna isn’t our baby or mine. If you don’t believe me, we can do a DNA test or something.”
“I believe you,” Dax tells me.
I nod. “Good. So yeah, you don’t have any obligation towards us, so…”
Now what? Technically, we kind of broke up the last time we talked. Now that we’ve just talked again, does this mean we’re back together?
All those things Dax said before he offered to take responsibility for Shanna, did he mean them? Or did he just say those things because he thought Shanna was his daughter? Now that he knows she isn’t, does he still feel the same way?
“I guess you can go,” I say since Dax hasn’t said a word. “If you want to.”
He looks into my eyes. “I don’t.”
Relief wells up in my chest.
Dax takes my hand in his. The other strokes my cheek.
“I don’t care if you’re not a NASA scientist. You’re still the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. I know you lied to me, but you gave me a second chance and so you deserve one, too. And I don’t care if Shanna isn’t our kid. If you love her like she’s your own…”
“I do.”
“Then I will love her, too, and I’ll take care of you both. To hell with what the rest of the world thinks. They don’t get to have an opinion. All I care about is your happiness.”
Dax’s words make my heart leap. The relief in my chest turns to joy.
He brings his lips against mine and I kiss him back. Afterwards, I pull away and gaze into his eyes. The love I see there takes my breath away.
He may not have said it, but I know he loves me.
“Did Emily tell you that, too?” I ask him. “That I’m worried about what other people may think?”
Dax strokes my cheek. “Well, you shouldn’t.”
I sigh. “Emily. You really had a long conversation, didn’t you?”
“All about you, if you must know,” Dax says.
I roll my eyes. “Right.”
“You’re lucky, you know,” Dax tells me. “You have such a good friend. If she hadn’t insisted on bothering me and speaking her mind, I might have already gone and lost the love of my life.”
And there it is. Love of my life. I swear I could fly off the couch right now. All through the roof, in fact.
“That’s one of Emily’s favorite things to do,” I say with a smile. “Bothering and speaking her mind. I guess I’ll have to thank her for that later.”
“Thank her for me, too.”
Dax kisses me again. This time, his lips press against mine more firmly, longer. His hand goes to my hair and caresses the strands. The other one strokes my arm.
I place my hand on his thigh and stroke it. My fingers inch closer and closer to his crotch.
Suddenly, Dax pulls away.
“Your father’s not here, is he?” he asks me.
I shake my head. “He’s out with Shanna at his only friend’s house. He was a little rattled after yesterday, so I guess he’s trying to cheer himself up.”