“Your age? Why would your age matter? Besides, I think you being my dad is a stretch, unless you had one when you were barely a teenager.”
“How old are you, Ilara?”
“I’m twenty-five, why?”
“I’m forty-eight. That makes me twenty-three years older than you. I could easily be your dad. Is that too much of a difference?” he asked with trepidation in his voice.
I gaped at him. He was almost fifty? No way. He didn’t look more than forty, max. I thought of what he said. Did his age matter to me? No, it didn’t. “Donovan, I can’t believe you’re forty-eight, but your age doesn’t matter to me. However, do you really want to have to raise a kid at this stage of your life? I mean, you have it easy, no diapers, no up at night, no headaches.”
He sighed. “I’d love it. I’ve always wanted to have kids, to raise them and go through all the things parents go through.”
“Then why haven’t you had some of your own already?”
“Because I can’t have kids, Ilara. I found out years ago that I couldn’t father any,” he told me softly.
My heart hurt to see the pain on his face. Here was a man who wanted kids and couldn’t have them, while there were men out there who didn’t want to be fathers and they were having kids left and right. Why was the world so cruel? “Oh, Donovan, I’m so sorry. How did you find out?”
He rolled away from me and stared at the ceiling. He took a deep breath. “I was with someone years ago. Her name was Carol. We met right before I went off to the Army. We were both eighteen. We stayed together despite my time away. When my four years were up, I decided not to reenlist. I got out and thought we’d start a family. Actually, we’d been trying for a couple of years, but she never got pregnant. When I got out, I told her I wanted to get myself tested. She told me it wasn’t necessary, but I insisted.” He paused to swallow.
“You don’t need to tell me more,” I told him softly.
“Yes, I do. I need to share this like I want you to share your pain with me. So, anyway, we got tested. When the results came back, she had them open when I got home. She showed me the paper. It said that I was sterile. It devastated me. I didn’t know what to do. I always wanted to have kids. She didn’t say much other than I shouldn’t worry about it. A couple of months went by and we were going along when I made a decision. I sat her down one night and told her that I wanted us to adopt. Even if they weren’t mine by blood, they could be mine in every other way. She lost it. She said she didn’t want to have kids that weren’t hers. We had a huge fight about it.
“I thought if I let her think about it, she’d change her mind. A month later, I brought it up again. She went crazy and this time she told me the truth. She didn’t want kids that weren’t her own and she didn’t want me. She said if I couldn’t father children then what kind of man did that make me?”
“Oh my God, Donovan, no!” I cried. How could she do that to him? I could see the pain it caused him all over his face.
“Yep. I admit, it devastated me. I stayed up all night and went to work the next day like a zombie. I didn’t know what to do. When I got home that evening, she’d packed her stuff and left. She cleared out our bank account and left the bills on the table with a note. It said she was going to find a life with a real man and for me not to try and find her.”
I started to cry as I wrapped myself around him. I hugged him tightly. His eyes were wet with tears. “What did you do?”
“I quit my job and walked away without ever looking back. I headed east and I didn’t stop. I’d stop and stay a few days or weeks in a place and then move on. I did that for a few months, then one day I ran into Bull in the auto supply store. We got to talking. He invited me home to dinner, and that was it. I never left. We formed the Warriors with a few other guys he knew. His first wife, Kelly, helped us. Coming here was the best thing to ever happen to me. At least it was until I laid eyes on you. I can make you happy. I know I can, Ilara. What I can’t do is give you more children. Is that a deal breaker for you?”
I could see he really feared it would be. I kissed him softly on the lips. “Donovan, I have no doubt you can make a woman happy. As for more children, if we want more, we can adopt if we actually have a relationship like that. I’ve never been one who thought like that bitch, Carol. I was adopted. I lost my parents when I was eighteen. It killed me. I couldn’t have asked for better parents.”
He crushed me to him and kissed me deeply. When he moved away, I had to ask him something. “Is the reason you want to be with me because I have a child and this is a way for you to have a family?”
He sat up abruptly. “Fuck no! I’d take you with or without ever having a chance at kids, whether they were ours, yours, or adopted, Ilara. Hope is just an unexpected blessing. If I wanted to have a woman just for her kids, I could have hooked up with one a long time ago.”
I watched his face as he said it. Was this man for real? Was I seriously thinking about giving this a try? Had I lost my mind? I took a deep breath and then made a decision—one that would affect the rest of my life in a wonderful way, I hoped.