The Fireman's Baby: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance (6 page)

Chapter7

It was a nice change to be living for two. It somehow made every moment seem more meaningful than it had been before. Watching Annie grow gave Laura a sense of fulfillment that she didn't know had been missing. Annie was such a wonderful baby and Laura loved to dress her up in the little outfits that she carefully planned at the beginning of each week and hold her in her arms when she fed her and watch her when she slept with that adorable innocent expression on her face.

Laura found in herself depths of strength and courage that she never would have believed herself to hold before her life had taken a turn away from the plan. The determination and grit she'd always had to do things right and turn circumstances to her favor served her well now. Her natural resilience and resolve made her flourish where other women may have struggled. She enjoyed the challenge of juggling caring for Annie with working and every time that someone gave her a sympathetic smile and told her how much they admired her, she had to smile back and tell them that being Annie's mother was her greatest joy in life. Her baby's laughter got her through the tough days and that Annie's company got her through the lonely nights.

Yes, she was still lonely. The longing for the company of a man, in particular the longing for a reunion with Annie's father, was a persistent yearning that wouldn't go away no matter how determinedly Laura pushed on with her duties or how many weeks passed by. Meeting someone new now would be almost impossible with a newborn baby. The first question on everybody's lips whenever they met Annie was “Where's the father?” Laura never quite knew what to say, no matter how many times she was asked.

In truth, as much as Laura longed for a partner to complete her family, she didn't feel she had the energy to try it all again. Men were difficult creatures who were so hard to find and even harder to hold onto, and Laura had a baby to look out for now. So she went on alone and sought company among friends and family to help ease her loneliness until thoughts of Daniel fell to the back of her mind and she found comfort in her routine and joy in her daughter.

It was on one of her Saturday afternoon trips out with Sophie, that everything was turned upside down once again. The two friends had been walking down the street,  Laura pushing Annie in her stroller and Sophie cooing over her, when suddenly a familiar face in a café window caught Laura's eye and stopped her in her tracks.

“What's wrong?” Sophie asked, coming to a stop beside her friend.

“That's him!” Laura gasped.

Sophie didn't need her to explain and pressed her face against the window so obviously that Laura had to take her by the arm and pull her back.

“Don't!” Laura hissed. “You'll make him look this way!”

“Aren't you going to talk to him?” Sophie urged her.

“Of course,” Laura replied. “But he's in there with all his firemen buddies.”

“Tough luck,” Sophie retorted scornfully. “His daughter is three months old and he's never even met her. I think this is worth interrupting his buddy time for.”

Laura turned and smiled gently at Sophie. She laid a hand on her arm to calm her friend down before Sophie could be overtaken by her righteous anger, storm in, and sock Daniel in the face.

“It's all right, Soph,” she soothed. “I've got this. I think maybe you should go home. I need to do this alone.”

“Are you sure?” Sophie asked her emphatically. “This is kind of a big deal and you don't look the least bit overwhelmed.”

“I think I'm in shock,” Laura admitted. “I didn't think I'd ever see him again.”

“What are you going to say to him?”

“What can I say?” Laura asked helplessly. “I can't
not
tell him about Annie. I'm just going to have to come clean.”

“Well, don't let him worm his way out of it,” Sophie said sternly. “Make sure he doesn't give you a fake number and skip town again.”

“It's not like he went to Colorado to get away from me,” Laura told her. “He didn't know about the baby then.”

“He's in for a surprise , then,” Sophie said.

“Please Sophie, go home,” Laura said softly. “I've got this. I'll call you as soon as it's over.”

Sophie didn't look pleased to be leaving Laura with this monster of a man who had impregnated her best friend and left her in the lurch, but she respected Laura enough to let her do things her own way and agreed to leave her to talk to him.

“You know where I am if you need me,” she told her. “And no matter what happens with Daniel, you've still got the rest of us.”

Sophie gave Laura a supportive hug and headed off down the sidewalk, leaving Laura to face Daniel alone. She stood for a few moments outside the café holding onto Annie's stroller and looking through the glass window at Daniel laughing and joking with his friends. He looked just as Laura remembered him; strong, handsome, confident. Even though she was about to face him with big news and big decisions, Laura still couldn't help the flutter that came into her chest when she looked at him. Memories of their night together came flooding back and although she recognized him, she wondered if he would recognize her as she was now. He'd left her as a sexy, available woman and would find her now as a pretty, worn out mother of a newborn. And what would he think of Annie?

Of course Laura's daughter was a beautiful, happy little girl, but as loved as she was now, she had still been a surprise and while Laura was over her own shock, she now had to present her little surprise to a man who had been blissfully unaware.

Inside the café, Daniel was smiling that incredible smile of his. He was more tanned than when he had left, but also more toned, if that was possible. He looked healthy and in good spirits, and Laura wasn't sure she liked being the woman who was going to bring that all crashing down.

People behaved as though she had a right to be angry with him, but Laura didn't see it that way. Their night together was  supposed to have been a single night of passion, and neither of them had foreseen that anything more would come of it. If Laura hadn't have gotten pregnant, then her one night with Daniel would have been just that—one crazy, heated night with a stranger a year ago.

Daniel was a father now, and she a mother, and the three-month old baby in Laura's stroller was a living bond that now existed between her and the man inside the café. No matter how much she tried to forget about him or move on, they had created something together that no amount of time could undo. The time had come now to have a conversation with this man.  that Laura had been waiting to have with him, for a very long time.

She pushed open the door of the café and lifted the wheels of the stroller over the doorframe. She pushed the stroller over to the table where Daniel was drinking coffee with two other tanned, muscular men and waited silently until he looked up and spotted her.

Laura wondered if he would recognize her, but the look in his eyes when they settled on her face told her he knew exactly who she was. His expression was firstly one of delight, chased quickly by surprise, and then, when he looked into the stroller and saw a little girl of an age that matched a certain timeline, a fleeting look of terror.

“Hello,” Laura said.

Daniel put down his coffee and smiled in a flustered, panicked way.

“Hello,” he said.

He turned to the other firefighters and told them that he needed to catch up with an old friend and then he followed Laura back out of the coffee shop and they walked together up the high street with a tense, uneasy silence hanging between them until they reached the park and stopped at a bench on the grass.

“I've been trying to get hold of you for a long time,” Laura said at last, when they were both seated and looking out over the children playing baseball and couples walking hand in hand.

“I was away in Colorado,” Daniel told her.

“I know.”

Although he was talking to her, Daniel's eyes were fixated on Annie. Undoubtedly, could see himself in her. Now that the two were side by side, Laura could see that the resemblance was striking.

It felt strange to be sitting next to this man  after all this time. The last  time they’d sat close together like this it had been just before they had come together in the most wonderful way and they had both been wild and uninhibited, chasing their passions to their sweet ends. Now they were sitting side by side with their daughter between them and Daniel's unspoken question burning in the air.

“Is she...?” he managed to stammer out at last.

Laura simply nodded. “She looks like you, doesn't she?”

The captain hesitated a moment and then turned his gaze back to Laura. “Are you sure she's mine?” he asked a little tentatively.

“I'm sure,” Laura replied with a tad of annoyance to her voice. “Believe it or not, the way I was that night... Well, it was out of character for me.”

“Me too,” Daniel replied.

“I find that hard to believe,” Laura said.

“Why is it hard to believe?” Daniel retorted, taking offense  at her tone.

“Come on,” Laura said patiently. “A guy like you? You must be with a different woman every night.”

Daniel leaned over the stroller to look more closely at his daughter, drinking in every detail of her precious little face and tiny hands and feet.

“I'm not that kind of guy,” he told her. “You just had an effect on me that I can't explain.”

Laura didn't push the issue. After all, if wild attraction to a man could turn her into a sensual seductress, why couldn't  it turn him into a confident player?

“Is she healthy?” Daniel asked with concern, nodding towards Annie with wide-eyed fear. “I mean, I haven't been there. Was everything okay? Is she... Are you...?” he sighed as he stumbled over his words. “Just tell me everything.”

“Her name is Annie,” Laura told him. “She's just over three months old. She's very healthy. She laughs all the time.”

“Annie,” Daniel repeated. He stared at his daughter with utter enchantment, although there was still that nervousness in his eyes. He took a deep breath and fell back against the back of the bench, running his hands through his hair in a panic, much the same way that Laura had done, siting  on the edge of her tub, all those months ago. She couldn't help but smile a little to see him go through the same motions that she had, unaware of what a blessing Annie was.

“I tried to find you as soon as I found out I was pregnant,” Laura explained, “but you were already gone. I phoned every station in Colorado a hundred times and I went back to the station here every week for months until I was sure you weren't coming back. I had a decision to make and, well, here she is.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't here,” Daniel said sincerely. “I had no idea. I'm sorry you were on your own. Wow, I can't believe this. I've had a daughter all this time. I mean, just... I don't know what to say.”

“I was shocked too when I found out,” Laura half-laughed. “A baby wasn't part of the plan.”

“No,” Daniel agreed, shaking his head slightly in his disbelief. “It was brave of you to keep her.”

“I couldn't have done anything else,” Laura told him honestly. “I knew I had a child inside of me and I couldn't let her go. As soon as I knew she was there, I could feel her somehow. I hadn't planned this, but I'm glad she happened. She's an incredible child, Daniel.”

“I'm sure,” Daniel nodded. “I'm sorry, Laura. I'm a bit  shell-shocked. I can't believe I've been walking around all this time, clueless that she existed. I'm so sorry.”

Laura held up a hand to stop his apologies.

“What's done is done,” she told him. “All that matters now is where we go from here. Annie is in this world now and God knows, I love her to pieces and am always going to be there for her. I've just been waiting to find out whether you will be there for her too.”

Daniel knelt on the ground beside the stroller and reached a hand in to stroke his daughter's soft curly hair. When the little girl reached out to grab his finger, the masculine man simply melted.

“She's adorable,” he said emotionally. “Of course I'll be there for her. For both of you. Anything you need. Just name it.”

“Well, we're getting by,” Laura told him. “And I'm not a gold digger, but a little help here and there as she grows with clothes and things would go a long way. She grows so quickly.”

“Of course,” Daniel nodded eagerly. “Clothes. What else? What does she eat?”

“She's still on formula at the moment, but I'm going to start trying her on solids very soon. They say they're ready for that between four and six months,” Laura told him.

“Formula,” Daniel listed aloud. “I can do that. What else does she need?”

Laura smiled. “Baby stuff,” she said. “You don't have to go mad. Her grandparents spoil her rotten and her godmother too.”

“She has a godmother?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, my best friend Sophie,” Laura revealed. “You saw her in that photo, remember?”

“I do,” Daniel replied. “Oh God, I've missed so much, haven't I?”

“You didn't know,” Laura reasoned. “There's still time for you to be there for her. She still hasn't said her first words, or taken her first steps or any of those big things. If you want to be there, then there's still time.”

“I'm so sorry,” Daniel repeated in a heart-felt apology. “It must have been awful for you. I can't believe you've been raising her all on your own and went through the birth and everything... Do people know that I'm her father?”