To Be a Dad (Harlequin Superromance) (16 page)

She sighed. Not that again. “I’m strong, and I’m ready. I am not my mother. Haven’t you listened to anything the doctor said?”

“I did. I also know it wasn’t his wife we were talking about, but mine. I need more time, Anita. I’m not ready to take that step yet.”

Anita tried to bury her disappointment. Would he ever be ready to take a chance and let her get pregnant? She couldn’t imagine living without Cal, but she also couldn’t imagine not having children. She prayed it wouldn’t come down to having to choose between the two, because she couldn’t say for sure which one she’d pick.

CHAPTER NINE

D
USTY
TURNED
OFF
his truck and studied his house, which was lit up like a hotel with no vacancies. His electricity bill was going to kill him. He groaned as he reached for his lunch box. He’d put a push on, hauling traps for the past two days and trying to beat the storm that was forecast for tomorrow. With Josh and Andy’s help, he’d managed to pull all his lobster traps in record time, but he’d pay for it with aching muscles. All he wanted was to crawl into bed and have a good night’s sleep. For the first time in months, he didn’t have to get up before the crack of dawn.

He probably would, anyway. It was his favorite part of the day, especially now that he got to share it with Teressa. He often went to bed soon after the kids crashed and missed spending time in the evening with Teressa, but now that he’d hauled his traps for the winter months, maybe they could have a date like he’d suggested in the beginning.

Had it really only been three weeks since Teressa and the kids had moved in? He grunted as he swung out of the truck. Felt like a lifetime.

When he’d pulled into port a couple hours ago, he’d been happy and relieved to finally have the fishing season behind him for another year. As he unloaded the last of his traps, he kept thinking of the great supper Teressa would have waiting for him, and how she liked to sit with him at the table while he ate on the nights he was late getting in. She’d tell him about her day, and he’d soak her up.

She always smelled so good, sweet and spicy, and he never got tired of watching her, especially when she got all worked up about something. Even when they were kids, he’d gone out of his way to provoke her just to see her eyes spark and watch how her freckles stood out against her white skin.

If she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Sarah, Teressa could have gone anywhere in the world and become a famous chef, but she cooked his supper every night and sat at his table. Most nights he counted himself pretty damned lucky.

Of course Sarah also sat at that same table, always clinging to a part of his anatomy, his leg or arm or literally hanging around his neck. He didn’t know how he was going to fix that, but she was driving him crazy and something had to be done. Same with Brendon. The kid could not spend his life crying in dark corners. It creeped Dusty out. Things had to change, but he hadn’t a clue how.

He tried to slip into the house unnoticed, but Sarah, as usual, flew out of whatever room she’d been in and attached herself to his leg. He wished his radar on the boat worked as well.

“Dusty!”

He sighed, patted her on the head and tried to sit down on the chair to take off his boots. Just once he’d like to walk into his own house and be left alone for a few minutes.

“Sarah, I’m tired tonight. Can you let go of my leg, please?”

“But I’ve been waiting and waiting for you.”

Where was Teressa? He noticed Sarah listened to her mother a hell of a lot more than she listened to him. What did he have to do to make Sarah understand he was serious without scaring her by shouting? Which was exactly what he felt like doing. He’d already terrorized Brendon. He dragged them both over to the chair and managed to sit.

“I’ll take your boots off for you.”

He got that little girls did stuff he was never going to understand, but no matter how he looked at it, having someone fawn over him wasn’t right. Plus he was bone-tired and didn’t want to deal with her right now.

“No,” he said louder than he’d intended. And immediately felt guilty as Sarah scrambled to her feet, her bottom lip trembling.

“Where’s your mother?”

“In the b-b-basement doing the laundry.”

His
laundry, probably. Hadn’t she listened to a word he’d said the other day? Brendon decided to poke his head around the corner of the living room, looking at Dusty as if he were a monster that had risen from the depths of the ocean.

“Can’t any of you get along for a few minutes without me refereeing?” Teressa shot up out of the basement like a missile and aimed straight for him.

“Time out.” Dusty made a
T
with his hands. “Could we talk? Alone?”

Teressa cocked her head to one side and studied him. After a minute she sighed. “You’re right. We need to talk. Although I’d feel much better if I could shout at someone right about now.”

“We’ll talk first, and then if you want, you can shout at me. How’s that?”

“Far too reasonable for my lousy mood. Bedroom?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

When he closed the bedroom door, he moved over to the window and as far away from Teressa as he could get. It didn’t make sense that he got a charge out of her being snippety with him, but he did. Nothing he’d like better right now than to wrap his arms around her and kiss her. Then she’d have something to shout at him about. After she kissed him, of course. “Help me out here. What’s up with Sarah?”

“She’s a little girl, and her world’s been turned all around. She’s holding on because she’s afraid.”

“Of what?”

Teressa sagged against the door. “Of losing you, I think. It’s the only thing that makes sense. She doesn’t know her own father, and by leaving my parents’ place, she essentially lost her grandparents. That’s a lot of loss for a little girl.”

“So, take her to see her grandfather.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“Soon. Okay?”

“Good.”

He stared out the window at the black November night and massaged the back of his neck. “I know it probably doesn’t look like it, but I’m trying with Sarah. I never realized how much I like independent women until now.”

Teressa sniffed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She rapped her fist against her thigh.

“When you say it like that, what I hear is
everything
.”

“We’re pretty dependent on you at the moment,” she murmured.

Dusty hooted. “You’re so independent, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes. You don’t need anyone.”

“That’s not true. I need you.”

“For what? To make more work for you? FYI, I don’t try to be a slob. I just am. And I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m trying to pick up after myself. It’s just you get there before I do most times.”

“What are you saying? That I should lower my standards instead of you raising yours?”

Dusty hid his smile. What a firecracker. “Maybe we could meet somewhere in between.”

He watched her turn that over. “Maybe,” she finally conceded.

He ambled across the room toward her. “Not so easy having to budge on things, is it?”

“Guess not.”

He hooked a finger through her belt loop and tugged her toward him. “Don’t suppose you care to make it up to me by kissing my hurt better?”

She pulled away. “We’re having a serious conversation, Dusty.”

“When do we get to have fun?”

“Fun?”

“That’s where you laugh and don’t worry about anything for more than five minutes. Fun.”

“I should go back to the kitchen. I think I hear Brendon sniffling. You know what that means.”

“Yeah, prelude to a meltdown. The other half of the dynamic duo. Does he always cry or is it just me?”

“He came that way.”

“Seriously?”

“Seems like. I keep hoping he’s going to grow out of it, but no luck so far.”

“So, it’s not just me.”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Why would you think it was you that made him act that way?”

“Because I went ape-shit on him with the car thing, and I haven’t got a clue when it comes to kids? To me they’re like tiny aliens.”

She laughed. Dusty caught the sound and held on to it. “I guess we should talk more often,” she said.

“No kidding.” He leaned toward her before she could open the bedroom door and kissed her softly on the mouth. “Let’s go out to dinner tomorrow night.”

She didn’t pull away like he’d expected. “Like a date?”

He rubbed his nose against hers. “Yeah.”

“Could we just stay at home and watch a movie or something? The thought of driving all the way to Lancaster exhausts me.”

Dusty buried his disappointment. He’d wanted her all to himself for a change. “Sure. We’ll get the kids drunk on vodka so they’ll fall asleep early.”

“Ha-ha.”

Teressa opened the door, but didn’t leave the room. “I need you,” she said. “I think of you off and on all day and save up bits of gossip to tell you. I like that I’ll see you at the end of the day, even though the kids may be crying or we’re both exhausted. And I love our mornings together. It’s just...we need to be careful how we fit the pieces of our lives together. I’m afraid if we rush one part, we won’t get the rest right.”

“You know what’s really weird?” he said.

“What?”

“I know what you mean, and I agree. That’s gotta be a first.” He huffed out a laugh.

She smiled. “Come on. Let’s go face the music.”

He decided to take a few minutes for himself before returning to the kitchen. That had been a sweet—but too short—interlude with Teressa. He had to make more of an effort to take her out on a date. That was okay, wasn’t it? To not always want Sarah and Brendon around?

He hadn’t thought about it before, but he actually understood what Sarah was going through. He’d lost his mother when he was only a few years older than Sarah was now, so he knew what it felt like to have people you love disappear. The worst part of his mother’s death for him was he’d never know if she meant to come back for him. Not knowing had left a hole in his life; a hole he’d carefully avoided looking directly into.

He wasn’t repeating history by pushing Sarah and Brendon away, was he? He kept his distance because he felt overwhelmed and needed room to breathe, but what if they saw it differently? What if they thought it was them, not him, who were the problem? Much like he’d believed his mother’s desertion had been his fault. He’d never forgive himself if he hurt Teressa’s kids. They deserved so much more from him than he’d been willing to give up to this point.

The smell of supper cooking chased away his morose mood when he walked down the hallway to the kitchen. His mother had left twenty-four years ago. She was nothing more than a faded memory. But Teressa and Sarah and Brendon were right here, and it was time to start thinking of someone other than himself.

* * *

T
HREE
DAYS
LATER
, Teressa tried to settle into the front cab of Dusty’s truck, but she couldn’t get comfortable. She knew Dusty was up to something, and it was killing her that she couldn’t figure out what. She’d already tried asking him, but all he’d mumbled was something about needing help choosing the new bathroom fixtures.

“Are you sure it’s okay to leave Sarah and Brendon with Anita? She just had them a few days ago,” she asked in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the town trip. She didn’t like surprises.

“Did she act like she didn’t want the kids?”

No, Anita had looked excited, and healthier than she had for a long while. Teressa supposed if she knocked around a big, clean house by herself all day, she’d be happy for a diversion, too. Geez, she’d probably never get the chance to know what that felt like for...she counted on her fingers...another twenty years if she was lucky.

Twenty years
. It sounded like a life sentence. She’d be almost fifty.
Oh, my God
.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Dusty put his hand out as if to shield her. “You’ve gone all white. Is it the baby?”

“I just realized I’ll be almost fifty by the time this baby grows up.”

“I bet you’ll be the sexiest fifty-year-old mom around.”

“Dusty.” She swatted his arm.

“What?”

“The point is my life will be over.”

“Really? Someone should tell Pops his life is done then. He’s sixty-eight. Sometimes I think he moved into the senior apartments because of that nurse, Ada.”

“No way!”

“Anytime I drop by unannounced, it seems like she’s at his apartment or they’re hanging out together in the main building. I think Pops has got the hots for Nurse Ada.” He snickered.

“She’s a lot younger than him.”

“So? You have to admit, Pops is pretty awesome.”

True. Pops Carson looked good for his sixty-eight years, and despite his heart attack a few months ago, had the vitality of a much younger man. She studied Dusty beside her in the driver’s seat. He’d probably age as well as his father had. She hadn’t thought much beyond the next few months, but she suddenly realized the idea of growing old with him was a comforting thought.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You still look...different. You’d tell me, right? If you didn’t feel well?”

“I’m fine.” She caught his hand and placed it on her belly.

He glanced at her stomach. “I don’t feel anything. Am I supposed to?”

She smiled and covered his hand with hers. “Not for another month or more. The baby’s moving inside, we just can’t feel the movements yet.”

“When do we go for the first ultrasound?”

We
. Her mother had accompanied her to the other ultrasounds. Going with Dusty was going to be a pleasant experience compared to that. At least he wouldn’t accuse her of being a slut. Doing most things with Dusty was pleasant. She’d been so wound up with all the changes in her life, she’d actually forgotten she got to share this pregnancy and birth with one of her best friends. If he didn’t let her down.

“In another couple of weeks. I have the date written down at home.”

“Is that when we find out if it’s a girl or a boy?”

“That’s right, and if we’ll have twins.”

“Twins?” He snatched his hand away. “There aren’t any twins in my family.”

A giggle escaped her. “Kidding. I hope,” she added. “Which are you hoping for, boy or girl?

“Dusty?” she asked when he didn’t reply.

“Give me a minute.” His voice sounded raw with emotion. “Talking about it makes it seem so real. I hadn’t really thought... Wow. A boy, I guess. No, a girl.” He looked at her, a sense of wonder on his face. “It doesn’t matter, because it’s our baby. We’re going to need another room and baby stuff.”