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way to do that.
    “Hold up.” She hopped off the counter and poked him in the chest. “What the hell do you mean you plan to marry me? I may be a poor unwed single mother with no job, no home and no prospects, but I’m still a woman and a feminist. The least you could do is ask me. I’m going to say no, but a girl likes to be asked. You don’t even love me and let’s not mention the fact that I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours and that I am the mother of your brother’s son and that that is the craziest idea that anybody has ever thought of ever. Plus—”
    He grabbed her hand, gently squeezing her fingers in order to stop the endless stream of words that were coming out of her mouth. “Are you finished yet?”
    “Well, I don’t know. You got any other crazy-ass ideas rolling around in that head of yours?”
    “Just the one and it’s not so crazy.” He motioned to the table, inviting her to sit. “Will you listen?”
    “Do I have any other choice?”
    “Yes. Your other choice involves me throwing you out of here in just your underwear and that T-shirt.”
    She sat down and crossed her long legs, irritably jiggling her foot. “I guess we’re about to have this conversation.”
    He felt the corner of his lip tug. He wanted to smile again. She made him want to smile again. He hadn’t had a reason to for a long time. “I’ve always wanted children,” he started. “But my wife, Karen, had a very hard time getting pregnant and when she did she always miscarried. We went through three of them and one stillbirth in seven years of marriage. That last time was extremely hard on her.…” He trailed off, trying to stop the painful memories that sometimes invaded his thoughts. “After she died I couldn’t bring myself to remarry. I loved her too much to try and replace her with another woman. And for a long time I thought my chances of fatherhood had died with her, but then you showed up yesterday with Dash. He needs to be supported, Dina, and I know you could do a fine job of raising him yourself, but I think every boy needs a father. I would like the chance to be his.”
    “I see,” she said softly. “But why do you want to marry me? I want you to have a role in his life.”
    “Having my only blood relation raised three thousand miles away is not acceptable to me. I want him to grow up here. I want to see him every day. You come with him and it would better for him if the world saw him as the product of a married couple than Virgil’s discarded offspring. I want him to have a real father.”
    “I need another reason, Ben.” She looked him in the eye, searching for something he couldn’t figure out. “I-I just need more.”
    “If you marry me people will stop thinking I’m a reclusive hermit. Having people think I’m the next Howard Hughes is bad for business.”
    She grinned at him. “Try again.”
    He looked away from her, from her pretty full lips and soft smile. “I think we could be friends. This house gets to be a lonely place sometimes. You and Dash could be my family.”
    She looked so unsure. He didn’t want to push her. He knew how crazy this sounded, but she had come into his life for a reason.
    “If I married you, what would you require of me?”
    “To raise my son. To be my companion and accompany me places sometimes.”
    “What about sex?”
    “What about it?”
    “Would you expect me to have it with you?”
    “No,” he said, although last night for the first time in years he felt … awareness of her as a woman. It had been so long since Karen had died, so long since he had been around another woman; it was only natural for his natural urges to reappear. “I just want to be your friend.”
    She said nothing.
    “You don’t have to decide right now. Stay with me until Christmas. That’s twelve days. If you don’t like being here you can leave with no hard feelings.”
    “And what will happen to Dash if we go?”
    “I’ll send you a check each month until he