Read The Mommy Miracle for Free Online

found out you were pregnant before I even had the plates put in my leg.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œBlood tests, part of assessing your condition. When they told me…” Again, how to say it?
    â€œYou knew you had no other choice,” she supplied for him.
    He couldn’t argue. Not the words, anyway. Maybe the edge of—what?—bitterness, or anger, in her tone. He hadn’t had any other choice. Not then. He wasn’t going to abandon his child before it was even born. He wasn’t going to deprive her of a father, when she might never have a mom. But it was different now. “I don’t want another choice,” he said. “This all needs time to work out, and that’s okay.”
    â€œYou said you didn’t plan on ever having kids.”
    â€œYou remember that?”
    â€œOver dinner. You had steak with pepper sauce. I had strawberry mousse cake for dessert.”
    â€œShoot, you do remember!”
    â€œYes. It’s like yesterday, that mousse cake.” The subtext of explain yourself, Dev was very clear. She wasn’t really talking about dessert.
    He said slowly, “What was it John Lennon once said?‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’”
    â€œOr while you’re in a coma,” she drawled.
    â€œYeah, then, too.”
    Tentatively, they both smiled, and something kicked inside him. He had a couple of memories that were like yesterday to him, too. Her passion in bed, almost fierce, as if in lovemaking, too, she had to prove her own strength, had to fight against the wrong preconceptions. Her saucy grin when she undressed. And his ambivalence.
    He really, seriously, hadn’t known if it was a good idea to take her to bed that first time, even though she said she wanted it, and said she understood there was no long-term, and no promises, and that was fine. He’d told himself a couple of times their first night that he would stop kissing her soon, that he would reach out and still her hands if she went to pull off her clothes.
    But then she’d done it. Crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her top to show a hot-pink bra and neat, tight breasts. Shimmied her way out of her skirt. Grinned at him.
    And there’d been no question of stopping after that point. He’d used protection, but—not to get technical, or anything—maybe applied it just a little too late.
    â€œBut the dates don’t fit,” she said suddenly. “She’s too old. She’s smiling. Lucy isn’t.”
    â€œBecause DJ was premature,” he explained again. “Healthy preemies learn to smile at the same age after birth as full-term babies, even if they’re smaller and a little slower in other areas. DJ and Lucy would have been born within a week or two of each other, if DJ had come at the right time. The doctors say it’s goodthat she didn’t. It was easier on your body that she was little, and early. Would you like to hold her?”
    He asked it before he thought. Blame Lucy for that. Jodie had looked so happy and comfortable holding her tiny niece today.
    DJ was different. DJ had baggage.
    Jodie stiffened and stammered. “No, she’s—she’s— N-not yet, when she’s asleep. If I disturbed her and she cried…”
    â€œIt’s fine. We’ll transfer her in the sling. It’ll be easy, I promise.” Listen to him! Five minutes ago, he’d been scared about the strength of her maternal feelings and what they might do to his own connection with his child. Now he was trying to rush her into them. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.
    Which was weird and unpleasant, because he always knew what he wanted.
    Her weakened left hand made a claw shape on her thigh. “No. No, I can’t. I just can’t.”
    Jodie heard the note of panic in her own voice, but there was nothing she could do about it. The panic was there. She