Tara Taylor Quinn - The Baby Arrangement

That was new knowledge that he’d process at some point.

That night had been the best sex of his life, too. He didn’t feel bad about that.

“How about a meet-up sometime this weekend?” he asked.

“Fine.” Another yawn.

“I’m taking the boat out on Sunday,” he told her. “You want to go fishing?”

“I’d rather lie on the deck and soak up some spring sunshine.”

Right. He knew that. She’d gone out with him plenty of times. She’d never caught a fish and had only tried once or twice after he’d bugged her to the point where she’d given in.

If she had a boy, who was going to teach the kid to fish?

Knowing Mallory, she had some kid’s fishing development group already lined up.

“Seven too early for you?” They’d have plenty of time on the boat for talking.

“Nope.”

He could tell her about his L.A. plans, too. “Meet me at the dock?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. We can—”

“I’m going back to sleep now, Braden. Good night.”

He caught her chuckle just before the call went dead.

* * *

In leggings, a short-sleeved, oversize black shirt and tennis shoes, her dark hair tied back in a ribbon, Mallory boarded the fishing boat Braden had already owned when she’d met him eight years before. She carried a plastic bowl of cut fruit in her hands.

He was on board with a plate of doughnuts.

Looking at each other’s goods, they laughed. “Some things don’t change,” she said, not as worried as she might have been about spending leisurely time with her ex-husband.

Surely, after three years of successful friendship, she and Braden could handle a few hours alone on the ocean. He probably wouldn’t even leave the harbor.

He’d set a lounger for her on the deck, maybe the same lounger she’d used in the past.

She’d brought her own towel and dropped it on the lounger while he did what he did with his bait.

She opened the food, set it out on one of the benches with the little disposable plates, napkins and plastic forks she’d brought. He started the engine, fixed himself a plate and backed away from the dock. The boat had a little cabin and, noticing the travel mug he had next to him at the helm, she went below, found the coffee he’d made and poured herself an insulated cup full. With doughnuts and fruit on a plate, she pulled on the hoodie she’d brought aboard and settled in her lounger. When the sun was fully above them, she’d be hot, and she’d take off the hoodie and get some color on her skin.

And at some point, Braden was going to want to talk. Apparently to make certain that she knew she was doing the right thing and to tell her he was seeing someone again, she supposed.

Which was fine.

She’d listen, as she always did, and support him in his endeavors, as she always did.

Until then, she was going to relax into the bliss.

* * *

“Can you come up here?”

Drifting off to sleep, the rising sun’s warmth cozy in the cool San Diego spring air, Mallory heard Braden. Not in the mood to hear about his new girlfriend, she took a second to decide whether or not to acknowledge that she’d heard.

The engine had stopped. She’d heard him moving around, getting his rod and casting his line. He’d be sitting up on the bow, watching the boats on the horizon as much as anything. She’d always said he did more relaxing than fishing when he went out, but hadn’t seen that as a bad thing.

Thinking he had to carry the whole world on his shoulders as he did, Braden didn’t relax enough.

And then she quit picturing it. Braden on the bow of the boat, wind in his air, was just...hot. A part of them that had to be dead to her now.

“Mal?”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” she said, repositioning her sunglasses as she opened her eyes. They’d only been out half an hour. So much for her bliss.

But, hey, by the following night she might be pregnant. Braden could get remarried and it wouldn’t be enough to snap her out of her good mood.

Joining him on the bow and sitting with her back propped on the small rail, she faced him, her feet in front of her with knees bent. His jeans and tennis shoes were new since they’d been divorced. The forest green T-shirt she’d washed before. A breeze blew his hair and he didn’t seem to notice.

It made him look free. And just a touch wild.

The impressive breadth of his shoulders...that was the same as it had always been.

“You said you wanted my support in this venture of yours.”

She wouldn’t call having a baby a “venture” but understood that he would. And that what he called it didn’t have to matter to her anymore. She nodded.

“Then I have some concerns I’d like to address.”

He wasn’t going to spoil her good mood. Not that he’d ever want to. Or intend to. He was trying to help. She got that.

“What are they?”

Throwing up one hand, he glanced at the line hanging placidly over the front of the boat.

“Most of them—” He stopped and shook his head. “There’s one major one, but I have a plan that can tend to it.”

Did Braden just have a hitch in his voice? Heart beating faster, she studied her ex-husband. This mattered to him.

A lot.

Which warmed her. A lot.

“What’s your plan?”

He frowned. “I’d like to present the concern before I move forward to the solution.”

Had they been married, she’d have felt rebuked. She smiled, instead, finding his predictability, his need to keep things in order and under wraps, kind of endearing. “Of course.”

“I’m concerned about the Y component,” he told her, catching her completely off guard. She’d been expecting something more along the lines of her being a single parent. Taking on a two-person job all alone. Concerned that if she had a son, the boy would have no father figure.

Or anyone to take him fishing.

“You won’t know family history,” he continued, when she decided silence was the best answer until she could figure out where he was going with the conversation. “According to the National Human Genome Research Institute there are forty-eight known and listed genetic disorders that could be passed on to your child. That doesn’t include the ones that occur when certain genes meet with inhospitable partner genes. If that were to happen, your likelihood of miscarriage would increase greatly, but I’m not even there yet.”

It sounded like he was right there. Some more of her bliss faded. She wouldn’t let go, though.

She was going to do this.

“Women have been having healthy donor babies for decades.”

“And they’ve been having children with disabilities, too.”

“So have married couples.” So could they have had.

“But at least when you know the Y component, you have more of a chance to prevent something or to catch it in its earliest stages.”

She didn’t have an immediate answer to that. Except what she’d already said.

“You’ve been through so much, Mal. I applaud what you’re doing here. I’m elated to see you taking up the reins of your life again. Moving on. Creating a future where you’ll be happy.”

Elated and Braden weren’t words she’d put together. At least, not since Tucker died. Before that she’d seen some elation. More than he’d probably realized. But not as much as after she’d found out she was pregnant.

Was the pregnancy what had changed him? At least somewhat? Was there more to their divorce than just their dichotomous ways of dealing with life’s tragedies, which ultimately blew their emotional trust in each other?

“I’m concerned, Mal,” he said after a lengthy silence had fallen. “Really concerned. All weekend, the more I think about it, the more concerned I get. To the point that I’m not sure I can give you my support. Not with such a huge unknown.”