Sophie's Secret. Tara Quinn Taylor

he’d accepted.

      Then she remembered the bulimia. She couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t keep running. If she didn’t face whatever was scaring her back into a physical disease she’d thought gone forever, she could end up dead.

      But she wanted to lie back down. To pull Duane down with her. To cuddle up to his chest and know that she’d be safe there forever. Or at least until daylight took the sting of darkness away.

      She sucked in as deep a breath as she could manage. “Now, let’s hear worry number two.”

      Chapter Seven

      WORRY NUMBER TWO. Duane didn’t have them numbered. Or in any kind of order. They simply just popped up at will.

      Like that damn brown bag still out on the porch. The one he hadn’t touched. Or told her about.

      “Kids is another one,” he said, settling back against the bed, wishing he was dressed.

      He’d be better at this with his pants on.

      “Do you want to have kids?”

      Feeling exposed wasn’t something Duane did often. If at all.

      “I’m assuming you want them, judging by how much time you spend with Phyllis’s twins. How much you talk about them.” Having kids was another subject they’d mostly avoided. It hadn’t pertained to them in their safe little universe.

      “I’m not ready to have children,” she said slowly. “But you aren’t, either. The next year’s going to be crazy for you, with campaigning and your career. Then, assuming you win, which we both know you will, you’ll have the added senate duties to consider. Certainly not a good time to think about doctor visits and building a nursery and birthing classes and midnight feedings.”

      He actually hadn’t considered any of those things. Which probably proved her point.

      “I’m not disagreeing with you,” he said slowly. “But neither am I sure I’m going to want to become a father at fifty. Aside from all his friends thinking I’m his grandfather, I’m not sure it would be fair to the kid. I’ve already got bursitis in my elbow. Can you see me throwing a baseball ten years from now? Or running bases?”

      “Who says he’ll be a boy?”

      “Softballs weigh more.”

      “So you’re telling me you don’t want kids?”

      He wasn’t telling her anything. She’d asked for worries. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve always wanted to be a dad, always thought I would be one. But the years have passed. I’m kind of like Becca. My goals are different. I don’t want to be at risk for Alzheimer’s when my child is a teenager and thinks he knows everything. Nor do I think it’s fair to leave him hanging out there in his thirties when he needs business advice and I’m long gone.”