A Baby for the Bachelor. Victoria Pade

the rear view was almost as good as the front because his jeans encased a derriere too prime not to notice.

      Then he turned with their coffees and she quickly raised her gaze to his ruggedly striking face again.

      When he reached the table, he set one of the two cups in front of her and kept the other in hand as he sat across from her.

      Marti tasted her coffee and waited—he’d asked for this meeting, it was his show.

      “I’m sorry about not working at the house today,” he began. “And for not answering the voice mails.”

      Marti merely nodded.

      “I had a lot of thinking—and some other things—to do after…the news I left with last night.”

      There was nothing to be said to that so she just went on waiting.

      “I don’t…” he began, stopped, restarted. “It occurred to me when your brothers said you were pregnant Friday that I could be…the cause. Not right away—I was actually slow on the uptake. But then I realized that it was a possibility. So I don’t know why it hit me like a ton of bricks last night when you said the baby is mine, but it did.”

      “It has a way of doing that,” she allowed conservatively.

      “I paced the floors most of the night and then today I went to see my lawyer—”

      “Your lawyer?” she repeated, cutting him off as her mind started to race again.

      Was he going to demand proof? A paternity test? What exactly was he implying about her? And if he had proof, would he be willing—reluctantly—to concede to being this baby’s father?

      “Look,” Marti said then, ire echoing in her tone, “until I just happened to meet you again on Friday, I fully intended to do this on my own. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t need anything from you. If you want to tell yourself this baby isn’t yours, if that makes it easier for you, then be my guest. As far as I’m concerned—”

      “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Noah said in an angry tone of his own to go with the dark frown on his handsome face. “Who said anything about me wanting to think it isn’t mine?”

      “Isn’t that why you went to a lawyer? To force some kind of paternity test in hopes that you aren’t the father?”

      “That didn’t even cross my mind. Should it have?”

      “No. There have only been two men on my dance card—the man I should be married to right now and you.”

      That had probably not been the best way to put that and the minute the words were out, Marti regretted them. This was all just so hard and complicated.

      But Noah didn’t seem to take offense. In fact, he did the opposite—his temper seemed to recede and in its place he became conciliatory.

      “I’m not questioning whether or not the baby is mine. The timing is right. I don’t remember a whole lot about that night but I do remember that we were drunk enough to take the risk of not using protection. You’d already told that artificial insemination story to your brothers—I don’t think you would have done that if the father was someone you know or were involved with. And another one of the few things I recall is you saying more than once that night in Denver how that wasn’t something you’d ever done or ever did—and that struck me as true. Plus, while I don’t know much about you, what I’ve seen doesn’t make me think that you’re someone who would try to pass off someone else’s kid on me.”

      Apparently he thought higher of her than she’d been thinking of him in the last several hours. It helped Marti to calm down slightly.

      “Thanks for that at least,” she said. “And I didn’t faint on Friday, it was—”

      “I know, it was a dizzy spell,” he said with the first hint of a genuine smile—and it was only a hint. “But when I saw you go down I thought you’d passed out.”

      They both sipped their coffees and after a brief pause, Marti said, “So why did you go to a lawyer today?”

      “To find out what I needed to do to protect my rights.”

      “Your rights?”

      “As the father. I’m not trying to figure a way out of this, Marti. I want to make sure I have a firm footing in it.”

      That surprised her.

      And then it alarmed her. In her wildest dreams she hadn’t thought there was any risk of the father of this baby doing anything that might take it away from her in some fashion.

      “What does that mean?” she asked in a quiet voice.

      “This is a big deal to me,” he said with enough gravity that she didn’t need any more convincing to believe he wasn’t taking this lightly. In fact, he said it with so much gravity that it made her wonder if there was more motivating him than she knew.

      But he was still talking and this was all too important for her to let her mind wander.

      “I realize that I’m as responsible for this as you are,” he was saying. “And I’m not one of those people who can ignore that I’ll have a kid floating around out in the world and just go on about my business as if I don’t. There’s no way I’d let you go through this alone, and once the baby is here, I want to be a father to it. I want to be a part of its life.”

      “Okay…” Marti agreed with reservation because she still wasn’t sure exactly where he was going with this. “What did you have in mind?”

      “First of all—I want to know that you aren’t going to have an abor—”

      “No,” she said firmly. “I’m having the baby.”

      “Great.” Noah looked relieved.

      “And second of all?” she said.

      His face broke into a bigger and even more genuine smile. “As long as there is