Just Joe (25 page)

"Oh,
sweetheart." Joe choked on the words as he read the love in her eyes.

"I'm coming to you a
woman, Joe. Not because of the baby, but because I love you. The child you met
is gone. Do you want the woman she's become?"

"Yes.. .oh, God, yes.
Mattie, I love you." Joe's voice was shaking with emotion, the love he
spoke of shining unashamedly in his emerald eyes.

"And you don't mind
about the baby?" she asked solemnly.

"Mind?" Joe
repeated incredulously. "Are you nuts?"

"Possibly,"
Mattie conceded, smiling at him until Joe's face turned grave again.

"Mattie, have you
seen a doctor?"

She smiled wryly.
"Several."

Joe immediately panicked.
"Several? What do you mean, several? Is there something wrong? Something
you haven't told me?"

"Stop worrying,
Daddy," she told him gently. "I only meant that I have been to see
two doctors. One about the baby—who is perfectly healthy," she stressed.
"And Dr. Wright."

"Dr. Wright? Jim
Wright?"

"The same," Mattie
confirmed. "I guess I needed to test my newfound maturity on
someone."

Joe pressed a soft kiss to
the corner of her mouth. "I couldn't bear to lose you now, Mattie. Are you
sure about the baby?"

"I'm sure," she
interrupted firmly. "We're both fine. You won't lose me. Not ever. I'm a
part of you, remember? And you're a part of me." She pressed his hand to
her heart. "You've filled up all the empty spaces, Joe, and taken away the
scars. I love you more than anything else in this world. Love, Joe. The good
love. The only love."

Joe's eyes glittered with
what suspiciously looked like tears. "The only love," he repeated
softly, his arms tightening on her. "The only love."

Six months, three weeks
and two days later, the Barons and the Ryans met on the steps of the hospital.
Mattie and Jassy looked at each other and burst into laughter. Cole and Joe
momentarily abandoned their wives to prop each other up. It was a toss-up as to
which one of them was the palest.

Two hours later Joshua
Cole Baron was born. Cole waited until he had seen his wife and child before he
passed out.

A half an hour after that,
Amanda Leigh Ryan made her appearance. Strictly in the interests of equality,
Joe passed out, too.