Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (26 page)

Luke

When Luke looked at Halden and saw his eyes looking out at him from the baby’s tiny face, he wanted to cry.  When he told Kimber he was getting a coffee, he did get a coffee but first he made a stop in the men’s restroom, locked himself in a stall and cried a little.

If the baby had had blue eyes, they wouldn’t have known for sure that they came from Paul with Kimber’s blue eyes, but the fact that Halden’s eyes were hazel gave Luke even more hope that what he had hoped and prayed and wished for had indeed been true all along.  His son was his son by blood. 

That fact was further accentuated by the fact that Halden had dark blonde hair, something that neither Kimber nor Paul had either.  Luke knew that he couldn’t be 100% positive that Halden was his biological son without a DNA test, but the baby’s coloring and the fact that both Kimber and Paul had inherited their blue eyes and light blonde hair from both of their parents which was something that Paul had explained to Kimber a few weeks before, further seemed to point to Luke as the baby’s father.

He felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of his shoulders.  He was very much looking forward to when his wife and son would be released from the hospital.

Time passed quickly and Halden was doing well.  When they were released Luke carried the car seat like he thought a good proud Daddy should, feeling a little like he was walking on air.  He knew Kimber was sore and wouldn’t have made her carry the car seat even if he had looked at the baby’s face and seen the picture of Paul and instantly known that he couldn’t love the child the way he loved his daughter either though, because that was not the kind of man that he was.

They stopped to pick Alexis up from Juliana and Bunny’s house.  Julian’s vivacious redheaded little girl answered the door.

“Hi.”

Luke smiled at her.  “Hi Bunny.  Where’s your mommy and Alexis?”

Juliana appeared with his daughter in tow.  “Bunny, I told you not to open the door.”

“But I can reach Mommy.”

Juliana shook her head.  “That doesn’t mean that you need to open the door sweetheart.”

“But it’s not a stranger.  It’s Alexis’s Dad.”

“I can see that honey.”  Juliana gave her daughter an indulgent smile, and then handed Luke Alexis’s bag.  “I washed her clothes.  What she’s wearing now belongs to Bunny.  You can return it whenever you get a chance.  She has so many clothes I think I’m going to donate half of them to children that actually need them.”

Luke chuckled.  “Thank you.  Kimber is half asleep and the baby is asleep so they stayed in the car.  Do you want to take a peek?”

“Of course.”

Juliana took Bunny’s hand.  Alexis put her hand in her father’s and they walked to the car together.

Kimber opened her door and smiled at Juliana.  “Thank you so much.”

“Alexis is an angel.  She’s welcome anytime.”  Juliana peeked across the seat at Halden.  “He is so beautiful.  Another one that looks like Daddy.  Does he have Luke’s eyes too?”

Luke stepped in because he could see his wife felt a little uncomfortable with the question.  “He does. “  He squeezed Kimber’s hand.  “Third time’s gotta be the charm babe.  If we have another one, they’ll be the picture of you.”  He winked at her.

Kimber laughed, though to Luke’s ears it sounded a little strained.  “I hope so.”

Alexis climbed onto the seat beside her mother and looked at her baby brother.  “He’s so pretty.”

Luke chuckled.  “Boys aren’t pretty.”

Alexis gave her father a child’s look of disgust.  “He’s my baby brother and he’s pretty.”

“Okay sweetheart.  He’s pretty.”  He turned back to Juliana.  “Thank you so much.  If you ever want us to take Bunny, we will.  You have been a huge help.”

Juliana smiled.  “Maybe a few months down the road.  My daughter isn’t quite the angel that yours is.”

“Oh, ours isn’t always an angel either.  I guess we’d better get home.  Thank you again Juliana.  Bye Bunny.”

Bunny waved, and tugged at her mother’s arm, not interested in looking at the baby since she was an only child.  Juliana and her husband had had trouble conceiving after she’d had Bunny.  “Bye.  C’mon Mom.”

Juliana smiled.  “Yes honey.  Take care Kimber.  Congratulations.”

Kimber offered her friend a tired smile.  “Thank you.  Bye Bunny.”

“Bye.  Bye Alexis.  Bye baby.”

Juliana took one last look at Halden, and then took Bunny’s hand and walked back to the house.

Luke strapped Alexis into her car seat.  “Ready to go home princess?”

“I’m not a princess Daddy.”

“Yes sweetheart.  Let’s go home.  Mommy needs a nap.”

Luke checked to make sure the straps were secure on both his daughter and son’s car seats and then shut the door quietly.  He got behind the wheel of the car and drove them home.  Home had never looked quite so good.

He let Kimber rest and even talked Alexis into taking a nap.  When Kimber woke up, and had changed and fed Halden, she said that she was going to call Paul so he handed her her cell phone, brushed a kiss against his sleeping son’s forehead and went to retrieve Alexis so that she could help him fix dinner, or so that he could fix dinner while he let her pretend to help.

Paul

Paul looked at the screen of his cell phone and hid a sigh.  He’d hoped that it was Sierra calling him.  Of course he always hoped that it was her that was calling him, but it had been even more so since they had made love.  It was Kimber.

“Hello.”

“Hi Paul.  It’s Kimber.  I had the baby and there is good news, but we’re not trying to read too much into it.”

“Okay.”

“He has Luke’s eyes and darker hair.  We wouldn’t really have known for sure even if he did have blue eyes since I have them too, but he has Luke’s eyes just like our daughter does.”

Paul breathed a sigh of relief.  “That’s great.  I guess we still want to do the DNA test just to make sure though huh?”

“Yeah.  It’s probably for the best.  We looked into it and figured that it would probably be easiest if you gave your sample up there and had them send it to the lab down here and then you can come down and hear the results in person if you want to.  If Halden is your son, I would think that you’d want to see him.”

“Of course.  It shouldn’t be too big of a deal.  I looked into it some too.  There hasn’t been much else on my mind since Luke told me.”

“Yeah, there hasn’t been a lot else on any of our minds since then I don’t think.  It will be a relief to know one way or the other.  How’s your son?  He had a birthday didn’t he?”

“He did.  He is huge.  He’s walking and the time has just passed so quickly you know. Of course you know-you have a daughter.  Is she four, five?”

“She’s four but she’ll be five before we know it and then a damned teenager before we know it.”

“Yeah.  Scary thought.  How’s the baby?  You said his name is Halden?”

“He was a little early of course, but he was 7 pounds and 5 ounces so I hate to think of how big he would have been if he would have been born on my due date.  He’s doing very well, took right to the breast and always seems to be hungry.”

“It’s good that you decided to nurse.  Sierra didn’t nurse Nathan long, but she planned to go back to work right away.”

“How does she like staying home with your son?  I know that I’ve loved being able to spend more time with Alexis.”

“She loves it more than she wants to admit.”

“Yeah.  Um, the baby’s name right now is Halden Elijah Stone.  I know that you said we could name him whatever we wanted and that it didn’t bother you if he had Luke’s last name, but if he’s yours, I want you to know that Luke is okay with him having your last name.  He’s the one that brought it up.”

“I’m still okay with him having Luke’s last name.  Halden Elijah is a nice name.  I’m still at work so I should probably let you go.  It shouldn’t be a problem to start my vacation as soon as the results are in.  I already talked to my boss about taking the time off, so once it’s all said and done, it shouldn’t be more than a week at the latest before we’ll be able to get everything worked out and be down there.”

“Okay.  Thanks Paul.  Take care.”

“You too.  Bye Kimber.”

“Bye Paul.”

Paul hung up the phone.  He wanted to call Sierra immediately, but he was supposed to be working and he thought that he probably shouldn’t have taken as long to talk to Kimber as he had.

The first thing he did after his work day was over was call Sierra though.

She picked up on the third ring and gave him a distracted “Hello.”

“Baby, I have great news.”

“Oh yeah?”

He thought that she sounded less than thrilled.  “Honey what’s wrong?”

“Nathan has an ear infection and he’s totally miserable.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sierra let out a frustrated sigh.  “We just got back from the doctor a little while ago.  It’s not like I wasn’t going to tell you.  What’s your news?”

“Kimber had the baby.  He has Luke’s eyes and darker hair.”

“That’s great.  I guess you’re still going to take the test though, just to make sure?”

“Yeah.  You’re still going with me to hear the results aren’t you?  When can I come home?”

“Paul, no.  It’s wonderful that the baby is most likely Luke’s.  You had sex with her once and he’s her husband and likes sex so he probably did it with her way more often before she got pregnant, so we always knew that there was a better chance that the baby was Luke’s anyway.  But just because Kimber had the baby and we have even more reason to think that he’s not yours doesn’t mean that you can come home.  I’m not going to get my hopes up and then have them come crashing down around my ears if the baby is yours.”

“Sierra.”

“Don’t Sierra me.  Our son is miserable and I can’t do anything to make him feel any better.  He’s asleep now, but he’s probably going to wake up crying before I know it because he’s in pain.  The medicine is helping some, but he’s still miserable.  I want my little man to feel better.”

“I know baby.  You are such a wonderful mother.”

“And you’re a good father Paul.  Much better than you give yourself credit for.  I can’t stand to have my heart broken again.  I’ve told you that I can’t be your wife if the baby is yours.  And I still feel that way.  It is going to hurt like hell if I have to walk away from you for good, but it’s all I can do.  It’s the only way that I feel like I can handle the situation and feel okay with it.  I know it sucks.  This is definitely not the way I wanted our marriage to go, but we can’t turn back time.  If the baby is Luke’s you can come home.  We can start counseling and we can have lots of sex.  We are going to have lots of sex, because I never want to feel like I’m not attractive to you again and I never want to feel like you’re neglecting me either.  If I ever think for even a minute about wanting to go find Luke because you’re not making enough love to me, I will divorce you.”

“That really puts my mind at ease Sierra.”

“Luke is the only man that I would ever think about cheating on you with.  You are the man that I was meant to be with.  I love Luke, I find him attractive, and I’m not going to lie to you and say that my body wouldn’t enjoy it if we made love.  But I’m no longer in love with Luke.  I am in love with you.  You’re a pain in my ass sometimes and sometimes I still worry that you’d still like me to be a little more Susie homemaker than I’m ever gonna be, but you’re my man.  I would love to be able to say that you’ll always be my man.  But I can’t lie to you.  We’ve both lied enough.  So no Paul, you can’t come home until I hear with my own ears that Kimber’s baby is not yours.”

Paul sighed.  “I knew as soon as we moved in together that you were never going to be Susie homemaker Sierra.  You’re doing great with Nathan and the house always looks nice.  You still can’t cook but I don’t care because I can.  I’m sorry that I’m a pain in the ass sometimes.  I find you so desirable.  It still scares the crap out of me.  I get an erection so often when I’m around you that I feel like a walking hard on.”

“You’re a man Paul.  You shouldn’t be embarrassed by your sexuality.  It’s okay for you to put a move on me.  Or it will be if this all works out and you come home.  I don’t think I would be strong enough to stay away from you if we had sex again before all of this is over and done with.  And even if you think you can take us being together for a little while and then breaking up again, I can’t.  I need you to understand and respect that.”

“But I get nervous sometimes that you don’t want to have sex.”

Sierra sighed.  “Paul, I enjoy sex.  If I’m not in the mood, chances are pretty good you can get me in the mood.  If I’m really not in the mood, I’ll tell you.  I’m not shy about that either.  Sometimes I wonder if you realize that you married me and not some shy girl with a low sex drive.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Quit being sorry okay?  Just fix it.  When all of this DNA test bullshit is done and over with and we know for a fact that Luke is the father of Kimber’s baby, we are going to leave Nathan with your parents or my mother and Timothy and spend three days straight exploring our sexuality together.  You’re taking your whole vacation when it’s time to hear the results aren’t you?”

“Yes.  Making love to you for three days straight sounds wonderful.”

“Yeah.  How do you think I feel?  I need to let you go Paul.  It looks like Nathan is going to wake up.”

“Do you want me to take him?”

“Just come and get him tomorrow like you planned.  I’ll talk to you later.  Thanks for letting me know about the baby.”

“You’re welcome.  Bye Sierra.  I love you.  Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.  I love you Paul.  Bye.”

Paul hung up his phone and sat down on the edge to the bed.  He felt tears prick his eyes.  He’d thought that Sierra would be overjoyed with the news and that he could go home.  Now he knew he would be counting down the days until the DNA test results were back even more than he’d thought he would before.

He got up and grabbed a beer from his fridge.  He popped the top and took a drink, not looking forward to another long empty night without his wife and son.