Call Her Mine

by Melissa Foster

  Damn, that felt all kinds of good. “Now we’re talking.” He swept her beneath him, covering her face with kisses until she giggled and wiggled against him. “See why I love you?”

  “It would have been embarrassing saying I was dating Ten-Second Ben, but Ten-Inch Ben? Now that’s a boyfriend to be proud of.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder and said, “I have to meet Everly to go over inventory. Think you can handle B for a few hours this afternoon?”

  “Of course.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

  His phone rang, waking B into a tearful wail. He cursed as he snagged the phone from the nightstand and said, “Sorry. I thought I had turned the ringer off.”

  They’d both turned their phones to silent because his sisters were calling and texting so often they couldn’t rest. He’d finally had to ask them to stop and told them they’d see B Sunday evening and could dote on her and harass him then.

  “You turned it on last night so you wouldn’t miss that work call,” she reminded him as she pulled on her panties. “It’s okay. You owe me three orgasms and a scrumptious breakfast for waking her up.” She grabbed his T-shirt from the chair by the bed and slipped it on.

  “Done.” He answered the call as he pulled on his briefs. “Ben Dalton.”

  “Ben, it’s Vic.”

  As if he’d had cold water splashed on his face, Ben pushed to his feet. “Vic, how are you?”

  Aurelia stopped on her way out of the bedroom with B, worry hovering in her eyes.

  “Good,” Vic said.

  “I assume you have news?”

  “I do, Ben. The results are back, and they confirmed that you’re the father.”

  Tears sprang to Ben’s eyes as he sank down to the edge of the bed.

  “Ben? Are you there?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Vic.”

  Vic went on to ask if he’d tracked down B’s mother yet or had information about B’s immunizations. But Ben’s mind was spinning, and he answered absently, promising to call when they had more information.

  Aurelia sat beside him, holding B tight, tears brimming in her eyes. “She’s not yours?”

  He shook his head, and tears slipped down Aurelia’s cheeks. He slid his hand to the nape of her neck, drawing her forehead to his as his own tears fell, and he said, “She is mine.”

  The air rushed from her lungs, pushing out a surprised sound. “She is? And you’re sad?”

  “No, Rels. I’m so fucking relieved. I didn’t know how much I loved her until I heard Vic on the line and realized I could lose her. She’s mine, Rels. B’s mine.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  FRIDAY MORNING PASSED as if in a dream, with Ben and Aurelia both mesmerized by confirmation of his paternity. They’d cried, laughed, and hugged and spent hours just looking at and playing with B as if they could hardly believe she was his. And the truth was, no matter how many times Aurelia had told herself that B might not be Ben’s, she’d never fully believed it. Or maybe she’d just wanted her to be his so badly, she’d refused to believe it.

  Ben sat on the edge of the bed in a pair of worn jeans and a soft gray T-shirt, feeding B. They’d finally gotten around to showering a little after noon. His hair was still damp, he hadn’t shaved, and his feet were bare, all of which made him look devastatingly handsome, but it was his contented smile as he fed B that made Aurelia’s heart beat double time. The relief of knowing she was his had blown them both away and had also brought them even closer together.

  “We need to get you a new shirt,” Ben said with a lift of his brows.

  She pulled on her jeans and looked down at her pink baseball shirt, which had white lettering across the chest that read, EAT, SLEEP, READ, REPEAT. She was meeting Everly in a few minutes, and this was one of her favorite comfy shirts. “You don’t like it?”

  “I think it would be more accurate if it said, EAT, SLEEP, MAKE WILD PASSIONATE LOVE, REPEAT.”

  “Hm. That should get Kase’s attention,” she said playfully.

  Ben glowered.

  She sat beside him on the bed to tie her pink Converse and said, “I think it should say FEED, CHANGE, MAKE LOVE, SLEEP, REPEAT. But then it would sound like I was dating a geriatric man.”

  He chuckled, and she leaned in and kissed him.

  “You know I’m a one-man woman and only teasing about Kase, right? I have Ten-Inch Ben. Why would I want Granite-Faced Kase?”

  He pressed his lips to hers and said, “I’m kidding. I totally trust you.”

  She tickled B’s foot. “Are you sure you don’t mind watching her while I work? When do you have to go back into the office?”

  “She’s my responsibility, Rels. Of course I don’t mind. I’m going to schedule a meeting with Mason to get that ball rolling, and I’ll call my attorney and Aiden, too. My whole life is about to change around her.”

  “It already has, Ben. There are so many things to think about. What about childcare?”

  “I can’t even begin to think about leaving her with someone else. Not even my mom, who you know will want to babysit. I’m going to continue working from home except when I have meetings.”

  “Oh gosh. Roxie. You need to tell your parents, Ben. They don’t even know about her.”

  “Sunday, at dinner,” he said emphatically. “I want a few days with just us before she and my sisters start directing our lives.”

  His family was wonderful, but they would definitely want time with the baby and to make sure Ben was doing all the right things. She wanted time alone with Ben and B, too, so they could adjust to their new reality. Getting up three times a night had nearly turned them both into zombies, even if taking care of B was as rewarding as it was challenging. The time they’d spent lounging around and sleeping when they could had been necessary. They were both exhausted.

  Despite the fatigue, she didn’t want to leave B with anyone else, either. Not that she didn’t trust Roxie. She adored her and trusted her with her life. But if she and Ben were still adjusting, wasn’t B, too? It didn’t seem fair to thrust her care into someone else’s hands so soon.

  “I can take her with me to the bookstore when you have to go into the office,” she suggested. “Then we wouldn’t have to leave her with anyone else. But, Ben, how do you really feel about all of this? It’s a lot for anyone to handle. I mean, I know you love B, but having a daughter will impact your business, travel, family. Everything. Forever.”

  “I know. It’s all I can think about. When Vic called, I was terrified of losing her. Almost as terrified as I was when you stormed out of my house saying you couldn’t do this, and the other day when I offered you an out before we met Jenny. I would have understood if you had taken it, but I would have been heartbroken.” He gazed down at the baby and said, “I may not have known that I wanted a baby in my life when we first found her, but now I can’t imagine my life without her.” He gazed into Aurelia’s eyes with the most earnest, grateful expression and said, “I have to believe this was fate, because you’d just moved away and I was doing everything I could to keep you in my life. Then B came along and showed us how good we are together.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be in your life, Ben. We were just stuck. We were so young when we had our meet-cute, it made it difficult to figure out how to go from friends to lovers.”

  Ben’s brow wrinkled. “What’s a meet-cute?”

  “It’s a literary term. Never mind.”

  “You’re not getting off that easy. Clue me in to your world a little.”

  Oh, how she loved that. “It’s when two people who will later become romantically connected first meet, often in some quirky way.”

  “And to think you were going to hold that definition back from me,” he said with an adorably serious expression. He leaned in for a kiss and said, “B might have finally brought us together, Rels. She was definitely our destiny. But the thing you need to know, deep down, when you close your eyes at night and wonder why on earth you’re with a guy who has a baby, is that there has never been a tim
e when I could imagine my world without you in it.”

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “That kerplunk? That was me falling even harder for you.” She pressed her lips to his, and then she kissed B’s forehead. “Seeing you with B sends my heart into overdrive, but when you say things like that to me, it makes me feel like my heart might explode.” She pushed to her feet and said, “I’m going downstairs before that happens.”

  He grabbed her hand, tugging her in for another kiss, but stopped a whisper away and said, “I love knowing you’re right downstairs instead of a town away.”

  “Ben . . .” she said dreamily.

  “Now get out of here before I put her in her playpen and”—he eyed the bed—“put you in ours.”

  Yes, please. “Somehow I think it’s going to be hard to concentrate on inventory.”

  She was still thinking about his threat when she entered the bookstore. She spotted Everly coming out of the stockroom and tried to squelch those thoughts, but it was like trying not to let the world know she’d won the lottery.

  Every one of Piper’s crew watched Everly strutting toward her in a fringed suede miniskirt, black Harley-Davidson T-shirt, and leather booties. Aurelia didn’t blame them. At five nine, with long, wavy brown hair and natural blond highlights, a perky nose, and mile-long legs, Everly could be a model. She could pass for eighteen as easily as her real age of twenty-six—until she opened her mouth and started spouting facts. The girl was as brilliant an artist as she was a genius on most topics, and she wasted no time on dolts.

  Everly paid the men no mind as she approached Aurelia and said, “I was beginning to think you’d decided not to come down today. Do you have a secret hottie locked upstairs in your apartment?”

  Aurelia grabbed her wrist and hauled her toward the stockroom. “There’s been a major plot twist in my life. I’ll fill you in.”

  Half an hour later, after Aurelia explained everything she and Ben had been through lately, Everly said, “A baby?” for the tenth time while they worked through the inventory in the stockroom. “Ben Dalton with a baby? I can’t even picture it.”

  “He’s amazing with her. Once he got past the initial shock of this tiny, pooping, hungry, needy creature, he stepped up to the plate. Of course, we’re both still adjusting, but like he does with everything else in his life, he took control and figured it out.”

  “Sounds like Ben,” she said with a sigh. “This is big, Aurelia. His family must be losing their minds.”

  “His parents don’t know yet, but his sisters have been texting and calling ten times a day. Having a baby around is exhausting, but at least we have all the right stuff now, thanks to Piper.”

  “I would have paid anything to have seen the two of you the day you found her.” She looked at Aurelia with a serious expression and said, “And you’re sure about the whole you-and-Ben thing? I know how you feel about him. That’s been obvious to everyone for a long time. But are you ready for instafamily?”

  “It’s crazy, I know, and I can’t explain it, but there’s no doubt in my mind or in my heart about either of them. Although I have to admit that at first I wondered if Ben wanted me because it was so hard to take care of her on his own.” She thought about his confessions—how long he’d loved her and how he’d planned to tell her at Bridgette’s wedding—and she said, “But now I know better.”

  Everly set a book into a box and reached for the tape. As she taped the box shut, she said, “So, are you moving in with Ben in Sweetwater?”

  “No,” she said. “We haven’t talked about any of that, but I don’t want to move back there. I can’t go backward. I love my apartment.” Even more with Ben and B in it. “I need to be here to receive deliveries, and we’re opening in a few weeks.”

  “It wouldn’t be the end of the world if you had to drive from Sweetwater.”

  “No, but this is my new beginning. This is where it’s supposed to be. I feel it in my bones, the same way things with Ben and B feel right.” But she knew Ben would never want to give up his house and his gorgeous property for a minuscule two-bedroom apartment. He probably wouldn’t want to move away from his family, either, but did she want to give up her space?

  Everly pushed the box to the side of the room and said, “Maybe this is where it was just supposed to start. New beginnings are called that for a reason, right? Changes happen. Love happens. Babies happen.”

  “I guess.” Aurelia reached for another stack of books.

  They worked on inventory for the next few hours, and then Everly showed her drawings of the mural she was going to paint in the children’s area. Everly was going out of town for the weekend to attend a green-living conference. She made plans to return Monday so she could start the mural.

  After Everly left, Aurelia headed upstairs, rehashing their conversation about moving. She knew she was overanalyzing and that it was too early in her relationship with Ben to even think about those types of logistics, and Everly was right. Driving from Sweetwater wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  But as she entered her apartment and found Ben and B fast asleep on the couch, his work spread out across her dining room table, his shoes by her door, and B’s baby paraphernalia scattered around the room, she knew it wasn’t the driving that bothered her.

  She simply liked the world she and Ben were creating here in her cozy Harmony Pointe apartment, more than the one they’d been floundering in back in Sweetwater.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BEN WAS TOO restless after B’s 5:00 a.m. feeding to go back to sleep Saturday morning. He headed out to the dining room table, where he tackled emails and tried to prepare for Wednesday’s meeting. But he had a hard time focusing on work. He’d spoken to Bodhi’s friend Mason Swift and scheduled a meeting for Monday. He’d also spoken to Aiden, catching him up on the situation and explaining that his attorney was preparing paperwork to declare him as B’s father. He reassured Aiden that he would be in the office Wednesday for their meeting. As Ben had expected, Aiden was understanding about his need to continue working from home while he wrapped his head around being a father.

  A father.

  That word had grown to monumental proportions, taking on new meaning over the past twenty-four hours. He’d never considered what it would feel like to be a father, what it would do to his psyche, his outlook, his heart . . .

  Even when he’d known there was a chance he was B’s father, what that actually meant hadn’t hit home. But now it was all he could think about. When he held her, changed her, and fed her. When she was crying and he couldn’t soothe her, or when she smiled and he wanted to memorize the preciousness of the moment. When he lay beside Aurelia, when he kissed her, when he tried to concentrate on his business, thoughts of fatherhood invaded his mind. There was no escaping the importance of those six little letters. It was his responsibility to protect that sweet little girl, to make sure she learned right from wrong, to help her feel loved and cherished. It was his responsibility to make sure she grew up confident and strong. A weaker man might wonder if he was qualified for such a task, but Ben didn’t wonder. He knew it would take everything he had to be a good father, and he was ready to give her his all.

  He prepared for fatherhood in the same way he had prepared for the night he’d wanted to profess his feelings for Aurelia, which in his eyes had been far more important than any business deal. He began with a list of goals, starting with financial ones, because those came easily.

  Start a college fund.

  Increase my life insurance.

  Draw up a will.

  With those out of the way, Ben thought about his father and the things he had done that had had the biggest impact on him as a child and as an adult. He didn’t have to think long, because one thing stood out among all others. His father had always been there for him. Whether he was a phone call away or standing beside him didn’t matter. Ben knew that if he needed his father’s emotional or physical support, his dad would fi
nd a way to be there for him.

  He added Be present to the list.

  He remembered his father playing ball with him, reading to him, taking him to the library, and dragging his ass outside to help with one chore or another—raking leaves, washing cars, fixing the porch steps. There were dozens of odd jobs that Ben had found annoying at the time, when he would rather have been playing with his friends, but those were also the things that had taught him to be a responsible adult. His list came easily.

  Show her unconditional love.

  Build her self-esteem. Make sure she knows she’s “enough.”

  Discipline with a strong lesson and never a harsh hand.

  Include her in everything so she learns about the world.

  As he made the list, he realized he didn’t need to re-create the wheel. What he needed was to speak to his father.

  If anything, he’d always imagined it would be one of his sisters having to break unplanned-pregnancy news to his parents. He sat back, breathing deeply, readying himself to hear disappointment in his father’s voice. He grabbed his phone and pushed to his feet, heading to the bedroom to check on Aurelia and B. Aurelia was sprawled across the bed, her arms spread out to the sides, legs tangled in the sheets. She was wearing his shirt, which was bunched around her waist, and a pair of pink panties that made his body hot. Guilt tightened like a noose around his neck. Was it fair to drag her into all this? He knew how exhausted she was. He also knew she loved B as much as he did, even after only a few days.

  But was it fair?

  What constituted fair when he couldn’t imagine a life without Aurelia by his side? When there was no other woman he’d ever want to raise his child with him?

  He peeked at B, and his heart took another hit. She lay sleeping with her tiny mouth open, arms fisted beside her head. Maybe he should have sent Aurelia home the second she’d discovered B, because Aurelia had never stood a chance. It was impossible not to love his baby girl.