Free One More Time by RB Hilliard Page A

is mine, I want you gone.”
    His words hurt, but I knew I was asking a lot of him. My eyes burned with unshed tears of gratitude. “Thank you,” I whispered.
    He nodded again. “I’ll take the sofa. You and the baby take the bedroom.”
    It wasn’t lost on me that he couldn’t bring himself to call her by her name. Poor Dillon . This had to be such a shock for him. I felt bad, but not bad enough to not make him go through with the test. Quickly, before he could change his mind, I carried Amelia into the bedroom and placed her in the middle of the bed. Scooting back into the living room, I grabbed the diaper bag and backpack that carried our clothes. Then I hurried back into the bedroom and closed the door behind me.
    Step one accomplished.
    The rest of the night I hunkered down in Dillon’s bedroom. I wasn’t about to poke the bear. At one point, I heard the front door open and close and Dillon talking to Brutus. A familiar jingling noise let me know he had found Brutus’s things in the car. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep in his bed, surrounded by his comforting, masculine scent. I woke a few times in the night. Once because Amelia needed to eat, the other with that damned throbbing ache between my legs. Ten months was a long time to go without sex. The doctor told me my hormones would settle down after Amelia was born. Needless to say, I was still waiting for that to happen. I almost went to the bathroom to take care of it, but decided that was probably a bad idea. Eventually, I drifted back to sleep.
    Morning arrived quickly and, before I knew it, we were up and on our way to the lab. Once there, the technician informed us that blood was the fastest and most effective way to prove paternity. I teared up when they pricked the bottom of Amelia’s heel to get the sample. I could tell Dillon didn’t like it any better, as he tensed up and left the room when she let out a wail of pain.
    As soon as the nurse was done with Amelia, it was Dillon’s turn to give blood. During the process we learned it could take up to ten days to get the results. It could take up to ten days before I knew whether or not I was going to have to fight to keep my child . In my gut, I felt Dillon was the father. It was too bad, with a head full of black hair and deep blue eyes, Amelia looked just like me and nothing like either Dillon or Jimmy. I quickly erased the thought of Jimmy being her father from my head. No use going there until I have to. The doctor said her eyes might not change until she was five months old and who knew whether or not her hair would remain black like mine. I didn’t want her to have a childhood like mine. I didn’t want her to experience a life filled with uncertainty. I wanted stability for her. Please don’t let Jimmy be her father.
    “Whatcha thinking?” Dillon asked on our way home. We decided to take my car because of the car seat. Dillon, macho guy that he was, wouldn’t let me drive.
    “I don’t want Amelia to have a childhood like mine,” I told him straight out.
    His hands tensed on the steering wheel. “That bad?”
    “Yes,” I sighed, “Worse.”
    “If it makes you feel any better, mine wasn’t all that great either,” he shared. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t. A few seconds passed and I felt his eyes on me. When our eyes met, he asked, “How long until you have to do the thing with your tits again?”
    I rudely snorted and his mouth slowly turned up into a sexy-as-hell smile. The man was something to see, but when he smiled, he was pure yumminess. “You mean feed the baby?” I asked, trying not to laugh. “You make it sound like some sort of sideshow act or something.”
    His eyes dropped to my breasts before returning to the road in front of us. “Oh, it was something all right,” he responded.
    Secretly pleased he still found me attractive, I rolled my eyes. “We should be good for another hour or so.”
    He nodded and then proceeded to take us to a