Free Baby Mine (Stubborn Texas Siblings Book 1) by Faith Loveright Page A

any sort, he was shockingly intuitive and observant as to what was going on with me.”
    “What is going on with you?” she asked, plopping into a kitchen chair, feeling overwhelmed.
    He chuckled and signaled a toast to her in mid-air with his coffee cup. “As if you don’t know. I’m afraid I haven’t been very good at hiding the way I feel around you.”
    Madeline gasped and settled her hand on her belly. She wanted to pursue where he was going with that comment more than anything, but in that moment, she knew that she would have to wait.
    “As much as I’d like to hear what comes next, I think you’ll need to hold off on telling me,” she interrupted him. A tear rolled down her face and she nodded her head at the panicked look he shot her way. “It’s time…”
    Panic filled Eric as he fumbled in the drawer for the keys to his truck. He’d known in his head that this day would eventually come, but the reality that it was actually upon him seemed unreal. This woman had completely turned his life upside down with the drama she ’d brought into his home, but he felt that it was a good thing. He was willing to admit to himself that he’d needed a good shaking up.
    As crazy as their nonexistent relationship was, he thought they’d make amazing parents. This baby was going to be most likely, the most spoiled little girl on the planet, between the two of them. They were each determined to give their daughter the best life possible. There was no doubt that Lillie Rose would be well loved. The only question was whether or not her parents could continue to coexist after she was born.
    Eric ran out to the truck with her suitcase in tow. He tossed it carelessly into the back and went back to help her out to the truck since she was in the middle of a rather intense contraction.
    “Easy,” he soothed as she doubled over in pain just beside the truck. It was his go to mode around skittish animals and at the moment, that was exactly what Madeline reminded him of.
    “Don’t you tell me to take it easy,” she snapped at him. “You try having something the size of a watermelon threaten to come out a hole the size of a pea that’s never had anything but a spectrum up inside of it, and see how YOU feel. Easy, my ass,” she grumbled sourly.
    Eric couldn’t help the smile that came over his face at the image that she’d placed in his mind with that little comparison. Then the other part of what she’d accidentally told him really sank in.
    “You mean to tell me, you’ve never… Not even once?”
    “No,” she grumbled. “How pathetic is that? Me… nearly thirty years old and I’ve never even had a serious boyfriend. There were always prettier women around… easier women… smarter, more successful women… I came in a sorry last place like the ugly duckling in the midst of a sea of swans. That’s the real reason why I turned to a damn fertility clinic to supply the sperm I needed to make a baby. I’d realized that it was the only way I was ever going to stand a chance of becoming a mother. So sue me.”
    Not willing to touch that one with a ten foot pole, Eric opted to keep his mouth shut while he helped her into the cab of the truck and shut her door behind her. On the way to the hospital, she screamed and he knew he had to say or do something to get her mind off the pain, so he swallowed his pride and admitted what he’d been thinking when she’d declared herself an ugly duckling.
    “For the record … I think that the blind idiots you were surrounded by who chose other women over you; were stupid… clueless morons who don’t deserve to have a fantastic, smart beautiful woman on their arm anyway. Any man who could look at you and not see just how desirable you are isn’t worth the crap on the bottom of your shoe as you step over him. I’ll tell you this… if there were so called ugly ducklings around that looked like you when I was in school, there would have been a whole Hell of a lot more happy