Free Maybe This Time (The Educators Book 3) by Kathryn Shay Page A

powerful. Fruit, now gone, juice, really gone, they dug into the pastry and Danish he brought.
    “Hmm.” She relished the sweetness of a chocolate croissant, gooey in the center, flaky on the outside.
    He bit into an apple fritter. “Are you planning to watch your weight now?”
    “Nope. I plan to eat right,” she held up the pastry “and minimize sweets, but I don’t care if I turn into a blimp. I’ve waited too long…”
    She stopped. For the second time, when she was about to tell him something.
    Finishing his food, he angled his body toward her and ran his hand down her hair. She loved the feel of his casual touches. “What, Delaney? Tell me why you want a baby so much. Biological clock ticking? Past experiences? Mostly I want to know why you thought you’d never be pregnant.”
    “I…” she drew in a deep breath as if she was about to reveal state secrets “…I didn’t grow up like most kids. Oh, hell, my childhood and adolescence were terrible. Consequently, I don’t trust people easily. I’ve never trusted a man enough to have his kid.”
    He cocked his head. “Were…were you ever pregnant?”
    She swallowed hard. Bit her lip, trying to dull the pain of the awful memory. “Once. I was fifteen. I don’t talk about it. Can we change the subject?”
    For a moment, he searched her face.
    To distract him, she said, “Tell me about Steph. We tabled it last night, but you said it might not be good she went with her mother.”
     “Let me grab coffee and I’ll be right back. Want anything hot?”
    As he climbed off the bed, she took an admiring glance at his naked form. Not too heavy, not too slim. Muscular but not ripped. “Just you, big guy.”
    When he returned, he carried the coffee and a huge vase of pink carnations. Delaney felt her eyes mist. “Happy Baby,” he said placing them on the nightstand next to her.
    She leaned over and inhaled their scent. Sweet, like him. “Thank you so much.”
    “Oh, hell, don’t cry again.”
    “They mean a lot.” She didn’t tell him this was a first for her. 
    He slid back onto the bed next to her again and leaned against the headboard. She took his hand.
    “Andrea has problems, as you know. The bipolar condition was controlled by medicine, but she still had eruptions of manic/depressive behavior. Her pregnancy was the worst because she had to go off the drugs, but we got through it. Unfortunately, bouts come back now, less intense of course, because of the lithium, but we never know she’ll go off for no reason. I had to drag this out of Steph, who contends it’s rare. Since the divorce, though, I assume the rants are about me.”
    “Why did you divorce?”
    “She had an affair.” He shook his head. “She said she did it because I was never home, but ironically, that was partly her fault, too. She has family money, but she wanted the prestige and power that went with being the partner in a big name law firm. I had to climb the ladder to give her that kind of world.”
    “You would have stayed in Legal Aid. You said that the night we met.”
    “For a while longer or I might have gone to the public defender’s office.” He shrugged. “It’s a moot point, anyway.”
    “You could go back to that kind of work.”
    “No. My chance is past.”
    “If you want it to be.”
    He didn’t respond to that. Then he said, “Should we talk about Steph’s reaction to this…” he waved his hand around. “To our…” he kissed her mouth “…wonderful news.”
    “She’s so fragile, Gage. I’m not sure she can handle any upset in her life.”
    “She has to know sometime.” He pressed his hand to her stomach, the tenderness of the gesture making her heart clutch.
    But she needed to concentrate on Steph. “I won’t show for a while. Tell me why you think she said she wanted to get out of town.”
    “You got me. You’d know more of why than I would.”
    “I wonder if the Mean Girls are up to something.”
    “I have no idea what that