make like...a tension breaker.”
“How many proposals have you ever heard of that were made as a joke?”
“I don’t know. I never—” Was she supposed to come up with instances where people fake-proposed as a joke? She didn’t have any, but she could identify other jokes that were outlandish and had never happened in real life. “Some days you barely even like me. Are you saying you love me now?”
“I’m not saying that. I don’t love you, but love isn’t a requirement for a successful marriage.”
“Yes, it is. Have you ever seen my parents together?”
He skipped her question, and doubled down on his argument. “It’s not a requirement. Marriage requires mutual goals, mutual respect, values, and when you add to it a not inconsequential sexual compatibility, it’s got all the ingredients. That’s before we even consider the child, who deserves the best start we can give it.”
“Gabe, the only part of that I agree with is the part about the child.” Okay, that was a lie, she agreed with the sex part, but if he was ignoring whatever he wanted to, she could as well. “This baby deserves the very best life we can give it. But the pressure of a home with two people who don’t want to be married to one another is not that. This isn’t 1960. You don’t have to marry me because I’m pregnant.”
“If this were 1960, that’s not the way this would go between you and me, and you know that.”
He’d gone and stiffened up again, and not only did she feel bad for having laughed, she felt bad about her own reaction. Her nerves, usually made of steel, weren’t up to another fight today. She tried again. “We don’t have to marry to be family to this baby. You’re already the father, and I’m already the mother. Rings and empty vows aren’t needed to validate biology.”
He stood and paced around her coffee table, arms folding in such a way as to draw attention to his shoulders, and the way his long, elegant fingers flexed over his forearms.
Not what she should be paying attention to. She was supposed to be convincing him that it wasn’t a good idea rather than just rejecting him, though how this conversation had circled around to marriage, she had no clue.
“I don’t want to be married. You don’t want it either. You don’t want a relationship—you made that very, very clear two months ago. People who don’t want to be married have the worst marriages. That’s a lot to put on kids.” Which brought up his point that she didn’t want to discuss, but which she now felt compelled to because her mouth had gotten ahead of her to plural it to more than one child. “You know that there would be more than one, because you’re right... We have...not inconsequential sexual compatibility. So, you know, this is a bad idea.”
For once in her life she didn’t want to stand up—she was still tired from her nap—but the way he prowled around made her stand. She put the test on the table, then followed around to his side and promptly wrapped her arms around his shoulders again, over the arms still crossed over his chest.
His already stiff posture turned into granite. She was hugging living rock. What had happened to the relaxed, affectionate man who’d arrived not even half an hour ago?
She squeezed tighter, pulling him down just enough that she could rest her chin on his shoulder and her cheek against the side of his neck.
His arms twitched, and then uncrossed. He placed his hands at her waist, but did not hug back.
“This is the worst hug in history. You did much better earlier. Remember those hugs? Before and after we got a little panicky? You’re supposed to use your arms, not just your big ole man hands.”
“Not feeling a lot like hugging.”
“You feel like playing some crazy game of hopscotch where you have to hop in every square to get to the next,” she said, stepping back again but taking his hands. It felt like tread-lightly territory. “But that square marked marriage is a fake-out. You didn’t need to marry me to make me pregnant, that’s already been established. Just like I can carry a child to term and push it out of my body without a wedding ring on my finger. You don’t have to marry me to be a dad. To share custody of our child with me. We are modern, civilized people. We can make our own family, have like...a parental partnership where we can be friends—which, by the way, it would be good for you to deny you barely like me like you didn’t do a minute ago when I gave you the opening to—because we’re adults. You don’t want an unhappy marriage hanging over this kid’s head before she even gets a functioning brain stem.”
“You want me to have shared custody?” He cut to that exact part of her speech, once again ignoring the rest.
“Of course I do. I want my baby to know his or her father, to have a real father in her life. You’ll be a great dad.”
“With paperwork to make it official.”
He really thought she was going to screw him over here. He may have skipped the opportunity to reassure her that he liked her, but he did like her. Genuinely, not just as his work partner. But he didn’t trust her.
She let go and stepped back, her attempts at comfort having served no purpose whatsoever. “With papers to make it official.”
They hadn’t become friends over sharing their life stories, and they hadn’t become friends over this child—it was far too soon for that kind of friendship to manifest. They’d become friends over work, over mutual respect and trust on the job.
They had to figure out how to transform that work partnership to something arguably more important. If he needed paperwork to do that, she could give it to him. And hope trust followed because this suspicion of his made her chest hurt.
* * *
The next morning, Gabriel found himself loitering in the staffroom rather than going up to the chopper ahead of receiving a call. He had no reason to stay downstairs, he just needed some space. He had no power over her, outside the ability to send her home from work when she tried to soldier through sickness. He couldn’t make her marry him, but couldn’t make himself give up on the idea either.
He had a living example of the outcome to a kid disadvantaged in the parent department. Plenty of kids came through it fine, but he didn’t want to take the risk. He wanted his child to have exactly what he’d had growing up: a mother and a father, both offering stability, love, an atmosphere to flourish in. It was in their power to provide that. Whatever she’d been on about with her parents, it couldn’t have been that bad. All their children, except Penny, were doctors. She was successful in her own right, and worked every day to help save lives. She made some other questionable decisions, but nothing malignant.
He should probably go check on her, wade in early, but he just wasn’t up to it yet. And she never hung out in the staffroom. Ever in motion, she was always doing something—checking inventory, restocking, performing routine checks on the equipment, or visiting with people in the department so she didn’t have far to go when a call came. Her oddest and most recent habit had become running up and down the top three flights of stairs, something he’d taken every opportunity not to ask her about. Especially after that night, when he’d decided distance was the only way to get them back to professional-only interactions. Knowing more than she had already just randomly shared would make that harder. But now it was one of a million of questions he should ask.
Not asking had never helped anyway. He still had a bevy of inappropriate thoughts. That was before yesterday had forced their night back to the front and center of his thoughts.
His radio crackled and Dispatch blazed through, announcing their first call of the shift. Time to face the music.
When he reached the chopper, she already had it fired up, ready for him. Only when he climbed in, Penny wasn’t at the pilot’s controls. It was a man.
Lawson.
They’d flown together a couple times, and he was a competent pilot and paramedic, but he wasn’t Penny.
“Where’s