Twin Expectations. Kara Lennox

stumped him for a moment. “Well, no. A couple in college, maybe.”

      Bridget took a deep breath. The crisis was over, and with it all of her hostility. Maybe she had deliberately led him to the unfair assumption. She was willing to let bygones be bygones if he was. “So, let’s set up a schedule for our work together. Can you spare me an hour in the morning, three or four times a week for the next couple of weeks, then once a week thereafter?”

      “You still want to do the portrait?”

      “Yes, of course.”

      “That’s generous of you, considering I all but called you a slut.” He almost let himself smile, and Bridget was reminded of exactly how handsome a man Nicholas Raines was, particularly when he wasn’t showing off his sardonic wit at her expense.

      “Can we please put the misunderstanding behind us and start fresh?”

      “Okay. I think I can spare a few hours a week. I’ll even buy some tea and honey and soda crackers, just in case.”

      “Sounds like a plan.” She stood up, feeling vastly better. “I think I should go home now.”

      A couple of minutes later, as Nick opened Bridget’s driver’s door as if it were Cinderella’s coach, she felt optimistic about the coming portrait. She always enjoyed committing a client’s personality to canvas, but it had been a long time since a subject had so excited her creative juices. And maybe a few other types of juices as well.

      “Just one more question,” Nick said as he helped her into the car.

      “Sure.”

      “Don’t you think your kid ought to have a father?”

      Something in Bridget’s imagination snapped shut. “A bit judgmental today, are we?”

      “Just curious.”

      Since the question hadn’t been asked with the intention to antagonize, she decided to give him an honest answer. “I would dearly love for my child to have a father. But good husbands don’t grow on trees. I’ve had several dating relationships over the past few years, but most of those guys, once I really got to know them, I couldn’t picture as fathers. And the few ‘maybes’ flipped out if I even hinted at possible long-term goals.”

      “You mean they wigged when you said you wanted a baby.”

      “Something like that.”

      “Can you blame them? Most men aren’t like women when it comes to children. They have to get used to being husbands first. Then they gradually grow into the idea of having kids.”

      “You know all about this, huh?”

      “I know that if a lady I was dating suddenly started talking babies, I’d run as far and as fast as I could.”

      “You’ve just made my point for me.” Bridget gave him a steely-eyed look. “I’m thirty years old. The old biological clock thing isn’t just an old wives’ tale.”

      “It’s no fun growing up without a father,” he said, making his point in a different way.

      “What would you know about it? You were raised by Eric Statler, Jr.”

      “That’s not exactly correct. My mother, who had me out of wedlock, by the way, met and married Statler when I was five. But he was never, ever my father.”

      Bridget realized she’d struck a sore spot. Nick’s feelings on this subject ran much deeper than she would have guessed. She felt for him. But the way he was raised had nothing to do with how she would bring up her child. She wouldn’t allow any man into her life who didn’t accept her son or daughter 100 percent.

      “My sister and I were raised without a father, too,” she said quietly. “Ours died when we were two and my mother never remarried. She loved us more than enough to make up for it. And we turned out okay.”

      “So it seems.”

      “For that matter, though you might regret some elements of your childhood, you seem to have turned out okay, too.”

      He sighed deeply. “Some might argue with you there.”

      “No family is perfect. But if you raise a child with love, whether you’re one parent or two or ten, that has to be enough.”

      “I hope you’re right.” He was silent for a few moments, during which he seemed to close down. The bitter emotions flashing across his face faded until he could look at her impassively. “Tomorrow, same time?”

      “Yes. That will be fine.”

      Bridget couldn’t help thinking about their discussion during her drive home. There were lots of single mothers in the world. Some of them provided good homes for their kids; others didn’t. Most of them hadn’t chosen to raise kids by themselves, but somehow they coped, and the kids survived. Some thrived, like her and Liz. But what if she wasn’t as good a mother as her own mother had been? What if the child, despite her hopes, wasn’t good at coping with the stresses of a single-parent household?

      Was it selfish and unfair of her, wanting to bring this child into the world without a father?

      Nick Raines seemed to think so.