Page 65 of Tripped By Love

“Is that Chevelle’s laughter I hear?” Jaci asked from the doorway. Her blonde hair was in a long braid, and her scrubs hid her pretty shape that had drawn eyes whenever we’d gone out together. It had been a long, long time since we’d done so. Maybe since the night I’d first made the mistake to go home with Clayton three years ago. Jaci had been the one celebrating my graduation with me that night. I swallowed.

We got up, leaving the stroller to be picked up as we came out, and followed Jaci into the lab. I sat with Chevelle on my lap, and Jaci uncapped the tube with the swab in it. I was glad she didn’t ask why we were there for a DNA test, but her eyes did keep straying to Marco.

“Okay, my little chickadee, I need you to open your mouth and sayawfor me. Can you do that?” Jaci asked.

Chevelle put Hippo over his mouth.

Unexpectedly, the tears I’d held back overwhelmed me. I didn’t want him to open his mouth either. I closed my eyes, but it was too late. They leaked out, sliding down my cheek. Marco saw them like he saw everything I did. He stepped forward, looked down into Chevelle’s face, and said, “Who do you think can make the loudest, longest sheep noise? Me or you?”

Chevelle giggled. “Me! Me!”

Marco smiled at him. “Okay, Snickerdoodle. On the count of three, these two ladies will tell us who won.”

My chest tightened even more at Marco using the nickname I used for Chevelle. It seemed right and wrong and filled me with all things I couldn’t and shouldn’t want with the man.

Marco counted down, they both belted outbaas, and Jaci went in for the swipe, tickling Chevelle’s cheek. He laughed at her and pulled away, but the horrible task was done.

“I definitely think Chevelle won!” Jaci said with a wink.

“Cookie?” Chevelle asked, and we all laughed, my heart easing a little more.

It was over. I’d known it was coming from the moment Clayton had shown up in Grand Orchard, demanding he see my son, and now it was in the past. I just had to put my faith in a lawyer I barely knew, who Lee swore by, and a court that still favored mothers even if the tide was changing. What I wanted to do was put my faith in the man standing next to me who I knew would shield me from every dark force that ever came for me and my son.

That single thought brought me back to my senses with startling lucidity. I’d never wanted to hide behind anyone before. Quite the opposite, I’d fought against my mom’s tendency to surround me in bubble wrap and keep me from the world. Keep me from falling. This time…this time it was clearly too late. I’d fallen. Completely and absolutely fallen for a man who I knew I shouldn’t want. For a man who had his own reasons for staying away. Good reasons, like his job with Brady and his troubled past as well as my obligations and my challenges that would never go away.

But as we walked out of the lab with Chevelle munching on a cookie and Marco pushing the stroller, I let myself pretend, for the length of time that it took us to walk home, that we really were a family.