Page 28 of Tempted By the Handsome Doctor

"A baby changes everything," Lou continues, his voice softening with memory. "Makes you see what really matters."

"I'm scared," I admit, the confession easier in the growing darkness. "What if I'm terrible at it? What if I'm like—" I cut myself off, unwilling to even say it.

"Like your father?" Lou finishes anyway, always able to read between the lines. "You're nothing like him, Danny. Never have been."

"How can you be sure?" The question comes out more vulnerable than I intended.

"Because I raised you," Lou says simply. "And I know your heart. You don't run from what scares you—you face it head-on. Always have, even as a kid."

His faith in me is humbling. "I hope you're right."

"I'm always right," he says with a wink. "About time you figured that out."

We lapse into comfortable silence, rocking gently, watching as the last light fades from the sky and stars begin to appear.

"Bring her to dinner," Lou says suddenly. "Sunday. I'll make my famous pot roast."

The thought of Maya meeting Lou, of these two important parts of my life intersecting, fills me with unexpected warmth. "I'll ask her."

"Do that." Lou drains the last of his beer and sets the bottle aside. "And Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm happy for you, son. Really happy."

The simple words, spoken with such genuine affection, wrap around my heart like a balm. I set my own beer down and stand, crossing the short distance between our chairs. Lou looks up, surprised, as I bend to embrace him.

His arms come around me, strong despite his age, patting my back in that slightly awkward way men in our family have always shown physical affection.

"Thank you, Grandpa," I murmur against his shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of Old Spice that has meant safety and home for as long as I can remember.

"What for?" he asks gruffly.

"For everything. For being there. For believing in me."

Lou's arms tighten briefly before he releases me, clearing his throat. "Always will be, Danny. Always will be."

I straighten, blinking back the unexpected moisture in my eyes. Lou pretends not to notice, reaching for another beer.

"Now sit back down and tell me how far along she is," he orders. "And whether you think it's a boy or a girl."

I laugh, the sound freer and lighter than it's been in years and do as I'm told. As the night deepens around us, stars scattered likepromises across the velvet sky, I tell my grandfather everything about Maya, about the baby, about the terrifying, exhilarating future opening before me.

And for the second time since seeing that positive pregnancy test, I feel not just acceptance or resignation, but genuine excitement for what comes next.

Epilogue - Maya

Three years later

"Almost home, sweetheart," I murmur to the drowsy kid in my arms.

Emma blinks up at me with eyes exactly like her father's—that same intense green that still makes my heart skip when Daniel looks at me a certain way. Her chubby cheek is creased from where she fell asleep against the car seat, and wisps of dark hair curl around her face, damp with the sweat of an active two-year-old who refused to nap at daycare.

I shift her weight as I dig for my keys. She's getting heavier by the day, it seems—"growing like a weed," as Lou likes to say whenever we visit, beaming with great-grandfatherly pride as he sneaks her extra cookies behind my back.

"Daddy home?" Emma asks sleepily, her vocabulary expanding daily in ways that amaze me.

"Not yet, sweet pea. Daddy's still at work. He'll be home for dinner." Daniel's been on a more regular schedule since joining a private practice last year, home most nights by six. A far cry from the eighty-hour weeks he used to work at the hospital.

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