Page 35 of Spring Break With a Baby Daddy
“I know. But I think you were on the right track when you asked me earlier. If we’re a married couple, committed to giving Cade a happy, safe home, a judge will look more favorably on you adopting him.”
“Us. If we get married, we will both be adopting him.”
“Huh.” In all the crazy running around my head, I hadn’t thought of that. How that little nugget escaped me is mind-boggling. I’m the one who thinks of everything.
“Legally I’d be his dad and you’d be his mom.”
I’d be Cade’s mom.
Why that’s a revelation, I don’t know. I don’t know why it makes me feel warm and tingly inside either.
The idea of being a mom to Cade is exciting.
And terrifying.
“I don’t think I’ll be good at it.”
“What?”
“Being a mom.”
“You’re already a good mom.”
“I am? How? I don’t have kids so how do you know I’m any good at it?”
I don’t have the first clue about being a mom. My own was indifferent most of the time. I don’t remember her ever hugging me. And my dad was never around. The only time I knew he was home was when he and Mom argued late at night.
That all changed when they figured out I could make them money, then neither of them left me alone. Running away from home was as much for my sanity as it was to escape their constant attention.
“You think of him first. Every time.” He must know I’m going to argue because before I can, he presses a hand to my mouth. “You do. When I startled you awake on the couch, your first instinct was to look for Cade. Ask where he was.”
I frown. “Anyone who found themselves taking care of a newborn would do that.” My words are muffled against Easton’s palm.
“No. Not anyone.” He lifts his hand from my mouth and a pang of regret hits me. “I can name a few people whose first reaction would be to call the police and hand the baby over if they found one abandoned at their front door.”
“That was all you,youdidn’t want to call the police, not me.”
“It wasus. Sure, I voiced it, but you went along with it. At any point between now and when we saw him on my doorstep, you could have called the police and told them he was abandoned.”
“You didn’t want me to.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. But I don’t think that’s why you agreed with me about keeping his arrival quiet.”
“What is then?”
“You’re a caretaker. Look what you did for Laney and Vail. For Van once you located him.”
“He was living right near me, and his mother was on drugs and sleeping with her dealer!”
“Yes, but you didn’t have to befriend his nanny or help put a security system in the house they were staying in.”
I want to brush his words aside, tell him it was nothing, but that would be a lie. “I can’t stand seeing kids being abused or taken advantage of.”
“Caretaker.”
I huff out a breath. “Anyone?—”
“No. The fact children are abused and taken advantage of every single day proves that wrong.”
