Page 27 of Secret Baby with My One Timer

I finger a loose strand of hair around Holly’s ear and kiss her on the cheek while I wonder if I’m doing the best thing I can for her

“Taylor,” my Mom soft voice calls from her porch.

“Gamma,” Holly yells, standing and waving to my mom.

I groan. I liked the peace of staring ahead and the sound of the ocean as each lap at the shore takes away my thoughts.

Her feet rustle in the sand behind me. I close my eyes and wait for whatever words of wisdom she is about to give me this time. She sits next to me and peers ahead, in the same direction as me.

“I’ve accepted Mr. Peckham’s offer.” Mom chews on her lip as she waits for me to disagree with her choice. But I can’t. I want her to live. “I know I told you I couldn’t accept his money, but I want to live.” Her voice lowers at the end to a whisper.

“I want you to.”

“You do?” Her voice resigned but hopeful.

“Holly needs you. I need you,” I murmur, trying not to cry.

“Okay, now that’s out of the way. We need to talk.”

I groan.

“Look, I get you,” she says, sounding impressed. “You’re as strong-willed as me, but sometimes you have to accept people are doing the right thing. Like I did. I swallowed my pride and accepted a gift from a stranger.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Leighton’s gift to you and Oliver is different. Oliver was going to fight for sole custody of my daughter. How do I trust him or his father?”

“By speaking to him. Regardless of getting the medication I need. I won’t be around forever. You need his help, and he needs his daughter.”

“I can’t believe...”

“I don’t honestly believe he would have tried to disprove your abilities as a mother,” she says with a massive sigh. “What I know is he cares for you and loves his daughter.” Mom crawls on the sand to where Holly is trying to turn a bucket of wet sand over. She takes the bucket and helps Holly flip it. “Good girl, Holly. Now pat the top.”

Holly bangs her hand on the top of the upturned bucket and squeals the moment she takes away and sees her sandcastle coming to life.

“Well done, Holly,” Mom says, taking a pebble and pressing it into the side of the castle. “Now decorate it with all these beautiful pebbles.”

I smile as Holly takes a shell and presses it into the soft sand. A large smile spreads across her face when she realizes it isn’t falling off.

“You grew up without a father. You know how that feels.”

I spin to my mother. “That doesn’t give him the right to try to take her away from me.”

“He didn’t. It was a knee-jerk decision from his father. You see, Oliver is like you. He only has his father, and his father protected him as much as I protect you.”

“You’ve spoken to him?”

Mom nods as she studies me over the top of her glasses. “I wanted to know his intentions. I don’t have the time to work them out.”

There’s a squeezing sensation in my chest. “And what are they?”

Mom stares at Holly and then at me. “He wants you both.” She sighs. “And I think if you don’t at least give him the opportunity to talk to you. You’ll regret it.”

“I’m doing okay.” I sigh. “I have a job, a car...”

“That’s not doing okay. That is life,” Mom says flatly. “I didn’t give you a father, but don’t do the same to Holly. Not when he wants to be in her life.”

“He can be in her life. He just can’t push me out of it.”

Mom clucks her tongue. “I believe that he doesn’t want to do that. He told me everything and his father rushed him to a lawyer before he even had time to process anything. Even before he turned up here that first day.”

---