Kara Lennox – Good Husband Material (страница 9)

The light turned green, and Natalie headed for the hospital. She hadn’t told any of her coworkers she was leaving, but they’d all noticed something was up with her. She would have to give her notice soon. Just what she needed—more people angry with her, more people pushing and pulling and trying to tell her what to do.

“YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE NATALIE,” Josh said. He and his two sons were about halfway between Houston and Dallas on I-45. Josh was driving while Sean and Doug sat in the backseat ignoring him, fighting over a video game just like they had when they were eight and ten years old. “I can’t believe I never introduced you to her before.”

“Maybe because she’s your ex-wife?” Sean snorted. “And that would have been just too weird?”

Doug snorted, too.

“Obviously Nat and I had our differences, but she was an important part of my past, part of what made me who I am. Besides, she’s great.”

Sean snorted again. “You said that. We know you’re all excited about having a new kid and all, but do we have to be?”

“Yeah, Dad.” Doug, who was normally placid and agreeable, was emboldened by his older brother’s attitude and was joining in the revolution. “This was the last weekend of summer. We were gonna go to the beach, and you wrecked that for us.”

Josh gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He’d thought it was a great idea, enlisting his sons to help out with Natalie’s move.

“Nat has a teenage daughter. Once we get the heaviest stuff loaded, all three of you can go hang out somewhere fun for a while.” And he would get some time alone with Natalie, time to smooth over her irritation with him. Yeah, he’d pushed her to move. He’d found her the job opportunity that would entice her from her current position, and he’d even gone so far as to buy a house one block over from his and set a ridiculously low rent so she could afford to live comfortably in his upscale neighborhood. Of course, she didn’t know he was her landlord, and he felt slightly guilty for deceiving her. But he’d been determined to use any means, fair or foul, to get her down to Houston.

His child was going to have two involved, available parents, and that was all there was to it.

“What if the daughter’s a loser?” Sean asked.

Josh gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Number one, you know I don’t approve of making judgments like that. But as I understand it, Mary is very smart and very pretty.”

“And you heard that from her mother, right? Yeah, she’d be unbiased.”

“Look, I don’t care if this girl looks like Jabba the Hutt. She’s making a huge sacrifice, moving away from her school and her friends. I want you to be nice to her.”

“Dad, give us some credit. If she looks like Jabba the Hut, we won’t say anything. We’ll just make her walk ten paces behind us if we go anywhere.”

“Funny, ha ha.”

“Chill, Dad,” said Doug, who was usually the peacemaker. “We’ll be cool. It’s just one day.”

It wasn’t just for a day. With this child about to be born, their families would be forever intertwined. That thought both excited and scared him. Yeah, he was totally disrupting Natalie’s and Mary’s lives. But his was going to be dramatically altered as well. It was a damn good thing he’d already made partner, because he anticipated that when the baby came, he wasn’t going to be spending as much time at the office. Two a.m. feedings and diaper rash would occupy his mind and his time, making him less than one-hundred-percent efficient at his job. He remembered what it was like when Sean and Doug were babies.

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