Until the End (Sea Breeze #9)(82)

“Yes, the baby will call him Dad.”

Micah didn’t look at his mother when she answered. He kept looking at me. Then he puffed up his chest like he was pulling courage from deep inside. “Can . . . can I call you Dad too?”

I wasn’t a crying man. Tears didn’t come easy for me. But in that moment the room went blurry and I had to blink to clear my vision. Tears pooled at the corners of my eyes and I sniffed. “Yeah, bud. You can call me Dad too,” I managed to choke out.

Sienna glanced back at me, and I knew the surprise on her face wasn’t because I had told Micah yes. It was because a tear was rolling down my face.

Sienna

My emotions were already raw. The hormones in my body had hit pregnancy insaneness. So seeing my bigger-than-life man cry over the fact that his nephew had just asked to call him Dad was too much.

I burst into tears and covered my mouth on a sob. I felt Micah’s little hand on my back instantly. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to upset you. I don’t have to call him Dad.”

I shook my head and gasped for a breath. “No. Yes. I mean, I want you to call him Dad if that’s what you want. I’m just happy. These are happy tears. I’ll do a lot of this while the baby is in my stomach. I did it with you, too.”

Dewayne’s big form closed in on us, and he bent down and pulled both me and Micah into his arms.

“We have our work cut out for us, bud. She’s gonna be a handful,” Dewayne teased, and Micah giggled.

Dewayne held us like that for several minutes. It was perfect.

***

Micah was late for school and I was late for work. But Micah and Dewayne had decided that they needed to fix me breakfast, and then they decided they needed to pack my lunch. It was cute. But if they tried to smother me like this for nine months, I would have to put a stop to it. My eating toast and drinking orange juice was not the most important thing in the world.

I didn’t want to tell Hillary or the others at the salon yet. I was just now getting used to the idea that Dewayne and Micah knew. Ever since the sticks had shown me those two lines, I hadn’t been able to accept it. My last experience with pregnancy had been bad. Really bad.

My boyfriend was dead, and my parents had shipped me off from my home to live with my aunt, who had treated me like a mere acquaintance. I had made it through morning sickness all on my own. No one had held my hair back and washed my face. No one had made me breakfast and packed my lunch. Those weren’t things I had even thought about. Until now.

Micah had been mine. I had suffered through the bad times to be gifted with a beautiful baby boy who made fighting worth it. We had made it together.

Seeing Dewayne and him working together and talking about the baby and taking care of me this morning touched something in me I couldn’t explain. I knew we were a family now, that our two had become three. And I loved having Dewayne in our little world. He made it complete.

The idea of having Dewayne’s baby and knowing I wouldn’t be alone, that he would be there through everything, almost scared me. Or it did scare me. Because it made me want that so much that I was afraid of losing it.

Dewayne

I held Micah’s hand in mine as we walked across the street to see my parents. After picking him up from school today, I had taken him to one of the shops in town that had baby stuff. I had given him the mission to find something for the baby that we could give to his grandparents. He was supposed to hold on to the gift that was tucked in the brown bag until his mother got there.

It was Tuesday night dinner with my parents. Momma lived for Tuesdays, and for Sundays, when we came over to eat lunch. Micah made it over there for cookies almost every afternoon, but she liked having all of us together.

When she saw the ring on Sienna’s hand the first time, she burst into tears and clapped, then went to hugging the breath out of Sienna. I could only imagine what her reaction to this would be. Sure, we weren’t married yet, but I was dealing with that tomorrow. I wanted to enjoy this news first before pushing up the date of the wedding. I wasn’t waiting another two months. I wanted Sienna to be my wife now.

“When will Momma be here?” Micah asked as we walked up the steps to the house.

“In about”—I paused as Sienna’s car pulled into the driveway—“now,” I finished.

Micah made a whooping noise and let go of my hand to run over to her. “Guess what we got!”

Sienna smiled at him as she stepped out of the car. Her hair was pulled up in a knot at her neck, and the deep scoop of her top gave me a sweet little flash as she bent down to hug Micah.

“I know what you got. Dewayne texted me a picture of it. Very good choice,” she said, kissing his face, then lacing her fingers through his before standing back up to look at me.

Her smile turned soft and sexy. That was the smile that was mine alone. No one else got that smile. And they never f**king would.

“You ready for this?” she asked me as they walked over to join me.

I chuckled. “Yeah. They’re gonna be thrilled.”

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. “Need to kiss both my fellas when I get home.”

Micah groaned and then pulled on her arm. “Let’s go!”

Momma had already seen us coming. The door swung open, and she came out onto the porch, beaming at us as she waved us inside. “Come on in here, y’all.”