She took her plate from him without a word. Liam Wells was the kind of guy who cared at all what food looked like on a plate? She’d always pictured him seeking out the most adventurous and dangerous foods and gobbling down with the same energy that he used in the arena. Well—that she assumed he used, from the way everybody else talked about them. Mina still hadn’t thought of anything else to say when Liam sat at the table across from her. He put his phone far above his plate and turned it facedown.
The two of them sipped at the tea, and Mina stacked her eggs on the toast and made two scrambled egg sandwiches. The first bite nearly sent her to heaven. It was good. They were just eggs, but Liam had used the perfect amount of salt. Flavor burst on her tongue. She closed her eyes and savored it.
Mina was still savoring it when Liam broke the companionable silence. “You know, I kind of wish I hadn’t done it.”
She opened her eyes and studied him. “Hadn’t done what? Do you not like the eggs?” She tilted her head to the side. “Liam, if you don’t like scrambled eggs, you don’t have to make them on my account.”
He gave her that incredulous grin again, and Mina wanted to melt into the floor. “I meant the sperm donation. It’s weird to think of random women using it.” Mina took a panic bite of scrambled egg sandwich and chewed to buy herself some time. That turned out to be useless, because Liam kept speaking. “You’re not random.”
She blinked. “I’m…not?” What did that mean?
Liam put down his fork, leaned back in his seat, and looked her in the eye. “My only stipulations are that you keep me apprised of what’s going on in the child’s life.” He held his hands up in front of him. “I know I’m not ready to be a dad, but since it’s you, it doesn’t feel right to stay an anonymous donor, either.”
She took another enormous bite of the scrambled egg sandwich. Her heart was going crazy. She had never once thought of outright asking him to do that. To do any of it. In fact, the appeal of using the sperm donor had been that she’d be doing it on her own. But now that Liam was sitting across from her and offering, it didn’t seem so bad to know the person. The eggs tasted so good. Liam Wells, she now knew, was excellent at making eggs. He was probably good at lots of other things. Thoughts came wildly to her mind and flitted away before she could pin them down.
“Maybe we could pretend I checked the OK to contact button on the form,” he said thoughtfully. “That’d be fine. And my other stipulation is that we do it the old-fashioned way.”
Mina wanted to lay her head down on the table and shut out the world for a moment. At sixteen, she would have given anything to be in this situation with Liam. Well—not a pregnancy, back then. But to have him looking at her across the table like this? Offering to be partners in the most important project of her life? She felt herself swooning, and she was not the kind of person who swooned. Maybe she had been that person once, but that wasn’t her anymore.
Liam’s eyes lingered on hers, and she popped the final piece of scrambled egg sandwich into her mouth. Time. She needed a moment to breathe, a moment to think, a moment away from those incredible green eyes of his that reminded her of summer and open fields and endless possibility.
He stood up, surprising her again. Was he going to come over and—what? Take her right now, on the table? She braced herself, heat curling down between her legs.
“I’m going to get some firewood.”
“In the storm?” she squeaked. It was still storming outside, right? It had to be. There was no way things could have gotten this shaken up if the weather was peaceful and serene outside. Mina couldn’t stop staring at Liam. Who was this man? Honestly, who was he? He was so different from what she remembered. Or she was different. Or they both were. She had never been so lost for words in all her life.
Liam peered out the kitchen window. “It’s snowing, but not so hard I can’t make it to the wood stores and back. I’ll be fine.” He turned back to her and gave her a long look. “You think about what I’ve said and let me know.”
9
Liam brought the ax down in a high arc, the point hitting home into another piece of wood. The chunk split into three smaller pieces and tumbled into the thin layer of snow that had already gathered around the chopping stump.
How long could he keep this up? Forever, he hoped.
He’d spent a good long time shoveling the area around the rack that held the firewood and the stump, then started chopping wood. They were good on wood. In fact, he’d chopped enough wood a few weeks ago to last most of the winter. But he could not go inside. He could chop extra wood, yes. Being around Mina was far too risky at this particular moment.
For one thing, she needed time to think. He’d thrown down a crazy idea at the breakfast table, and he knew that. Offering to be her in-person sperm donor was an entirely different thing from her using the sample he’d provided at the clinic. The offer had been bubbling up in him since he’d heard her talking to the dog about her problems, and it had tumbled out of him while he watched her eat the eggs he’d prepared.
That was the other problem. Mina was far too tempting.
Everything about her called to him. Her blue eyes, sparkling with skepticism and intelligence and confidence. Her dark hair, falling in shining waves over her shoulders. The delectable curves of her body. She looked as good as any woman he’d ever seen—better than any woman he’d ever seen—wearing his clothes. He loved the sight of her in his clothes. She looked sexy, yet…comfortable.
And it was making him think about settling down. Every time he looked at her, he thought about what it would be like to wake up in this scenario every day. Kissing her, every morning. Watching her throw on his clothes when she ran out of her own as a matter of habit. He couldn’t work out how it had happened. The last thing on earth Liam wanted was to get tied down. If he was tied down, he’d have to buy a house and settle into some kind of routine. He wasn’t a routine kind of man. This little house was only a stopping point on the way back to the circuit. He’d sworn to himself he’d get back there. Getting stuck in Benton Ridge wasn’t going to get him back to the rodeo.
But, but, but. Mina. All his thoughts kept coming back to her. He set another chunk of wood on the stump and chopped it. Sweat beaded on his brow. It didn’t matter how cold it got outside—chopping wood was still a workout. He needed the workouts. But did he need Mina?
If he admitted it now, oh, he was in trouble. Needing a woman? No. He didn’t need a woman. He needed to heal up so he could get back to the rodeo.
But Mina needed a baby. He could see in her face how much she wanted it. It hurt him to see it—a stab through his heart. It didn’t make much sense, how responsible he felt, but there it was—he felt responsible. He stacked up the wood with a series of huffing breaths. That was truly, truly the extent of his responsibility. With the kind of life he had, he wasn’t about to take on fatherhood. At the same time, he wasn’t going to leave a child of his with some story about an “anonymous donor.” The child—Mina’s child, if she decided to take him up on this—should know who Liam was, in case the two of them ever wanted a relationship in the future.