Always Dakota - Debbie Macomber [116]
Like everything else, Sheryl accepted this information with ill grace. “Don’t you want to know about Hailey? One would think a child’s father might ask when she was born and how much she weighed.”
“Of course I want to know.” Hearing the news of her birth had been jolt enough, although he thought he was prepared. “Tell me the rest.”
“She was born two days ago. She’s a little thing, only five pounds, six ounces. The doctor said if I’d quit smoking, she might have been bigger.”
Matt tensed, suppressing the anger he felt at her selfishness. “Did you have a hard time?” he asked instead.
“You think giving birth is easy, you should try it. It’s like shoving a watermelon through a doughnut hole.”
Matt didn’t know what to say.
“I have to tell you, though,” Sheryl continued, her harsh voice softening, “she’s beautiful.”
“I’m sure she is.”
“Is that a backhand way of telling me I’m beautiful?” Sheryl coaxed.
The question pulled Matt up short. “What do you mean?”
“You just said Hailey must be beautiful, and I asked if you were telling me I’m beautiful, too. I am her mother, you know.”
“I…didn’t mean anything.”
Sheryl blew out an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t know why you have to be so damned difficult. Nothing has to change with us—it never did. You’re the one who decided to stay with Miss Moneybags, but I can forgive and forget. We had a good thing going. If you’re interested in continuing our arrangement—the way it was before—I’d be willing to consider it. You can have me and go home to your wife.”
“No, Sheryl, I’m not interested.” He made sure his response was curt enough to get his message across.
“We’ll see,” Sheryl said after a short pause. “You come visit your daughter, and in the meantime I’ll put on my thinking cap.”
“What?”
She laughed softly. “I’m going to look for some inventive ways to detain you.” She groaned at the ensuing silence. “Bring your wife if you wish, but it won’t matter. I’m not making any secret of it, Matt, I want you back in my bed. You belong with me—and with your baby. Little Hailey needs her daddy,” she whispered, and then before he could respond, she hung up.
“Well?” Margaret asked when he replaced the receiver.
“Hailey Faith—that’s what she named her.” Shaken by the encounter, Matt gathered Margaret in his arms. Sheryl had just demonstrated what he knew to be true: she was determined to do everything in her power to either have him or destroy him.
“What is it?” Margaret asked, tilting her head back to meet his gaze.
He didn’t answer, not knowing how to explain his own heart. Hailey Faith was his daughter, and he didn’t know how to reconcile his feelings for this newborn baby. How could he love his child and at the same time detest her mother?
“Matt.” Margaret held his face between her hands.
He weighed the pros and cons of letting Margaret know about their conversation and decided to tell her. “Sheryl wants to continue our arrangement,” he confessed, deciding it was better to clear the air than hide anything from his wife again.
“Is that what you want?”
Her question shocked him. “Not on your life!”
“Actually it’d be your life. If you’d answered yes, I swear you’d be unable to walk upright without terrible pain for months.”
He laughed; Margaret’s sense of humor was exactly what he needed just then. But only later did he fully appreciate her wisdom and her insight into what the future held for them and Hailey.
“I have a daughter.”
“No,” she corrected him gently, holding his gaze. “We have a daughter. Hailey Faith is part of my life, too. I’m going to love her, welcome her into our home, nurture her and make her part of our family.”
Matt stared at the incredible woman he’d married and couldn’t find the words to thank her. They’d lodged themselves deep in his throat.
“We have a daughter,” she repeated.
“We,” Matt agreed, and held his wife close.
The pains started early Thursday afternoon in the last week of June. At first Sarah didn’t recognize what they were. She was seven and a half months along, just getting to the uncomfortable, awkward stage of pregnancy.