“What did you expect? Did you think your father and I would be pleased to find you entering parenthood single and struggling?”

“I’m not struggling,” Dakota all but yelled.

“You ran home.”

“My mistake. I thought I could turn to my parents to offer some emotional support. I’m supposed to lower my stress level, have people around me.” She pushed off the bed, moved back into the bathroom, and mumbled, “I should have just hired a live-in nurse.”

Elaine blinked several times, followed her. “Live-in nurse? What are you talking about? Pregnancy doesn’t require professional care day and night.”

“My blood pressure is too high.”

“A lot of people have high blood pressure.”

“This isn’t about me, it’s about being pregnant.”

Elaine tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”

“When Walt comes over today, I’ll have him tell you all about it. Right now I need to empty my already empty stomach.” She pushed her mom out of the bathroom with an index finger and closed the door.

Chapter Nineteen

Walt’s road to redemption started with an hour-long discussion with Dakota’s parents about her health. He’d shown up at just after ten to hear that Dakota wasn’t up to seeing him yet, but would he please explain her medical condition to her parents.

By the time he and Dakota left the Laurens’ home, Elaine and Dennis were a little less worried about how their daughter’s pregnancy looked to the outside world, and more concerned with their daughter’s health.

Walt tucked her into the passenger seat and cracked the window to fill the car with crisp air.

“Morning sickness bites.”

“I’m sorry. I can be here every morning to hold your hair back.”

Dakota looked at him like he was crazy. “Yuck.”

“I mean it.”

“I don’t think so.”

He glanced over his sunglasses, smiled. “Offer still stands.”

Walt handed her the key card sitting in the cup holder of the car. “Here. My room key.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to have it. I want you to think of me whenever you need anything.”

“Do I get a drawer to put my things in your room, too?” she teased.

“You can have the other side of the bed . . . or the other room. Then you’ll have to put up with me holding your hair back. Fair warning.”

She played with the key but hadn’t handed it back. Walt considered that progress. “Does this have anything to do with your talk with my dad last night?”

“No. Not directly.”

“Not directly?”

He shrugged, followed the guidance of the navigation of the rental car. “I don’t want your parents to hate me. I’d like them to know I mean it when I say I’m going to be here for you and our baby. More importantly, I want you to know I’m here.”

“I want to believe that.”

He hated that she didn’t.

“What did my dad say last night? Wait . . . on second thought, I don’t want to know.”

Walt smiled. “Your dad is just looking out for you.”

“Unlike my mom. Lord, what was I thinking? You’d think I was thirteen and you were a high school dropout strung out on crack.”

Walt turned down a narrow road, following the signs to the first stop on his path to redemption. “You don’t think she’s just worried about you?”

“My mother worries about herself. About her image.” Dakota blew out a breath. “I know she cares but she has a hell of a time showing it. I really hope I won’t be like her.”

Cars pulled alongside a dirt lot with families jumping from them. Walt pulled into a spot, turned off the engine.

“In some ways I think we are destined to be a little like our parents. I think the parts we despise the most will be the ones we know to avoid. I won’t manipulate our child to go into medicine, and you won’t chastise them for writing.”

The warmth he’d grown used to seeing in her eyes started to return. “Is it that easy? We just make a decision not to parent a certain way and that’s it?”

“I don’t know if it will be easy, but yeah . . . why not? What possible profession can our child pick that we wouldn’t approve of?”

Dakota blinked a few times. “Porn star.”

He laughed. “Prostitution and all things sex trade we both agree to deter Junior from. We can add hired assassin or thief to the list.”

“Those things are easy to agree on. What if our child wanted to be a nude model or a nun?”

Walt lost his smile. “Neither one of us are Catholic. Chances are that won’t happen.”

“Still could. Could we handle our son or daughter posing in the buff for others to get off on?”

For the first time in his adult life, Walt thought about the skin magazines he’d picked up in his youth and actually considered that all those women had parents. “I don’t know how I’d handle that.”

Dakota stared out the window. “I don’t know either. What if we suck at being parents and we screw up our kid?”

He reached over and took her hand.

Her eyes met his. “We’re going to be awesome . . . and we’re going to screw up. I’ve delivered a few babies in my line of work and none of them come with an instruction manual.”