Safe in the Lawman's Arms by Johns Patricia

Author:Johns, Patricia [Johns, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

A boy. Malory sat in the truck, rolling this information around in her mind. She was having a boy. So this little bundle of flutters and hunger wouldn’t be a Sadie or a Sophie. She’d have to rethink names.

“You sure you’re okay?” Mike asked for the third time, and she sighed.

“I’m fine. It’s just an adjustment.”

“You really wanted a girl, huh?”

“I just don’t know where I’d even start with a boy,” she admitted.

“I think they both start the same way,” Mike chuckled. “It’s all pretty much diapers and milk.”

“Funny,” she said wryly. “But boys are different. They have different challenges. It’s not about boyfriends pressuring them or mean girls. It’s about looking tougher than you feel and standing up to the bully. It’s a whole different ball game.”

As soon as she’d discovered the sex of her baby, she’d had to change how to think about her unborn child. Instead of a sweet little girl rolling about inside, she had an adorable boy. And while her love for her baby was exactly the same, it was different to think about a boy than a girl. His life would look different. His toys, his friends, the games she would play with him. The realization left her slightly guilty. She’d been looking forward to tea parties and girl talks.

“You’re going to need more help than you thought,” Mike said, his voice low and hardly discernible past the rumble of the truck’s engine.

His comment was spot-on, and that annoyed Malory more than it reassured her. He was right; she’d need more help than she’d thought. She’d need good men in her son’s life to show him how it was done. She’d need advice when he was old enough to like girls and needed “the talk.”

“Not everyone has an ideal situation,” Malory finally said.

“I get that.” He shot her an unfathomable look. “But I need help with Katy, too.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? Maybe a woman would have taken everything in stride, but I couldn’t just drop my job, and figuring out how to care for a preschooler wasn’t second nature to me. I needed help, and I did the only thing I could think of.”

“Hired a nanny?”

“Pretty much.”

Malory’s stomach sank. She’d been so preoccupied with her own pregnancy that she’d forgotten that Mike had been thrust into parenthood, too—just three years later.

“There’s nothing wrong with accepting help.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean this as a judgment on you.”

“If it’s so terrible to accept help for you, why not for me?” he countered. “What’s the difference?”

“You’re a man. How could you be expected to simply jump into raising a little girl and know how it’s done?”

“Is it any different for a woman raising a boy?”

“It’s supposed to be,” she replied, then shrugged.

No one really expected a man to take to parenting instinctively, but they certainly expected a woman to be able to fill the role at a moment’s notice. When a man was alone with a child, the entire community wanted to give him a hand. Men and babies—even men and toddlers—were pitied.

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