“Of me? I’m not your father,” he said, his voice rough.

“I know,” she said.

“No,” he said, “you need to understand. Not just know in your head. You need to feel it in your heart. I am the man who would destroy someone for touching you like that. And anyone who would come after our baby. I would destroy him, too. I will never hurt you. And I will never hurt our child.” He brought her close to him, put his hand on her stomach. And he felt a sense of awe wash over him.

Because they had created something between them. They had created a life, and he had experienced so much loss of life over the past thirty-five years. To have there be life, created new because of them...

“It’s a damned miracle, Samantha. That the two of us made something like this.”

She looked up at him, fear and tears in those blue eyes. “What if I’m a terrible mother? And a terrible wife. What if what we have is broken by this?”

“We will never be broken,” he said. “Didn’t I promise you that?”

“Yes,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid.”

He nodded slowly. “I understand. But can you trust me? Marry me. Move in to my house. Sleep in my bed. Be my family. Make a family with me.”

He had never seen things going this way with Sammy. Not for all those years. But there was no other option now. She was his. She was his and the baby was his. And that meant that it had to be this. Hell, that had been the case from the moment they had first kissed. Because the alternative was that they would go their separate ways, be with other people. Continue on the way they’d always done. Occasionally hooking up with strangers in bars, making sure that they ignored any heat between the two of them.

So it had to be everything. Because it could never be that.

It was suddenly all he wanted. Sammy as his bride. Walking toward him in white.

“Marry me,” he said again.

It wasn’t joy on her face, but it wasn’t fear. It was more a slow acceptance of what had to be. And that was it. There was no other route. She could see it, too.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll marry you.”

“We can have normal,” he said.

He took her into his arms and held her. He didn’t kiss her, even though he wanted to. He just held her there. “We can be normal,” he repeated again. And there was a strange sort of giddy feeling that washed through him, because he had never imagined that this moment would be for him. Getting married. Having a child. It was right there. He could taste it. And he wanted it. He found in that moment, he really did.

“Okay,” she said.

It wasn’t yes.

But after the lifetime they’d both had, he would damn well take okay.