Dr. Grump’s Surprise Baby (Bossy Bachelors #2)

Epilogue

DOMINIC

“ Did you ever wonder if it would be a mistake?” Emily asked.

She was standing at the kitchen counter preparing a bottle for their daughter. Selena Ruth Berger had come into the world a little over four months ago, and she was happy, healthy, and gorgeous, with her mom’s fair hair and blue eyes — but her parents were consistently exhausted.

“Did I wonder if what would be a mistake?” Dominic asked her.

“Us getting married,” Emily said. “We did it so fast.”

“No,” Dominic said. “Once I had asked you, I never worried about that.”

“How were you so confident?”

“Well, I know we hadn’t known each other that long, but you have to keep in mind that we spent a lot of time together — and in a lot of high-pressure situations,” Dominic said. “Even though we never technically dated, I felt as if we had dated for a long time. I had let you learn an awful lot about me, and I feel like I learned a lot about you.”

“You did,” Emily agreed. “But even so, we did rush into our marriage. You proposed to me, and we were married a month later.”

“Are you saying you thought it might be a mistake?”

He was smiling — he felt confident about what her answer would be. And she didn’t let him down. “No,” she said. “I never questioned it. Sometimes it seemed strange to me that I felt so sure, but I never had any doubt that we were doing the right thing.

“Because of Selena?”

“Actually, if there was anything that would have made me doubt this, it would have been Selena,” Emily admitted. “I can gamble with my own happiness, but I’d never want to take a risk with hers. But… I don’t know. Something about the way you looked at me that day, when you asked me to marry you, made me feel sure. I knew that you really meant it. And once I knew that, I knew I didn’t have to resist what I was feeling myself any longer.”

“I’ve been thinking, actually,” Dominic said. “About our wedding.”

“What about it?”

“I’ve never regretted marrying you. It’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. But what I do have second thoughts about is the wedding itself. I think we could have done something a bit nicer.”

“You didn’t like our wedding?” Emily frowned. “I thought it was sweet.”

“It was very sweet.” They’d signed the documents at the local courthouse, with Jonathan and Sara as witnesses, and afterward the four of them had all gone out for a four-star dinner. It had been a wonderful experience. But there had been several things it had lacked.

“We should do it again,” Dominic said. “We should hold a big ceremony. I’d like to say my vows to you in a church, with our families there. And afterward, we can have a real party, with music and dancing and champagne — everything we couldn’t do last time around.”

“Do you wish we had waited and done it like that?”

“Not at all,” Dominic said. “I love being married to you. I wouldn’t have wanted to wait. But I also want to celebrate our marriage. I want to see you in a white dress. I want to get up in front of everyone we know and tell them how lucky I am to have you.”

Emily laughed. “Well, it will be nice to have wedding pictures with Selena in them,” she said. “Most people aren’t so lucky.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Sure, I’ll do it,” she said. “It sounds great.” She set the bottle down, turned, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

He grinned down at her and bent to kiss her. “Amazing,” he said. “I’ll start looking at venues. Unless you want to take charge of that.”

“No, I’m happy to let you handle it,” Emily said. “But I want to pick out the cake.”

He laughed. “You’re on. Nothing with pineapple.”

“I always liked raspberry best.”

“That sounds good. And you’ll have to get a dress, of course.”

“What about Selena?”

“What about her?”

“She’s going to have to dress up too. I want her to be the flower girl.”

“The flower girl!” Dominic laughed. “She can’t even sit up on her own. Even by the time we plan this event, which I’m sure will be a good few months from now, she won’t be old enough to do much.”

“Yeah, but we can decorate a stroller and have my mom push it down the aisle for us. She would be thrilled to do that. And Selena will be old enough to have a basket of flower petals on her lap by then. We might even be able to persuade her to throw some of them. Think of how cute it would be.”

Dominic smiled. “You’re right. Okay, she’ll be the flower girl — but I don’t think you can take her dress shopping until right near the date. You know how fast she grows.”

“You’re right,” Emily agreed. “God, I can’t believe how much she’s grown already. She still seems tiny to me, but when I look back at pictures from right after we brought her home, it’s like I’m looking at a whole different baby.”

“Although,” Dominic added, “I don’t think I could ever possibly mistake her for another baby. She looks exactly like you.”

“It’s really Ruth she looks like, not me,” Emily murmured.

“I think you’re right about that.” Dominic had seen a lot of pictures of Ruth by now. Once the illness had taken hold of her and she had been in the midst of chemotherapy, her appearance had changed radically. But there were plenty of pictures from before that time, and Emily was right — their daughter was the spitting image of her aunt. It was a part of the reason she had been given Ruth as a middle name.

It was a blessing to be sure, but it also made Dominic worry more than a little bit. What would it be like for Emily to watch Selena grow up — to grow past an age Ruth had lived to see? What would it be like for her to watch Selena become an adult? He knew Emily well enough to know that she would never try to make her daughter a replacement for the sister she had lost — but would her parents be able to promise the same thing, or would they fall into the trap so many grieving families fell into when a newborn child came along?

He didn’t want to invite that problem by talking about it. He would keep an eye on things, and if he noticed it becoming a problem, he would say something — but he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Emily’s parents were sweet and loving with their granddaughter, and it made him feel a sense of acceptance about the fact that his own parents hadn’t lived long enough to meet her — although he knew they would have loved her, and would have been thrilled to welcome her to the family.

It felt so good to be a part of a family again. He had been on his own for too long, and now he had people all around him. A place to go on the holidays. Hell, a reason to take time off work on the holidays.

He’d even taken paternity leave. They had both requested time off from the hospital for the baby’s birth — although Emily had been shocked by the fact that he had done it. “I would have thought you’d still want to work,” she’d said. “It’s all right if you do, I can manage things by myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to manage by yourself,” he had told her. “Besides, our baby will only be a newborn once in her life. I don’t want to miss out on that. That’s more important than work.”

“You’ve really changed,” she had told him admiringly.

He had changed, he thought now, watching Emily as she returned to preparing the bottle. He never would have been able to do this before — slow down and give himself permission to enjoy his time with his family. He would have felt the need to do something productive — and the only thing that would have felt truly productive was being at work. But now he could take a prolonged leave of absence, help Emily recover from childbirth, get to know his new daughter — and prepare for the renewal of their vows.

He was lucky. He understood how lucky he was. It was thanks to her that he felt able to do all these things. Emily had helped him to see the world in a whole new way, and if she hadn’t walked into his emergency room that day and joined his group of interns, he would have a very different life right now.

She finished preparing the bottle. “Do you want to come help me give it to her?” she asked. “Only if you want to. I’ve got it covered if there’s something else you need to do.”

“I’m in,” he assured her. He threw a cloth over his shoulder. “Is she up from her nap?”

Emily pointed to the baby monitor in the corner, which had a little screen on it. “I’ve had an eye on her for the last ten minutes,” she said. “She’s been kicking her feet in the air, but she hasn’t fussed, so I figured we had time to finish up down here. But she’s definitely awake, and she should eat.”

“Let’s go, then,” Dominic said. He liked when they fed her together.

Emily smiled and handed him the bottle, and the two of them headed up the stairs and into the nursery they’d created for their daughter.

Emily went to pick Selena up, and Dominic recalled the day they had assembled the crib. It was one of the first things they had done together as a family once Emily had moved into his house. It felt like she had always been here — but also, in many ways, that day felt like yesterday.

Sometimes it still hit him that he was going to get to be with her forever. He was going to get to love her forever. They would go through life together, raise Selena together, perhaps have more children, and one day they would grow old together.

Somehow, this woman had slipped past the walls around his heart and had found her way in.

And he would be grateful for that for the rest of his life.

The End