“You will let me know if the sperm donor steps out of line?” Simon said on the phone. I was parked outside the medical building where Josh and I would soon learn if our baby was healthy.

Was I nervous? Let me put it this way. Did seals swim?

I glanced around the parking lot, checking for Josh. “Would you and Chris quit calling him that? He has a name.”

“That’s right. It’s Josh-the-fucking-sperm-donor. But you have to admit that’s a mouthful. So Sperm Donor it is. Or I can call him SD. That works too.”

I rolled my eyes. Yes, I loved my brothers, but they really could be kangaroo arses at times.

“Anyway,” Simon continued, “Drew’s been asking about you.”

I laughed and peered down at my growing belly. “I bet he wouldn’t find me quite so crush-worthy now.” According to the pregnancy website I subscribed to, I was officially eighteen weeks today.

And there was no missing it.

Smiling affectionately at the bulge, I caressed it. I was still completely clueless about the whole mothering thing, but doing this felt right. Like somehow it let Junior know everything would be all right—I would love her no matter what.

And yes, I had decided Junior was a girl. Call it mother’s intuition.

Simon cracked up. “Who knows? Maybe he has a thing for single pregnant women.”

“Well, that’s not creepy at all…” My comment only made Simon laugh harder. “Does he know I’m no longer engaged?” I asked. “Shit, you didn’t tell Mum I’m pregnant, right?

“Yes, he knows you’re no longer engaged. And no, Mum doesn’t know yet. And neither does Drew.”

“Oh, good.”

“You should just tell her, then she’ll get off your back when it comes to her plans for you and him.”

I snorted an unladylike laugh. “Delusional much? That will just make her push things even more. But now she’ll have ammunition—the baby.”

Of course that was only if Drew didn’t care if I was pregnant or not. If he did, end of problem…on that front.

“Good point. Well, good luck with that.” A female voice on Simon’s end said something, but it was too muffled for me to hear. “I have to go now, Hols. Talk to you later.” And with that, he ended the call.

“What do you think?” I asked Junior. “Do I send Drew a copy of your ultrasound and write ‘Wish you were here’ on it? That’s bound to scare him off.”

Let’s call that Plan B.

Plan A? No idea yet.

I still had time before the ultrasound appointment, so I walked to the nearby playground and sat on the bench. You couldn’t get a better classroom than this for learning how to be a great mummy.

Several young kids were running around, giggling. A toddler who was scooping up handfuls of gravel and dumping it on the sidewalk looked up from what he was doing. The woman with him said something and pointed at the approaching man. The kid squealed and toddled over to him. Laughing, the man swung him up and hugged him.

That sound? Ignore it. It was my ovaries sighing dreamily.

The toddler giggled and the mother gave them both a kiss on the cheek.

This time it was me who gave a dreamy sigh. Would Junior and I ever experience that?

Or would I spend my life balancing my career with being a single mother, with no chance of falling in love with a man? Right now I had Josh in my life and we were having sex practically daily. Great sex—in case you were wondering. Afterward? He went home and I spent the night alone.

That didn’t exactly make for a happily ever after.

I returned to the medical building and headed upstairs to the ultrasound clinic. After I checked in, I located two empty seats, sat in one of them, and grabbed a magazine from the pile on the coffee table.

I should’ve been reading an annual report for a company I needed to analyze. So what trumped the all-important career-related task? The cute article about making bath time fun for little kids, with a picture of a happy, soapy toddler.

“Holly Whittaker,” a woman in a lab coat called out after I’d been sitting in the waiting room for about ten minutes.

I guess that was it. Josh’s practice must have gone longer than expected.

Or he didn’t care enough to be here. That bitchy voice? Just ignore it—even if it might’ve been right.

The woman led me to a dimly lit exam room and asked me to lie on the exam table.

“I’m going to put some warm gel on your stomach first,” she said. After doing that, she positioned the head of the ultrasound wand on my belly, then moved it around while watching the screen. Every few seconds, she tapped away on the keyboard.

What’s the best way to make a patient nervous? One—don’t speak to her. And two—study the screen with the same expression doctors wore when delivering bad news. You know the one.

Just as I was about to beg her to tell me what was wrong, a knock on the door jerked me from my near panic. The tech paused what she was doing and answered it. I couldn’t see who it was or hear what they were saying, but a moment later, she opened the door wider and Josh strolled in, smiling.

Good thing I wasn’t attached to a heart rate monitor, what with the way my heart did a happy dance at seeing him. The corners of my mouth slid up into a big relieved grin. “You made it!”

Those tears? They were nothing. Must have been dust in my eyes.

Josh reached for my hand. “Sorry I’m late. Practice went later than expected. Did I miss anything?”

I might have melted a little at the concern in his tone, and blinked back the new round of tears.

“Not at all,” the tech explained. “I’m just taking measurements first and then I can show you your baby.” She went back to doing her job.

Maybe sensing my fear, Josh kissed my temple. My heart paused a moment to let out a dreamy sigh, matching the one my ovaries had made at the playground.

There was no doubt about it—I was falling for him.

I know, bad idea. The sole reason Josh and I were “together” was because of the baby. If Junior hadn’t existed, then things between Josh and me wouldn’t be what they were now.

Right—even now there wasn’t really an us. At least not in the sense I wished for. After what his father and mother did to him, he was too damaged to even consider it—too scared to try.

But could you blame him?

And let’s not forget one important thing. I didn’t know much about hockey, but I did know players got traded. Which meant Josh could end up moving away…and where did that leave Junior and me?

“I was talking to some guys on the team who have young kids and babies,” Josh said, “and…well…they invited me to join their group, HDF.”

“HDF?”

“Hockey Dads Forever.”

I laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? One of your teammates actually dreamed up that name?”

His shoulders raised in a What-can-you-do? shrug. “No, one of their wives. Anyway, they’ll teach me everything I need to know about being a good father. It’s like a support group.”

“A daddy support group?” Was I the only one who thought that was utterly adorable?

My support group, who actually knew what they were talking about when it came to pregnancy and having a newborn, consisted of one member—Erin.

“Yes, but being hockey players, they came up with an initiation for you and me to do first before I can join them.”

“What kind of initiation?”

“We just need to babysit my teammate’s two-year-old twin boys for a few hours.”

“That’s it?” Oh, who was I kidding? What did I know about babysitting two-year-olds? The last time I’d hung out with one was never…if you didn’t count when I had been that age.

“It shouldn’t be too hard. I figured with the two of us, it’ll be pretty easy.”

Now if only I was as convinced about that as Josh. “Have you had a lot of experience looking after two-year-olds?”

His expression pretty much said it all.

Well, if it meant that much to him…“Okay.”

“All right,” the tech said. “I’m finished. Do you want to see your baby?”

And the winner of the dumbest question…

“Yes,” Josh and I said at the same time.

She turned the screen around to face us. “There it is. Do you want to know the sex?”

Did we? I looked up at Josh, who was staring at the screen in awe. “Do you want to know?”

“I’m fine either way,” he said. “Do you want to know?”

“I wouldn’t mind knowing,” I said, my gaze on the screen again

Could you believe it? That was a picture of my baby—Josh’s and my baby.

I blinked back the new round of tears.

“Okay, let’s find out,” Josh said.

“You’re having a boy,” the tech told us.

So much for a mother’s intuition. But given my own mum’s lack of mothering intuition, clearly she and I had never inherited the gene for it.

Wow. I was having a boy—and nothing made me happier.

Judging from Josh’s grin, I wasn’t the only one who was happy. An image of him teaching our son to skate popped into my head. Along with the image of me skating alongside them, cheering them on.

And I mentally added “learn how to skate” to my to-do list.