Chapter 2

When they arrived at her apartment; he got out and came around to her side just as she had gotten the door open. Once again he took her in his arms and started carrying her into her building. "You don't need to carry me!" she gasped.

"Yes I do, and you feel good in…" he trailed off when he realized what he was about to say to her.

"What?" she wanted to believe what she thought he meant by that half sentence, but knew that she just couldn't be that lucky.

"Ummm nothing," was all he would say.

Once they had negotiated her door without him putting her down, he stood in her living room wondering which way her bedroom was so he could get her right into bed.

She said, "You can put me down here, I'll be fine."

"I was going to put you to bed, Sarah. You said your doctor wanted you to take it easy."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that I need to be in bed," she told him and he put her on her feet. Shyly she looked away from him and asked, "Would you like some coffee?"

"You don't want me to leave so you can rest?"

"No, I'd like you to stay, if you'd like to."

"I'd like that, but why don't you sit and rest and let me make the coffee?" he suggested with a smile.

Knowing that she should rest, she nodded, and told him where to find things. Minutes later he came back with two large mugs and sat next to her on the sofa. "Do you mind if I ask what medical procedure you had done today, Sarah?"

"No, I don't mind. You know the back pain that I have been having?" she asked and when he nodded, she continued, "Well they discovered that I had a tubal pregnancy. Today they very carefully removed the embryo from my fallopian tube and placed it in my uterus. They say that we should know in a week if the procedure worked and it attached to the uterine wall. If that happens then it means that I'll keep the baby."

"My god Sarah! You risked your baby to come to this dinner tonight?" AJ got to his feet and began pacing the living room. "Why would you do that?"

"I told you that I couldn't let you go without saying good-bye!" she exclaimed, not looking at him, but at her hands.

"Sarah! Nothing is as important as your child and your health!" he went down on his knees in front of her and took her hands in his.

She lifted her eyes to his and she whispered, "Yes…you are."

"What?"

"As much as I have always wanted a child, you're more important," she paused and gulped, "And I wish that the baby was yours instead of Clay's"

"Why? Why would you wish a thing like that?" he asked stunned.

"Because I have been in love with you for nine years and now that you're retired I can finally tell you how I feel, but there is no way you could want me…with my past and now pregnant with another man's child."

"If you only knew! I can't believe that I'm hearing this. How can you say that you've loved me all these years? There have been…other men…and as you say, you are even now having Webb's baby."

"Everyone of them had qualities that you possess, and since I couldn't be with you, I was looking for you in others. That way I felt that at least I had a part of you, if I couldn't have you," she answered honestly. "Dalton was honest and ambitious, Mic had a wonderful sense of humor, Harm I could see as a much younger you, and Clay was kind and gentle."

"That's how you see me?" AJ asked astounded.

"Yes, all that and more. But that still doesn't dismiss my past and that you don't want me. I'm sorry that I've embarrassed you by telling you this."

"Sarah, your past makes you who you are and without the things you've been through, you wouldn't be the strong capable person I've come to love. As to wanting you…I have for years and you telling me that you have feelings for me in no way embarrassed me. Stunned and shocked me, yes, but embarrassed me, no."

"You wanted me in the past?"

"Past, present, and future," he insisted.

"Future?" she questioned softly.

"Yes, I've loved you for a long time and have dreamed of a future for us together, but that's all it ever was, a wild and wonderful dream."

"Wild?"

"And wonderful."

"Maybe you could expand on that for me?"

"There's one thing I need to know first."

To be continued…