Page 31 of Knocked Up By The Mountain Man

Jack took to fatherhood better than I could have ever imagined, and his friends agree.

I've gotten to know Adam as well as Carla, and a few others local to Wildwood in the year since I moved here.

All of them wasted no time informing me of a couple of things.

Number one, that Jack always swore up and down that he would never settle down with a woman and have a family.

And number two, Jack was obsessed with me ever since the first night we met.

"Some women make a man want to break all of his rules," Adam had told me with a grin. "Thanks for saving my best friend from his own self-imposed misery. We're glad you're here."

I've made fast friends with Carla. She's the one who taught me how to crochet, and next year she swears she's going to teach me how to knit. But I'm not sure I'm coordinated enough for that.

Carla is pregnant right now. No, she didn't settle down with a man. She went to the sperm bank and an IVF clinic and took matters into her own hands.

"I realized that I don't need to wait on a man to achieve my dream of motherhood," she had told me. "Besides, I want to make sure our kids grow up together, and how can I do that if I'm waiting on some guy to show up in my life?"

Funnily enough, as soon as she got the positive pregnancy test after her second round of IVF, she also met a man: a sweet-tempered, soft-spoken pipe welder named Paul.

He's been by her side ever since.

Carla is ready to pop any day now, and he's right there with her, rubbing her feet and taking her to doctor's appointments.

It's pretty clear to all of us except Carla that Paul intends to be around for the long haul and to raise this child as if it were his own, no matter who its biological father might be.

It feels like everybody in my life is going to get their happily ever after. If we could just find a woman for Adam, I think everybody would be settled and good.

I have this fantasy of everybody in Wildwood living close by, raising our babies together, spending holidays together, our own little found family.

My fingers pause over the pumpkin hat. For the first time in a long time, I think of Toby, my biological father.

Technically, he's my family. But he's never been a father in the real sense at all. After I showed up on his porch, he mysteriously skipped town. I found out after the fact that Jack and Adam might have gently suggested to him that it would be in his best interest to leave.

At first, I was upset. What if I had wanted to talk to Toby? To continue to try to build some kind of relationship? But I quickly put those thoughts aside, realizing that Toby was never really my dad…and that my family can be whoever I want.

I can choose my family. And I choose Jack, Elliot, Adam, Carla, and all of our Wildwood friends.

They've made me feel more welcome than anyone in my old life ever did. They’ve never made me feel like a burden at all.

"So, what are you going to do now that your Halloween costume project is done?" Jack asks. "Start planning for next year?"

I laugh.

"No way," I say. "Of course not. I mean, I don't even know how big Elliot's going to be by then. I can't make it until I have his size. He’s growing like a weed. Who knows how big he’ll be in a year?”

He snorts.

"I don't know how I'm ever going to handle hand-making Halloween costumes for all of our kids," I mutter, glancing slyly out of the corner of my eye.

He raises a brow.

"All of our kids?" he repeats. "How many kids are you planning to have with me, ma'am?"

I smile.

"I don't know," I say. "I haven't decided yet."

"But you have decided that you want another?" he asks eagerly.