Tara looked at Sam like he’d just breathed fire and begun speaking in tongues. “We are NOT getting married,” she said emphatically.

“Oh yes we are,” Sam told her. “Just as soon as it can be arranged.”

“Sam, listen…” she began.

“There’s nothing to listen to,” he interrupted. He began pacing. Marriage was the best solution for everyone involved: Maya needed stability, and that meant being raised in a home with both parents, Tara needed protection and security, and he needed Tara and Maya. Sam had been trying to build a family for himself since the Merlotte’s abandoned him 20 years earlier. Now he had that family and he’d be damned if he was going to let them slip away.

“Here’s what’s going to happen: first thing tomorrow morning, we go to the courthouse and apply for a marriage license. Then you call your job and let them know you won’t be back. We’ll need to find a house, so I’ll take tomorrow off and start looking for a realtor.”

Tara stared at him in disbelief. What the hell century did he think this was? She liked her job and her independence, and she wasn’t about to give up either one. The old Tara would have cussed his ass out and gone on her merry way, but since Maya’s birth she was working hard not to be that angry, vulnerable person anymore.

“Sam, be reasonable. Let’s not try to fix one mistake by making an even bigger one,” she said calmly, proud of her self-control.

“So are you saying that Maya is a mistake, or that our relationship is a mistake?” Sam asked, hurt.

Tara hurried to apologize. “Sorry. Wrong choice of words. Maya is the best thing that ever happened to me. And you’re one of my closest friends. But that’s just it Sam: we’re friends, nothing more. We’ve never had an actual relationship. We were just friends with benefits.”

“Well I seem to recall wanting us to have a relationship, only you kept pulling away,” he retorted.

Tara couldn’t deny that. She wished things could have been different between her and Sam, but she’d been so severely damaged back then that she wasn’t ready to let anyone into her life. Hell, she wasn’t sure that she was ready to let anyone in her life now. But that was water under the bridge. It had no bearing on the current situation. “We don’t have anything to base a marriage on,” she said.

“We have a child together.”

“A child isn’t reason enough to get married.”

“It is as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see what the problem is,” Sam scoffed. People got married for lesser reasons all the time. He and Tara had Maya, they were good friends, and they cared about each other. They could build from there.

“The problem is,” Tara said, “that we’d be getting married for the wrong reason.”

Sam stopped pacing and glared at Tara. “Exactly what is wrong with wanting to give our daughter a decent, stable life? Don’t you want her to have that?”

Tara’s temper finally frayed. “Of course I want her to have that!” she snapped, lowering her voice when Maya seemed ready to start crying again. “But we don’t need to be married in order to give her a good life.”

Sam reached for Maya. She went to him eagerly and gurgled happily when he began bouncing her in his arms. Sam felt his chest constrict with emotion; it was obvious that Maya’s trust in him was absolute. She realized they were a family. Why couldn’t her mother do the same? He decided to try a different tack.

“Who takes care of Maya while you’re at work?” he asked. When they were married, Tara wouldn’t have to work and could spend more time with Maya. Surely she couldn’t object to that.

“Don’t you start, too,” Tara said defensively.

“Start what?”

“Mama’s been giving me a hard time because Maya’s in daycare. She wants me to pay her to babysit, as if I would ever trust her alone with my child.”

There went that idea. The last thing Sam wanted was to be seen as taking sides with Lettie Mae Thornton, so he went back to his original argument. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t want to get married? That I wouldn’t want to take care of you both?” he asked.

That was just it. Tara knew that Sam would react this way. It was a large part of the reason she hadn’t told him about Maya until now. All of her life she had been the puppet of other people, namely her mother. Lettie Mae pulled her strings, telling her what to do and how to do it, totally disregarding her wants and needs in the process. Well she was finally free from her mother, and she certainly wasn’t about to give anyone else that kind of control over her. Not even Sam. The new Tara was determined to make a good life for herself and her daughter, and she didn’t need a husband to do it.

Sam raised Maya high in the air, making her squeal. Tara smiled, “Looks like she’s a daddy’s girl already.”

He smiled back, looking hopeful. “Tara…”

Tara held up her hand before he could say anything more. “Sam, please. Don’t start the marriage thing again.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know if there is a nice, easy solution in our situation. I just wanted you to know about your daughter, and for her to have the chance to know her father.”

Sam knew how stubborn Tara could be, and that the worst thing he could do was push her. That would just cause her to dig her heels in even more. He decided to back off the marriage idea…for now. But there was no way she was keeping him away from Maya. “Just to be clear: I want you to know that I plan to take a very active role in her life.”

“I hoped you would, but it’s getting late, and it’s time for a certain little girl to get bathed, fed, and put to bed. Maya, tell Daddy good night,” she cooed, taking her back from Sam, who kissed her forehead. “Come by my place tomorrow evening at 7:00. We can work out a co-parenting arrangement then.”

Co-parenting? What the hell did that even mean? Sam thought it sounded like something Tara had picked up from a TV talk show; probably Dr. Phil. Maya needed a family, not ‘co-parents.’ However he didn’t want to end the evening on a sour note, so he just nodded. “Okay, 7:00 then. See you tomorrow.”

After Tara and Maya departed, Sam called the restaurant to let Terry know that he wouldn’t be back and that he would need to close up for the night. Then he went to his kitchen in search of his whiskey; it had been a hell of a day and he needed something to calm his nerves. He was pouring himself a glass when he thought of Maya…he was a family man now and he needed a more constructive way to channel his stress. He poured the whiskey down the sink, then stripped off his clothing and shifted to dog form. He would go for a run to clear his head.