Baby Mine (Stubborn Texas Siblings Book 1) (4 page)

Eric lay on the short couch with his long legs dangling over the edge. His arm was slung lazily over his face as he struggled to bring his body back under control. He was thankful that Madeline had finally disappeared behind a closed door where he wasn’t forced to look at her enticing body any more.

Guilt had flooded him the instant he’d recognized the signs of desire flickering to life within his body. In all his years on this planet, there had only been one woman who had ever stirred his interest in that way, and he’d buried her years before. He had thought he’d buried the need to push into a woman’s heat, right along with her, but he’d been sorely mistaken.

He groaned low in his throat and settled his big hand over the hard, unmistakable proof of his desire; willing it to go away as easily as it had appeared. “Oh, Vic… I’m so sorry,” he mumbled as a tear slipped down his face and dropped onto the couch. “I swear to you… I’ll fight it with everything in me. It’s got to be just the circumstances… because she’s got our baby growing in her belly. As soon as the baby is born, this insane need will go just as quickly as it came. I’m a strong man. I can fight it for that long.” He wasn’t sure if it was his dead wife he was trying to convince or if it was more himself that needed to hear the words, but either way, he was determined to stick to them. Any other choice was unacceptable. There was no way he was going to cheat on Victoria, and despite the fact that she’d been six feet under for five years, he firmly believed that sleeping with any other woman would be doing just that… cheating.

Come morning, Eric’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep combined with endless shed tears. He had fought the desire all night long, and still his body insisted on ignoring his demands to settle at ease. Every time he had closed his eyes during the long night, all he’d been able to see was Madeline’s slim figure being hugged by that sleek fabric that accentuated her curves rather than hide them. Her impossibly long legs had been the main focus of his wayward thoughts; or rather picturing
them wrapped around his waist as he drove into her repeatedly.

When she came out of her bedroom for the day, he swallowed a curse word and closed his eyes, not wanting to see her again, in case she was still wearing that barely there excuse for a night gown. She had tip toed past him into the kitchen and realizing she may be using this opportunity to escape him, he opened his eyes and leapt from the couch. His steps were long and ate up the length of carpet in four strides.

Standing in the kitchen doorway, he noticed that she was fully dressed in a soft flowing floral skirt that fell half way between her knees and Heaven. Eric had to work hard to swallow the lump that formed in his throat and forced his eyes to lift to the back of her head since she was facing the window just behind the stove instead of where he was standing.

“Are you ready to concede that I have every right in the world to be here yet?” he asked, walking in to the kitchen and taking a seat in one of the dainty chairs that sat beside the table. He couldn’t help but think how feminine Madeline’s house was. Clearly when she’d decorated, she
hadn’t taken into consideration that there might someday be a man in her home.

Madeline gripped the edge of the counter in both hands so hard that she felt splinters pierce the sensitive skin of her palms. Yelping, she lifted them up and stared at the reddened evidence of the damage she’d inflicted. Eric stood quickly and went to her, taking her tiny hands in his, looking down at them.

“You have to be more careful,” he scolded as he carefully plucked the splinter out of her left hand. She watched silently in awe as he dropped the left hand and reached for the right. For a big man, she couldn’t believe how gentle he was with her. She had hardly even felt the splinter come out of her left hand. If she’d been the one to remove it, she would have had to go digging for it with a knife and would have done more damage to her hand than the splinter had in order to get it out.

“Thank you,” she said shyly after he dropped her right hand and remained at her side, looking down at her. “I owe you one… If I’d taken them out, my hands would have ended up cut to shreds.”

“A doctor that can’t remove a simple splinter?” he asked, chuckling in amusement. “I can’t imagine your practice is very successful.”

“I work in the lab think tank, not with the patients,” she informed him, lifting her head refusing to apologize for the fact that she had next to zero knowledge of how to doctor a wound.

“And I work with animals, and not even as a vet. Yet, I was able to take your splinters out with next to no damage at all,” he pointed out, looking down at her hands which she was still holding out in front of herself in disbelief.

“I never had any younger siblings… and my mom and my older sister always did all the doctoring that needed being done. As the baby of the family, everyone treated me with kid gloves, and as a result there are certain things I never learned.” Her voice came out defensive and she flinched slightly at the thought that she felt the need to defend herself against this man and what he thought of her abilities as a doctor.

“And, how pray tell, do you intend to deal with such tiny little problems with my child once you give birth? Take the tyke in to the ER every time a scrape, cut, splinter or sting takes place?”

“No…” Madeline said, shaking her head; placing her hand protectively over her abdomen. “I had intended on taking a class or two on basic first aid before she’s born. I really wish you would stop referring to Lillie Rose as your child. She’s
MY
daughter, and mine alone.”

“I don’t think so,” he argued, stepping closer to her, firmly entering her personal bubble; getting right in her face. “I never signed any waver, releasing those eggs. They belong to me and me alone. It isn’t
MY
fault that you’re walking around with one of them embedded in your uterine wall. Until
MY
child is born, you are good and stuck with me… and I have every intention in the world of reminding you on a regular basis, that the baby; while in your body… belongs to and with me.”

Madeline took a step backwards away from his imposing presence. “We’ll just see about that. Thank you for reminding me of my intent to call my lawyer. I’d managed to forget during the night, just how callous, nasty, unfeeling and pig headed you are when it comes to
MY
daughter. You may not have signed any wavers and you may be right about having rights,” she begrudgingly admitted as a tear made its way down her cheek and dripped off her chin, splashing onto the porcelain tiles at her feet. “But I signed paperwork too. You may not like it much, but as the woman who paid for the procedure and underwent it… the woman that now carries the child in question, I have just as many rights if not more so than you do. The paperwork that I signed states that I have sole parental rights where any child born from the procedure is concerned.”

“Well, clearly with this case being as messed up as it is, that paperwork isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” he told her grumpily.

Madeline knew that there was a chance that what he was telling her was the truth and she nervously glanced across the room at the phone hanging on the wall. Swallowing her nerves, she pushed past him and walked over to the wall, picking up the phone. As she dialed her friend’s number, she turned and looked at him. “I’m tired of not knowing for sure what my rights are. I’m calling my lawyer right now.”

Georgia answered in a groggy voice that clearly told Madeline that she’d woken her friend up and guilt slammed into her so hard it almost choked her.

“Hey, girlfriend… I’m really sorry for waking you like this… but I really need to talk to your husband,” Madeline said quietly when Georgia finally stopped yawning.

Eric was silent as he watched the facial expressions play across Madeline’s face as she told the lawyer everything he’d claimed as the truth. She said that she had only a stranger’s word to go on and didn’t yet know if what he was claiming was true, but that she had every intention of finding out for herself as soon as she found out what her rights were assuming everything he’d told her was true. He
could see the frustration, the anger, and the fear play across her features as clearly as he could see her face itself.

She may be fully dressed now, but Eric was frustrated beyond belief, because she was even more lovely and enticing now than she’d been the night before. Keeping his promise to his dead wife about ignoring the desire he felt every time he looked at this woman was going to be all but impossible to do. He may be strong enough to fight it
… but ignoring it … yeah, where that was concerned, he didn’t have a hope in Hell. It was impossible to ignore the way his body leapt to life and a certain body part hardened in preparation for something that was never going to happen if he had anything to do with it. Just because he wanted her physically didn’t mean he had to do anything about it. It was a minor complication that he hadn’t foreseen, but he was strong enough not to let it get the better of him.

Madeline put her finger on the button to hang up and then immediately dialed the number for the fertility clinic, grasping the receiver, praying that there was a huge mix up and that Eric’s wife’s eggs had been given to some other woman, and that she had received her own… fertilized by some other cowboy. One who had signed the appropriate paperwork
; giving up any and all claim to the child she carried in her womb.

“Yes… This is Dr. Madeline Randal. I had an implantation procedure done there a few weeks back…”

Eric watched her carefully as she asked if there was any truth to his claim that she’d received the wrong eggs. He saw the look of panic come and knew that she’d just been given confirmation that there had been a mix up, just as he’d told her.

“How could this have happened?” she asked in a whispered voice as she fell onto the floor clutching the phone in her hand; her back held up by the wall she’d fallen against.

In that moment, Eric wanted to know the same thing. This whole mess was unbelievable. He’d never known such unprofessionalism and irresponsibility could exist in a clinic that had been open to the public for decades. When Jeff had told him about the place and the doctor in charge there, Eric had checked them out thoroughly. Their record was spotless. Nothing but rave reviews from very happy clients. Of all the times for them to mess things up… it just figured that it would be with his child. Sometimes he swore, if it wasn’t for bad luck, he wouldn’t have any at all.

When at last, Madeline hung the phone
up; she looked as defeated as he felt. She lifted her tear filled eyes to his handsome face and had to clear her throat before any sound would come out.

“Turns out we both have equal rights to Lillie Rose. Me as her mother… and you as her father. Gregory… my lawyer said that in a case like this, the courts would treat the child in question no different than if we’d been married and separated. You heard me explain to him that the eggs I relieved weren’t my own… he assured me that as wrong as it may seem to you, that with the paperwork I signed and the funds I’ve paid to the clinic, that I am Lillie’s legal mother. They’d look at the situation as if I’d received a donor egg as well as donor sperm. He also said that with the paperwork he’s sure you have; that since you are still alive and plan to pursue your parental rights, that I cannot legally deny you access to my daughter.”

“I don’t like it… But for the sake of expediency, I am willing to accept you as a part of
MY
daughter’s life. Pack a bag. I’m taking you back to my home.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he held a big hand up in the air to stop her. “I’d take only my child, but for the moment, the two of you come as a two for one package. I can contact a lawyer in order to force you to comply with my right to protect my unborn child … but I’d much rather keep this between us and try to be civil with one another, since it would seem, we’re going to be stuck with each other as part of our lives for the rest of eternity, thanks to this idiotic mix-up.”

Madeline paled and wrung her hands in agitation. This man was the legal father of her unborn baby. His dead wife was the woman who’d provided the eggs that had been implanted in her womb. If he called a lawyer and got the right judge, if he really wanted to, he could possibly take Lillie Rose away from her. Knowing she’d never be able to survive handing her child over and walking away, she weakly nodded her head and looked towards her bedroom.

“Let me get some things together. But you need to understand … this is only until Lillie Rose is born. Once I give birth, I’m coming back here … and I’m bringing my daughter with me. We can work something out for you to see her during the day while I work if you like,” she soothed when he opened his mouth to argue with her. “Like any divorced couple, we’ll figure out a shared visitation schedule, but as her mother, I have the law on my side. Lillie Rose will live with me.”

Eric watched as she staggered down the hall. It was clear that she was in shock. She was also in denial if she honestly believed he was just going to roll over and say nothing when she took his child out of his house, but that was a brick wall he’d worry about trying to move when the time came. For now, he’d take comfort that he’d won the first battle. She was coming back to the ranch to stay until the baby was born. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Somehow, between now and then, he’d find a way to get
her to see that the best thing for the child, was to remain at the ranch with him. If she insisted on staying on with the tyke, he would begrudgingly accept her presence. But with or without Madeline, his son or daughter would be staying on with him. He or she would grow up surrounded by animals and nature.