Just Destiny (12 page)

“This is a little different, Jenny.” The circumstances were light-years from ordinary. He rescanned the document in his hand but had trouble concentrating. “So tell me again how this all came about. From the beginning.”

Jenny heaved a sigh. “It’s simple. The organ donor lady was telling me about all the people that could be helped with his organs, and I thought, what about me? If they could recover his sperm and freeze it, then I could be inseminated. I could have another baby.”

“And this didn’t seem a little crazy to you?”

“No—okay, maybe.” A deep frown creased her brow and she crossed her arms over her chest. “But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I’d just miscarried my baby and lost my husband—it seemed like a blessing. But now I got this.” Jenny leaned across the table and pointed to the paper. “I have to show up in court November sixteenth. Will you represent me?”

He paused, trying to think of a way to soften his response. “Jenny, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well…To be honest, I’m not sure I agree with you.” He held up a hand to forestall her objection. “I’m not sure how I feel about it. There’s a lot to think about. Secondly, this is a very sticky legal issue that I’m totally unfamiliar with—I’d be out of my depth. I think you’d be better off with someone else.”

Jenny studied him one long minute, as if trying to puzzle something out. Then her eyes went big as she came to some conclusion. “Oh, my God. You blame me. You’re mad at me because we spent that night together.”

“What?”

“You won’t help me because you feel guilty about the night we spent together.” She cocked her head. “You didn’t tell Annie, did you?” She glanced at his phone on the counter. “Is that why she’s calling you all the time?”

“No.” Only an idiot would tell his fiancée he’d spent the night with another woman—even if it was innocent. There was simply no reason to hurt her like that. Annie texted and called him frequently because she liked to stay in touch.

“No what?” She crossed her arms over her chest and pinned him with cool blue eyes. “Not guilty or didn’t tell?”

He pushed away from the table to stand. His chair cracked loudly against the wood floor, making Jenny startle. “Didn’t tell.” He righted the chair. “Of course I feel a little guilty—more weird than guilty, really, but I thought we were beyond that.”

“I did too. That’s why I want your help. You’re the only one I can trust with this.”

“Look, Jen. I wouldn’t be your friend if I wasn’t honest with you.” He picked up the document. “This is a complicated subject. I know it seems like a nuisance suit to you, but George might actually have legal grounds to block you. It’s a very touchy issue. I know you don’t think it should be, but legally it is.”

“Why?” She looked young and genuinely confused.

“Because. Forget the fact that Gabe’s your husband. You took his sperm without his consent—when, in fact, he was incapable of objecting should he have wanted to—for the express purpose of reproduction.”

“But he
was
my husband.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn’t.” He shook his head. “It does
not
give you the right to invade his body, taking sperm from him to make a baby that would have half his genetic makeup. A lot of people would see that as disrespecting the deceased.”

“But I
do
have the right to give away his organs? They even would have let me pick and choose which organs I wanted to give. ‘You can have his heart, nope, sorry, not his lungs’” she played out. “I can give away his organs and help as many as fifty people, they said, but I can’t save his sperm to conceive
one
child for me? Where’s the logic in that?”

She could pick and choose which organs to give away? He didn’t know anything about organ donation beyond the little red heart marking his driver’s license.

“I don’t know this area of the law well enough to debate it, but some would consider it the difference in altruistically
giving
a gift to save other’s lives and
taking
something from Gabe for yourself. What you’re trying to do breaches many legal, medical, and ethical areas. This is going to create a lot of controversy.”

“But why?” she wailed. “It’s a
personal
decision.”

“The decision might be personal, but implementing it isn’t. You need advanced medical technology to help you do what you want to do—what you already did. You didn’t just take Gabe’s sperm and get pregnant on your own. That’s where you open yourself up to criticism and interference. Are you sure you want to pursue this?”

Jenny’s lips pinched tight, her expression angry. “Yes. Nobody’s going to tell me I can’t have my husband’s baby.”

He dropped the document on the table. “Frankly, I’m surprised you found a doctor willing to take the sperm. He must have understood how controversial this would be.”

“He was very kind. He just wanted to help me.”

Steve looked at the papers again. “Why was the sperm sent to California instead of a sperm bank here?”

She glanced away, avoiding his look.

“Jenny?”

She raised her chin and looked at him. “The facilities here were reluctant to take it.”

“Be-cause…” he drew out.

“Because. Of the lack of consent,” she admitted.

He sat. “Look, Jen, ask me to draw up your will or write a nasty letter to the insurance company. Hell, ask me to do your taxes, but don’t ask me to do this.”

Her shoulders drooped; all the fight seemed to drain away. “You think I should forget about it?”

He
did
think she should let it go, but in all honesty he couldn’t be sure he was being completely objective. “I think I’m not the right attorney to advise you.”

“Just think about it. Please.”

Steve hardened his heart against her pleading. He knew it was difficult for Jenny to ask for help, but he couldn’t. This trial would be messy and highly publicized. He wasn’t experienced enough. Besides, he didn’t like what she was trying to do—it just felt wrong.

“I can’t. I want to help you, but I’m sorry, you’re going to have to find someone else.”

She stared at him one long minute through wide, wounded eyes, making him feel like a heel. A few more seconds and he would have broken down, agreeing to whatever she wanted as long as she didn’t look at him with that betrayed disappointment.

“Okay,” she said in a flat voice.

Relief coursed through him. “I’m sorry.”

“I understand.” Slumping in her seat, she looked sad and lost. She didn’t understand at all.

He stood and slid his phone into his pocket. “Let me know when you get the notes from the printer.”

She nodded and forced a smile to trembling lips.

God, please don’t let her cry
.

“Well,” he headed for the door and Ritz, who watched the door hopefully, wagging her tail. “Want me to let her out?”

She nodded.

“Bye.” Steve let Ritz out into the backyard, then walked back to his kitchen.

Jenny wanted to have Gabe’s baby after he’s dead? In his mind’s eye, Steve morphed her belly until it swelled huge, heavy with child. Crazy. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and the bottle opener off the counter. With a quick flick of his wrist, he popped the cap and pitched the opener back in the drawer.

“So what da ya say, Gabe?” He looked up into the air. “Do ya want to become a daddy from where you are?”

He listened carefully, not sure what he was expecting, but hoping for some divine guidance. Nothing? Fine. He threw his head back and took a sip of beer. The hoppy, bitter taste of the pale ale suited his mood.

He walked into the family room and threw himself into his lounge chair. “I don’t know, somehow it just doesn’t seem right.” He slowly wagged his head from side to side. “Sometimes we humans frighten me with the things we discover. I mean, look at cloning. Man, there’s a dangerous field.

“Some things are better left alone. You know what I mean, Gabe? I mean, just because we
can
clone animals, doesn’t mean we
should
. It’s like all those thousands of times doctors step in to prevent death but maybe shouldn’t have.

“You were lucky, buddy. She let you go. I gotta give her credit,” he inclined his head. “Took a lot of guts to turn off that machine. She could have kept your body going for months, costing society a ton of money and grinding her down with false hope, but she didn’t.” He took a long pull of his beer.

“By now you know I feel.” He smiled wryly. “I sure didn’t plan it. You might have a talk with the Man upstairs and tell Him I didn’t appreciate that joke. Fallin’ for my best friend’s wife? That’s just plain cruel. Nothing would have come of it—I swear. Neither of you would’ve ever known. You two were so damn happy—so good together. I envied you that. Hopefully I can get it with Annie.”

He stared at the label on the beer bottle till it blurred. “I gotta tell you, Jen wanting your baby now really threw me. I didn’t even know you could do things like that. This is nuts. You’re gone. Jen’s alone and hell-bent on having your baby. And she wants me to help. Fuck.”

He’d see what Allen Blakeman knew about cases like this. Allen was the firm’s best family attorney. Maybe he’d take Jenny’s case. Probably not. The firm had a reputation for being conservative. They’d probably run from this case faster than loan sharks from the IRS. But he’d try.

His cell buzzed, announcing a text. Annie was confirming Saturday’s date. He quickly tapped out a response. A barbecue with her kids he could handle. Play a little ball, feed them hotdogs, pickles and fries, and they were happy campers. Simple. Uncomplicated. Perfect.

Steve rose up out of the pile of leaves, snarling and growling ferociously.

“Where are they?” he bellowed in a deep, dramatic loud voice. “Where are those little children?” He looked at his fiancée, who sat on the steps and raised a questioning eyebrow as she leafed through a bridal magazine.

A high-pitched giggle erupted from a bush to his right. Annie grinned and pointed to the side of his house.

“Ah, ha.” Steve ran to the bushes and scooped up the giggling three-year-old. He tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and captured both of her ankles in one hand to steady her.

“Where’s the boy?” he roared, tickling Sophie until she shrieked with delight.

“Twee.” She gave up her brother.

Steve stalked over to the crabapple and snagged Josh as he tried to scramble higher to safety. With the preschooler draped over his shoulder and her brother slung under one arm, Steve lumbered back to the huge pile of leaves.

He tossed the kids in the pile and tickled them before raining leaves all over them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of blue. He stilled and looked next door.

“Be right back.” He gave them a mock fierce scowl. “Don’t run away again.”

* * *

Annie lifted her gaze from the lawn where Steve wrestled Josh and Sophie in the leaves, to the blue Jeep pulling in the Harrison’s drive. From her seat on the front steps, she smiled and swung her arm wide in a big wave. Jenny got out of the car and flapped her hand in Annie’s direction—almost as if swatting an annoying bug, before heading for the trunk.

Steve broke away from the kids and trotted across the lawns. He greeted Jenny with a heart-melting grin, before lifting two large paper grocery bags from the truck and slamming the lid closed. With the springy step of an athlete, he followed Jenny into her house.

Hmm. Jenny didn’t put up any protest, casually accepting his help as if almost expecting it.
Figured
.

“Joshie, be careful you don’t land on your sister,” Annie called out when the five-year-old began launching himself into the pile of leaves. She looked next door at the open garage. How long does it take to drop off two bags of groceries?

“Sophie, come here, honey. You’ve got leaves in your hair,” Annie said, but the preschooler ignored her.

She licked her finger and flipped the magazine page while watching the Harrison’s house out of the corner of her eye. Annie snatched up her phone and sent Steve a quick message. Finally he strolled back across the lawn.

“She’s not completely helpless, Steve. She only had two bags.”

“Jenny’s going through a rough time.”

“Her husband died, it’s not as if
she
has a terminal illness.”

“That’s right,” he nodded. “Her husband died. Have a heart, Annie.”

Steve stood there with a lock of hair draped across his forehead and his hands anchored at his lean waist. A University of Michigan T-shirt molded nicely to his defined chest muscles. Even sweaty and messy her guy was hot.

“You don’t have to rush to her side every minute.”

“I don’t. And maybe if you made a little effort, I wouldn’t have to. Did you see how sad she was? Why don’t you take her some ice cream and try to cheer her up?”

“Ice cream?”

“Yeah. Peppermint’s her favorite. There’s a new carton in the freezer.”

“Ice cream’s so fattening.”

“Jenny could use fattening up; she hardly eats since Gabe died, and you—” Steve grabbed Annie’s arm and pulled her to her feet. Swinging an arm around her waist, he brought her tight against him. “You, have a stunning body. You hardly need to worry about weight.”

Soothed by the compliment, she smiled. “Okay. For you.”

“That’s my girl. Meanwhile, I’m going to find me an Englishman,” he growled and turned away from her. Steve made a big show of sniffing the air. First to the right, then to the left. “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman,” he roared and rushed to the giggling children hiding beneath the leaves.

Annie smiled wistfully. Steve was so good with Josh and Sophie. He’d make a wonderful stepfather—far better than their real dad. Ryan had always been off playing sailor. Every darn summer she’d had to plan their lives around that stupid Mackinac race. Every winter he’d tried to get her to spend more and more time at his parents’ second home in Florida, just so he could sail. Like he was ever going to be in the America’s Cup. He needed to grow up and face reality.