Читать книгу Enchanting Baby - Darlene Graham - Страница 10

MAUREEN SAT IN A BOOTH by the wide window of a small coffee shop, watching as the police cruiser rolled up at the curb. At the sight of it, her chest tightened with dread.

She reminded herself that Ashleigh trusted Officer Eiden. And for that matter, so did she. He had shown her the papers on the man from Denver and had convinced her that this man’s story checked out with the sperm bank in California—the same one Ashleigh had used.

But before this man dropped his terrible news on Ashleigh, Maureen had convinced Eiden to arrange this meeting. Her daughter had endured enough stress in the last three days, the last three weeks. Truth be told, for the last five years.

Why did Ashleigh’s life seem to only get more and more complicated? All Maureen McGuinness wanted out of life was for her driven daughter to settle down and be happy and for her type-A husband to finally retire and share some golden years with her.

But Marvin was working harder than ever, and her beautiful, talented daughter kept having one major crisis after another. Chad’s illness had been so hard on Ashleigh, and Maureen had watched her daughter struggle to regain her balance ever since.

Maureen hadn’t approved of this controversial pregnancy, not at all. She’d wanted her daughter to look to a real future, with a real relationship, instead of finding one more way to wallow in the past. She’d wanted Ashleigh to find a good man and enjoy a happy marriage, the way her sister Megan had. But Ashleigh had forged ahead, intrepid as always, making her own tough decisions, executing her own bold plans. Maureen sighed. She did admire her daughter’s spunk.

But now it appeared all of the torture of Ashleigh’s decision had been for naught. This baby, apparently, wasn’t even Chad’s. It was a stranger’s baby.

Maureen’s jaw tightened with resolve as a dark head and a pair of broad shoulders emerged from the passenger’s side of Officer Eiden’s cruiser. They would make the man prove his claims beyond a shadow of a doubt. She supposed the only logical answer was that they would perform paternity testing on the newborn. Ashleigh’s baby. Her grandchild. That man’s baby.

She rubbed her brow, having no idea how to proceed. What was the proper course of action in such a bizarre situation? After all, this was Ashleigh’s child and therefore Ashleigh would have to make any decision about its welfare. Maureen was only the grandmother. Maybe Ashleigh would actually be glad to have a father for her child, if he was decent and kind…. Then a troubling thought struck Maureen. What if this man had been watching Ashleigh on TV and had some kind of thing for her? What if he was the stalker?

No. That didn’t make sense. Eiden had shown her the report. Oh, it was all so confusing. She had to realize she couldn’t make everyone’s life perfect. And if Ashleigh found out that Maureen had secretly met with this man… Maureen felt like she was wading into very deep water here.

She hated leaving Ashleigh alone at The Birth Place, but she trusted Lydia and the midwives to watch out for her, and it was the only way to talk to this Glazier man alone. They didn’t have much time. She was pretending to get milk. She would have to remember to stop at the store before she went back to the clinic. Maureen sighed. She despised subterfuge.

The little bell above the door of the café tinkled as it swung open, and there stood Officer Eiden. From behind him a handsome young man about Ashleigh’s age studied Maureen as curiously as she studied him. His dark hair needed a trim, but he had compassionate gray eyes that conveyed a worried, saddened state of mind. Well, this was a sad situation, wasn’t it? The fleeting thought that this man would probably father pretty babies crossed her mind, but she quickly banished that idea. Ashleigh did not want this man’s baby. She wanted Chad’s baby. What this man was claiming would throw her daughter’s whole world into chaos.

The two men approached her booth, but when the young officer started to speak, she raised a hand to silence him. “Not here.”

She slid from the booth, and with a jerk of her head indicated that they should follow her out onto the café’s wraparound deck, which featured a panoramic view of the mountains. When she was satisfied that the picnic tables out there were unoccupied, she pulled the collar of her jacket up around her ears, folded her arms tightly under her bosom and faced the two men.

“We don’t have much time. My daughter expects me to pick her up at the clinic soon. First of all, let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want my daughter to know we’ve had this conversation.” With an impatience that betrayed her anger, she slapped a silvery strand of hair away from her eyes. “Is that understood?”

The man, the one claiming to be the father of Ashleigh’s child, pushed a lock of his dark hair back against the mountain wind as well, then spoke quietly. “I assume you are Ashleigh Logan’s mother?”

She nodded tightly, flustered that she’d charged ahead without the proper introductions. Normally, she prided herself on her self-control and impeccable manners. But this was not a Junior League tea. This was a squaring off in a strange little town, facing a man who could destroy her daughter’s peace of mind, what little was left of it. A man who could simply be lying, for whatever twisted reason.

“I’m Greg Glazier.” He stuck out a strong, wind-chapped hand, but he quickly withdrew it when Maureen kept hers tightly closed in the folds of her jacket.

“I am Maureen McGuinness,” she said tersely.

He continued in a calm voice. “Thank you for letting Officer Eiden arrange this meeting.”

Eiden had stepped away and propped a boot on the rail of the deck, keeping his back to them.

“I’m not sure I had a choice, considering your outrageous claims.”

The aspen trees beside the deck made a golden flutter, and the pines whispered with a gust of wind that made Maureen shudder.

Seeming to notice her discomfort, the young man called to Eiden, “Is there somewhere where we can sit and talk privately, out of the wind?”

“I’m fine.” She pressed her lips together.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not.”

Maureen examined Greg Glazier more closely. He did look a little wan. His eyes, she noticed again, were kind and sincere. Not the eyes of a liar.

“Greg’s not well,” the cop explained as he stepped up.

“Altitude sickness,” Glazier elaborated. “It’ll pass.”

“I refuse to go anywhere where anyone could overhear us.” Maureen stood firm. “My daughter has endured enough negative publicity and speculation and gossip and stress as it is. I don’t want to take a chance that some hideous rumor might get back to her that might upset her again. And I don’t want any media to get wind of this.”

“I understand that, ma’am,” Greg Glazier replied mildly. “I agree.”

“We can go sit in the squad car,” Eiden offered, in an effort to temper Maureen’s palpable antagonism.

Maureen gave a short nod of agreement, and they rounded the side of the café and descended the plank steps to the sidewalk. Officer Eiden opened the back door of the cruiser for Maureen. “There’s a Plexiglas shield. So I’m afraid you’ll both have to get in the back seat if you want to have a private conversation. But I’ll be right here in the front seat if you need me.”

“Thank you.” Maureen climbed inside.

The space inside the cruiser was cramped, and with his long legs and broad shoulders, Greg Glazier made it seem even more so. As she settled herself next to him, he adjusted his muscular frame and held it stiffly canted so that his knees didn’t crowd Maureen.

Maureen did not waste words on niceties. “What is this about switching the sperm samples, Mr. Glazier?”

“It’s true.” Glazier scrubbed a hand down his handsome face and released a tense breath. “Even though it’s hard to believe. The cryo bank in California contacted me about a month ago.”

“California Fertility Consultants?” Maureen bit her lip. She shouldn’t have given him any additional information. She reminded herself to be careful with this stranger. He could be some kind of weird imposter, trying to get near Ashleigh. He could have made all this up, based on the storm of publicity that Ashleigh’s pregnancy had created. He could even be the stalker, although that seemed unlikely. Apparently he was a former deputy sheriff.

“Yes, ma’am. California Fertility Consultants. They informed me that the mix-up actually occurred way back at the time of…the storage.”

“Five years ago?” Maureen bit her lip again, rueing the slip, but she found this whole story utterly incredible.

“Yes. Your daughter’s husband and I both elected to bank our sperm at the same time, in October of ’98—”

“I know when it was, Mr. Glazier. It was just before my son-in-law started chemotherapy.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t make it.” Again the man’s hand scraped down his face. He was nice-looking, but right now his skin looked pale, clammy. Was that because he was lying? Maureen wondered if Marvin knew anything about this Greg Glazier. She’d have to make it a point to ask him, the next time she caught him between meetings.

“With the passage of time, our family has adjusted to Chad’s death.”

“I know how that is, believe me. And believe me, I don’t want to cause your family any more pain, but you’ve got to hear me out.”

“That’s why I am here.”

“The day the lab received your son-in-law’s samples, my samples from Colorado arrived in California in the same shipment. We used the same doctor in Denver.”

“I see. If I may ask, why did you elect to freeze your…sperm.” Maureen felt genuinely uneasy, having this highly personal conversation with a stranger. “If I may ask.”

Greg swallowed. He shot a look at the back of the cop’s head that told Maureen he was as uncomfortable about having this conversation as she was. “I’d rather not say,” he spoke quietly. “It’s not important now. The point is my samples were somehow confused with Chad’s.”

“But the lab in California told my daughter that they took extra precautions. Each client was given their own separate storage unit. Each storage unit had a duplicate in another location, in another part of the state.”

“Yes, the same process was explained to me.”

“Then how…” Maureen’s voice trailed off. It seemed pointless to argue this. No matter what he said, there would have to be paternity testing when the baby came.

“They didn’t discover the error until the brownout at their main site. When they went for retrieval of the backup samples at the alternative site, they discovered that the ones in both my storage unit and in Chad’s storage unit were actually Chad’s.”

“Which means that both the samples at the main storage facility were yours.”

“Exactly. When they went back and checked the containers that had gone bad during the brownout, they found that both storage tanks—mine and Chad’s—indeed had had my samples in them.”

Maureen covered her mouth with a shaky hand, suddenly seeing how the mishap had happened. “So,” she whispered through her fingers, “they kept all of your samples at the original facility, and sent all of Chad’s samples to the backup facility.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“And Ashleigh was impregnated with…”

“Mine.”

Maureen’s tears were hot and angry. “How could they make such a horrid mistake?”

“It’s very rare.” His voice was gentle with compassion. “Like I said, Chad and I used the same doctor in Denver. Our samples were shipped together and they got confused when they divided them up to create the duplicate containers. We would never have known any of this if the brownout hadn’t occurred.”

“Why not?” She dabbed at her eyes. “Weren’t you planning on using your…samples someday?”

“No.” His look became slightly bitter before he amended. “Not unless I remarry.”

“You’re single?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“May I ask why you were storing…do you have some kind of health problem? We are talking about my future grandchild here. It’s something Ashleigh will want to know. She knows all about babies, including all the things that can go wrong.”

“No, ma’am. I’m perfectly healthy, except for this altitude sickness.” His disparaging smile might have been engaging, but Maureen wanted no part of it. His expression grew serious again. “My reasons for storing my sperm—it’s a long story. Let’s just say I wanted to be sure I could have children if that ever became possible.”

“But now…” Maureen drew a sharp breath, realizing another horrible truth.

“Now,” he confirmed sadly, “I have no samples left. All of my…material was destroyed in the brownout.”

“But we still have Chad’s.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s true. And I hope that will be some comfort to your daughter in all of this. But this baby…this baby is mine.”

Maureen sat as still as a stunned bird, staring at the Plexiglas shield, blinking while she absorbed the awful truth. And it was the truth, she was convinced of that now. Something else occurred to her then, and the thought made her angry. “How did you know Ashleigh was the patient who was impregnated with your last remaining sperm? The lab should never have told you that!”

“They had to tell me they…used it. But they wouldn’t tell me her name, at first. I figured it out from all the publicity about her pregnancy. Seems your daughter’s decision to carry her dead husband’s child made quite a human interest story.”

Silently, Maureen damned the media again for what they had done to Ashleigh’s life. “The publicity, I’m afraid, has exposed my daughter to an undesirable element.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Unfortunately, Ashleigh’s situation with this baby has drawn a stalker. And I’m afrai—”

“Wait a minute.” Greg thrust a palm up. “Wait just a damn minute. A stalker? What stalker?”

At the anger in his voice, Maureen flinched.

“I’m sorry.” He immediately softened his tone. “But when somebody uses the word stalker in the same sentence where she’s talking about my baby, my alarm bells go off.”

Maureen understood perfectly.

“What kind of stalker?” He kept his voice calm now.

She supposed, if the baby really was his, he had a right to know about this threat.

“The police think it’s some kind of fanatic. They only know his first name. Simon. We don’t have a last name. He first called in to the Q and A segment of Ashleigh’s show months ago. He seemed obsessed with the topic of babies and fertility. He started saying strange, startling things, trying to engage Ashleigh in an on-air debate. He expressed some truly bizarre attitudes about things like fertility treatments and surrogate mothers and human cloning. The producers figured out he was a nutcase and wouldn’t take any more of his calls. You have to understand—” she gave Greg Glazier a pleading look when she saw that his jaw was tightening in anger “—almost every media personality attracts these types.”

“When did he start to bother her?”

“A couple of months ago. He’s the reason Ashleigh finally took herself off the air and let someone else do the show. At least for now.”

“Why do the police think he’s stalking her?”

“Well, when Ashleigh’s pregnancy became public, this Simon tried to call the show for one reason or another almost every week. He seemed to think Ashleigh had no right to become a single mother. Of course, her staff never let him get through to her, except once when he used a different name.”

“Did he call himself John?”

“Yes.” Maureen was surprised. How did he know this?

“I, uh, I taped her last show.” He seemed embarrassed, admitting that. “When I became suspicious about the mix-up. So this guy is the caller Ashleigh had to cut off.”

Maureen nodded. “Mr. Glazier, do you have any idea how distressing it is to be a public figure, having your privacy invaded all the time?”

“What else had this stalker done?”

“E-mails. Calls to her home phone. Notes.”

“What kind of notes?”

“Messages left at the front desk at the studio, on the windshield of her car, in her mailbox at her condo. It seemed like he was trying to show her that he knew her movements and that he could get very close to her if he wanted to. And the content—very creepy stuff. Simon, or should I say whoever wrote the notes, seems to think that what Ashleigh has done is evil. He threatened Ashleigh…and her baby.”

“Threatened?”

“I can’t remember the exact words. But this person is deranged—some kind of pseudoscientist. He seemed to think that what Ashleigh was doing was unnatural, that she should be punished. That she doesn’t deserve to be the mother of her baby. The police seemed convinced that he could do her real harm.”

“So, that’s why she’s hiding up here in the mountains.”

“Yes. We had to choose our hiding place carefully, given Ashleigh’s condition, but we also hoped to get far enough away that he couldn’t locate us.”

“Oh, man,” Greg sighed. “It must have freaked you out when I showed up in town.”

“Yes. It alarmed the people at The Birth Place, too. But though the police have no real idea what this Simon person looks like, they do know his voice, and it’s nothing like yours.”

“I’m so sorry for the stress I’ve caused you.” He turned his kind, sincere eyes on Maureen. “I thought she might have chosen this remote place because she was hiding from me—because she already knew about the baby.”

“No. This is the first we’ve heard of you.”

“So the people in California didn’t tell her there’d been a mistake, or even about the brownout?”

“No. The lab most certainly did not contact my daughter.” Maureen eyed Greg Glazier. “Why didn’t they?” She had a feeling this young man knew the answer to that question.

“I, uh, managed to convince them to agree to let me be the one to tell the mother. I thought it might be easier if she met me—”

“Exactly how did you convince them?” Maureen interrupted, thinking he’d probably used money or influence or some such thing.

“I agreed not to sue them for the mix-up in exchange for letting me find Ashleigh in my own way and tell her the truth in my own time.”

Maureen’s eyes went wide, as the whole situation became suddenly clear to her. This young man had been as injured as Ashleigh had been. Ashleigh was not carrying Chad’s child as she believed, but this Greg Glazier would never have any other children. At least Ashleigh could still have Chad’s child in the future if that’s what she chose. Both Ashleigh and this man had been robbed of their dreams. Both would be completely justified in seeking legal recompense.

Greg Glazier looked up at her with an apology in his eyes, waiting for her to speak. Here was a man who valued his child, and perhaps even her daughter’s feelings, more than money, more than winning, more than being justified or proved right in a court of law.

“Mr. Glazier, forgive me for being so personal, but you have to admit this is a highly personal situation here.”

He swallowed and nodded.

“You are obviously a handsome, successful person.” Like my daughter, Maureen thought, and a fleeting notion occurred to her that this man might be a good match for Ashleigh. “Someday, surely, you will marry and build a life with some equally attractive and successful young woman. Surely, under the circumstances, you don’t want to complicate your future by laying claim to the baby of some other woman, a woman you don’t even know.”

“This is not some other woman’s baby.” A fierce determination undergirded his words. “This is my baby.”

“This baby means that much to you?”

“This baby…” He swallowed again and the sound was dry, desperate. “Mrs. McGuinness, this baby is the only person I have left in this world.”

Maureen stared at the young man who threatened to turn her daughter’s life inside out. “I have to think about this,” she said, finding she was barely able to draw a full breath. “I have to discuss the best course of action with Ashleigh’s doctor, if that’s possible without her consent.” She rubbed her brow.

“I understand,” he said very quietly, with a slight frown forming between those dark brows. “But you have to understand that I also have to do what I think is right. I’m still going to try in every way I can to make contact with your daughter.”

Maureen stared at him, hoping he wasn’t remembering that she’d said Ashleigh was at the clinic. As she stared at his strong profile, it struck her again that it was a shame Ashleigh couldn’t have met him under different circumstances.

“I have to go,” she said.

There were no door handles on the inside, so Greg tapped on the Plexiglas barrier and Officer Eiden got out and opened the door of the cruiser. Maureen scrambled out like a fleeing prisoner.

“Goodbye” was all she said to the cop before marching down the sidewalk.

“I’ll get in the front,” Greg told Eiden as he scooted across the plastic-covered seat.

Maureen looked back before rounding the corner of the café. She saw Greg Glazier unfold his long frame and step out into the New Mexico sunshine with the slow, steady movements of a man who could wait forever, if necessary, to get the one thing he really wanted.