sperm before he started chemo because we thought he’d get better and we wanted to have children.”
Franklin’s hand covered hers. “I know, Mrs. Winton. I also know after your husband died, you came to us and Dr. Palmer decided to go forward with you to help you conceive your husband’s child. Unfortunately, the technician was overwrought the day you were inseminated. Her own husband was critically ill and her mind was on getting back to the hospital to see him. I’m sure you can understand that.”
Jenna understood all too well.
“This type of thing has never happened here before and we will take precautions to make sure it never happens again. We’ve terminated the technician.”
Everything he’d said was beginning to sink in, and Jenna felt overwhelmed with the enormity of it. “Why didn’t your technician admit her mistake sooner?”
As Franklin looked to the clinic’s lawyer, Wayne Schlessinger explained, “The day after the procedure she realized what had happened because she noticed the wrong vial was marked that sperm had been removed. But she has two children, and hers was the only salary. With her husband in the hospital, their bills had mounted up. She was afraid, and rightly so, that she’d lose her position here if she confessed.”
“Why did she confess now?” Jenna almost wished she hadn’t, then she could have gone on, blissfully ignorant of this terrible mistake.
“Her husband is back at work now, and the burden of carrying this knowledge was too great. She couldn’t keep her secret any longer. She wanted to tell you all this in person, but we thought it was better if she didn’t appear here today.”
Jenna didn’t know if Mr. Franklin was right or wrong about that. Maybe it would have been easier if she could have put a human face to this mistake. The more she thought about all the details surrounding it, the less she had to face the fact that the baby she was carrying wasn’t B.J.’s.
Schlessinger added, “The clinic will take full responsibility for its employee’s error. We asked you here today to forestall legal action. We don’t feel that would be beneficial to either of us. If you will sign the proper documents, in exchange, we will give you a settlement of one hundred thousand dollars. We have that check here for you today.”
Sliding a legal-looking form before her, he held out a pen, obviously fully expecting her to sign it.
Anger and frustration at Emerson Fertility Clinic rushed through Blake early Monday evening as he climbed the outside steps to Jenna Winton’s second-floor apartment. The early June late-day sun shone brightly, but Blake hardly noticed it or the crumbling stucco in the stairwell of the apartment complex located in an older section of Fawn Grove. His thoughts swirled around the meeting he’d just had at the Sacramento clinic and the revelation that there was a woman in Fawn Grove carrying his child. Franklin hadn’t wanted to give him Jenna Winton’s address, but the board at the clinic knew the kind of influence he could wield.
Reaching the second floor, Blake found apartment 112-C and pressed the doorbell, not exactly sure what he was going to say. He was about to press the bell a second time when the door opened.
He’d been given the details, and he knew Jenna Winton was six months pregnant. Yet when he was suddenly confronted with her pretty but obviously worried face, her wavy light brown hair caught in a gold barrette above her right temple, her dark brown eyes filled with questions because a strange man was at her door, he lost his grip on the confidence and power that usually got him what he wanted when he wanted it.
As her gaze passed over his hand-tailored charcoal suit, his black hair, the lines and creases that thirty-seven years had etched onto his face, she asked, “Can I help you?”
Her rounding belly was lost in the folds of her pink jumper. Blake had a visceral reaction to the idea that this woman was carrying his child. Frozen emotions began to thaw and a corner of his heart opened. Jenna Winton, who looked wholesome, innocent and vulnerable, shook the foundation of his world.
“Do you always open your door so readily to strangers?” Fawn Grove, located about a half hour from Sacramento, was growing quickly. Its small-town innocence wouldn’t last forever.
Without becoming defensive, Jenna gave him a tremulous smile. “This is Fawn Grove, not Sacramento or L.A. Are you checking security in the building?”
Ironic that she should think that. After all, security systems and strategies had made him the success he was. “I wish it were something that simple,” he told her, struck again by her delicate beauty, her pregnant radiance that he’d never seen on a woman before. “I’m Blake Winston.”
At that, Jenna Winton’s face paled and her troubled brown gaze studied him. “I’m not sure we should talk. I just got off the phone with my lawyer and—”
“Mrs. Winton, we have to talk. I’m the father of that child you’re carrying. You can’t expect me to leave here without discussing this.”
After a few moments of hesitation, she stepped back inside the apartment to let him pass. He caught the scent of a light, flowery perfume—lilacs—as he stepped into her living room and realized it was as hot as blazes in there. He ridged his starched shirt collar with his finger.
Noticing, Jenna apologized. “I’m sorry it’s so hot in here. The air-conditioning broke down last night. The landlord is attending to it.” She’d opened two windows that looked out onto the back courtyard, but not a wisp of a breeze stirred.
They stared at each other for long, silent moments, and Blake could feel a different kind of heat in the air. She was looking at him with those big brown eyes…. The stirring of desire had to be in his imagination. He wasn’t attracted to women like Jenna Winton. He went for leggy blondes who knew the score.
Suddenly his gaze dropped to Jenna’s hands. She was twisting the gold band on her left ring finger—her wedding band.
“Why did you come?” she asked, looking fearful but a bit defiant all at the same time.
He’d come to get a look at her, to see if she’d be a suitable surrogate. He hadn’t intended to hire one for a few more years, but faced with the reality of what had happened, he had no choice but to look at the situation realistically now.
“Why don’t we sit down,” he suggested, taking charge, hoping to put both of them a little more at ease.
She looked grateful he’d made the suggestion. As she sat in an old wooden rocker with carvings on the back, he took the opportunity to glance around at the brightly flowered chintz sofa covering, the lace curtains at the windows, the bookshelves and the desk where she probably prepared her lessons. He’d learned from a swift computer background check that she was a second-grade teacher.
Settling himself on the sofa across from her, he tried to be casual about the situation that was anything but casual. “I just came from a meeting at the clinic.”
She swallowed hard. “I guess it was quite a shock for you, too. I’m still having a difficult time believing this. B.J. and I wanted a child desperately.”
“B.J.?”
“My husband. His name was Barry Jacob but everyone called him B.J.”
“I understand he died a year and a half ago.” Blake knew he didn’t have the capacity in his heart for much compassion anymore. He’d hardened himself to the cruelties of life. Yet with Jenna Winton, he found a corner of it aching for her.
Meeting his gaze courageously, she nodded. “He had cancer and we had his sperm frozen before treatments started, fully expecting he’d recover. We always wanted a family….” She cleared her throat, trying to stave off emotion. “But B.J. didn’t recover. After he was gone, I decided having his child would always keep him alive in my heart.”
What would it be like, Blake wondered, to have a woman love him with that much fervor and faithfulness? He’d learned as a teenager a woman’s loyalty only extended as far as her selfish interests. He was hoping