slime and—”
“I don’t have any rage to direct at you or anyone else!” Brenna exclaimed, exasperated. “I don’t have a boyfriend who dumped me when he found out about the baby, either. There is no boyfriend and never was. Period.”
Luke said nothing. They walked to their seats and sat down. They were the first two jurors to return to the box.
“Go on, ask me,” Brenna growled, after a few more moments of Luke’s silence. Oddly enough, it disturbed her more than his questions and speculations. “I can almost hear what you’re thinking. So just say it.”
“I’m not one to criticize anyone else for being impulsive.” His lips quirked into a wry smile. “I used to call it being spontaneous back when I was your age.”
“Back when you were my age?” Brenna scoffed. “That wasn’t so long ago, was it? It’s not like you were in World War II with Sarge and company.”
“I’m thirty-five and it’s been a long time since I was—” Luke gazed down at her. “Twenty-one?” he guessed. “And crossing the line from spontaneous to indiscriminate can result in—”
“I’m twenty-six. And having my baby wasn’t an impulsive act, it—” She broke off and stared at him, aghast. “You think that I had multiple spontaneous one-night stands and wasn’t careful?”
“You said you could hear what I was thinking,” he reminded her.
“I didn’t think it was that!” Her voice rose in indignation. “Ick! Sleeping around indiscriminately? You might have, but I would never do that.”
“Don’t get too self-righteous, honey. You’re pregnant, and that means at least one sexual encounter with at least one man. Since you were so adamant about not having a boyfriend, naturally, I assumed you’d, er, scored with more than one guy and didn’t know which one was the father of your baby. Not that I’m condemning you for that,” he added. “I’m very open-minded.”
“How generous of you!”
“I guess I might’ve sounded a bit self-righteous myself there.” Chagrined, Luke took a deep breath. “I apologize.”
“Don’t bother, because it doesn’t apply. Just because you scored with a string of one-night stands doesn’t mean that I did. And I do know who the father of my baby is. I personally selected him. He’s a medical student, tall, blue-eyed and blond, of Swedish-English ancestry, with no inherited diseases in his family. He has a strong bent toward the sciences but also enjoys music and sports, particularly—”
“You sound like you’re reading a description out of a catalog.” Luke’s dark-blue eyes widened suddenly. “Good Lord, that’s what you did, isn’t it? That’s how you picked this guy, from a…a sperm bank catalog?”
She didn’t deny it. She nodded her head, confirming it.
Luke gaped at her, stunned.
“I was anything but impulsive about this.” Her gray eyes were as calm and serious as her tone. “I methodically researched everything very carefully and—”
“That’s…that’s so premeditated, so calculating,” Luke cut in. He almost had to gasp for breath. “No, demented is what it is.”
“You’re the one who’s demented! You wouldn’t condemn me for a series of one-night stands or for not knowing who the father of my child is, but you’re scandalized that I went to a sperm bank to—”
“Shhh!” he hushed her. “Unless you want to broadcast this to our fellow jurors, I suggest you keep quiet.”
Brenna looked up to see the eight older jurors filing into the box. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want to shock anybody else,” she murmured caustically.
“I’m not shocked, I’m just…” Luke’s voice trailed off.
What exactly was he, then? He didn’t know, couldn’t identify the weird feelings roiling within him.
“Shocked,” Brenna insisted. “And you don’t like the sensation because shocking people is your specialty, right? You want to be the one to shock people, not the other way around.”
“All right, guilty as charged. Now, can I ask you a personal question?”
She sighed. “You’re going to ask it anyway, aren’t you?”
“Are you gay? Is that the reason you’ve gone the, er, test-tube route? Because your, uh, significant other is a…a woman?”
“You should hear yourself, stammering like a shocked and disapproving candidate who is trying extra hard not to be politically incorrect.” Brenna grinned. “Were you this tactful when you worked in politics?”
“Of course not—which is why I no longer work in politics. Well, are you?”
“No, I’m not gay. I don’t have a significant other of either sex, and I don’t want one. There’s just me and my baby, and that’s all either of us will ever need.”
The two Jasons came shuffling in and had to climb over everybody to get to their seats at the end of the box. Both wore short-sleeved T-shirts, providing a clear view of the long and colorful identical dragon tattoos on their respective arms.
The sight was enough to break anyone’s train of thought. Brenna and Luke stared in silence at the two dragons, then at each other. Seconds later the lawyers trooped into the courtroom with their clients. A moment after that, the judge reentered.
“Proceed, Counsel,” the judge ordered.
Brad’s attorney continued to explain how his client had been wronged by the duplicitous, avaricious Amber.
Luke gripped the arms of his chair.
Just me and my baby, that’s all either of us will ever need. Brenna’s statement swirled in his head. She sounded so sure, yet he knew she was wrong.
He had three brothers and three sisters, along with a myriad of cousins; all were married with children. He’d seen firsthand that a new mother and a newborn baby needed a lot more than each other. They needed a support system.
At the very least they needed one other committed person involved—first, with the pregnancy, and then with the infant itself. The baby’s father ought to own that role. Every child deserved a good father.
Brad’s attorney sat down, and Amber’s counsel, a young woman who looked to be right out of law school, rose to her feet with an impassioned declaration about women’s rights and jealous-male greed.
Luke wasn’t listening. He was too astounded by his own unexpected thoughts on parenthood. It sounded as if they’d been lifted directly from one of his brother’s family-values speeches.
He knew Matt believed all that stuff, but Luke didn’t. At least, he thought he didn’t. He’d always considered himself to be an anything-goes kind of guy.
But the thought of Brenna Morgan and her baby, alone except for each other, struck something deep within him, summoning beliefs and feelings he hadn’t been aware of harboring.
Luke looked up at the high ceiling, at the old-fashioned windows that looked as though they hadn’t been opened in the past century. This courthouse really was a strange place, where his brother’s speeches played inside his head. Where he couldn’t stop thinking about a pretty, young pregnant woman whom he didn’t even know.
Except it felt as if he knew her well. From the moment they’d started talking yesterday, something had clicked, as if they’d known each other for a long, long time. As if there had never been a time when they hadn’t known each other. They were open and frank and honest with each other; conversation between them came too easily for them to be total strangers.
But they’d never met…not in this lifetime.
Luke was unnerved. Now he