I’d rather be a part of the whole thing than see you go elsewhere. Call me a sentimental fool, but after spending nearly eight months with you and Valerie, I want to see you happy. I just hope this does the trick.”
Happy? Thad knew that having a child would never ensure his own happiness. There’d be good times. There’d be bad. He just needed to forge some kind of bond with the living before he drifted through any more days without caring about anything.
“How did the physical go?” he asked, noting Macy’s silence.
“Other than being a little run-down, Ms. McKinney seems to be in perfect health. I’ve given her some prenatal vitamins she’s going to start taking right away, which should help build up her blood. Of course the results of the lab work won’t be back for a few days, so I’ll know more then, but everything looks good.”
Thad wondered how much personal information Macy had shared with the doctor. From Biden’s manner, he doubted she’d mentioned Haley’s illness, but the way Macy kept glancing at her watch told him that her daughter was very much on her mind. He needed to get Macy on her way. “If everything turns out all right, what’s our next step?” he asked, rising.
“We need to set an appointment coinciding with Macy’s ovulation. You can come at the same time and donate the sperm. We’ll treat the semen with a solution that sort of turbo-charges it, then we’ll do the insemination. Fortunately neither of you have a history of infertility, so I doubt we’ll have to do it more than once. You’re not having any problems with impotency or anything, are you?”
Thad had to clear his throat before he could answer, and saw Macy smile for the first time.
He focused on the doctor. “No, I…um, everything’s in working order, I think. I mean, I don’t have any reason to believe I won’t be able to…you know.”
“Okay. Have you ever had a sperm count taken?”
He shook his head.
“Well, we should do one. It’s always best to know exactly what we’re dealing with up front.”
“Fine, great. Just say when.” He took a deep breath and shot another glance at Macy, whose mood appeared to have miraculously improved in the past thirty seconds.
“Is that painful?” Macy asked innocently, just when he thought the doctor was going to let him off the hot seat. “The sperm count, I mean?”
“No, not at all,” Biden replied.
“How, exactly, does it work?”
Thad wanted to roll his eyes. Macy was in med school, for Pete’s sake. She was doing this to bait him. But Dr. Biden took the question at face value. She launched into a full explanation of the sperm recovery process, and thanks to Macy’s probing questions, left nothing out—including the little room stocked with girlie magazines where he’d be expected to provide a sample.
The details embarrassed him enough to make him sweat. He loosened his tie, waiting for the doctor to come to a conclusion, then took Macy by the arm. “Call me when you get the lab results,” he said, and dragged her out before she could ask anything else.
“THAT WAS FUN,” Thad muttered when the elevator doors closed, sealing them off from the rest of the world.
Macy smiled her toothiest smile. “I thought so.”
“And you wanted to make me squirm because…”
“Because misery loves company, of course. Why should I be the one to suffer all the indignities?”
“Hmm, that would probably take a rocket scientist to figure out, but let me take a stab at it—because you’re the one who’s getting paid for it?”
Macy’s eyebrows rose at the sarcasm in his voice. “So the implacable Thad Winters doesn’t like suffering indignities, huh? Well, I figured it out. You think you’re paying me so incredibly well, but actually I’m only making $15.43 an hour. And that includes nothing for the pain of childbirth.”
“But I bet it does include nights when you’ll be doing nothing but sleeping. Am I right?”
“Obviously you’ve never been pregnant. It’s not easy to sleep when you’re pregnant.”
The elevator doors opened and they headed through the lobby and out into the mellow noon sun. Salt Lake had its share of snow in winter, but its gentler seasons couldn’t be more temperate or beautiful.
When they reached her car, Thad leaned against the driver’s-side door to prevent Macy from opening it. “So what’s your point?” he asked.
“My point is, you’re not doing me some big favor.”
“I thought we both understood the favor was mutual. Where else are you going to get the money, Macy?”
Macy ran a hand through her hair, disgruntled that she liked the way her name sounded on Thad’s lips; he said it in such a casual way, as though they knew each other well. For all his preoccupation with having a baby in this unconventional way, she found him attractive. And that made her more nervous and cross than anything else. “I have no other options. You know that.”
“Then we’re in this together, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, we’re just two peas in a pod.”
He grinned, transforming his face into a boyish version of himself, and Macy had the sudden impulse to duck into her car, peel away and not look back. She’d thought he was handsome with a scowl. Heaven help her if he smiled very often.
“It won’t be as bad as you think,” he promised.
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re going to work together to make sure it isn’t.”
“Giving the team a little pep talk, eh, Coach?” she asked, unconvinced.
“I’ll give the team whatever it needs, just so long as I can depend on you. You’re not going to back out on me, right, Macy? If the lab results come back clean, you’ll see this through?”
Macy stared into sky-blue eyes, alight with Thad’s peculiar brand of intensity, and nearly swayed toward him. She needed to feel a pair of masculine arms around her, wanted the embrace of a mature man with strength to spare. But now wasn’t the time or the place to succumb to primal urgings. Thad might have the strength and maturity she craved, but their initial interview had been enlightening enough to tell her one thing for certain: he was in love with a ghost.
Standing straighter, she vowed to keep shouldering her load on her own, like the trouper everyone said she was. “I’m in it for the long haul,” she promised, partly because her love for Haley would allow nothing else, and partly because she was hoping he’d smile again.
In that, he accommodated her. “That’s better,” he said, and stepped away so she could go. But Macy had the sneaking suspicion he’d just drawn her a little farther into his web, and he knew it.
“WHAT ARE YOU still doing at the office?” Kevin demanded, sticking his head into the room. “It’s after midnight.”
Thad pushed away from the computer and rubbed his eyes. He’d long since removed his tie, rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, but he longed for a pair of old jeans, a T-shirt and a greasy hamburger. “Macy McKinney needs the money right away. I’m trying to come up with an agreement that will protect my interests if I give it to her.”
Kevin came into the room. “So she is the one.”
Thad nodded, his mind still submerged in the glowing text on his computer screen. “Hang on a minute.”
Rolling his chair back to the keyboard, he started typing again, revising, “Macy McKinney, hereinafter known as ‘Birth mother’ hereby agrees to appear at each and every doctor’s appointment scheduled for the upkeep and maintenance of