Jack leaned back in his desk chair and pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off an impending headache. Lack of sleep had him in a foul mood. He could smell the coffee brewing, and he was tempted to sneak a cup before it finished. It would no doubt taste like sludge, but it would kick-start his system with caffeine. Hell, he knew it would taste bad anyway since he’d tried to stretch the last few scoops of coffee, but desperate times called for recycled coffee grounds.
Somewhere between eating a spaghetti dinner and saying good-bye, Jack had offered to become a sperm donor. Who opened his mouth last night and put words into it? From the look on Maddie’s face you’d have thought he’d volunteered to sleep with her instead of stepping into an exam room to watch Debbie Does Dallas with a paper cup in one hand.
He’d let himself out after rendering Maddie speechless. It wasn’t easy to leave her dumbstruck, and he’d rather enjoyed watching her stand there with her mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land.
Of course, he too had reacted to his sudden and uncharacteristic offer. His nightly dreams had alternated between scenes of Dr. Frankenstein in his laboratory, a giant turkey baster and quadruplets that all looked like him and cried incessantly.
But the worst dream was the one of Maddie, her belly enlarged with his baby growing inside, her breasts full and heavy and her face glowing because she was finally going to have the child she wanted.
Satisfaction over keeping his promise warred with guilt over his attraction to her. And if he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit to an attraction that pre-dated last night.
What in the hell had he been thinking? He had let his guilt and his gonads rule. The little head below his belt had short-circuited the one atop his shoulders.
His computer completed the boot-up process and he logged onto the Internet. He typed in the URL for the Metropolitan Atlanta Cryobank Services website because he wanted to see just what he might have gotten himself into.
He scanned the donor listings first, and oh God, had Maddie been wrong. He could easily pass muster here. Or at least he thought he could. Next he clicked over to the donor requirements page and delved into the details of sperm washing and cryopreservation.
Why hadn’t Alex banked his own sperm if he knew he was dying? Curious as he was, Jack wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to ask Maddie such a personal question. Lord knows, though, if she accepted his offer, he’d be answering a panel of much more personal questions at MACS.
Maybe questions like, “Would you like us to preserve your sperm, Mr. Worth, just in case the unforeseeable happens and your sperm production ceases?” Jack felt his groin tighten at the thought of unforeseeable interruption of his sperm production.
Easy, boys. You’re okay.
Of course, that’s what Alex had probably thought, too, before cancer swooped in at age forty-two and his life had gone to hell. So why hadn’t Alex made a deposit with one of the friendly tellers at the sperm bank? Jack thought back to the day Alex had dropped the bombshell of his lymphoma diagnosis. Apparently he’d been sick for a while before he let anyone know. Maybe he simply hadn’t had time to bank sperm—or even consider it—before chemotherapy had rendered him unable to do much more than sleep in his La-Z-Boy between bouts of puking.
Lost in more biological subject matter than he’d faced since his first year of college, he failed to notice his office manager’s arrival until she stood beside him with a mug of coffee in each hand.
“I stopped by the coffee shop on my way in and picked up a couple bags of your favorite poison. I dumped that muck you made and fixed another pot, and please tell me the Leverniers didn’t cancel the contract for their mini-mansion and you’re looking for other ways to make money.” She nodded at his computer screen as she set a cup of steaming fragrant brew beside his keyboard, then she lowered herself into the leather chair in the corner of the small office. “And if you expect me to turn tricks on Peachtree Street to boost revenue, you’re about forty years too late, honey.”
A gulp of coffee scalded its way to his stomach before he saw her wink and a devilish grin curved her lips.
“Aw hell, Millie. You might be over fifty, but you still turn heads. You turn mine every day.”
“Yeah,” she quipped. “Round and round like that little girl in the horror movie.” The plump older woman pushed aside a blueprint tube on the chair-side table and set down her coffee mug.
“I’ve caught you in some pretty compromising situations, Jack Worth, but this one has even me puzzled. And don’t think I didn’t catch that decade you shaved off my age. Empty flattery will get you nowhere with me.” She pointed toward the computer screen, filled with images of spermatozoa and smiling babies. “I know this business is as solid as the gold in Fort Knox. If you were looking at some other kind of clinic, I might have figured you dipped your wick in the wrong place and you were trying to deal with the aftermath.”
Jack tried not to squirm in his chair under the woman’s steely grey-eyed scrutiny. She’d been with the company since the day Alex started it, and in the early days she’d worked for little more than minimum wage to help insure its success. She’d also listened to her share of sob stories and crazy excuses from him and played nursemaid through any number of rotten hangovers.
“But for the life of me I can’t figure out why you’re looking into a sperm bank. Unless...” Her normally rosy complexion paled. “You’re not...? Like Alex?”
“No! Oh, no. I’m healthy as a horse.” He minimized the screen and debated telling Millie about his offer. Alex had mentored him after his one big brush with the law, and Millie had mothered him after his own mother had run off to the Florida Gulf coast with her latest man du jour. Now, Jack was co-owner of Prescott-Worth. No, make that sole owner of a highly successful residential construction business. P-W built homes for NFL quarterbacks and Major League Baseball pitchers and cable television network executives. So why did he feel like a schoolboy caught playing spin the bottle with the cutest girl in class?
Maybe because he’d been caught playing “donate the sperm” with the boss’s widow. But maybe he hadn’t been caught because Millie admitted the website puzzled her.
“Well, if you’re not trying to bank your sperm before you die then—”
“It’s just curiosity, okay? I saw something on one of the cable television stations last night and I just wanted to check it out. Don’t you have the mid-month reports to do or something?”
“Or something, yeah.” Millie pushed herself up from the chair and grabbed her coffee mug. “Whatever you say, boss. Mid-month reports coming right up, even if it is only the first.” She paused in the doorway separating Jack’s small office from the reception area and shot him a pointed look. “Just don’t think about me while you’re in that little room with a dirty magazine.”
Jack heard her laughing as he maximized the screen and stared at the images of happy couples, tiny babies and medical instruments necessary for artificial insemination. His part was easy—enjoyable actually. Maddie was the one who’d be subjected to God knows what.
Mentally he superimposed Maddie’s face onto the screen. She was going to get pregnant one way or another. He’d promised to look out for her, though he doubted Alex had anything like this in mind when he made his dying request. Hell, the man would probably roll over in his grave at the very idea of Jack helping Maddie get pregnant. Thank goodness he hadn’t offered to do it the old-fashioned way.
Jack clicked back to the donor page and compared himself to the men listed. Oh yeah, he’d definitely pass muster. But there’d be no cryo-tank in the storage freezer with Jack’s name on it. No sperm-sicles in his future. He’d take his chances with the unforeseeable.
Now he just had to convince Maddie that this was the best route to take. The money she’d save by not buying donor sperm would start a nice college fund for her child. He’d give her a day or two and then follow up.
Closing the MACS website, he gulped the rest of his coffee and pushed away from his desk.
“Millie? Would you pull the Levernier file for me? And is there more coffee?” He needed to focus on business now so his statement to Maddie would be true. He intended for Prescott-Worth to maintain the same level of respect it had always enjoyed. He’d prove to Maddie—and everyone else—that he wasn’t the screw-up he’d once been. He’d keep his promise and prove that Alex’s trust in him wasn’t misplaced—that is if he could get rid of the niggling memory of a child growing up without a father.
* * *
Maddie closed the folder in front of her and conceded defeat. She’d been staring at the particulars of the Freeman case for two hours and aside from consuming two cups of tea and a chocolate candy bar, she’d made no other progress.
If you’re determined to go through with this damn crazy stunt, at least let me be the donor.
Jack’s words from the previous evening still played through her mind. She shouldn’t let anything Jack Worth said bother her, and normally she wouldn’t. But he and Alex had conspired behind her back to treat her like some sort of helpless, grief-stricken weakling unable to control her own life.
Maddie was more than capable of controlling her life, despite being the product of her parents’ Wimbledon version of child custody, with Maddie lobbed back and forth so often even the spectators were left confused. Alex had understood and always made sure she had choices in everything that concerned her life. Now Jack was calling her choice a damn crazy stunt and trying to insinuate himself into the situation.
Why not? He was a serial womanizer who was all about short-term, temporary, limited-engagement relationships. When the title changed on the local movie theater marquee, so did the woman in Jack’s life.
Maddie, on the other hand, was the kind of woman who dreamed of balancing home and hearth, white picket fences and a meaningful career. Unfortunately her dreams had been shattered before she and Alex had been able to begin to realize them.
But maybe short-term and temporary wasn’t so bad after all. At the most basic level, Jack had admirable qualities and a solid work ethic. She had seen that up close during the final months of Alex’s illness. And as much as it pained her, the newly discovered knowledge of his dean’s list academic achievements impressed her. She couldn’t even put that on her own résumé.
As long as he posed no health threat—and the clinic would check him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet—perhaps Jack wasn’t such a bad choice after all.
She wasn’t going to sleep with him. All she needed was his bodily fluids. He’d donate at the clinic and her doctor would inseminate her in his office. End of story. If Jack made multiple donations, she should have plenty of samples in case she needed several attempts to get pregnant.
“Are you finished with the Freeman file?”
Maddie looked up and saw Tess Callahan leaning against the doorframe. She and Tess had joined the firm at the same time nearly a decade ago, and as newcomers to both the firm and to Atlanta, they had bonded immediately.
“Uhm, no, but if you need it right now, go ahead and take it. I can work on it later.” Maddie held out the folder and hoped her friend didn’t pick up on her dour mood.
Tess stepped to the desk and accepted the papers. “What’s troubling you, Mads? And don’t bother trying to lie because I can see right through you. Something’s bugging you and those bags under your eyes would cost you extra on any commercial airline.”
Maddie reflexively glanced to her right and caught her reflection in the mirrored back of a bookshelf. If sleep continued to elude her, she’d have to pay more attention to her makeup—dab a little more concealer under her eyes, brush a little more blush on her cheeks—because the last thing she needed was for anyone at work to become suspicious. Once everything was finalized, once she was pregnant, then she’d break the news.
“It’s nothing really.” Except possibly a pregnancy. “The final probate on Alex’s will is going through and there’s been a lot of paperwork. A lot of memories.”
“You know I’ll help you with anything you need. All you have to do is ask.”
“I know. I thought it was better to let another firm handle it so there’d be no questions about impartiality.”
Tess nodded knowingly. “If you need to get away from things, we can go to the Sun Dial tonight and leave the rest of the world at our feet.”
The revolving restaurant sat atop the Westin Peachtree hotel and looked down on the city. It just might be the perfect place to forget wills, estates and sperm offers. But not tonight.
“Maybe next week?”
“Sure thing. You just name the day.” Tess walked away, then stopped in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder. “Promise you’ll call if you need to talk, okay?”
Maddie made a crossing motion over her heart and smiled as Tess left the office. Once she’d decided one way or another about a donor, she had no doubt she and Tess would burn up the phone lines talking it over. But in the meantime, Maddie had to entertain Jack’s offer.
If she knew anything at all about Jack Worth, it was that he wouldn’t forget what he’d suggested and would probably call soon for her answer. Maybe not tonight since only twenty-four hours had passed. But he would call and she needed to have an answer ready for him. A well-thought-out answer complete with logical reasons to support her decision.
She opened the word processor on her computer, and then closed it almost as soon as it filled the screen. While the firm wasn’t known for snooping into its employees’ computer files, she couldn’t take a chance on her plan getting out just yet.
Pulling a new yellow legal pad from her desk drawer, drew a line down the middle of the page and labeled the left side CON and the right PRO.
On both sides she wrote friend of the family. The fact he was Alex’s friend and business partner meant Maddie knew a lot about Jack—or could find out either from Millie or through the private investigator she used for some of her cases.
She knew a lot about him, but certainly not everything. Jack most likely wouldn’t appreciate being investigated, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. This was her child, after all, and a man’s background mattered.
If he’d been any of the candidates whose files she’d perused on the MACS website, he’d have been investigated to the roots of his teeth. She’d know his whole life history as well as how many teeth he had, how many were real or crowned and if he’d ever had orthodontic work.
His being Alex’s business partner—and new owner of the business—meant some people might question her decision if she agreed to Jack’s offer. Of course, who said she had to name the donor? She wouldn’t know the name of a MACS donor, so anonymity wasn’t out of the ordinary.
Next she wrote Free on the PRO side and MACS Expense on the other. While she wasn’t lacking for money, Maddie wasn’t a spendthrift. She’d gladly pay the going rate for the right sperm, but every website she’d consulted said conception rates from artificial insemination were much lower than from the old-fashioned way. If it took more than a couple attempts, she could make a serious dent in her savings account. With Jack, there would be no expense. At least not a monetary one.
But what if the child looked exactly like Jack? She added possibility of strong resemblance to the CON list. On the PRO side, she wrote attractive and healthy.
Jack had donated blood religiously every eight weeks for Alex, and good health was a requirement for blood donors, especially when the recipient was a chemo patient. She knew Jack had a reputation as a serial dater, but if he had any diseases, he’d have been turned away at the blood bank.
Yet, Alex had been dead for a year—plenty of time for Jack to catch something—so Maddie added dating habits to the CON list.
Just before the end, while on a morphine pump, Alex had told her he’d met Jack when the drunken teenager had trashed a construction site. Jack had worked off the damage and had apparently impressed Alex enough to hire him and then later make him a partner. Past brush with the law went onto the CON side while Alex trusted him balanced it on the other. Even though Jack wouldn’t be involved in her child’s life, personality and character traits were important and must be considered.
With MACS, she wouldn’t know much about the donor’s character and personality. Was he donating for altruistic reasons or just for the money? Donor 1580 had appeared to be of good character based on his profile, but ever since Jack had raised the issue of serial killers and bank robbers…
She shook off the negative thought. Jack’s behavior during Alex’s illness—taking over running the business, the blood donations, the constant visits—showed he cared. Really cared. And, she had to admit, it meant something to both she and Alex; Jack had been a comfort and dependable.
Lastly, she added the two most important factors in her decision: Custody waiver versus possible custody battle. Even though she’d insist on an agreement to absolve Jack of any parental responsibility, the possibility he’d sue for visitation and custody could not be discounted. While Jack didn’t impress her as the family type, who knew what changes could occur in the future? She’d have to take Jack at his word since legally he couldn’t sign away any responsibility for a child. Those rights belonged to the child, not the birth parent. After being bounced between her parents for years, she wanted to avoid that fate for her baby if at all possible.
Maddie knew she’d come under fire from some people for her decision to have a child as a single parent. But to her way of thinking it was better to live in a loving single-parent home than be in a home with feuding parents who used a child as a pawn.
Confident she’d covered every contingency, she ripped the sheet off the legal pad, slid it inside an old manila folder and slipped the folder into her briefcase. She’d study it later at home over a cup of tea. Or perhaps a glass of wine. After a restless night and the brutal day of drowsiness that had followed, Maddie needed something to help her slide into a deep, restorative sleep.
* * *
Three nights later, Maddie unwrapped a towel from her head and draped it across the side of the tub. After pulling on jeans and a t-shirt, she finger-combed her still damp hair, then padded to the kitchen in her bare feet. She grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and while opening it, spotted the letter from the sperm bank.
Why hadn’t she filed it away with the other information from MACS? She was usually organized to a fault, and this one slip had resulted in major consequences. Once she had learned about Jack’s deal with Alex, she put a stop to his checking on her. But, would using him as a donor be like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire?
She tugged the paper from behind the telephone where it had remained since she had received it. Sliding into a chair at her kitchen table, she smoothed the folded sheets of paper and laid them beside the dog-eared folder, opened to display her list.
Jack would be arriving soon and she’d promised him an answer. Maybe she should call and postpone their meeting. That would calm the heavy sensation of dread in her belly. But it wouldn’t change the overall picture. Mentally reviewing the list she could now recite from memory, Maddie assessed the pros and cons once more before closing the folder.
Jack was a known quantity. He’d told her he was “clean,” and despite his brush with the law at eighteen, she knew him to be a basically good person. Jack had taken over all of the business when Alex was too sick to work and never once grumbled, even when he had to work over eighty hours a week to get it all done.
Also, Jack was tall with dark coloring and was, admittedly, handsome. Together they’d make a beautiful baby.
Don’t go there. Maddie gave herself a mental reprimand and thanked the doctor who’d figured out that artificial insemination methods used on dairy cattle would also work with humans. Otherwise she’d have to crawl in bed with Jack and, oh God, but that created a vision of him lying between rumpled sheets and looking like a magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” She did not need another complication to what was already going to be quite a sticky situation. Maddie needed to view Jack only as a vial of donor sperm and not as a man.
Maddie shoved the image from her mind and focused on the impending task. She’d made her decision, right or wrong, and the time to announce it was at hand. In any case, she and Jack needed to stop their dinners and move on. With Jack running Prescott-Worth by himself and her likely dealing with pregnancy and preparing a nursery for a baby, neither would have time.
A soft rap sounded at the back door. Through the glass panel she could see Jack standing on the other side. She motioned for him to enter, then placed the letter in the folder and closed it. She could still postpone her announcement, but it wouldn’t do anything except to drag out the inevitable.
He opened the door and began to step into the kitchen, then toed off his muddy boots and nudged them aside on the back deck. He still wore clothes from working on site—a faded Braves t-shirt, well-worn jeans that hugged him like a second skin and white socks permanently stained from Georgia red clay.
“Would you like coffee or something to eat?” Maybe a hot shower with an audience?
“I’ve eaten. I stopped at The Varsity for a couple hot dogs. I should have called and asked if you wanted one. The coffee sounds good though.”
When Maddie started to rise, he held out his hand toward her. “I can get it. Just stay where you are.”
With a familiarity that should have rung warning bells in her head, Jack opened one cabinet to retrieve a mug, a drawer to get a spoon and then pulled a carton of half-and-half from the refrigerator and added a dollop to his mug before filling it. “Want some, too?” he asked, holding up the mug.
“I’ve already had my caffeine limit for the day. But thanks.”
Jack moved back to the table and sat, blowing on the liquid before taking a long drink.
“So you’ve made your decision?” He raised one eyebrow and stared at her. “You could have told me over the phone.”
“I thought something this important needed to be handled in person. I know you’re tired and I won’t keep you long.” Maddie knew Jack had a thirty-minute drive home to his loft just outside the perimeter.
“So what do you say, Maddie? Is it going to be me or the Boston Strangler?”
“Since you put it that way,” she replied, her throat tight from irritation. Couldn’t Jack ever take anything seriously? Maybe she’d made the wrong decision after all.
He set the cup down, laid his palms flat on the table and leaned forward. “I’m sorry. Really. Can I have a do-over?”
Maddie studied his face, searching for something to convince her he was sincere. She saw the muscles relax around his eyes and his gaze never wavered from hers, and she took it as a sign. Jack usually had the attention span of a gnat, and the fact he’d never once glanced toward the folder on the table or looked to see if the letter was still wedged behind the phone encouraged her.
“Go ahead,” she said.
Jack sat up straighter and released a long breath. Was that worry in his eyes? Was he actually concerned she might tell him no? Or perhaps it was relief that he wouldn’t have to follow through on an impulsive offer.
“I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you and I apologize for acting like a jackass. Whatever your decision, I’ll support you in any way I can.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Maddie thumbed the edge of the folder briefly before continuing. “I made a list of all the reasons it was a good idea to let you be the donor and a list of all the reasons it was a bad idea—”
“And after you made your list and checked it twice, you decided I was naughty and not nice?”
Maddie closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath before opening them again.
“I’m doing it again, huh?”
She hesitated and then nodded.
“Are you going to let me see the list?” he asked, eyeing the folder for the first time.
She closed her eyes again and her shoulders slumped.
“I take it that’s a no. And I’m also guessing I didn’t make the cut and you’re going with a donor from the clinic.” He lifted the mug to his mouth and drained it. “I understand, Maddie. If I was in your position, I probably wouldn’t choose me either.”
She stared at him in astonishment. How could a man who oozed confidence back away so easily from what had essentially been a challenge? He had all but dared her to use him as a donor and now, without hearing a word of her decision-making process, he had folded his cards and walked away from the table. She had learned a lot about Jack over the last dinner, and this move revealed even more. Maybe the swagger was an act to cover the real Jack—the Jack he didn’t want the world to see. A Jack who actually cared for other people.
He rose and walked to the sink, rinsed the mug and set it upside down in the wooden drainer before heading toward the back door. “I’ll let myself out. And I’ve been thinking about our dinners. It’s probably time to stop those, too. You’re going to be busy with getting pregnant and all that, so you don’t need to be worrying about feeding me. I think Alex would be proud of how you’ve dealt with his death. I know I am.”
“I picked you,” she stated flatly. “I want you to be my sperm donor.”
Up to this point, sperm donation had simply been an abstract medical procedure she had investigated thoroughly. Now it had become real. As concrete as the houses Jack and Alex had built through the years. And while she knew in her gut that choosing Jack instead of Donor 1580 was the right move, it also scared the hell out of her for the same reasons. Donor 1580 was an abstract; Jack was the real deal.
Jack froze with his hand on the doorknob. Slowly he swiveled and faced her once again. “Really? Then forget that part I said about not even picking myself.”
Maddie rested her chin on her hand, and a tenuous smile curved her mouth. “It’s already forgotten. Go home and sleep on it and see if you change your mind by morning. MACS has a website that should answer any questions you might have.”
“I checked it out the other morning at work and nearly sent Millie to an early grave. But there was one question it didn’t answer.”
“Oh?”
“I just want to know one thing. Does the sperm bank give you a microwave for opening a new account?” Jack’s face split into a wide grin as he rushed through the back door.
Oh, damn. He had great genes and damned if he didn’t look good in jeans, too, but Maddie hoped she hadn’t just made the worst decision of her life. She had no designs on Jack, but how might their relationship change once his child was growing inside her? Would her concerns about a custody dispute ever become a reality? She would have to do everything legally possible to ensure that didn’t happen—that her decision was the right one for her and her baby. Would Jack actually walk away from his child?