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RIGHTEOUS LIES DESCRIPTION: Grace Templeton thought the child she'd been carrying for seven months was the child of her dead husband, and Jack Hansen thought the sperm he'd donated had gone to the wife of his sterile twin, until they learn that two vials of sperm at the fertility clinic were accidentally switched. The shock sends Grace into early labor and the only place she can have bed rest is at the Dancing Moon Ranch owned by Jack and his twin. But soon, Grace finds herself falling in love with a hard-edged cowboy who appears to want to control every aspect of her life, now that she's carrying his son. But Jack has his reasons. He also has no intention of marrying, and Grace is determined to learn why.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The incident that is the basis for this story actually happened, and because fertility clinics aren't regulated, such mistakes are not uncommon. Even hospitals are not exempt from error. Currently, at a well-known health-science university hospital, a lawsuit involving the implantation of embryos of different races, in the wrong women, is making its way through the legal system. Women handle such life changing mistakes in vastly different ways, as they do in this story. However, the hero and heroine of Righteous Lies, and all the other characters in the story, are fictitious.
CHAPTER 1: RIGHTEOUS LIES
Crombie Fertility Clinic; Portland, Oregon
Hands folded across her rounded belly, Grace Templeton looked at the other pregnant woman sitting across from her in the waiting room then shifted her gaze between the two men on either side of the woman. The men were identical twins by features, but opposites in every other way. The man holding the woman's hand looked civilized—freshly shaven, hair neatly cut, clean shirt. The other man looked like he'd just come in from the range, with his day-old stubble, and worn and faded clothes, and dark hair in need of a trim. But clearly, the untidy twin had the most testosterone. He was all male, from the heavily-muscled chest evident beneath his western-cut shirt to the corded forearms revealed by his rolled up sleeves. Even his wide scratched and dented belt buckle and scuffed western boots screamed of bucking broncos and bull riding and hard-edged cowboys, and way, way too much testosterone. Grace could not even imagine the quantity of semen the man would produce if he came in to donate. Or the potency. Millions and millions of squirming, assertive little sperm, all aggressively nudging each other out while swimming around in search of that tiny egg to impregnate.
A smile tugged at her lips, causing the man to affirm her speculation by saying in a voice that was distinctly baritone, "Am I put together wrong?"
He'd also asked a question Grace was at a loss to answer. She'd been scrutinizing the man from head to toe while speculating on the quality of his sperm, not a usual subject to address with a complete stranger. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wasn't smiling because of something about you. It was a silly thought, and I have this habit of looking through people when I'm thinking."
"Then I guess being transparent is better than being put together wrong," the man said. He unfolded his crossed leg, leading Grace to surmise if he were standing he'd top out at around six-foot-five inches of lean, solid, testosteronic muscle, if there was such a word.
Feeling a thud in her tummy, she pressed her hands to it and felt the stirring of life. Five more weeks and Marc junior would make his way into the world. She hoped he'd have his father's blond hair and blue eyes and jovial personality...
The image of the child growing inside her quickly vanished when a woman swept open a door from the inner office, looked at the pregnant woman and the two men, and said, "I presume you are Susan and Sam Hansen, and Jack Hansen?" The people nodded. The woman turned to Grace then, and said, "And you are Grace Templeton?" Grace also nodded. "Dr. Crombie will be with you folks in a few minutes," the woman said. "Can I offer you some coffee?" When everyone shook their heads, the woman said, "It should not be long."
After the woman left, the man with all the testosterone, who the receptionist had addressed as Jack, looked at the others, and said, "Isn't Dr. Crombie owner of this clinic?" The others nodded. Jack's face hardened. "This whole meeting seems pretty irregular—being called in at night, the owner of the clinic present, certified letters."
Grace looked at Jack with a start. "I also got a certified letter setting up this meeting," she said, wondering if these peoples' reason for being called in was the same as hers, though she had no idea what that was. But the receptionist implied that all of them would be called in together.
"We can't imagine what they want," Susan Hansen said. "They wanted all three of us here."
Trying to dismiss her own misgivings about the meeting, Grace shrugged, and said, "It probably has to do with making a documentary film. They were talking about it when I came in for the insemination procedure. They want to interview couples and individuals, both donors and recipients, and follow them through the birth. I'm a widow, and I was inseminated with my husband's sperm two years after he died, so they'd want to show that frozen sperm's as good as fresh. Did you hear anything about a movie?"
"No," Susan said, "but maybe you're right." Her lips twitched in a nervous smile, and she added, "They might be interested in us because we're having a child we hope will be a genetic match for our son, who has a blood disorder and needs a bone marrow transplant. If the cord blood of my baby is a match, our son will be able to lead a normal life, but because Sam is sterile after having chemo," she said, glancing at her husband, "I'm unable to have more children with him, but Jack—" she touched the untidy man's arm "—being Sam's identical twin, gives us a chance of having a match. So thanks to Jack and artificial insemination this baby will be almost as close to our son genetically as if Sam were the father."
Except Jack's child would probably have scruffy hair, a stubborn chin, sinewy jaw muscles, and be born with dirty fingernails, Grace was tempted to add as a touch of humor. But seeing Jack's sober face, decided he wouldn't appreciate the remark.
"I'm so sorry you lost your husband," Susan said, the sincerity in her tone having the usual effect of making Grace choke up some. "It must be difficult being pregnant, knowing you'll have to go through the birth process alone."
Grace blinked away any emergence of tears and said, in the cheery voice she'd become skilled at fabricating, "I won't be alone. I'm giving birth at home so I'll have a doula and a midwife, along with my sister, and my parents, and probably every aunt, uncle and cousin in the family." She forced a smile to assure them she was not a grieving widow, even though she was and always would be. But she hated the looks of pity she got when the subject of her widowhood came up, the same look Susan Hansen had given her moments before.
But she could tell from the intense look in Jack's dark eyes as he stared at her, that she hadn't fooled him. She got the feeling he too had been blindsided by tragedy at one time or another...
"Your first child?" Susan asked.
"Yes. It's a boy," Grace replied. She intended her smile to go to Susan, but her gaze slid to Jack, who assumed she was smiling at him. When he gave her a token smile back, her heart quickened. He was not a man most woman could ignore. He was brawnier than his twin. Thicker shoulders, beefier chest, forearms k
notted with veins, clearly the result of hard work. But unlike his twin, there was a shrewdness about his face that made him seem unapproachable...
"I'm having my baby at the Hackensack Medical Center in New Jersey where they can do the cord blood transplant, assuming it's a match," Susan said.
Grace looked at Susan's belly, feeling a little sorry for her to be carrying Jack's child. It was certain to be a very large baby. "When are you due?" she asked.
"In five weeks," Susan replied. "February 20th, to be exact."
"That's amazing," Grace said. "February 20th is my due date. We must have come for insemination on the same day."
Susan's gaze dropped to Grace's belly, and she frowned. "Your stomach's much bigger than mine," she said. "Your husband must have been a very big man."
"Actually, he wasn't," Grace replied. "But my doctor assures me my baby's fine. Just a very big boy. So there's a large gene in the family somewhere." Her eyes shifted to Jack, but he gave no indication he'd heard her. Instead, he sat staring intently at her belly, the expression on his face, weighty, which puzzled her...
The woman from the inner office swept open the door again, and said, "If you'll all come with me, we'll be going to the conference room."
After they were seated at a table in the conference room—Jack, Sam and Susan on one side of the table, Grace on the other—two men entered the room. One she recognized as Dr. Crombie. The other, she'd never seen, but he was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, expensive looking tie and was carrying a black brief case, and had attorney written all over him. She looked across the table at Jack, whose face was dark with concern, and at Susan, who was clutching Sam's arm.
The man in the suit opened his brief case and removed a sheaf of what appeared to be legal documents. And Grace had a sudden urge to go around the table and squeeze between the brothers, or sit beside Susan and hold onto her arm the way she was holding onto Sam's arm. Nothing about this smacked of a documentary film.
When the man finished arranging papers, he introduced himself as Don Gray and said he represented the clinic in a matter they greatly regretted, after which he went on to say, "Cryopreservation utilizes liquid nitrogen as the storage medium for donor sperm, and the samples are carefully labeled and stored in small vials that hold up to one milliliter of sperm..."
Grace stared across the table at the others, who looked as baffled with what the man was saying as she. Clearly, he had not come to the part they greatly regretted, they being the fertility clinic, but was biding time before hitting them with whatever it was...
"Sperm introduced into the intrauterine cavity by artificial insemination is the same as sperm introduced through sexual intercourse," Gray said, somewhat cryptically, since it was information they'd all been given before signing the contract with the clinic...
"In most cases the sperm donor doesn't become the legal father of a child produced through artificial insemination," Gray went on to say. "However, on occasion, the commissioning parent or parents may need to go through an adoption procedure..."
At this point, Jack stood, braced his palms against the table, leaned toward the man, and said in a curt voice, "What in hell is going on? You're giving us a fertility tutorial that I suspect hasn't got a damn thing to do with why we've been called in here, so why not cut the crap and get to whatever's really going on." When he remained standing, Susan jerked on his shirt and he sat down again, a disgusted look on his face.
Looking decidedly uncomfortable, Don Gray reached into a folder and removed three envelopes, and said, "In your contracts, each of you waived certain privacy rights regarding anonymity, so we called in everyone involved in order to disclose a problem we have." He looked at Dr. Crombie, who gave a shrug of resolve.
"The thing is," Don Gray said, "on the day of the insemination procedures, there was an unfortunate misdirection of the sperm samples. The vials were accidentally switched, so your sperm, Mr. Hansen," he said, looking at Jack, "was injected into Mrs. Templeton, which means you, Mrs. Templeton, are carrying Mr. Hansen's child," the man said to Grace. "And your deceased husband's sperm was injected into you, Mrs. Hansen," he said, turning from Grace to Susan, "which means you are carrying the child of Mrs. Templeton's deceased husband. Unfortunately we're all human, and subject to error," he said in a contrite voice. "But the technician who made the error has been dismissed."
There was dead silence for a moment before the room seemed to explode.
Susan started screaming incoherently, Jack slammed his fist down on the table and started shouting at Dr. Crombie, Sam shoved his chair back, sending it tumbling over, and joined Jack, both of them threatening, in terms laced with colorful expletives, to shut down the clinic. And Grace found herself collapsed with her head on her folded arms against the table, her limbs weak. It was some moments before she realized she was saying over and over, "No... no... no... no..." while pounding her fist against the table.
By then, Sam was holding Susan to calm her down, and Jack had Dr. Crombie by the lapels and looked primed to heave the man back against the wall when the attorney, also a large man, grabbed Jack's arm, and said, "I don't think you want to do that. It'll cost you a lot of money and it won't solve anything."
"Of course we can't begin to express our regrets for the mix-up," Dr. Crombie said, straightening his shirt, which was bunched where Jack had grabbed it.
Jack shrugged away from both men, and said, with irony, "You can't begin to express your regrets? Do you have any idea what's happened because of your so-called mix-up? This woman's carrying my child," he said pointing a stiff finger at Grace, "and this woman's carrying the child of her dead husband," he said pointing first at Susan, then at Grace. "Do you have any idea what the ramification of that is, beyond the monetary settlement I'm certain you gentlemen have waiting in those envelopes?"
"It was an unfortunate mistake," Dr. Crombie said, in a repentant voice.
"An unfortunate mistake that could result in the death of a child because the baby my sister-in-law is carrying has no chance of being a genetic match for her sick son because the illness is passed through the male line. That's how unfortunate your damn mistake is!" Jack bellowed.
Grace pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, hoping she might emerge from a bad dream. She'd awaken to find everything a dream. Marc hadn't died of cancer. They were expecting their baby in five weeks. He was a fine, healthy baby boy...
But when she opened her eyes, Jack was staring at her, as if absorbing the reality of it at the same time as she. She was carrying his child. A child that came to her because of a mistake. Just like her parents predicted the whole artificial insemination idea would be, although they'd been opposed to it because they wanted her to get on with her life, not have the child of a dead man. But her life was Marc's child. Or had been... Until now.
The baby inside her turned, and what felt like a foot moved against Grace's belly, drawing a gasp from her, along with the feeling that she had to go to the bathroom. Pushing her chair back, she stood and felt herself swaying.
Jack came around the table and took her elbow. "You'd better sit down," he said.
"I can't," Grace replied. "I have to go." She started to pull away from him.
His fingers remained on her elbow. "Go where?"
She looked at him, miffed. "To the bathroom, if it's any of your business."
"I'll walk with you then." He edged her toward the door.
"I don't need your help," Grace snapped, annoyed that the man seemed to be making some kind of claim on her.
"You're carrying my son and you're unsteady on your feet so I'll walk with you," the man said, his hand still wrapped around her arm.
Grace snatched her elbow from his grasp. "I may be carrying your son because of no fault on either of our parts," she said, "but you have absolutely no claim on him just because you deposited semen into a cup. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom since my son is resting on my bladder." She started down the hallway.
"Depositing semen in a cup holds as much sway in determining parenthood as sexual intercourse," Jack said, following behind. "I'm still your child's biological father."
Grace stopped in front of the restroom and turned to face the man. "I'm afraid your legal claim begins with the false assumption that a mix up in a fertility clinic equals a sort of quasi-property claim, when in fact, you have absolutely no claim on the child I'm carrying." She marched into the restroom and shut the door, locking it quickly to keep the man from coming in. She was certain it wouldn't bother him in the least to carry on an argument with a pregnant woman sitting on a toilet.
After she'd finished, she took more time than necessary to wash her hands, hoping Jack would have returned to the conference room, but to her annoyance, he was waiting when she opened the door. "I have a biological right to be connected with my son," he continued on the same treadmill. "If necessary, I'll sue to establish paternal rights."
"And I know about artificial insemination rights and they favor the mother," Grace snapped, although she knew nothing at all about insemination law. But she did know that this man would not be telling her how to raise her son. She quickened her pace.
Jack matched her strides while ramming his point home. "Oregon law doesn't favor the mother if the man is a father without consent," he said, "and whereas I gave up my rights to my brother and sister-in-law, I never gave up my rights to a stranger!"
"Then get used to the idea," Grace said, "because that's the way it's going to be!"
"The hell it is!"
Damn, but the man was persistent. So much for Marc's jovial personality. Grace stopped and turned, her eyes sweeping down the length of the man, returning to his face...
Which had nothing of Marc's blond hair and blue eyes...
Tears welled, and before she could stop herself, she burst out crying. Jack put his hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off. "Don't touch me," she sobbed. "Because of you my child won't look anything like my husband." She raced back into the restroom, closing herself inside until she was exhausted from crying. After pressing a wet paper towel against her eyes, and blotting another to her face, she blew her nose, then sucked in a long breath to steady her nerves, and prepared to face the father of her child... And the parents of Marc's child.
Justified Deception (Prequel: Dancing Moon Ranch Series) Page 19
