by Beck, Jamie
“We can’t keep that secret!” Hunter looked at Sara to make sure on that point they were in agreement.
“I agree. If we do this, we’d need to set some ground rules, honesty being at the top of the list,” Sara said. “We’d have to figure out the right age to talk about it, but I wouldn’t want to keep secrets from my child.”
On some level, he understood his wife’s willingness to skim over the pitfalls of this arrangement. But how had his sister cut herself off from any emotions about this baby?
Gentry shrugged. “Fine.”
“Sis, if you give your child to strangers, I suspect, in time, it will become less of a thought in your life. It’ll be easier to move on. But if we raise this child—which would be ours—you’d see it every week. A constant reminder of what you gave up. Are you sure that won’t hurt?” Hunter would never hand off his own flesh and blood, which was why he couldn’t believe anything coming out of Gentry’s mouth today.
“On the other hand, giving the baby to strangers could be harder,” Sara interjected. “She’d never know, with certainty, that the baby had a loving, safe home. Whereas if we do this together, she can have a close relationship with her child without the responsibility.”
Clearly, Sara was well on her way to making up her mind. To her, it was almost as easy as reciting the alphabet.
He glanced at his sister again, willing her to step back and give this more thought, even though he knew that could mean serious trouble between him and his wife. They didn’t need more trouble, but he much preferred to face problems right away than deal with unexpected turmoil later.
“My mom wants me to terminate the pregnancy. Honestly, I’m not fundamentally against that idea. I’m only considering carrying this baby to term for you two. I wouldn’t make all those sacrifices for strangers.” Gentry shrugged unapologetically. “Maybe that makes me a bad person, but at least I’m honest.”
Now he had the weight of Sara’s happiness and this baby’s life in his hands. Given the fact that Gentry was about eight or nine weeks into her pregnancy, he didn’t have much time to decide, either.
He raked his hands through his hair, stalling again. He’d never resorted to such tactics before, but he’d also never been forced into such a monumentally life-changing choice, either.
“You really want this, Sara?” His stomach burned from being forced to make this decision in too short a time frame, but after watching Sara suffer, he couldn’t outright deny her this chance. Maybe she was right. Maybe this miracle was a sign. Good God, now he sounded like his mother.
“I know it’s complicated, and there will probably be speed bumps we don’t see, but a few days ago I had no hope, and now we could have a baby in seven months. Better yet, I could go to all the appointments with Gentry and be part of the pregnancy, which I wouldn’t get to do with a normal adoption. It’s like the next best thing.” His wife brightened visibly at this latest realization. If she hadn’t already been fully on board, now she’d torn up the ticket and boarded the one-way train to motherhood.
“Payback! Now you’ll have to see me in stirrups,” Gentry joked, elbowing Sara.
When Hunter detected Gentry’s joy in making Sara—and him—happy, his eyes watered, which rarely happened. Who would’ve ever thought Gentry would be so selfless for his sake?
“I’m touched by your magnanimous show of love, which I’ll never be able to repay. But you know me. I can’t make a snap decision about something this big. Can you, Sara, and I take a day to really think through this huge commitment we’d all be making to each other? It requires more than a single conversation, although I also understand that we need to decide very soon.”
Gentry sighed. “You worry too much. Life’s much better when you go with the flow. Call me tomorrow or the next day. In the meantime, I’ll prepare my mom for the possibility.”
“Maybe you should wait, Gentry,” Sara interrupted. “No reason to get into a fight with her if this isn’t going to happen. And if we decide to go forward, then it might be better if we all make that announcement together.”
“Fine. I’ll wait. I’ll figure out some way to avoid her tonight.” Gentry hugged Sara. Hunter gave her a hug, too, and when he did, she grinned. “Honestly, Hunter, there’s no need to drag this out longer than the morning. We all know you won’t say no to Sara.”
He kept quiet, because as much as he didn’t want to deny Sara anything, he couldn’t quite wrap his head around this plan.
Sara waited until Gentry had pulled out of the driveway before resuming the conversation with her husband. She found him standing at the family room window, staring so intently at the lake she could probably dance around naked without gaining his attention.
His reaction hadn’t surprised her. Despite her own enthusiasm, she understood his reservations. Rather than launch back into the discussion, she gave him a break. “Are you hungry? I can fix us some lunch.”
“I’m hardly hungry now.” He twirled around and grabbed her hands before she could busy herself in the kitchen. “Slow down, babe.”
She pressed her lips together and inhaled through her nose. Selfishly, she didn’t want to give him a chance to talk her out of this. He had logic on his side, after all. But for her, hope always proved more intoxicating than logic.
“I know Gentry’s offer feels like a miracle to you, but when something seems too good to be true, it usually is.” His owlish gaze was filled with compassion and concern.
Sara didn’t want pity. Concern didn’t help much right then, either. She wanted him to trust that his sister knew what she wanted.
“In an ideal world, we could analyze every detail and make perfect decisions, but sometimes you just need to go with your gut.” Even as she said the words, she knew that she might as well have been asking him to move to Mars.
“My gut is telling me that this could be a disaster. Are you honestly without any concerns?” Hunter asked. “Let’s set aside issues about Gentry’s reliability. We know nothing about ‘Smith.’ What if he or his family finds out about the child later? What if he’s a psycho or has some illness that’s important to know about?” His runaway thoughts were written all over his expression.
“If we adopt any child, we’ll be facing some of those same questions. Why not adopt one related to you? Gentry really wants to do this for us. That’s huge, Hunter. Huge of her and for her.”
He released Sara’s hands and resumed his pacing. Then he stopped. “Assume the pregnancy goes well, and we bring the baby home. You know Jenna will think of it as Gentry’s child, because it is. We’ll be forced to suffer through that woman’s intrusive advice for the rest of our lives.”
Her husband’s face reflected his horror at that thought.
“With your dad’s help, we can draw boundaries.”
“You think so, do you? She’s talking him into selling CTC, so I wouldn’t bet on it. Who knows what she’ll convince him to do or say when it comes to their grandchild.”
“Can we please have one discussion that doesn’t mention the business, Hunter?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He rested his hands on his hips after pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“And don’t use Jenna as a scapegoat for your hang-ups.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. But don’t you deny the obvious downsides.”
“Like I already said, no matter what option we choose to have a family, there will be drawbacks. So tell me the truth. Are you jealous . . . wishing it were your Cabot DNA instead of your sister’s?” Typically, Sara did anything to avoid the blistering cold spot in her subconscious that wondered if her husband resented her infertility. Today it had to be addressed.
Hunter paused, considering his answer, and his hesitation opened up a pit in her stomach.
“In all honesty,” he said, “of course I wish we were able to have children together. But that doesn’t mean that I have any ill feelings about it, or you, just because we haven’t succeeded yet.”
/> “Yet?” Had he forgotten her promise? “I told you I can’t go through another IVF. We won’t be having children together.”
He removed his glasses, tossed them on the table, and rubbed his eyes. “Both IVFs only failed at the last step, but we’ve always ended up with multiple grade-one embryos. With surrogacy, it would be our child—our DNA. You refused that option because of its complications. With Gentry, we have all those complications plus a Gentry-‘Smith’-Jenna gene pool. That might be more than we can handle.”
Sara thought of Ty and how attached she’d already become despite his parentage and speech problems. “DNA isn’t important. Besides, surrogacy would take months to plan, and I’d be subjected to more poking and prodding. I’m tired of being a science experiment. Why go through all that when Gentry’s baby is already on the way?”
Hunter’s shoulders slumped.
Was she being selfish to deny him another chance at a biological child, or was he being too demanding to expect her to undergo the hormones and shots and ups and downs a third time with no guarantee of success?
Everything in the house fell deadly quiet except for the whoosh of heat clicking on. Hunter eventually collapsed on the sofa and sighed. “You really need this to be happy, don’t you? Our life together—our history, our home—isn’t enough.”
“Don’t say it like that. It’s not a fair characterization of my feelings or needs.”
“Not surprising, considering I haven’t been able to get a grip on either in some time. Why are the only things that make you happy lately so risky?”
“Risky?”
“Yes, Sara. Risky. This thing Gentry’s proposing is loaded with risk. So are foster kids who are wounded from difficult backgrounds. And working with indigent strangers at the Angel House opens you up to trouble. All these years I’ve tried to build us a secure life, and now you want to shake it all up.”
Sara’s throat ached with emotion as she sat beside her husband. “I want what my sisters have. What I grew up with—a big, sloppy, happy family. To me, the risks are worth it, so I’ll take Gentry’s child and some foster kids, too. I want to be a mom, surrounded by children and teaching them how to make the world a better place. To grow old with grandkids of our own.”
Hunter pulled her close. With her ear to his chest, she could hear his heart beating steadily and prayed that it would move him from fear to optimism. She couldn’t see his expression, but the tautness of his body suggested his face was pinched with indecision and stress. After a moment, he spoke, his words sounding thick. “I want you to have what you need, babe.”
“Does that mean we can adopt Gentry’s baby?” Sara held her breath.
He eased her off his chest and touched his forehead to hers. “Let’s give her and ourselves the night to think about it, Sara. This is too big of a decision not to take at least twenty-four hours to consider.”
In Hunterspeak, that was a yes, and she knew it even if he didn’t.
“Okay.” She kissed him, feeling down-to-her-toes optimistic for the first time in days. “I know you have reservations, but I’ve got enough faith for both of us.”
He would thank her in the summer, when they were doting on a bundle of love. For now, she’d find another way to persuade him. How lucky for her that he’d come home in the middle of a workday. She wanted to make it memorable so he’d be incentivized to do it more often.
She unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and pressed a kiss to his chest. “I know this is really hard for you. Let me prove how satisfying and wonderful risks and spontaneity can be.”
He grinned, but his eyes flickered with desire. “Really?”
“Really.” She kissed him again, pressing against him as his hands cupped her butt. The last time they’d had sex, she’d cried and ruined it. Today would be different.
“Go fill the tub. I have a surprise.” He gave her a quick tap on the hip and went down to the basement. She guessed he might be getting that hidden bottle of champagne. Although she still mourned those would-be children who hadn’t survived the desert of her womb, now she almost had something to celebrate.
Her parents had always promised that all her dreams could come true as long as she never gave up. It hadn’t been easy to believe in that lately, but Gentry’s offer had proved their point.
She padded up the stairs to draw a bath. Hunter arrived as she began to disrobe, carrying the bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes.
He filled the glasses and set them on the vanity. “Allow me.”
She couldn’t say who liked his ritual of undressing her more, him or her. Throughout the years, he’d bought her countless sets of lacy underwear, which he liked her to model for him. Watching his pupils expand, hearing his low whistle, feeling his fingertips trace the lines of her body as her clothing slithered to the ground—these reactions always stirred something in her chest that then slid down to her core.
“Miami?” he asked, tugging at the blue satin bra strap.
“Good memory.”
“Who could forget that dressing room?” He chuckled against her neck before planting a warm kiss there. Then he raised her arm and twirled her around. “That may have been five years ago, but you look every bit as beautiful now as you did back then.”
A falsehood, to be sure, but she appreciated that he saw her that way. It helped her get in the mood, which was something of a feat in recent months. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“A man can hope.” He unceremoniously shucked his shirt and pants, then tugged her to him so they were skin to skin. His arousal pressed against her abdomen as he unfastened her bra and let it fall. He cupped her breasts before slipping his fingers beneath her panties and removing them. “Into the tub with you.”
He brought the champagne flutes to the ledge of the soaking tub and then joined her in the warm water, which she’d infused with lavender bath oil. After handing her a glass, he twisted her around until she was sitting in his lap, her back against his chest. “I love you, Sara. Here’s to us and our growing family.”
The most perfect eleven words he could’ve said. “I love you, too, and promise you won’t regret this.” For an instant, she sensed his apprehension. Bone-deep desire for motherhood eclipsed her guilt.
He recovered, then, and stroked the silky, wet skin of her thigh. Within minutes, Gentry’s baby was no longer on their minds.
Chapter Ten
“This is insanity,” Jenna snapped.
For the first time in the past decade, Hunter didn’t completely disagree with his stepmother. She sat on the couch, her hands balled into white-knuckled fists on her thighs, looking like a snake poised to strike. The karmic maelstrom that led them all to this tense moment in his living room—one of maybe two dozen times Jenna had ever been there—still left him a little dazed.
“Of course you’d say that.” Gentry rolled her eyes. “Anything I do that doesn’t perfectly conform to your opinions is ‘insane’ in your mind.”
Jenna held her head with both hands, then turned toward her husband. When he didn’t immediately speak, she bugged her eyes. “Jed! Please jump in.”
Sara clasped Hunter’s hand while they awaited his dad’s reaction. Her serene expression projected a certainty he now faked. He wished he felt certain, because then it would be easier to defend Gentry and their plan. Easier to share in Sara’s bliss instead of pushing down the periodic resentment of being manipulated whenever it surfaced. Right now, the best he could muster was to lean forward, hold his wife’s hand, and try to decipher the turmoil in his dad’s eyes.
His dad and Gentry stared at each other, and then his father’s gaze flicked to him and Sara. Hunter had witnessed that conflicted look in his dad’s eyes throughout the years. Like when he’d announced his intention to divorce his mom, or when he’d told Hunter and Colby that they’d soon have a baby sibling. The last time he’d seen it was years ago, when Colby had eloped with Mark after knowing him for only three months.
Typical
ly, Hunter would be upset by not having his father’s full support. In this case, he couldn’t blame the man for having doubts.
“Jed, tell me you’re not seriously okay with this idea?” Jenna’s cheeks were flushed, her voice high and thready. If she were anyone else, Hunter might feel sorry for her. “This is our baby girl. Don’t you care about her future?”
His dad patted Jenna’s thigh before waving a hand toward Gentry, Sara, and Hunter. “These are three adults, Jenna. Our daughter got herself in a pickle, but I’m proud of her for coming up with an idea to turn it into something positive. She’s young and healthy. There’s no reason to think this pregnancy will bring her any harm. By this time next year, she’ll have moved on, and Hunter and Sara will have the family they’ve wanted for so long.”
Jenna’s face transformed into something inhuman . . . like the creatures in Predators. Hunter couldn’t remember having ever seen her ready to rip his dad’s head off. Fortunately, she settled for whipping a throw pillow at his chest before turning a narrowed gaze upon Hunter. “You’re awfully quiet. Was this your idea?”
He shook his head, dumbfounded that she’d think that he thought this was a good idea. She must not know him at all, which he found oddly disturbing.
“I told you, Mom. This was my idea.” Gentry glanced at Sara, heaving a “told you so” sigh. “Honestly, why did we need a family discussion? The three of us have agreed to do this. I don’t need permission.”
Sara’s grip on his hand tightened like a vise, belying her calm voice. “No, you don’t, but given how this affects the whole family, it’s best to get everyone’s support. And we want to make sure that whatever ground rules you, Hunter, and I set will be respected.”
Deep down—buried beneath all the obvious problems he’d raised with this adoption—Hunter began to suspect that part of his fear was about how he might be destroyed if he allowed himself to fall in love with his sister’s baby and then it all went sideways. And things often went sideways when he couldn’t control the outcome.
