And didn’t open the door. He sat there for a long time with his hand on the door handle, unable to move. What was he going to say to her? Hey, honey, you know how I didn’t want to do IVF? Well, thanks to your insistence now I have a daughter. He could imagine the back-of-the-head slap Dee would give him with that one.
Don’t be so flip, she’d say and demand all the details. Not that he had that many. He had a meeting scheduled tomorrow with the head of the clinic, but for now he only knew what the lawyer had told him on the phone: his sample was mislabeled and used as donor sperm instead of being destroyed. She’d turned four in the spring, according to the picture on Paige’s windowsill, so Kaylie would have been conceived sometime in the three-month window between when they learned about the cancer and when they learned it was terminal. Before he sent in the paperwork to have his samples destroyed. And he definitely couldn’t tell Dee that for the first time in three years he felt alive and it was because of another woman.
No, he couldn’t tell her that, not any of it. Because he had a daughter, thanks to her, and he had a life, such as it was. All she had was nothing. No babies to hold. No more laughter when he burned the steaks on the grill. No more life to grab on to.
Alex restarted the truck and pulled past her marker, down the shaded lane and back onto the main road. He grabbed dinner at a drive-through window and continued to his big, empty house. The forest-green shutters needed to be repainted, he realized when he pulled into the drive, and this weekend he should probably do a final mowing of the grass. In the kitchen he opened the cupboard door but instead of picking up one of Dee’s fancy plates he dumped his food on a paper plate and grabbed a beer from the fridge.
The canned laugh track from the sitcom annoyed him so he flipped over to a sports channel rerunning a Cardinals game from several years back. He ate his dinner sitting on the sofa Dee had bought, surrounded by the plants she liked and with her picture still on the mantel.
He wished like hell she was sitting on the sofa with him—and kicked the coffee table when he realized the woman he was imagining was Paige.
* * *
“WHAT I REALLY want to know is how this happened at all.” It was just before noon on Thursday, the day after meeting Alex, and Paige was expected back at school in just over an hour. She should have taken the entire day off work rather than just this morning.
While they were in the waiting area, Alex asked why she kept checking her watch. One thing led to another and they waived their confidentiality rights to face the lab supervisor together. They both wanted the same answers: how and why did this happen?
Alex sat in the chair next to her, arms folded over his chest. The supervisor looked uncomfortable. The longer this meeting went on, the nicer it felt to have someone on her side. Not that he was on her side, not really.
Paige glanced at the watch on her wrist. The drive from the fertility clinic to Bonne Terre would take at least forty-five minutes. She did the math. If the paper-pusher across the heavy oak desk didn’t give them some answers in about ten minutes she would have to leave and come back.
Not going to happen. And she wasn’t going to be pushed into another phone conversation with the lawyer, either. During the first phone call, she’d been too numb to ask questions about what happened four years ago. The donor she’d picked was a college graduate, Caucasian, of average height and weight. All of which fit Alex, except Alex wasn’t a donor. He’d been an IVF candidate along with his wife.
Now he was in Paige’s life and she needed to know why. Why, when she had been so careful in her choices, when she had made so many changes in her life, did this have to happen now?
The lab supervisor seemed honestly upset on their behalf, but he was still a company employee.
“My wife and I were assured that samples were checked and double-checked. That there was no need to worry about—”
“Human error,” the man across the desk interrupted and pushed at the lock of hair he was trying to use to cover his bald spot. His blue eyes were faded and the crow’s-feet at their corners seemed to be growing new legs the longer he was in the room. His nameplate read Merle Nelson. “We vet our employees very well. They are all smart, efficient and well paid, but mistakes do happen. We do know it wasn’t a case of an employee intentionally replacing samples.”
“Intentional or not this is a little more than a ‘mistake,’ though, don’t you think?” Paige couldn’t believe the man was talking as if this happened every day.
Mr. Nelson folded his hands over the desk blotter, pressing his thumbs together so hard Paige thought they might snap right off his hands. “Yes, I do. I can assure you this kind of mistake has never happened in our facility before.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Alex said sarcastically.
“What we can tell you is that there will be restitution made to your families and, with DNA testing of the remaining samples, we can tell you with authority if there were any other, uh, mislabelings.”
“Remaining samples?” Paige’s voice was a squeak.
“I might have— Son of a bitch.” Anger laced Alex’s voice and he stood to pace.
“We don’t believe there were. We have run initial tests on the other samples and all indications are they belong to the original donor and not to you.”
Paige felt sick. For the past half hour Nelson had danced around how sperm samples were stored and why vials were labeled with numbers rather than names and how those numbers referred to the names attached. He skipped over the part where Alex’s sample should have been in a different section of the storage facility than the donor sperm. Now there was the possibility that this could have happened to other families. It wasn’t right.
“What is it that we can do for you, Mr. Ryan?” His words snapped Paige out of her thoughts.
“You can tell me there aren’t more children out there with my DNA inside them, for starters.” Alex gripped the back of his chair and his knuckles turned white. Paige wanted to comfort him somehow, but what could she say?
“We sent the samples to a DNA lab for complete analysis. A mouth swab from you and from the child... It won’t tell us why this happened, but you will know definitively how to move forward.” He turned his focus from Alex to Paige. “Ms. Kenner?”
What could they do for her? They could go back in time and give her the sperm she’d chosen, that’s what they could do. Only...
Would Kaylie be the girl she was with different DNA inside her? Paige’s attention and mothering would be the same, but could she truly complain about the DNA that gave Kaylie her silly laugh or the curl in her hair? Or that made her so curious about the world around her? So eager to learn everything about it? She couldn’t.
He didn’t wait for her answer. “I’ve been authorized to offer a settlement to each of you. While our facility is focused on helping men and women create the families of their dreams, we do realize that our error may have caused you some mental anguish—”
Anguish? He thought reading Kaylie Dr. Seuss at night caused anguish? Sure, Paige could do without the nightly arguments over veggie consumption or the ten-minute monologues that helped Kaylie decide which princess movie they’d watch on a Friday night. But those things weren’t exactly anguish-inducing.
“—and we applaud your decision to begin the process of blending your families.” He pushed an envelope across the desk as he named a figure that made Paige’s ears burn.
Her hands fisted in her lap.
Alex’s fingers were nearly white under his fingernails until he reached for the envelope and tore it in half. He tossed the pieces on the desk, turned on his heel and slammed the door.
Paige was in shock. Nelson thought a check for five times her yearly salary would make her forget the sleepless nights she’d had since the lawyer first called? The worry over how she could let a stranger into their lives? The insecurities that this crazy situation brought back to the surface? Paige knew she was a good mother, but was this some kind of sign she really c
ouldn’t pull off single-parenting without messing up her kid?
She swallowed and reached out, pushing the envelope back across the desk with her fingernail. How many times had money been used to keep her in line? There was the cruise for her sixteenth birthday, the extravagant car her parents offered on her high school graduation, an upgraded model when she graduated college. They always said the boarding schools were for her benefit but Paige knew the truth: boarding schools were a way to keep her under control and give them a way to forget about her.
She wasn’t taking another penny. Not from her parents. Certainly not from a fertility clinic.
“I didn’t come here for your money, Mr. Nelson. I came here for answers. The fact that you don’t have the answers I need—” she shook her head “—it’s typical. But I still won’t take your money because when I came here five years ago I had one thought in mind, making a family. My daughter is amazing and this situation leaves a lot to be desired, but it doesn’t change the fact that without your colossal mistake, I wouldn’t have her.” Paige picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I hope you continue to reevaluate the humans working in this office so no more of these ‘errors’ occur.”
* * *
FRIDAY MORNING ALEX’S cell phone chirped and he pulled it from his pocket. It was Paige, texting the address of a coffee shop in nearby Farmington. Probably didn’t want rumors to spread in her small town about them. A sigh of relief escaped his chest. He couldn’t blame her. Meeting in Farmington meant he had more time before telling his in-laws about the change from widower to father. He had no idea how they would react to the news but figured it couldn’t be good. Alex added Paige’s number to his contacts list and then replied that he would be there.
He put the phone back in his pocket and blew out a breath. He shouldn’t be attracted to her. It wasn’t like they were dating or even should date. She was the mother of his daughter, a little girl he’d never met. He’d done the love thing and it was great, but there were enough complications between him and Paige without adding attraction to the mix.
The promise he made her, not to hurt Kaylie, felt like a promise about Paige, too. How could he hurt a woman he barely knew? Another of the million unanswerable questions plaguing him lately.
He didn’t want to hurt her or the little girl, and making sure everyone came out on the other side of this without a few bumps or bruises would take all his focus. Only he couldn’t forget about those adorable freckles, the way her upper half filled out the navy tee, the tight behind she showed off so well in jeans and the pretty, paint-splattered toes.
How many women still blushed, much less admitted to blushing when they could just as easily pretend nothing happened? He liked her. Didn’t want to, but there it was.
Paige Kenner tripped all his buttons in the attraction department.
Not that that had anything to do with anything.
Alex turned up Mooner’s Hollow Trail to check in on the hiker’s kiosks. So far it was a quiet afternoon at St. Francois State Park. He swiped a bandanna over the back of his neck. Hot but quiet. October was almost over, but so far Mother Nature seemed to be ignoring the fact that fall was here. He knelt beside Coonville Creek, dipped the bandanna into the water and then squeezed it over his head before replacing his black ball cap and continuing down the trail. Any day now the leaves would begin turning. First brilliant reds and then more subtle oranges and yellows would peek through before the first frost.
His walkie crackled and Tucker Blevins’s deep voice echoed around the quiet trail.
“Any campers in the past day ask about setting up camp off-trail and away from the usual sites?”
Alex hadn’t seen many campers, period, for the past week. The park was open to them from March through November but once school was back in session traffic died down significantly.
“Other than the RV that checked in two nights ago, I haven’t seen anyone.”
Tuck was quiet for a moment. “I’ve got an off-grid camp, maybe a day or two abandoned, just off Pike’s Run. You close enough to get over here so we can look around for any lost hikers?”
Tuck described his location and Alex left the trail to start in that direction. Off-grid hiking wasn’t unusual but it might have occurred because someone had gotten hurt or more experienced hikers wanted to rough it for a night or two. Either way, they needed to check for anyone lost and make sure the campsite was cleared.
Two hours later what was left of the site was packed into a couple of sacks, but there were no campers to be found. No real trail, either. Which led Alex to believe it was kids on a dare. Most experienced hikers would have marked some kind of trail so they could easily get their bearings and return to camp.
Of course, most experienced hikers would also not leave most of their campsite behind.
Alex hefted one of the sacks over his shoulder while Tuck grabbed the other one and they started the cross-country hike back to the park office. They hit the creek within a few minutes and then rejoined Mooner’s Trail. Alex pushed his black ball cap off, wiped his forehead with the bandanna and replaced the cap. Tuck followed in silence and it ate at Alex.
“What?”
“What, what?” Tuck feigned surprise.
“You never hike in silence.” Alex rolled his eyes. “Since we were kids it was what girl let you get to third base, how hot the girl at the honky-tonk was or how women seem to go from fun to clingy in a heartbeat. You haven’t said a word in more than a half hour. I repeat, what?”
Tuck kicked an acorn off the trail as they curved around a creek bend. “I wondered how it went with the baby mama. And then I remembered how mostly I do the talking because you don’t like to talk about anything important anymore and decided to keep my big mouth shut.” He elbowed Alex. “But since you brought it up, how’d the big meeting go?”
“How did you know I went to see her?” He shifted the pack on his back but that didn’t ease the tension in his neck. Tension that had nothing to do with carrying an extra fifteen pounds of gear and everything to do with how Paige looked standing in her kitchen. Then again in the clinic office. A little scared, a lot focused. Sexy and ruffled and damn it, why did he have to keep thinking of her at all?
“Dude, since Deanna died you haven’t talked about much of anything except the weather, baseball and tourist traffic. A month ago you tell me about the fertility clinic screwup and two days ago you call in for a personal day. Same thing yesterday. It’s an easy jump from Alex-Never-Takes-Vacation to Alex-Met-The-Mom.”
“We talk about more than baseball and tourists. And the weather is important.” Alex scowled as the office came into view.
“Wrong. I talk. You mostly listen. I’m not gonna go all girl on you and say I’ve missed our friendship, but when you told me what happened, it was nice to see a little of the old Alex coming through again.”
Alex unlocked the park office and dumped the excess gear on the tiled floor so they could catalogue it and then box it away. “The old Alex?” he asked.
“You remember him, don’t you? Got excited about things, got mad about things.”
“I’m not mad or excited about this mix-up. It’s messing with my life.”
“What life?” Tuck closed the door behind them. “You come to work, you hike alone, you show up for the rec leagues and through it all you’re not really there. And you definitely don’t talk about anything.”
“I haven’t had a lot to say.”
“For three and a half years?” Tuck’s pack joined Alex’s and they began separating and cataloguing the extra ropes, shoestrings and miscellaneous matter that had been left behind. “I know Deanna’s death was hard and I know her parents have put a lot of pressure on you to keep her memory alive. We’re good.” Tuck waved his hand between them. “It was just nice to see a sliver of the Alex I knew precancer. I kinda missed that guy.”
“That guy and this guy are the same guy.” Besides, it wasn’t like he’d intentionally shut people out. It was jus
t easier to get through the gray days after the funeral in his private bubble. And the longer that bubble was around him the harder it was to break through. After the call from the lawyer, the gray seemed to dissipate some. He wasn’t sure he liked life outside the bubble, though, not if it kept his best friend talking about feelings.
Tuck tossed an empty canteen into a box and noted it on the paper. “That guy was alive. You’ve just been going through the motions. So, is she a hot baby mama, or one of those chicks with the sexy tats and piercings but an inability to make good decisions?”
Alex rolled the extra pack up and returned it to his own gear. “Paige is...” He beetled his brows. “Fine.”
Tuck hooted and slapped Alex on the shoulder. “So we’re talking one-hot-mama territory, aren’t we? Is she single?”
He couldn’t hold back the grin. At least Tuck was off the feelings subject and on to the physical. Physical Alex could handle. “You’re an ass. And we didn’t get that far.”
“Do I detect a hint of hands-off in that sentence?” Tuck sat back on his heels, stacked the boxes and then stood.
Alex had no good response to that question. Besides, Tuck always had the ability to see right through him. From the attraction he still felt for the woman two days later he didn’t think the wall he was trying to erect was quite thick enough to withstand the scrutiny. He picked up the boxes and shelved them in the storage area.
“It’s okay, you know, if you like her.” Alex shot Tuck a back-off glance. In true Tuck form, he ignored it. “Dee wouldn’t have wanted you to be—”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.” Alex cut off his friend. Talking about feelings or how Paige looked in the abstract was one thing. Talking about Dee... Alex couldn’t seem to talk to Dee anymore and he certainly wasn’t going to talk about what she might or might not have wanted. “I’m not attracted to Paige.” And maybe, if he repeated that to himself enough times, it would be true. “She’s pretty but she’s also the mother of the child I don’t even know. We’re barely acquaintances, much less anything more.”
The Daughter He Wanted Page 3
