by Brenda Novak
Once they were out of her immediate sight, Ellie breathed a sigh of relief and, since she was no longer interested in food, focused on the TV for the first time. If she seemed engrossed in the game, which had started, she wouldn’t be expected to socialize so much. She’d lost her desire to mill around and converse along with her hunger. Truth be told, for all her self-talk about staying, she was already looking for an excuse to leave.
She’d decided she’d try to stick it out until halftime when she saw a face that made her scream and jump off the sofa.
At her outburst, the room fell silent, except for the TV, and everyone turned to stare.
“You okay?” Dick asked.
“It’s not the baby, is it?” Her boss, Carolyn Towers, who ran the Clinical Islet Transplant Program at the BDC, set her plate aside and hurried over. Carolyn was trying to get Ellie to sit down again, but Ellie couldn’t move. She was stiff with shock and rooted to the spot.
“It’s not the baby,” she managed to say.
“What is it, then?” Carolyn asked.
She pointed at the handsome player on the sidelines who’d taken off his helmet on leaving the field. “I—I know that man.”
“Of course you do, honey.” Carolyn spoke gently, soothingly. “That’s Hudson King, quarterback for the Los Angeles Devils. He’s famous. Everyone knows him.”
“No.” She shook her head as though what she was seeing couldn’t possibly be real. “I mean...I know him.”
Dick moved closer. “Personally?”
“I met him at a club,” she explained.
“And you didn’t recognize him?” This came from Diane, who’d quit fussing with the food in the kitchen to find out what was going on.
Ellie couldn’t quite process what she was seeing and hearing. She’d thought Hudson was gone from her life for good, forever lost. But no. Here he was, talking to another player on TV while the cameras rolled and an announcer described him as one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
“Ellie?”
Carolyn’s voice came to her from what seemed to be a far distance. Carolyn was repeating a question. Ellie hadn’t known who Hudson was when she met him at the club. She’d had no clue whatsoever. Why hadn’t he said something? He must have realized she didn’t recognize him. But even if he’d mentioned his last name, she doubted she could’ve identified him as a famous football player. She’d never paid any attention to sports, had too many other things on her mind that night—mainly her own misery and humiliation. “No,” she replied. “And he never told me.”
“Are you sure it was him?” Dick asked. “I mean...I think you’d know if you ran into one of the most famous quarterbacks on the planet.”
“Even if you didn’t, why would meeting him be a problem?” Diane bent to pick up the food Ellie had unwittingly dumped on the hardwood floor when she got up. “Famous or no, that man’s as handsome as a man can be.”
“I’d sure like to meet him,” another female coworker piped up with a raucous laugh, but Ellie didn’t bother turning to see who’d spoken.
“Yeah. He’s handsome,” she agreed. He was also good in bed. She should know. She’d spent an entire night with him—and wound up pregnant with his baby.
Belatedly realizing that she should help clean up the mess she’d made, she dropped to her knees. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to ruin your party.”
“Oh, stop. You haven’t ruined anything. This’ll wipe up easily enough.” Diane caught her hands as she continued to help, then frowned. “Your fingers are ice-cold, Ellie. What’s going on?”
“I shouldn’t have come here. I—I’m not feeling very well.”
Dick raised her gently to her feet while his wife finished picking up the food, and she began digging around in her purse for her keys.
Despite Leo’s disapproval, which Ellie could feel rolling off him like a heat wave, Don stepped in front of her as she headed for the door. “Ellie, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She skirted past him, hauling in a deep breath as soon as she stepped outside. The fresh air felt good, but she wasn’t safely away quite yet. She knew when Don yelled her name that he was coming after her.
“Ellie, can we talk for a minute?” he asked, hurrying to catch up.
Ducking her head, she kept marching down the street. “No.”
“Wait. I have a proposition for you, something I think you’ll like.”
Despite the way her heart hammered against her chest and her thoughts raced in her head, this caught her attention. “What is it?” she asked, whirling around to face him.
“Leo and I, we...we understand that it might be difficult for you to take care of a baby all on your own.”
Where was he going with this? “The baby’s my problem.” She was about to walk off again, when he grabbed her arm.
“That’s the thing. Your pregnancy doesn’t have to be a problem at all. You couldn’t have planned this, not with your folks out of town for the year.”
“So?”
When she didn’t argue, couldn’t argue, he seemed to take courage. “I’ve always wanted children.”
She lifted a hand to interrupt. “You can still have children, Don. Even if you don’t use a surrogate, you could adopt.”
“That’s true, I guess, but adoption’s an expensive process. Heck, it costs a lot of money just to rescue a dog these days.”
Why did he insist on waylaying her? She wanted to leave, go home, turn on her TV and stare at Hudson when no one else was around to notice how deeply the sight of him affected her. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him, not for one night. “That’s the way things are.” How did Don expect her to fix the system? “I—I can’t change the world.”
“I’m not asking you to change anything. I believe there’s a solution here that’d make us both happy. Rather than pay sixty to eighty thousand to get a surrogate, I’d prefer to give you that money. I mean, you could buy a house.”
She brought one hand to her chest. “You’re offering to pay me for my child? You want me to sell him or her to you?”
A pained expression appeared on his face. “No, no! That’s not it at all. I’m saying if you’re open to considering...placement options, Leo and I will do everything we can to be good parents. We’d love to have the baby—and we’d be generous with you in whatever way you needed.”
“This isn’t your child, Don. I’ve told you that before.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he argued. “I hope it is, so I’ll have some rights if you refuse my offer, but even if it’s not, I’d like the opportunity to be part of this kid’s life.”
She pulled her arm from his grip. “No! Go back and enjoy the game with Leo.”
Leo stood on the stoop, watching them. He’d come out shortly after Don. Ellie couldn’t help wondering what Don’s partner was thinking. Was he in agreement on this baby business? She couldn’t see his expression clearly now that she was two houses down, but it looked as if he was wearing a dark scowl.
“Just keep that in mind,” Don said. “If you decide you’re not ready for a baby—and you’d like your child to have the stability of two loving parents—we’re here. We’re ready for that when...when maybe you’re not.”
He believed he and Leo could offer her child more than she could? Eager to strike back after all he’d done, she said, “There’s no way. This baby belongs to Hudson King. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I couldn’t give the child away. He’d have to agree.”
Don’s eyebrows jerked together, becoming one giant slash above his blue eyes. “What are you talking about?”
What was she talking about? She’d spoken impetuously, allowed her desire to show him that she was more than his pathetic castoff take control. But she needed to keep her mouth shut, at least until she could decide what to do.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
As she turned to go for the second time, he caught her by the shoulder. “Are you telling me that Hudson King—the Hudson King of the Los Angeles Devils—is the father of your child? That’s why you freaked out in there? You didn’t even know he played football?”
“No. That’s laughable. Of course I know who I slept with. I’m not feeling well, not making sense. I have to go.” Pulling away, she ran to her car, got inside and locked the door. But Don didn’t go back to the party. As she started the engine and punched the gas pedal, a quick glance in her rearview mirror showed him standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, looking as stunned as she felt.
* * *
As soon as she got home, Ellie recorded the rest of the game. She watched it as it recorded, too, studied Hudson’s every move. That was the man she’d met at Envy, all right. So much of that night suddenly made sense. Why he was hanging back on the periphery of the crowd when he could’ve been in the middle of everything. Why he was wearing sunglasses even though it was dark. Why he’d escorted her out the back door. Why he had such a magnificent warrior’s body. And why he’d been in town in the first place. She’d signed on to the internet and called up the Devils’ schedule. Sure enough, they’d played the Miami Dolphins the Sunday following her stay at the Four Seasons. The Devils had lost, but that was one of only three losses on the season.
How had she missed all the media coverage of this man? Amy always joked that she lived in a cave. This was embarrassing proof that she let far too many things escape her notice. She would’ve called Amy, but didn’t want to interrupt her weekend in Vegas. She also didn’t want whoever Amy was with to overhear what she needed to talk about. She regretted saying what she had to Don. He’d already left her three messages since she got home.
“Hudson’s a professional athlete, Ellie. He probably has women in every city he plays in. Who knows how many kids. He won’t care about you or your child, certainly won’t want to take on the duties of a father. But I’m here to help. Call me, okay?”
Next message: “Ellie, you’d be crazy to tell King. Whatever happened between you must’ve been quick and dirty if you didn’t even realize who he was. He won’t be thrilled to have you pop up in his life again. Why not save yourself the rejection? What if he tries to take the baby away? Leo and I have a better solution. So will you please call me?”
Next message: “Ellie, pick up. Come on. I’d really like to talk to you. Leo and I have discussed everything, and he’s hoping for a chance to assure you that he feels the same way I do. We’d both love to raise this child. We’re nearly forty. It’s the perfect time for us, the only thing we’re missing.”
“Why wouldn’t I go for that? I live to make you happy,” she muttered when she heard his last message and turned off her phone. She didn’t need Don’s interference. She’d decide the future of her baby, not him.
So...what was she going to do? Now that she knew who Hudson was, she could search online and learn all kinds of things about him. When she put his name in Google, she was presented with a list of articles dating back several years.
Most of the information was sports related—his stats, his responses to wins or losses, whether or not he’d been injured in a particular game and how long he might be out if he was. Some personal stuff came up, too, however—more than she would’ve wanted circulating about her if she was a public figure. She focused on one article in particular.
What’s in a name?
Ask one of the best quarterbacks ever to play football. Hudson King was named after two cross streets in Bel Air, a ritzy Southern California neighborhood, where he was found hidden under a privacy hedge at less than a day old. No one knows who his parents are or why he was abandoned the day he was born. The police investigation turned up no legitimate leads...
“Wow, that’s terrible,” Ellie muttered, but it was obviously true. She discovered plenty of other articles to confirm his background. After going in and out of foster care for a number of years—and trying to steal a car when he was only fourteen—he’d been sent to a place called New Horizons Boys Ranch. Although Ellie wasn’t familiar with boys ranches, she quickly learned that they were reformatory boarding schools for troubled teens. This one was in Southern California somewhere. It was at New Horizons that Hudson’s athletic ability began to shine. Somehow he got his life turned around, went to UCLA, won the Heisman Trophy his senior year and entered the NFL. He’d been with the Devils ever since. Ellie read that he’d taken less from the Devils on his last contract than he could’ve gotten elsewhere so he could stay in California and the organization would still be able to get some experienced talent at receiver. He mentored many of the boys who went to his old high school and didn’t want to leave the area.
The fact that he was so interested in the welfare of the students at New Horizons brought Ellie a degree of comfort. She had a good impression of him from the night they were together, but one night, especially one spent making love more than talking, didn’t reveal a whole lot. He was largely an unknown to her.
She saw another article about his involvement in the school. The administrator, someone named Aiyana Turner, said he’d donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships and sporting equipment, so much that the football field at New Horizons had been renamed in his honor this year. Ms. Turner admitted he’d had a few brushes with the law when he was a kid, but she’d been quick to add that was all in the past.
Ellie touched her stomach. She’d gone four and a half months thinking this was her baby and hers alone, that her child’s biological father would never be part of the picture. Seeing Hudson on TV had upended all of that. So what now? Did she dare keep the news to herself?
She was tempted. Her silence could eliminate several risky variables. What if Hudson wasn’t as good as his service to New Horizons made him appear? What if he gave her nothing but grief? What if he demanded shared custody? They lived across the country from each other. She didn’t want to be putting her child on a plane every other weekend.
She’d be much smarter to keep her mouth shut. But would that be fair? Didn’t she owe it to Hudson to tell him? Beyond Hudson, what about her responsibility to the baby? Did she have the right to deny her child some kind of connection with the man who’d fathered him or her? Didn’t common decency suggest she do everything possible to facilitate that relationship?
Fathers were important; they could make a big difference. Her own father was the parent who seemed to understand her and who’d nurtured her the most while she was growing up.
If Hudson didn’t want to be involved, that decision should come from him. But how would she even approach him to find out? What would she say? “Excuse me, do you remember that night in Miami?” Chances were he wouldn’t remember her at all. Professional athletes were notoriously promiscuous. She was probably just one of many women he’d been with in the past several months.
He won’t be thrilled to have you pop up in his life again...
Don obviously agreed. But she wasn’t going to let her ex-fiancé’s skepticism get inside her head. Hudson hadn’t even had any birth control with him.
On the other hand, that could mean he’d simply used it all...
She was about to watch the game for the second time, as if that might show her something she hadn’t already seen, when she discovered a video clip on YouTube that held her spellbound. It was part of a press conference, in which one intrepid reporter kept asking Hudson personal questions that should’ve been out of bounds, since those questions had nothing to do with what he was there to discuss, which was, of course, football.
“How do you feel being abandoned as a baby has figured into your view of life?” the reporter asked. “Would you say your history’s made it more difficult for you to succeed as an individual?”
Ellie watched Hudson’s eyes narrow as they focused more intently on the
woman who’d asked that question. “Excuse me?”
Ellie was pretty sure that almost everyone else who’d received such a look would’ve slunk into the background. Not this girl. She repeated the question, loud and clear.
A muscle moved in Hudson’s cheek, but then he grinned as if he was just a good old boy who didn’t care much about anything. “I wouldn’t consider it a positive thing,” he joked. “No one wants to be discarded like trash. But that was thirty-two years ago. I’ve had plenty of time to get over it.”
“The holidays are coming up,” the woman said, going after him again. “Do you find that a particularly difficult time?”
Somehow, Hudson managed to keep his smile in place. He was acting the part of a big, tough football player, and he was doing it well. But Ellie had spotted an almost-imperceptible wince, knew that question had blasted a hole through him, even if the stupid reporter didn’t. “I’ve got lots of family,” he said. “They’re just not related by blood.”
“Have you ever done any of your own searching, hoping to find out who left you under that hedge?” she persisted.
Hudson responded as though he didn’t hear her third question. He scanned the crowd and called on someone else. But since the first reporter had ventured beyond how the Devils were planning to prepare for the next game, or whether Hudson thought they had a serious Super Bowl bid this year, the next reporter couldn’t seem to resist following her lead. “Would you want a relationship with your mother if she ever did step forward?”
“Looks like we’re out of time,” Hudson replied briskly, and Ellie nearly cheered when he stood, putting an end to the conference.
“Poor guy.” With a sigh, she pushed her computer away and turned on her phone. She’d told herself she wouldn’t call Amy, but she had to talk to someone about this, and her parents still didn’t know she was pregnant. Whenever she spoke to them, she pretended nothing had changed since her breakup with Don, which meant she still had that daunting conversation ahead of her.
