by Alexis Gold
“No, I think that about covers it.”
“Have a good day then, Ms. Johnston. We wish you the best of luck.”
Gracie and Becca stood for a moment in stunned silence. The brusque woman on the other end had certainly not sounded like anyone’s idea of a joke, and she wasn’t pushy enough to be a scammer.
“So…” began Gracie.
“So this is big stuff,” said Becca. “I think they’re for real, Grace.”
“I think so too,” Gracie said after a moment.
“So…”
“So what?”
“Gracie this is huge! Are you going to do it or what?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t just something you decide on a dime.”
“Well what have you got to lose by just filling out the application?” Becca sat down at the table and began to flip through the attached stack of papers while Gracie got down a pan and set it on the stove top to warm up. “Woah. This is some deep stuff. How many sexual partners have you had in the last year? Are you menstrual cycles regular? What was the first day of your last period? Geez.”
“I guess those would be some important things to know,” said Gracie matter of factly, mixing up a roux in the hot pan.
Gracie and Becca talked about the intriguing proposition as they prepared dinner. Becca finally dropped the subject when their show began, and they settled in for some Deuce time. But even Deuce’s topless scenes that night couldn’t fully engage Gracie. Her mind was elsewhere. One million dollars and a mysterious millionaire. And a baby. Gracie had never really had the desire for children of her own but she wasn’t adverse to the idea of being pregnant. And it wasn’t like she had any serious love interest going on in her life. By the end of the night Gracie had made up her mind, even though Becca had given up on pestering her about it. She was going to fill out the application. What did she have to lose?
Chapter Two
Derrick didn’t think it would ever be possible, but at this exact moment he was positively sick of looking at beautiful women. He dropped the newest stack of applications on the table and lowered his reading glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. It was turning into a big headache. Ever since he had formulated his plan with Al Maxwell he’d been knee deep in beautiful, intelligent, well-bred women who were nearly begging to bear his child. As a Hollywood star he was used to the attention, but he found it overwhelming. Though he knew it had nothing really to do with him. It was all about the million dollars. To most people that was probably an unfathomable amount of money, a dream come true. It wasn’t exactly pocket change to him either, but for what he was asking it seemed like a small price to pay. He was asking for the world.
Until the past couple years Derrick had never considered having children. Truth be told, he had lived most of his life being a child, spoiled and pampered by everyone around him. His ranch foreman, Lex, often joked that if he wanted to Derrick could find someone to wipe his own ass for him. The scary thing was, Lex probably wasn’t wrong. Derrick had discovered over the years that a guy can get pretty much anything he wants out of life; all he has to do is master the art of acting like someone else in front of a camera. That skill had always come naturally to Derrick and it was what he loved to do. Maybe that was why he was so good at it. He got to live his life doing what he loved and he was thankful for it every day. How many people could say they did the same?
Unfortunately, Derrick had started getting the paternal itch halfway through his marriage to Anicka. The unlucky part was that Anicka simply wasn’t the maternal type. The idea of creating a single stretch mark, sag, roll, or wrinkle on her model-perfect body was one factor, especially when she had put so much time and money into the finished product. The fact that Anicka Andersen had absolutely zero patience with children, animals, servants, or those she thought beneath her was another factor. While their marriage had been a joke from the beginning, he knew that the children issue had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. All for the better, as it turned out. The media had gotten their dog and pony show, Derrick’s publicist was happy, and- best of all- Anicka and her poisonous attitude were out of his life for good.
At first, their courtship had been the perfect Hollywood romance, and Derrick often wondered if it had all been just a publicity stunt from the beginning. Handsome A-list actor meets European super model. They make appearances at all the most in restaurants and nightclubs, attend all the high-profile parties and luxurious vacation spots together, and walk down the red carpet arm-in-arm. Not only was Anicka beautiful, but she was a lot of fun. She was always the life of the party, and for a while Derrick had been proud to be the one she had chosen. He proposed to her under the stars on a private beach in St. Bart’s and that same year they had been married in a ridiculously fancy (and ridiculously expensive) Christmas wedding in Aspen.
Derrick had thought that marriage would slow Anicka down, but it hadn’t. Two years into their marriage- about the time he started thinking about children- he found himself wondering where the domestic part in domestic bliss was. And, for that matter, where was the bliss part? Anicka still loved the party scene. When she wasn’t working out or agonizing over extreme fad diets, she loved travel and shopping and couldn’t fathom a relaxing weekend at home. Meanwhile, Derrick was finding that he wanted to spend more time back on his ranch in Montana, and wondering what it would be like to teach a little boy how to ride a horse or shoot a bow and arrow. Anicka, of course, would hear nothing of the children conversation. She put her foot down and when Anicka Andersen put her foot down that was that. The real end came when Derrick arrived home from a shoot in Mexico to find Anicka in the hot tub naked- with her personal trainer, Lars. Neither of them were really shocked (though Lars had gotten quite a scare); they knew that it had been over for months.
As soon as the divorce was finalized, Derrick found that he was finally free to pursue what he really wanted most- a son or daughter of his own to pass on his genetics, his fortune, and most importantly his love. Through artificial insemination single women had babies on their own all the time, why couldn’t a man? Derrick didn’t like the idea of artificial insemination though. He had been raised by a strict Baptist mother; and though he hadn’t lived the past twenty years a saint, he still thought some things should be left up to God. Things like the conception of a new human life, for example. When it came to that Derrick liked to do things the old fashioned way. The decision to pay a woman to conceive and bear his child wasn’t too hard to make. Yes, essentially he would be paying a woman to have sex with him, but wasn’t that what women had been doing all his life? He realized with shame that since becoming a star most- if not all- of the women he had slept with had been in it for something, whether it was his money or his name. Had any of them truly loved him? Had Anicka even loved him? Had he loved her?
Derrick had given up on finding love. He was saving up his love for his child. So he had contracted his personal law firm to engage in the hunt for the perfect mother. She had to be not only attractive physically, but intelligent and educated. She had to have good, healthy roots and a strong moral character. Special skills and talents were a plus. These were all things he wanted passed on to his child. Rather than going public with his proposal- which the media would surely have a field day with- Derrick set Maxwell to the task with strict instructions that he be kept anonymous. Maxwell Senior, after nearly five decades of practicing law, had connections all over the world. If anybody could track down the perfect woman, Al Maxwell could.
This brought Derrick to the stacks upon stacks of applications on his desk. Applications were submitted by invitation only, but there were still hundreds of them from all over the world. And any one of them would make an ideal match; only none of them had jumped out at them. He didn’t know what he expected to find.
Derrick heard the click of boot heels approaching down the hallway, and was relieved when he saw Lex standing in the doorway. He needed a distraction.
“Boy, am I happy to see your face,
” he said.
“I wish my wife would say that when I walked into a room,” laughed Lex. Lex was in his late forties and had been on the ranch all of his life. When Derrick had bought the property ten years ago he had promoted Lex to foreman. No one knew the land better than Lex, or respected it more.
“How’s everything going?”
“Good. We’re expecting three more calves anytime in the next day or so.”
“Already?” Derrick asked amazed. He really had been engrossed in this woman search. “Sorry I haven’t been much help lately. I’ve just had my head stuck in all this,” he indicated the stacks of applications.
“Still searching for Miss Right, huh?”
Derrick sighed deeply. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m going about this the right way.”
“Not my place to say,” said Lex. Derrick waited; Lex wasn’t one to hold back. After a pause he added, “But if you want this humble cowpoke’s opinion, why not wait? Meet a nice girl the way everyone else does it.”
“The internet?” asked Derrick sardonically.
“You know what I mean. You’re driving yourself crazy with this. Take some more time to think about it.”
“I’m not getting any younger, Lex. And we can’t all be as lucky as you.” Lex and his wife Myra had five children. “I don’t want to be sixty trying to teach my boy to catch a football.”
“I can understand that. All I’m saying is, this whole idea seems like a gamble. What are the chances that the perfect mother is somewhere in that stack?”
“Anytime you decide to have children you’re taking a gamble,” Derrick observed.
At that moment a young boy came bounding into the room with a golden retriever hot on his heels.
“Speak of the devil,” muttered Lex.
The pair blew in like a hurricane, knocking Derrick’s stack of applications to the floor. “Daddy! Daddy!” shouted the little boy, breathless. He noticed the scattered papers on the floor and stopped short. “Oh! Sorry Mr. Derrick!”
“Benny!” said Lex to his youngest son, “you know you’re not supposed to barge in here!”
“It’s okay,” said Derrick, not bothering to pick them up. The papers could wait. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Sugar’s new calf! He got out again and he’s fallen in the pond!”
“Crap,” said Derrick, getting his coat from the rack by the door.
“I can handle it,” said Lex.
“No, I need to be out there more. I’ve been neglecting my duties. I need some fresh air anyway. Come on, Wally,” he said to the dog that was standing in the door wagging his tail, just waiting for instruction. Derrick had inherited the dog at about the same time he purchased the ranch. No one really knew where Wally had come from; he’d simply appeared one day and hadn’t left since. Lately he’d taken to paling around with his eight-year-old companion. The two were nearly inseparable.
Derrick, Lex, and Benny, along with the excited retriever, left the house and hurried down the slope to the barn and pastures. The two other ranch hands had already left for the day, leaving only Lex, who lived on the property. It would be up to them to save the wayward calf. Sure enough, they heard a bleating coming from the stock pond. In the barn, Sugar was mooing her distress, knocking at the stall door trying to get to the aid of her crying baby. The calf had somehow managed to get itself to the middle of the pond and had no hope of swimming out on its own. Derrick broke into a run. The calf bleated once more, its small hooves fighting to tread water. Its head sunk under the water and resurfaced again a few moments later. It was clear that the newborn didn’t have much fight left in it.
“Quick,” Lex called to his son, “go get some blankets from the barn!”
Without a second thought, Derrick pried off his boots and dove into the frigid water. With a quick, practiced free stroke he swam to the middle of the pond. Using the buoyancy of the water to his advantage, Derrick cradled the seventy-pound animal in his left arm, being sure to hold its head above water. With his right arm he stroked back toward the shore. By the time they got there the calf had stopped bleating and had become still. Benny returned with an armload of warm flannel blankets and Derrick and Lex worked to wrap the shivering calf.
“You are one crazy son of a gun,” said Lex to Derrick.
“You wouldn’t have done the same?” asked Derrick, panting.
“I reckon I would have. You just run faster than I do.”
“Is he going to be okay?” asked Benny.
The calf was still shivering, but it gave a weak bleat of recognition.
“Better bring him inside to warm up,” said Derrick, hoisting the calf in his arms. It was late April, and though the days in southwestern Montana could hover in the mid-fifties, the nighttime temperature had a way of dropping below freezing at the drop of a hat. The unheated livestock barn was well insulated and plenty warm for a healthy cow, but wouldn’t cut it for a soaking wet newborn. “I’ll carry him up, Lex. You go on to the barn and try to calm Sugar down.”
“You sure?”
“You’d better bring up one of the bottles too,” he said in reply as he walked back toward the house.
Inside Gladys, his housekeeper and right-hand woman already had a fire roaring in the big fireplace in the den. “Oh my lord!” she said, taking in his soaking clothes and bare feet. “I had a notion you’d be bringing that thing in here, I just didn’t expect you’d be taking a swim with it!”
Derrick smiled. “Such a nice day out, made me feel like taking dip. Guess this fella thought the same thing.”
“You’ll catch your death running around like that! Get your butt out of those wet clothes right now.”
“Gladys, contain yourself,” Derrick joked, “there’s a child in the room.”
The older woman couldn’t help but laugh. She and Derrick shared a flirty banter that made her feel young, bless his heart, though she was old enough to be his mother and treated him as such. “You know what I mean,” she said.
“Lex is on his way up with a bottle. When he gets here I’ll tag him in and head for the shower.”
Appeased, Gladys went to the kitchen to heat a kettle of water. Derrick went to the fire and placed the calf on the rug. He rubbed it vigorously, trying to work some warmth back into its muscles and get the blood flowing. The calf struggled, a good sign. By the time Lex came in it was nearly dry. With the care of an expert, Lex slid the nipple of a large milking bottle into the calf’s mouth and immediately it began to suck.
“I think he’s going to be okay,” said Derrick.
“I think you’re right,” said Lex. “Now you better get into the shower before Ms. Gladys has a conniption. That woman can be the devil herself when she doesn’t get her way.”
Derrick obeyed and headed for his bedroom. He came back to find a steaming pot of tea on the coffee table and Lex half asleep with the equally sleepy calf in his lap. Benny had come in to switch out the blankets while Derrick had been gone, and the calf was looking toasty warm in its new shroud.
“I’ll take it from here,” said Derrick, rousing Lex. “Now you get home and get some sleep. You think Sugar’ll be okay for the night?”
“Oh sure,” said Lex, “I gave her some oats and molasses. She’ll wake up in the morning like nothing happened.”
“Hopefully she takes this little guy back,” said Derrick, worried.
“She will,” said Lex confidently, “she’s a good mom.”
After Lex had gone, Derrick poured himself a cup of Gladys’s tea and cozied up to the fire beside the calf, again offering it the bottle. The calf obliged, but soon fell asleep mid-suckle. Now that his heart rate had a chance to slow down, Derrick found his thoughts wandering again to the perfect-mother-search. The adventure with Sugar and his calf had opened Derrick’s eyes to the fact that a baby needed a mother to care for him and keep him safe. Would a father alone be able to fit the bill? Maybe he should hold off awhile. Exhausted, Derrick fell asleep thinking about a babies.
He awoke sometime after two in the morning. The fire had died down to embers and the calf was nowhere to be seen. Then Derrick heard a noise coming from his study off the den. He went to investigate and was greeted by the calf, alive and well and blinking in the light Derrick had just switched on. The calf bleated in greeting and walked up to Derrick, nuzzling his hand.
“Well you look like you’re feeling better,” said Derrick as the calf took his thumb in its mouth and tried to suck milk from it. “And hungry too, by the looks of it. That’s a good sign.”
Derrick bent to pick up the calf, but what he saw beneath it made him pause. He gently moved the animal aside to see the stack of papers below: the applications that had fallen to the floor earlier when Benny had rushed in. There on top of the pile was the photograph of a stunning black woman. Her green eyes were tilted slightly at the corners, giving her an exotic and quirky look. She had long, full hair and high cheekbones, but the best part was her smile. Not only was it toothpaste-add perfect, but it was inviting. It was a smile that made a person feel comfortable and loved, one that would make a man feel like the king of the world when it was turned on him. It wasn’t faked, or posed for glamour; it was genuine, full of happiness and good humor. He thought that whoever had taken it was obviously someone the woman loved. He imagined that smile looking down at a newborn baby. She was the one, Derrick knew it in an instant. He flipped the picture over to look at the name beneath: Gracie Johnston.
Chapter Three
It was late afternoon when Gracie’s plane touched down on the tarmac on southwestern Montana. The sun was beginning to set, lighting the horizon ablaze with reds, pinks, and oranges. Gracie imagined the fire burning in her belly looking quite the same. It felt partway butterflies, and partway indigestion. She gathered her single duffel bag- a minimalist a heart, Gracie was never one to over pack, especially when she would only be staying for the weekend, and exited the plane. Stepping down onto the tarmac she was immediately greeted by a man in a dark suit and chauffeur's hat.
