by Layla Silver
An urban preserve just on the edge of the city, the park was serviced by a bus line, making it easy to reach. From the maps I’d looked at, it was perfect for my needs. One of the things all the pregnancy books and blogs—blogs were amazing—agreed on was that being fit made for healthier babies and reduced the likelihood of post-birth complications. Walking or light hiking was ideal, and Willowby was known for its stunning and well-maintained trails.
Climbing off the bus, I thought of the chart I’d make in my pregnancy journal when I got home to track my physical fitness efforts. I wondered, idly, if I would keep the journal for myself or offer it to the baby’s parents when it was born. Something to add to his or her baby book, perhaps.
As the bus lumbered away, I took a quick glance around to orient myself. The air was rich with the scent of trees, native flowers, and dirt. It was invigorating, and I couldn’t help but grin as I started toward the trailhead, excited. I’d grown up hiking at the compound, only giving it up in the last few years as the Elders’ watching eyes made the isolation of it feel dangerous. I hadn’t done so much as five minutes’ relaxing or exploring since leaving the compound more than six weeks ago, either.
I felt a fleeting sadness at the idea that I wouldn’t be able to shift into my Lion form again until after the baby was born but shrugged it away. I’d get to spend time in the sunshine and among the trees, at least. That was more than I’d had in a long time.
Looking both ways, I checked for vehicles before I crossed the last strip of tarmac between myself and the trailhead. My eye caught on a figure at the other end of the lot, and panic shot through me, stark and cold. Instinctively, I darted forward, ducking between two tall trucks and pressing my back against one, gulping for air in my terror. Portia.
Inching my way toward the back of the truck, I peeked around the tailgate. The woman I’d seen had turned away, leaving me with just a view of her back. It was her, though, wasn’t it? I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to think clearly.
I hadn’t seen Portia in years. Her father was one of the Elders, a wicked man with three wives and a dozen children. Four of his oldest children had taken homes and jobs off the commune. True believers, they were deeply loyal to the cult. The kind of people you kept your mouth shut around if you valued your life. One slip-up and they’d report you. Relish watching you take whatever punishment the Elders meted out. I’d made a point of keeping my distance.
Now, I watched the woman I’d seen finish stretching, still with her back to me. Apparently satisfied, she took off in the opposite direction at a slow jog without looking back. I let out a shaky breath. She hadn’t come in my direction, which meant she probably hadn’t even seen me. Hell, it might not even have been Portia. It was the same white-blonde hair, but instead of Portia’s long locks, this woman had sported a pixie cut. She’d been the right size, but then I couldn’t be properly sure given the loose top she wore and the angle she’d stood at.
It could have been anyone.
You’re just paranoid, I chastised myself. It was natural, wasn’t it? With all the reading I’d been doing about other cults and people who’d tried to escape them. It was necessary background research to inform my own plans to free my family, but it wasn’t a surprise if it made me a little jumpy. And now there were pregnancy hormones on top of it. Shaking my head, I straightened up and turned my steps toward the trailhead again. Everyone said pregnancy hormones were rough, especially when you were still getting used to them. I just needed to go exercise, get a grip.
There was no reason to think Portia was here. The last I’d heard she’d been bragging about landing an important job in some big-deal medical complex. I didn’t know which one, but it was probably the big hospital downtown. She was probably downtown right now, having a late martini lunch with her latest beau.
Determined not to let the scare get to me, I picked a trail and set off.
I spent two blissful hours out in the forest before I had to catch the bus back. I was sticky with sweat but flushed with pleasure when I climbed back aboard for the ride home. I was more out of shape than I’d thought, but my head was clear, and I felt good.
The high lasted right up until I walked in the door. The answering machine light was blinking. Assuming it was the cafe, I hit the button, then turned to pour myself a glass of water.
“Gemma?”
I nearly dropped my glass.
Meaghan’s voice on the recording was quavery, and all my happiness went up in smoke. “Gemma, we have to get out of here. Elder Markus came by today and told Mom that since you’re gone, he’s going to marry me the day I turn 18. He said none of us are allowed off the compound for anything without an Elder as an escort from now until then. Please, Gemma, I’m scared.”
There was a click, and the recording went silent. Leaning over the counter, I buried my head in my hands. I’m trying, I thought as tears started to fall. I’m trying.
Chapter 11 – Caleb
I let myself take one more bracing sip of coffee, then pulled Gemma’s file off the stack on my desk. Three months into her surrogacy, I was still consistently dreaming about passionately bedding her. About making her moan my name as I planted my own baby inside her. But since everyone’s caseloads remained high and I still refused to look my colleagues in the eye and tell them I was having sex dreams about a patient, I was also still Gemma’s primary doctor.
The last few months had been their own circle of hell. Watching Gemma carry someone else’s baby was every bit the torment I’d expected it might be. Awareness sat under my skin like a persistent, burning itch.
More than once, I’d come close to cornering Dr. Carlton in her office and coming clean. If I explained that Gemma was my mate, everyone would understand. I wasn’t the only shifter here. The others would back me—we didn’t get to choose our mates, and there were limits to how much control we had over our responses to them. It was just biology.
Even so, it would be a scandal. One I simply couldn’t bring myself to pull down. Not on myself, the agency, or Gemma. Especially since I could tell. she had been working just as vigorously as I to keep things as distant and precisely professional between us whenever she came in. The distance between us hurt, but it was necessary.
Focus. Bending my attention to her file, I tried to prepare for her upcoming appointment with some measure of clinical distance. It didn’t work.
Reading the notes about the harsh morning sickness she’d struggled with made my inner beast prowl restlessly and lash his tail. She shouldn’t have had to deal with it alone. If it had been my baby inside her, I’d have made sure she wasn’t. I’d have been there. I’d have taken care of her the way she deserved. Shit.
Flipping through the pages of the file irritably, I stopped on the donor page. I didn’t know why; it was just an impulse. A gut feeling. There was no name, of course. Just an ID number and a readout of basic physical characteristics and background. Annoyed at myself, I turned the page.
For a moment, I blinked blankly at the file. Then, frowning, I flipped back a page. Then forward again. Something was missing.
A horrible, nameless suspicion began to form in my gut. Without hesitating, I tapped the mouse to wake up my computer screen.
Behind the sperm donor profile, there should have been a section on the legalities of the birth arrangements. Documentation of where the donor lived, whether there was a spouse or other partner involved in the guardianship of the child after birth, that kind of thing. It wasn’t there.
It’s probably nothing, I told myself, keying open the digital database. Someone in Admin or Legal could have just accidentally skipped a step. Or maybe something was in limbo or being edited, and they’d forgotten to include the cover sheet documenting that in the file.
The suspicion didn’t go away.
Skimming the donor information sheet again, I felt the tiny hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand up. The sperm donor was eerily like me. Same age. Same blood type. Same notable genetic mar
kers.
You’re overreacting, I told myself fiercely. Overreacting and hallucinating because she’s your mate. The agency doesn’t make this kind of mistake. It doesn’t. There are safeguards.
My fingers ignored my head, flying over the keyboard as I pulled up Gemma’s file and tabbed to the donor section. Clicking on the donor’s ID number, I entered my passwords. Typically, doctors weren’t encouraged to go nosing around in donor files. But we did have access in case we needed it for clinical purposes, and I used it now.
The file popped up. I stopped breathing, and my heart skipped a beat.
Caleb Hawthorne.
It was my file. My donor ID. Gemma was carrying my baby.
I wasn’t the foul-mouthed one in my family; that dubious distinction belonged to Cayden. Now, though, a string of Cayden’s favorite and most colorful expletives burst out of my mouth.
How could this happen? Oh my god … Gemma.
“Caleb?”
I spun around, feeling fevered and nauseous, distantly aware that some irrational part of me was elated. Dr. Carlton stood in the doorway to my office with an armful of files, her lips pursed and her brows knit together in a frown.
“Are you all right?” she asked, concerned.
“No.” The word fell out of my mouth of its own accord, and I blew out a shaky breath. “No. There’s—there’s been a mistake.”
I watched her concern escalate to alarm, smelled the change in her as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. Approaching my desk briskly, she set the files down and dropped into the chair opposite me.
“Tell me what’s happened,” she demanded.
I tried to scrape my scattered thoughts together enough to be coherent the first time around. “You remember when I was hired, we talked about how I’d been a donor?”
She nodded, the light glinting off the thin frames of her eyeglasses as she tilted her head a bit, studying me as she listened.
If I thought my discovery sounded insane in my head, it only sounded worse when I voiced it out loud. “My samples were used to impregnate one of the surrogates.” I hooked a hand around the edge of the computer screen and swiveled it around so that she could see. “Gemma Stone. She’s one of my patients.” Panic and elation welled up again, and the words poured out of me. “She was supposed to be surrogating for a donor who would take custody. I was going through her file and realized the legal pre-docs were missing. I went to look into it and found this.” I dragged a hand through my hair. “I don’t understand how this could have happened. All her payments have gone through. Someone should have noticed. I should have noticed! I just didn’t think …”
“This is not your fault, Caleb,” Dr. Carlton interrupted me, sternly. Her face was a thundercloud. “I personally issued the order for all of your samples to be destroyed and your donor record to be deactivated when you were hired. This is a lab mistake, though admittedly one with severe consequences.” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger. “I’m going to need to look into this. Find out how it happened to begin with and how it got this far before anyone else noticed.”
“What about the baby?” I asked. “And Gemma?”
Dr. Carlton’s lips pressed into a thin white line. “When is her next appointment?”
“Monday.”
She was still for a moment, then nodded. “Give me her file and keep this to yourself for the time being. I’ll take it up with the lab and Legal, and the three of us will discuss it on Monday.”
All I could do was nod. Mechanically, I shut the file and handed it to her across the desk. As Dr. Carlton left my office, I stared after her blankly, unable to think past a single, blinding thought.
Gemma was having my baby.
Chapter 12 – Gemma
“Gemma!” Victoria gave me a smile when I approached the desk, but it wasn’t her usually bubbly grin. There was something off about it that instantly set me on edge.
“Good morning,” I said, making myself smile back despite the prickly sense of wrongness crawling up my spine. “I have an appointment with Dr. Hawthorne this morning.”
“There’s been a change,” Victoria said, hitting buttons on the paging system. “Dr. Carlton wants to meet with both you and Dr. Hawthorne today, so Elton’s going to take you upstairs to one of the conference rooms. Hang on just a sec.”
“Is everything all right?” Fear knotted my stomach. Don’t freak out, I told myself. It’s probably fine. You know how you get when you’re tired.
I’d only just started waking up free of crippling morning sickness this last week or so, which was a godsend, but the persistent tiredness had yet to abate. Plus, my moods had definitely been far more changeable than I was used to, and I was learning to be careful of my immediate reactions to things. Too often, they made no sense at all.
“I don’t have the details,” Victoria apologized, sliding my ID pass across the desk to me. “Ah, here we go.”
Elton was at my elbow. I let him guide me upstairs and into one of the conference rooms on the legal floor, his polite chatter doing nothing to quell my worry. Dr. Carlton and Dr. Hawthorne were already there, speaking quietly. They stopped when I walked in, and the fear spiked. Was something wrong with the baby? Had I done something?
“Gemma,” Dr. Carlton said, kindly. “Come sit.” She patted the chair to her right.
I sank into the proffered chair, glancing nervously across the table to where Dr. Hawthorne sat. He looked … grim.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “Is something wrong with the baby? Is it …” I swallowed the rest of the question. Had they found out about the cult somehow? Was that why I was here? I couldn’t imagine what they’d do about it, even if they were upset, but I wasn’t going to be the first one to bring it up.
“No,” Dr. Carlton said, laying a hand reassuringly over mine on the table. “No, this is nothing like that. All the latest results show that you and the baby are both doing extremely well.” She withdrew her hand and folded her hands together in front of her. “I can’t require you to keep what we’re about to discuss to yourself, but I do ask that you use the utmost discretion if you do discuss it with anyone.”
“Okay.” My voice came out thin, my chest too tight to breathe properly.
“There is no easy way to say this, Gemma, but our lab made a mistake. We’re still not sure how it happened, but I assure you an investigation is underway. Nothing like this has ever happened here before, and you have my word that it won’t happen again.”
Confused, I looked between them. “What kind of mistake?”
Dr. Carlton set her jaw and met my eyes. “As you know, you were intended to carry a child for either a male donor with no partner or a couple who could provide viable sperm but no eggs.” She set her jaw. “Instead, you were inseminated with Dr. Hawthorne’s sperm.”
It took a moment to process what she’d said, and then my jaw dropped. My eyes darted across the table, unbelieving. Dr. Hawthorne’s expression was neutral, but it looked forced, as though he was putting a tremendous amount of effort into not reacting.
“Prior to his employment here,” Dr. Carlton forged on, “Dr. Hawthorne was a donor. Under standard procedure, his donations were to be destroyed when he was hired. We’re still trying to understand how the glitch happened but, long story short, his material was used instead of the material you should have received.”
I was carrying Dr. Hawthorne’s baby. A wave of giddy delight eddied through me.
Fast on its heels was embarrassment. Objectively, I knew I should be horrified. It was a gross breach of trust and professionalism on the agency’s part. It had all the makings of a scandal, a disaster I couldn’t begin to afford.
But … all of a sudden, the baby growing inside me wasn’t just any little person. It was Caleb’s. Ours. I instantly felt infinitely more connected to the little life inside me, more attached to the tiny life I carried.
“I see,” I managed, realizi
ng they were waiting for me to say something.
“In addition to the internal legal ramifications,” Dr. Carlton said, “this situation presents us with some serious questions. There are no protocols for this sort of thing since we take every precaution to prevent it from happening, but we need to consider the future of the child.”
My hand flew to my stomach, adrenaline spiking. Surely they wouldn’t demand that I terminate the pregnancy? Protectiveness welled up. I wouldn’t.
“As it stands,” she continued, levelly, “there is no legal precedent for determining who will take custody of the child since it was created with material from two donors, neither of which agreed at the time of donation to bearing parental rights.” She slid a piece of paper between us. “Per our legal department, I am advised that we have the following choices. First, Gemma, if you wish to terminate the pregnancy, the agency will facilitate the procedure at no cost to you. You will receive the full surrogacy fee in a lump sum, and whether or not you choose to continue working with us is up to you.”
“No,” I said passionately, splaying my fingers over my belly where it had just started to swell. “No, of course not. It isn’t the baby’s fault.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dr. Hawthorne’s shoulders slump as tension went out of him. He’d been afraid, I realized. Afraid that I’d get rid of his baby and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
“I understand.” Dr. Carlton smiled at me reassuringly. “The second option is for one of you to legally take responsibility for the child.”
“I will,” Dr. Hawthorne said quickly. He leaned forward a little, his beautiful blue-gray eyes meeting mine. “I would love to have a child, Gemma.”
A child. Our child. The incredible man I couldn’t get out of my head wanted to have a baby with me. I stared at him speechlessly, unable to think past the swell of emotions in my chest. Tears welled up—they came over everything these days, and I was tired and unprepared for any of this.
