Baby's First Christmas

The door opened. A group of customers walked in.

Dulcie and Jeff went to wait on them, and Kate led Michael into the back of the immaculately kept store. On one side of a narrow hallway was a workroom and storage area. On the other were a lounge, office and bathroom. Kate led him into the small but cozy office decorated in shades of pale mossy green and cream.

Hoping fervently she wouldn’t scream, faint or cry uncontrollably when he told her the news, he gestured toward the sofa opposite her desk and suggested mildly, “Perhaps you’d like to sit down.”

Kate shook her head and kept her eyes on his. “I’d prefer to stand,” she said.

And, Michael thought, she’d prefer him to leave—immediately—judging from the expression on her face. “All right,” he said reluctantly, knowing he was going to have to blurt it out. “We’ll do it your way. As I said earlier, my name is Dr. Michael Sloane.” Michael reached into his coat pocket and produced several pieces of identification for her perusal. “I’m an emergency room physician at the medical center in Chapel Hill.”

Kate studied the ID in her hand without comment, then carefully handed it all back.

“I’m here because I have something to tell you about your baby’s biological father.”

Kate paled and backed up until her hips were resting against the edge of her desk. She folded her arms in front of her swollen tummy in a protective gesture. “You couldn’t possibly know anything about that,” she said stiffly, beginning to look all the more perturbed with his uninvited presence.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Michael paused, knowing however he said this, whenever he said this, it was likely to be a tremendous shock. He sat on the sofa opposite her and clasped his hands between his spread knees. “I know everything there is to know about him.”

Kate’s beautiful eyes turned stormy as she circled her desk and carefully lowered herself into the upholstered swivel chair behind it. “Then you also know he’s chosen to be anonymous,” she said tightly, as pink swept into her high, delicately chiseled cheeks.

“I know the person you selected to father your baby felt that way,” Michael corrected.

Kate’s green eyes did not waver from his. “So if you will kindly leave,” Kate continued.

Michael shook his head in mute disagreement. “Not before I tell you what I came here to say.”

Kate’s chest rose and fell beneath her white satin blouse and black velvet jumper. “And that is…”

There was no easy way to say this. Michael swallowed. “I’m your baby’s father.”

LONG, INCREDULOUS SECONDS ticked past. Kate shot to her feet. So did he. “That’s impossible,” Kate said flatly at last as she stormed around her desk to confront him.

His feelings rigidly in check, Michael towered over her. “How do you figure that?” he asked softly, studying her from head to toe.

“Because!” Kate flushed at the way he was looking her over. “You’re not at all what I ordered,” she told him hotly.

No surprise there, Michael thought. He hadn’t ordered this, either. But it had happened. And like it or not, this delectable-looking blond with the fiercely independent nature was bearing his child. “What did you order, then?” he asked curiously, determined to rescue them both from this mess whether she wanted his help or not.

Kate flushed and gave him a self-conscious look that spoke volumes about her comfort zone with men. “Someone of medium height and build—a maximum of five-ten, one hundred and eighty pounds.”

Michael struggled to keep his mind on the conversation rather than the slender and supple—yet very pregnant and feminine—body beneath her black velvet jumper. He had never realized a pregnant woman could turn him on like this. “And I’m six feet two inches tall and two hundred pounds.”

Her lips curved wryly as she folded her arms beneath the soft swell of her breasts and admitted, “Not to mention way too athletic and solidly built.”

His glance roved the incredible softness of her hair and face before returning to the sparkling intelligence of her light green eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one who thinks brains and athletic talent are traits that are mutually exclusive?” he teased.

“You said it, not me,” Kate replied, just as humorously. “Although now that you mention it—” she turned to give him an appraising glance that heated his blood “—you do look like someone who played a lot of ball.”

“Baseball, and you’re right, I did, all through elementary, junior high and high school. I was also on the honor rolls and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.” Neither of which was any big deal to him. Nor, he felt, should it be to her.

“See, that’s another thing.” Kate breezed past him and headed for the workroom, where a dozen or so gift baskets were lined up, waiting to be delivered. She fished a set of keys off a hook, picked up a basket filled with wine and cheese and headed for the exit, her hips sashaying lightly. “I didn’t want anyone who was too smart.”

Admiring her composure in the face of such a potential catastrophe, Michael held the door as she slipped past him.

“I didn’t want my child to be called a nerd by the other kids. Furthermore,” Kate confided petulantly as she slid the key in the lock and opened the back of the full-size powder blue Gourmet Gifts To Go delivery van, “I wanted the father I selected to have blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes.” She slid the basket onto the carpeted floor of the van, then straightened, leaned against the door and looked at him. “Not sable brown hair and eyes to match.”

Unable to help himself, Michael laughed. “This is the first time those traits have ever been held against me!”

“I’m not holding them against you!” Kate pivoted on her heel and headed into the building at a clip. “I’m just using them to point out the fact that the lab couldn’t possibly have mixed up your sperm with the sperm of the man I selected.” She lifted two more baskets-to-go into her arms and watched as Michael pitched in and did the same. “You’re just too far off from what I wanted,” she explained logically.

Michael helped put all four of the baskets in the van. He slid them all the way forward behind the captain-style driver and passenger seats. Straightening, he turned to her. He’d known this would be as hard for her—if not more difficult—than it had been for him. But it had happened, and like it or not, they had to deal with it.

“Except for the social security numbers,” he told her softly, looking at her and wishing like hell there were some way to fix all this without hurting her or the baby or him. “There, the father you selected and I were only one digit off, Kate. The last two numbers of my number were five, three. His were five, four.” Seeing she was about to stave off the truth and protest again, he touched a finger to her lips, reveling in the satiny softness as he effectively and quickly silenced what she was about to say.

“And yes,” he continued as another thrill shot through him, “they did indeed mix up the vials, because his sperm is still in the deep freeze, perfectly intact, not a drop missing.” Aware his finger and her lips were both heating, he dropped his finger from her lips. His frown deepening, he finished, “Mine, on the other hand, is all gone, and the experiment I agreed to participate in has not yet been done.”

Kate suddenly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Her heart pounding, she leaned against the open door of the van. She looked as shaken as he’d felt when he’d first done the detective work and confirmed for himself what had happened. “Is that how you found out there’d been a mistake?” she asked, aghast. “The lab called you?”

Michael nodded grimly. “They asked me to come down and donate some sperm for the experiment on ways to improve genetic testing. I said I already had, months ago. They said I hadn’t. Obviously something had happened, so an investigation was done.”

Kate gulped. Finally, it was beginning to sink in. “If this is a joke, Dr. Sloane,” she said, swaying slightly, “it is definitely not funny.”

Michael put out a hand to steady her. He guided her to a sitting position in the back of the van. “Believe me, I didn’t think it was funny when I found out about it, either,” he said grimly as he knelt in front of her. In fact, it still seemed like a nightmare from which he’d never wake up. But it had happened, and had to be faced.

Michael took her hand in his and clasped it firmly. “Look, I figured you wouldn’t want to just take my word for all this.”

“You’re right about that much,” Kate said hotly. She pushed his hand away and leaped to her feet.

“So I brought proof,” Michael said.

Ten phone calls later, Kate finally appeared satisfied he was telling her the truth. Once again, they squared off in her private office.

“The question is,” Michael said, as he stared into her flushed face, “now that we know what happened, what are we going to do about this?”

THOUGH IT HAD been a shock, Kate had had time to think about it, and she knew what she had to do. Play her cards to the hilt. “Why should we do anything?” she asked with a great deal more serenity than she felt. “We could sue the clinic, but what would that bring us, except more unhappiness. We’re just going to have to deal with the situation as it exists.”

Michael blinked, stunned by her casual assertion. “I beg your pardon?”

Kate palmed her chest. “You didn’t plan for this baby. On the other hand, I did.” In her opinion, that gave her vastly superior rights.

Michael’s eyes darkened as he closed the distance between them. “Be that as it may, this is still my child, too,” he stated.

“I know that.” Kate smiled. Feeling as though she had a tiger by the tail, she planted both hands on her hips. “But you don’t have to feel beholden to either of us.”

“I want to be involved,” Michael insisted.

“You feel that way now…” she said.

“I’ll feel that way forever,” Michael corrected, as his expressive brows lowered like thunderclouds over his eyes.