The Biological Bond

“Mel,” he said.

He didn’t know why he’d enlightened her, but the vulnerability and pain he’d detected in her eyes tugged at him. What harm was there in her knowing his daughter’s name?

“Mel? You named a girl Mel?”

She sounded like Christina, his ex-wife, and he bristled. Christina had despised it when he’d called their adorable dark-haired, green-eyed little girl Mel. Undignified, she’d called it. “It’s short for Melanie.”

Silence stretched between them. He wanted to leave, to hop on a plane and fly home where he belonged. But Mel needed this woman—her birth mother.

“How do you know I’ll be a compatible match?” Her voice sounded faraway, dream-like. But this wasn’t a dream—it was a nightmare—his nightmare.

He spun around to face her. “We don’t,” he stated. “The test is simple, and once it’s determined you’re a match, you can donate the bone marrow. I’m told the removal is a relatively simple procedure—”

“I know how it works, Mr. Winslow,” she snapped.

“Good. Then you agree?”

She stared at him, her eyes pooling with unshed tears. He didn’t want to see her tears. He didn’t want to care that she cried. All he wanted was to know that she was willing to save his daughter’s life.

“I need an answer, Ms. Martinson.”

She gave him a watery smile. “Call me Rebecca.”

“I need an answer, Ms. Martinson.” There’d be no Rebecca or Sam for them. If she was a match, she’d donate the marrow, then be out of their lives as if she’d never existed. Mel wouldn’t even have to know who had donated the marrow. “I’ve already made arrangements to have you tested as soon as possible. Today.”

She stared at him in stunned silence.

“To make this as simple as possible, I’ll have a phlebotomist come to your office,” he told her. “We can have the results in a few hours. I’ll call you as soon as we know something. When’s the best time?”

He didn’t know if she was going to deny him or not and decided not to take any chances. He had no trouble playing dirty if it meant saving Mel. He’d do whatever was necessary if it meant saving his daughter’s life, even asking the court for an order to force Mel’s birth mother to give his daughter what she needed.

He moved closer to the desk, braced his hands on the polished surface and leaned forward. “Ms. Martinson, my daughter could die. She needs your help. You gave her life,” he said, going for the kill. “A blood test could be all it takes to save her life.”

She bit her lip, and those eyes that reminded him too much of his daughter filled with emotion. “I have a staff meeting in a few minutes, then I have to be in court this afternoon. I can always get someone to cover for me.” Her long, slender fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to rub at her temple. “Whenever you can arrange it is fine.”

He calmly handed her a card indicating the name of the lab he’d made prior arrangements with before coming to see her. It had been a gamble, but he was past the point of playing it safe. He’d wanted all avenues covered before he’d approached her and was pleased that his instincts had paid off.

He moved toward the door, relieved the first step had been accomplished. In a matter of hours he’d have his answer.

“Wait!” she called as he reached for the door. “What happens if I’m a match?”

“Then you’ll need to check into a hospital to have the bone marrow extracted.”

Anxious to put some distance between himself and Rebecca Martinson, he reached for the door handle again.

“Wait!”

He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Is she going to be all right? Will a transplant work?”

Her soft voice held a plea that touched his heart. “I hope so, Ms. Martinson.”

He opened the door and looked back at her one last time. He’d always wondered where Mel had gotten those big green eyes and raven’s wing hair. Now he knew.

She looked as if she wanted to say something. Sam didn’t want to hear it. “I’ll be in touch,” he said. As he strode out of the elegant law office, he wondered why he wasn’t relieved.

REBECCA TRIED TO CONCENTRATE, but no matter how hard she attempted to focus on the cases the associates who reported to her had prepared to discuss at the weekly staff meeting, the more her mind drifted to her daughter and Sam Winslow. Now that she’d gotten over her initial shock, she had questions. Simple questions, silly ones really, like what her daughter looked like, whether or not she liked chocolate ice cream topped with fresh strawberries, a daily staple during her pregnancy. Did Mel wrinkle her nose at the sight of meat loaf? Did she like to read? Was she a math whiz? Did she have a desire to practice law like the rest of the Martinsons, or maybe she dreamed of studying medicine like her mother’s side of the family?

There were more questions, tougher ones she had no answers for and was even afraid to ask…like, did her daughter want to meet the woman who had been forced to give her up for adoption?

“Rebecca?”

She let out a frustrated breath and turned her attention to Jillian Thatcher, the newest associate in the family law department. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“The Templeton adoption,” Jillian said, opening the file on her lap. “I was wondering if you were going to cover the bench trial.”

Rebecca sat up straight and tapped her index finger against her lips. There was a chance her client, Peter Grant, could lose his parental rights, which was a subject close to her own heart. His ex-wife had remarried, moved to South Carolina with her new husband, and had been difficult at best when it came to her client’s visitation. The former Mrs. Grant was alleging her ex-husband hadn’t exercised his parental rights in five years. This was a tough case, and one she didn’t feel the new associate was prepared to handle alone. And one that Rebecca wanted to win, not only for her client, but for herself, as well.

“When is the trial scheduled?” she asked, an idea skirting around the fringes of her mind. A dangerous idea with a steep price tag.

Jillian flipped through the file. “Two months. We have most of the pretrial discovery completed.”

Rebecca nodded. Two months would allow her to see the plan forming executed. “What about phone bills? Do we have them yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Get them,” Rebecca instructed. “We can use them as evidence that our client has attempted to maintain contact with his children. Also get in touch with the child support unit in the County Clerk’s Office. I want verification of all his support payments over the last ten years. Subpoena the clerk into trial if you have to. You’ll be second chairing this one.”

Jillian smiled, the excitement of stepping into a courtroom for an actual trial evident. She nodded, then jotted notes on a legal pad.

Rebecca checked her watch. If she closed the meeting now she might be able to catch Victor Furnari before he scooted out of the office for his standard two-hour lunch with the other senior partners. She needed her head examined for what she was considering.

“Is there anything else?” she asked, scanning the group.

When no one spoke, she stood and scooped a sheaf of papers into her out box. The associates took the action as a signal for the end of their meeting and gathered their files.

“I wanted to discuss the settlement conference on the Barker divorce.” Lee, the more senior of the associates, was close to becoming a junior partner. She liked him. He was ambitious and smart. He could be sympathetic or brutal in the courtroom, a skill that afforded him an excellent track record.

“Can it wait until tomorrow, Lee?” she asked, rounding her desk and heading for the door.

“Sure,” he said, following her. “We don’t go before Judge Holden for another week.”

“Check with Laura,” she said, closing her office door. “Tell her I said to squeeze you in tomorrow.”

She dropped a file on Laura’s desk, then went directly to the elevators that would take her up to the offices of the senior partners. She stepped off the elevator into the plush reception area with its soft gray carpeting and elegant furnishings. Understated artwork adorned rich mahogany-paneled walls. She nodded a greeting to the receptionist and turned left toward Victor Furnari’s office.

She approached the open door and peered inside. Victor stood before a miniconference table, a mug of coffee in his hand as he examined a variety of photographs. “Victor?” she called softly, not wanting to startle him.