A Mother's Secrets (Parent Portal 4)

Funny how, even before his child was conceived, he was assuming the role of a father.

* * *

Christine lived alone, but she had a busy life. So much so that she didn’t even think it fair of her to have a pet. She wasn’t home enough. She spent too much time working at the clinic and women’s shelter, plus looking after two elderly couples in the area, having her book club, sitting on a committee that was in charge of overseeing community events and maintaining a slew of friends. Marie Cove, her people, were her family, and she was determined to tend to them as she had her grandparents all those years. Just as they’d all been there for her. That’s what family did.

And there was racquetball. Because a woman had to tend to herself, too, if she was going to be any good to others.

One lunchtime the following week, after stopping by the Madisons’—neighbors she was checking in on while their daughter was away on a cruise with her husband—she drove by the high school. Parking across the street, she ate the chicken ranch wrap she’d packed that morning and watched as the high school tennis coach oversaw the summer camp that involved those who would try out for the team in the fall.

She’d signed up her freshman year, but hadn’t gone. There’d been so much to do at home, and she’d never have been able to make it to team practices and be gone for all the matches, even if she’d made the team...

Maybe if the coach back then had been as good-looking as Dr. Jamie Howe...

As a coach, Jamie was demonstrating a serve, and those legs... They looked like pure muscle. Lean and strong as iron.

And were absolutely none of her business.

She’d reread his file, in preparation for helping him find a surrogate that would be a good match after she told him no. She was just waiting for him to call and ask her what she’d decided.

She couldn’t hear what he was saying out on the court, but the way the kids gathered around him, watched him as he spoke, kept close, approached him, performed for him, she couldn’t help thinking he’d make one heck of a good dad.

If he was as patient at home as he appeared to be on the court. And as well-liked...

A person who looked like she might be one of the players’ moms approached the court, and Jamie went to speak to her. Her wrap finished, Christine put her car in gear and drove straight back to her office, wiping any thoughts of those male legs out of her psyche.

By the second week since Jamison Howe’s visit, she wasn’t thinking about the man’s legs at all. It had been ten days without a word from him. Seven grueling games of one-person racquetball.

She hadn’t figured him for someone who would not call. Had been on edge that whole first week after he’d been to see her, thinking he’d be contacting her at any moment. Waiting for the call. The email. The text. Not because she couldn’t get the man out of her system, but because his request continued to linger there. She knew she was going to tell him no, and had to fight with herself, trying not to picture what it would be like if she said yes.

She’d pictured it anyway. The hardships involved with being pregnant. The joy she’d be bringing him. The honor he’d given her—the honor Emily had given her. The money that would help her get the house she’d inherited back in pristine condition.

And give added security to the clinic as well.

The hardships would be only temporary.

She thought about them, though, as she cruised to Catalina Island and back with her friends, not that she told either them about the client she’d had or his unusual request. None of them talked about work at all. They spent the two days having fruity drinks by the pool, playing trivia games against other ship passengers, eating decadently and shopping. The other two laughed over stupid things they’

d done in college, mostly having to do with guys, and told Christine she’d been the smart one all along to avoid all that heartache.

By the time she returned on Sunday, two days short of two weeks since Jamie had been to her office, she’d quit waiting for the phone to ring. Or for the athletic math professor to show up at her office door. And while she had to admit to being a bit let down—at least to herself—she also knew that if his interest had been that short-lived, she’d been saved making a huge mistake in even considering having a child for him. Or finding another woman to do so.

A baby was a lifetime commitment.

He must have had a change of heart. Maybe he’d realized that it would better to move on and wait to have a family in a traditional way, with a woman who’d be there to help him raise any children they had.

Still, it would have been nice if he’d at least called to let her know. For all he knew, she could have been making calls, finding contacts, maybe even finding surrogates for him to interview. She’d said she’d proctor for him and he hadn’t called to tell her not to do so.

That’s when it began to niggle at her that something could have happened to him. In the week since she’d spent a lunch hour playing voyeur outside the high school. And peevishness started to stab at her a bit, too.

So thinking, that last Friday in May, seventeen days after they’d met, she called him, intending to inquire as to any further services he might need from The Parent Portal so that, finding none, she could get his file off her desk.

It was time to declutter.

“Christine.” He picked up before the first ring had finished. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call.”

What? They hadn’t left it that she’d call him.

They’d just...left it.