Four
Grant remained stuck in place as the taillights of Harley’s car disappeared around the curve of his long driveway. The night’s breath flowed around him, the insects filling the air with their incessant buzzing. His gaze swept over the front lawn as if hoping to find something in the shadows that would help him make sense of the emotion raging through him.
Wrestling with the urge to get into his car and follow her, Grant backed into his house, slammed his front door closed and sucked in several steadying breaths. When he raked his fingers through his hair, his hands shook.
This was all impossible. He couldn’t be a father. They’d been careful. Mostly careful, anyway.
That first time, he’d been in such a rush to slide inside her, he’d neglected a condom, and the sensation of her bare flesh against his had been so electrifying that he’d nearly come. But despite his rash behavior, he hadn’t been an inexperienced teenager. Grant had quickly recognized the danger and controlled himself to the point where he pulled out, rolled away and slid on a condom. The slip shouldn’t have been enough for her to get pregnant, but as a fertility doctor, he knew that when it came to creating life, the science wasn’t always predictable.
A son.
His son. Was it possible? It had to be. It would be the height of idiocy for Harley to lie to him about something so easily disproved. But what did this mean for him? For them?
The first night they met, her impulsive energy had sparked something reckless and dangerous inside him. Never before, and not one time since, had he become so obsessed with a woman that he’d been drawn to take a stranger to bed. She was his Achilles’ heel. That much had become obvious as soon as he’d heard she was returning to Royal. His need to be with her hadn’t faded. In fact, given the way he’d been seconds away from making another mistake, his attraction to her surged stronger than ever.
Stupid reckless lust. That’s all it was. But the overwhelming power of the longing that had blasted through him when their lips collided demonstrated that underestimating such strong desire would be unwise.
Especially now that they shared a son.
Even though he’d refused to take Harley at her word and demanded a paternity test, deep down he believed Daniel was his son. Harley wouldn’t make the mistake of crossing him a second time with a lie of that magnitude. She might be impulsive and emotional in her actions but she wasn’t a fool.
Which meant he was a father.
The magnitude of this unexpected reality kept him up most of the night as he pondered all the ways he intended to work his new responsibilities into his life. He imagined all the firsts he would get to experience. First bedtime story. First lost tooth. First day of school.
This list drove home all the firsts he’d missed. First smile. First word. First step. Grief swelled as he pondered what Harley had stolen from him by her actions. Anger followed but was quickly pushed aside and determination stood in its place. No matter what, he would be an integral part of his son’s life going forward.
His resolve strengthened throughout the night, and by the time he entered his clinic the next morning, Grant no longer cared that his staff would be wildly curious about the woman he’d instruct them to usher into an exam room as soon as she and her son arrived. They wouldn’t ask why he was running a paternity test on Harley’s son because they knew better than to question anything he did. But that wouldn’t stop them from being curious and gossiping amongst themselves.
He caught himself jumping every time his phone rang announcing the arrival of a new patient and wished he’d pinned down a time when Harley would arrive. As the morning wound down, he began to wonder if she’d show at all. Maybe he’d been wrong to assume her claim that he was Daniel’s father had been truthful.
Just before lunch, he exited an exam
room after a consultation and found one of his nurses waiting for him. His gut twisted at the bright curiosity in her brown eyes, but he kept his expression bland and professional as she directed him to the room where Harley and her son waited. Thanking her, Grant headed down the hall. Hand on the doorknob, he strove for calm before entering the room.
Although he shouldn’t have expected to glimpse any resemblance between himself and a four-year-old child, a trace of disappointment slipped into his awareness when he spied the child for the first time. Daniel had dark blond hair and his mother’s green eyes. There was nothing of the Everett family nose or chin...no physical attributes whatsoever that could prove the boy was his son. That he’d imagined he’d feel some sort of instant connection irritated him. He was a scientist. That’s not always how genetics worked. The truth was buried in the boy’s DNA.
“Good morning,” he declared formally, meeting Harley’s gaze as he sat at the desk. “Thank you for coming in.”
She looked slightly taken aback by his professional demeanor, but nodded. “Of course.”
“Hello, Daniel. My name is Dr. Everett,” Grant said, introducing himself. “What we’re going to do today won’t take but a couple seconds, and then you and your mother can get on with the rest of your day.”
He pulled out one of the DNA test swabs he’d put into his pocket at the start of his day. He’d already taken a sample from his own cheek and would add it to the one he took from Daniel for the lab to process. He rolled his chair to within easy reach of where Daniel sat beside his mother.
Grant extended the swab and said, “I need to take a sample of your cells from the inside of your cheek. So you need to open your mouth.”
The boy met his gaze with the stony stare that seemed far too mature for his age. Grant ground his teeth and regarded the stubborn child, unsure what to do. He was accustomed to his patients doing what he told them. For several seconds, the two stared at each other, neither relenting, and Grant noted his respect rising in grudging increments.
“Does he know why you brought him here today?” he asked, indicating the test swab.
Was the boy worried about being sick? Or did he sense Grant’s tension and mistrust him because of it?
“I told him we needed to visit you because you were going to run an important test and that it wouldn’t hurt.”
The boy tracked the exchange between the adults with the sharp focus of someone struggling to understand the undercurrents in the room.
“You need to open your mouth,” Grant repeated, wondering what he could do if the boy continued to resist. “I need to swab your cheek.”