The Baby Arrangement

“There are never guarantees, Braden. He or she could be hit by a car or a bolt of lightning. The point is, I’m not going to let the past rob me of my future.”

Which was exactly what she’d told Tamara she shouldn’t do.

Exactly when the words had become her mantra, she didn’t know. She just knew that she felt the truth on a soul level.

“But why play with fate when you have a choice?”

Again, she had no ready answer so she thought about what he was saying, instead. She’d asked for his input. Having his support meant more than him just agreeing with everything she said and did.

She valued his opinion and she wanted him to care enough to speak up.

“You need a full family medical history,” he said. “Or as complete of one as you can get. Way more than the general things the sperm bank provides. You need to know if his grandfather was prone to anxiety attacks or his entire family were unmotivated sloths.”

“Right, so what do you suggest I do, Bray? Put an ad in the paper for sperm that comes with that kind of extensive history?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what?”

It was only when she asked the question that she remembered he’d said he had a solution to her problem. A plan that would tend to his concern.

“You let me be your donor.”

A wake from an incoming cruise ship in the distance hit the boat and she grabbed the rail, holding on so tight her knuckles turned white.

Chapter Four

She was staring at him, clutching the rail, mouth open, looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

He hadn’t. Exactly the opposite, in fact.

He had to do this. He might not want to do it. Didn’t like the messiness.

But he had to do it.

He owed it to Mallory.

“You’re already going to be fighting the fear of another loss,” he said, keeping things practical because he knew that was the only way to get through this. Through any tough situation. “You’ll need all of the reassurances you can get. During your first pregnancy, you worried about the fact that you don’t know your own family history. Knowing mine helped calm those fears.”

She’d closed her mouth but was still staring.

“It’s not conclusive that genetics have any link to SIDS, but we know that there is no evidence of it whatsoever in my family.”

Shoulders drooping, she’d lost all appearance of happiness. Though that was not his goal, it was often the outcome whenever they had a real conversation. Still, he couldn’t drop this.

“There are no guarantees, Mal, we both know that, but I’m as close to a guarantee as possible when it comes to healthy genes.”

After Tucker’s death, he’d had complete genetic testing done on himself, including familial screening, which he’d paid for. The results had shown that he and his family had absolutely no predispositions for any of the maladies such tests could indicate. He’d shared the news with Mallory.

And it had been the absolute wrong thing to do at the time. She’d taken his information to mean that she was to blame for their son’s death.

“We also know that our reproductive environments are compatible.” They’d conceived Tucker the first month they’d tried. “The sooner you conceive, once you start trying, the less stressful that portion of the process will be.”

He saw her blink and took that to mean she was hearing him.

“Further down the road, if the child were to develop an illness or sustain a severe injury, something that needed a blood transfusion or donor of any kind, you’d have both parents to pull from.”

She let go of the rail, wrapped her arms around her knees and looked out to sea. Was she going to turn him down?

“We can get everything drawn up legally,” he continued, figuring that he’d covered all of the bases in his mind since Friday night, and if he just kept talking, he’d allay any concerns she might have. “You’d be the sole parent, just like you want. I’d have no say in anything, no legal rights, no more than any anonymous donor.”

He drew from the thoughts that had consumed his weekend. “It would save you money, as well,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to pay for the sperm.”

Her glance, when it swung back his way, had his heart palpitating for a second. He wasn’t sure why.

“You’re actually suggesting that we have sex?” The sentence ended almost on a squeak. He wasn’t sure if she was offended or simply appalled and shocked.

At least she’d spoken.

“Of course not,” he quickly reassured both of them. Yeah, he’d been cursed with an apparently lifetime attraction to his ex-wife, but she cringed at the idea of sex with him, and there that possibility ended. “I’d leave my specimen at the clinic, but I’d do so as a non-paid donation specifically for you.”

She’d have to pay for the procedure, just not the sperm.

“If you go with IUI your chances of conceiving the first time would be better than with sex.”

Mallory was shaking her head.

“What?”

“Do you realize the mess we’d be making if we did this?”

Sitting on the bow of his boat, her little feet in ridiculously small-looking tennis shoes, the woman made him nuts and peaceful at the same time. Helping Mallory was the right thing to do. Tucker would have expected it of him.

Hauling her downstairs to bed was not even in the realm of possibility.

Nor did he want it to be, anymore. Sex with Mallory came with a whole knotted ball of strings attached.

“That’s the beauty of it, Mal,” he said, glancing over as his fishing line grew taut. There’d be no fish there. He hadn’t baited the damned thing.

He could just imagine being in the middle of presenting his case and having to stop to reel in a slippery, smelly, great-tasting piece of fish.

“We’re in complete control here, Mal, and we’ve got the perfect vehicle. We’ve spent three years building a friendship that would allow the peace of mind you need for this venture. It couldn’t be better if we’d planned it all along.”

“We live on the surface,” she said. “A baby won’t stay there. Nor will all of the emotions attached to having one. I’m fully prepared for that. Are you?”

She wasn’t getting it. “That’s just it! I won’t be emotionally involved. I’ll be going on with my life, as planned, while providing you the means to go as safely as possible on with yours.”

Frowning at him, her eyes only partially hidden by her sunglasses, she said, “You honestly think you can father a child without feeling anything?”

Sure, there’d be some feelings attached, at first probably, until he fully adjusted to the changes in their lives. “No more so than any other sperm donor.”

“They don’t ever know if their sperm is even used, let alone have a relationship with the recipient.”

“Some do.” He’d researched that one. “Men donate to gay women friends. Women are surrogates for gay men friends. I read about a man who donated to his best friend, who was celibate, so he and his wife could have a baby. And a mother who carried for her barren daughter and son-in-law—”

“We were married, Bray. We had a son together. Lost a child together. And you think you can father my second child and just walk away?”

“I do.” He really did. “When I’m ready to have a family of my own, I know full well I can do so. I’ll meet a woman, the desire will be there and I’ll have my family. I’m not there yet. But you’re ready to have your family, and I can help ensure that you have the best chance at doing so happily.” He didn’t waver as he met her eye to eye. The plan made perfect sense.

“I need your support during the pregnancy more than I need the sperm,” she said. “Sperm I can buy. But you’re right, it’s going to be hard. I’ve done all the reading, too, and giving birth after SIDS is hard. Your head plays with you, makes you afraid what happened before can happen again. I blame myself, like my body is broken somehow because it produced a child with a faulty breath regulator. What I was hoping to have from you was the common sense reminders that calm my fears.”

“And you’ll have them.”

“It would be much easier for you to give them with more detachment,” she said, the steady look in her eye and the calm tone of her voice making him listen to her. “Having no intimate involvement will better ensure you getting through this with the least amount of discomfort. You know, if the child isn’t yours...”

“He won’t be mine in an emotional or legal sense,” he said immediately.

She was making a point. He got it. When the kid was born, wouldn’t Braden need a second chance, too?

He shook his head, adjusted his baitless pole. “I’m giving away my sperm, Mal, not becoming a father.” The designation was key. “It’s all in how you process it.”

But if she truly didn’t want his biological component in her child...if, in spite of the testing he’d had done, she still thought his genes were partially to blame for what had happened, then he wouldn’t force her. Couldn’t force her. And he didn’t even want to try. He just wanted this to work out for her. Most of the process was completely out of his control, except for this one small area where he could possibly positively affect her chances.

“Can I think about it?”

Her question came right when he was giving up.

“Of course.”

“On the deck? In the sun?” She was already crawling her way off the bow, giving him too good a view of her ass as she did so.

Way too good.

Hard in the wrong place, he set about baiting his line. It was time to do some real fishing. And not for the things he couldn’t have. Or things that no longer existed.

* * *

Weak in the knees, Mallory made it back to her lounger without incident. Sinking into the woven chair, she kept on her sunglasses just in case Braden was looking. And she refrained from wiping the tears from her cheeks for the same reason.

She’d just been given a second chance. From the minute she’d met her ex-husband she’d known that she’d wanted him to be the father of her biological family. To someone who’d grown up an orphaned foster kid, whose own mother hadn’t even known who’d fathered her, biology was important.

So important.

As important as Braden Harris was to her.

She couldn’t let him do this. Couldn’t use him this way. It was his guilt playing with him. She knew that.

Just as she knew that keeping your baby in your room was a key SIDS preventative. She’d studied them all, from the Mayo Clinic to the American Academy of Pediatrics and every blog or message board she could find in between:

Place baby on back, not side or stomach.

Remove all fluffy bedding.

Keep crib as bare as possible.

No prenatal smoking.

Good prenatal care.

Pacifier at night after four weeks of age.

Breastfeeding.

And baby in your own room for a minimum of six months, better if it was twelve.

Not in your bed but in your room. It had to do with waking more easily, among other things. Logic then followed that if she’d been home that night Tucker would have been in his smaller crib in their room, where he’d been every night since his birth. She’d have been there, too. Which could have prevented SIDS.

Braden had done his own reading. He had to know this, too. And he was offering to give her what she wanted in order to appease his guilt.

Maybe it would be kindest to give him a way to atone and move on.

How could she put him through fathering a child he didn’t want? How could she ask him to experience the pregnancy with her, knowing what it would probably cost him? How could she hurt him any more than he’d already been hurt, loving him like she did?

Unless...if atoning set him free...

She tried to doze, to let the sun take her to the peaceful place outside of pain, and ended up thinking about Tucker instead. The sound of him laughing. The first time he’d laughed Braden had been at work. She’d been alone with the baby, coming at him again and again with funny noises, stopping just short of reaching him to pull back and start again, reveling in the way his eyes had followed her every movement.

Braden had missed the whole thing. Tucker had been asleep when he’d arrived home that evening and though Braden had gone to wake him, she’d told him not to. It would have been too hard to get the baby back down. Feeling as sleep deprived as she had been, the admonition hadn’t been completely without warrant, but what would it have hurt in the long run? Yeah, she’d been exhausted, but it wasn’t like she’d had to get up to go to work. She’d still had another month of leave ahead of her. Even if the baby hadn’t laughed again that night, Braden would have racked up more minutes of memories to feed him in the years that followed.

Someone like Braden probably wouldn’t access those memories like she did. And when they came to him, calling up a wealth of emotion, they might be more a hindrance than anything else.

So maybe someone like Braden, someone who was happier shutting out emotion than letting it in, would be the perfect sperm donor—if he really didn’t want another child of his own.

But what if he only thought he didn’t? What if, once they got into it, once she heard a heartbeat and then started to show, once the baby started to kick, he found out he really wanted it all again, too?

She tried to find the idea abhorrent but couldn’t.

Because if Braden could be the man she’d thought he was, there’d be no more perfect scenario than having his baby.

Which was the true problem, she acknowledged, lying there with her eyes closed, the sun beating down on her, the gentle sway of the boat rocking her.

The real problem was her. What if she got pregnant, heard the heartbeat, started to show, felt the baby kicking her...and wanted Braden to get excited about all of those things because it was his baby, too? What if she fell in love with him all over again?

What if she started to fall back into who she’d been? A woman who’d been ashamed to cry because her husband didn’t like emotional outbursts. One who’d curtailed her most exciting moments when he was around for the same reason.

One who’d grown to relish her time alone with her baby so she could gush and be all intensely moved by the miracle of him and just feel complete.

No, she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t have Braden’s baby.

That settled, she concentrated on the slow rhythm of the boat’s movement and tried to drift off with it.

But she lay there, wide awake as a thought struck her.

She had to put the baby first.

Always.

In the end, she didn’t matter at all. What mattered was her baby’s health. His or her best chance at a long and happy life. Braden was right. With a sperm donor there were many unknowns.

She herself was an unknown, too. Yes, she’d had her own genetic testing and didn’t carry any alarming signs, but her family might. She had no way of knowing if there was a history of cancer. Or liver or kidney disease. Or slowly developing areas of the brain that regulated breathing.

Not only could her baby develop something, but she could, too. What if kidney failure ran in her family? Or car accidents?

Sitting up, Mallory opened her eyes, taking a minute to bring herself back mentally to where she was. The ocean. The boat. Fresh sea air and sunshine.

Car accidents weren’t genetic.

But they did take people unexpectedly, leaving loved ones behind to fend for themselves.

In her case, it would leave her little one with no known family at all. He or she would be just like Mallory, a foster.

Rising, she made her way back to the front of the boat. Braden was sitting with his forearms resting on raised knees, looking in her direction. His line lay limp before him. There wasn’t a single fish in the basket close by.

With a raised brow, he seemed to ask if she’d reached her decision.

“I have a question.”

“Okay. If I don’t have the answer, I’ll see what I can do about finding it.”

The reply was so Braden she almost teared up again. And smiled, too. He tried. He really, really tried hard.

“If something were to happen to me, would you be willing to take the child, to raise him or her?”

“Of course.”

It wasn’t so much his answer—which she’d have expected if she’d given herself enough time to think about it—as it was his lack of hesitation that set her suddenly frightened heart at ease.

“Then I accept your offer.”

“Good.”

He was looking at her. She looked back at him.

They’d just agreed she was going to have his baby.

And it felt as though they’d never been further apart.

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