Another Love, page 5
She lay quietly for a moment, as if considering what he proposed. “How does Timmy fit into this picture of domestic tranquility?”
“I’d like to adopt him. Whether I do or not, I’ll treat him the same as if he were mine. It should go without saying that whatever Timmy needs, I’ll see that he gets. I can’t help loving your son.”
Erin nodded. “And you believe you’ll love this baby, too?”
“Yes. I hope you can forgive me for what I asked you to do after Glenna died.” Knowing he’d asked Erin to destroy his child, even when he’d been crazed with grief, made him feel like a monster.
She laid her hand over his and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. “I forgave you the night we met.”
He had no doubt as to her sincerity, and he wished he could forgive himself as easily as she apparently had pardoned him. “Thank you.”
“What made you decide so suddenly that we owe it to this baby to tie ourselves to a loveless marriage?” she asked.
“Your accident. Knowing I might lose my child before it had a chance at life. Actually, I’ve been fighting what I’ve known since I first realized this baby deserved two loving parents. I reached that conclusion the night I came to you, intending to deny all but financial responsibility for my part in creating our child.”
Blake moved from the chair to the edge of Erin’s bed and stroked Erin’s silky cheek. “We’ve got many reasons to marry, and very few reasons not to. Please don’t debate them with me now. Just let me throw them out for you to think about. When I’m done, I’ll leave you to consider what I have said.”
“And when will you expect an answer?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’d say that time is of the essence since our baby is due in less than three weeks.” Immediately, not giving Erin the opportunity to object, Blake began to make what he hoped was a compelling case for their marriage.
* * * * *
Long after Blake had left, Erin lay wide awake in the darkened room, her mind in turmoil. With skill she supposed he’d honed in courtrooms, he’d presented his position in ways she found difficult if not impossible to refute.
It takes two loving parents together to give a child a stable home.
Blake had hammered in that premise with every other argument he had given, and he’d woven in the probable trauma the baby would suffer if faced with the fact that its biological mother had borne it for money and rejected the opportunity to claim and raise it.
He’d reminded her of the joys of parenting, promising his full participation as the baby’s father—and Timmy’s. He pledged his financial support without qualification and his emotional sustenance insofar as he was capable of giving it. With a smile she’d thought was close to real, he’d promised he’d try to share control of their home and family with her.
Clearly, when he’d summed up his case, Blake thought he’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Perhaps he had. Tired emotionally and physically, she turned to her other side to ease the strain on her back and tried to unscramble conflicting thoughts that filled her mind.
“Yes, I want to be a real mother to you,” she told her baby when it shifted in her womb. “And your father can’t wait for you to be born so he can hold and love you, too. You ought to see him with your brother Timmy. I know you’d like to have your daddy and me living together, bringing you up together. But little one, could we really make a happy home for you when all we have to hold it all together is you?”
Before Erin was done, she’d asked her unborn child all the questions for which she had no answers—answers she’d have to find tonight so she could give Blake her decision in the morning.
She hated to think she might be marrying Blake largely to provide for Timmy’s future medical care. In her mind, doing that would make her a vulture just like Greg’s grasping former wives apparently were if Sandy’s frequent descriptions were accurate. On the other hand, how could she not consider her little boy and his special needs? Did her primary responsibility not belong with Timmy? And hadn’t Blake specifically said he wanted to take care of him, adopt him if she agreed?
Blake seemed to think the arrangement would be fair. Erin would get a daddy for Timmy as well as their baby, all the financial support she might need, and some measure of control over her own life. What would Blake be getting, she wondered, beside a mother instead of a nanny for their baby?
She’d asked timidly if their marriage would be real. “Oh, it will be real enough in the sense that it will be signed, sealed and delivered. If you’re asking me if we will be sharing a bed, the answer is no—at least not in the foreseeable future. I haven’t wanted a woman since Glenna died. As of this moment, I have no desire to have sex with you or anyone else.”
Living without sex wouldn’t be a major problem for Erin. After all, the times she’d truly enjoyed making love with Bill during the last year or so of their marriage had been few and far between. The good, memorable sex had happened early in their marriage, when the bloom of love was still bright and full. She and Bill had been in love. That love had withered within the first six months after their wedding, replaced most of the time by indifference, but sometimes by downright dislike.
What chance for contentment would she have with Blake, starting out as they would be, with feelings best described as wary respect for one another? On the other hand, maybe a couple who made no pretense of loving each other might succeed better than a pair whose commitment was based on romantic love that was almost sure to fade. Unless one of them fell in love with somebody else, which would cause an awful dilemma.
She had to make the right choice. Should she or shouldn’t she accept Blake’s unemotional proposal? Exhausted and frustrated, she gave up when she found herself silently listing the same reason as justification for saying either yes or no.
Chapter Six
Glenna’s Ghost
You, marry Erin? Blake, how could you?
For a ghost, Glenna felt a mighty human burst of jealousy. Understandable, though. Blake had been hers since the beginning of time, would be hers as long as they lived.
It broke her heart to think of him alone and unhappy. Still, the thought of him pledging to love, honor and cherish another woman hurt so much more than she’d thought it would. She felt tears coming and reached up to brush them from her cheek.
Idiot, you’re not alive anymore. Ghosts don’t cry, and even if they did, they don’t have hands to brush away imaginary tears.
She tried hard to force down the evil monster of envy she couldn’t help but feel for Erin, who was alive and well and carrying the baby that should have been hers and Blake’s.
You want Blake to be happy, don’t you?
Happy? Glenna let out a tight, ironic chuckle. What Blake had proposed was a sterile merger, not a partnership between two caring and loving people. She wished she could reach down and shake some sense into the stubborn man she loved, the one who most of the time, infuriatingly, thought of everything only in terms of black and white!
He’s proposing a marriage of convenience. He doesn’t want to sleep with her.
Knowing that made her feel good in a purely human, feminine way. But it also made her sad. She’d believed until her dying day that Blake had been faithful to her all the time they were married, even though her illnesses and pregnancies had forced long periods of celibacy on them both.
Right! If I know Blake, he’ll be wanting her soon enough. Glenna couldn’t help resenting the fact that she was dead and the woman she’d set up to be her successor was very much alive. Blake was a healthy man, with strong physical needs. Someday soon, she knew, the sharp edges of grief would wear away and he would want the comfort of a woman’s body.
That woman has to be Erin.
I set this all in motion when I insisted that we hire Erin as a surrogate. No matter how I wish I were still down there, loving Blake, I’m not. Erin is his baby’s mother now, so it will be up to her to heal his heart and satisfy his sexual needs that won’t stay dormant for long.
Glenna remembered what she’d told Erin on her first visit as a ghost. “I want Blake to love Erin as much as he used to love me.”
Keep telling yourself that, Glenna. Maybe in time, you’ll really mean it.
Glenna marshaled her strength to speak and be heard, to see and be seen. Soon she materialized for the second time in Erin’s bedroom.
Chapter Seven
“Erin. Wake up.”
“Oh. What time is it?” Erin lifted a hand to cover her eyes in the room that had suddenly become as bright as day.
“About three o’clock. But we need to talk.”
Erin forced her tired eyes to focus. “Glenna.”
“You’re going to marry Blake, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. God, I don’t know. Why did I ever agree to be a surrogate mother?”
“Fate. We must all bow to fate, Erin. Look at me. I wanted to bear Blake’s children, but fate decreed otherwise. But we still had each other. It was fate, too, that I persuaded Blake to accept a surrogate arrangement so we could have the baby that meant everything to me—and that I was shot before I got to hold and love that child. Now, your destiny is to marry Blake so both of you can give your child a loving home.” Glenna paused, as if going on were more than she could bear.
“He’s a good man. Underneath that cool, clear logic and the grief I’ve brought him by dying, is a man who can love deeply and well.”
Hearing Glenna—or rather, Glenna’s ghost—talk so eloquently about Blake embarrassed Erin. “Why do you want us to marry?” she asked, wishing she could deny the surrealistic presence and escape into healing sleep.
“I told you before. I want to see good come from the situation I so unwittingly caused. I want Blake to be happy. I need to know the baby I wanted so much has a good, loving home. I have to know you and your little boy won’t be hurt because I selfishly thought I needed Blake’s baby to make my life complete.”
The aura surrounding Glenna brightened more, making Erin turn her gaze toward fluttering curtains at the French doors she was sure she’d closed. “None of this was your fault.” She could practically feel Glenna’s pain.
“I was responsible.”
“No.”
“Yes. Erin, marry Blake. Give him time. He’ll be a wonderful father, not only to his baby but to your little boy.”
Erin trembled. That argument was the same one Blake had hammered into her, the one she couldn’t ignore as she lay and tried to decide whether she should become the second Mrs. James Blake Tanner IV. “Is that enough reason for two people who don’t love each other to marry?”
“Oh, no. But Blake will love again. His grief was talking when he said he was proposing a marriage of convenience. That won’t last long. Blake needs affection, and he needs sex. He’s also faithful to any promise he makes. He’ll want you, all right—sooner than you think. And Erin, he’s a wonderful lover,” the ghost added wistfully.
Erin blushed. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Promise me you’ll marry him,” Glenna whispered as her image began to fade.
“I will.”
Had she really said that? Had she meant it? Her late-night visitor disappeared into a cloud of golden dust as she had that first night, when the ghost had welcomed her into what had so recently been her own home.
Ironically, the ghost had become Erin’s closest friend. There was something eerie, though, about having a friend who seemed to know everything you said and did. She wondered if Glenna was always lurking, whether she eavesdropped on every conversation. Had she been there earlier this evening, when Blake had argued that they should marry?
Erin laughed. Nerves, she told herself. For a minute there, she’d worried about Blake unknowingly hurting the ghost of his dead wife. Fat chance of that. She’d never forget his flat, sober expression when he said he didn’t foresee wanting anyone but Glenna—that his heart belonged to her and always would. No, Glenna’s death hadn’t altered his commitment to her.
Her friendly ghost didn’t seem to mind her husband’s decision to acquire a mother for his unborn baby. As a matter of fact, Glenna had been even more persuasive than Blake in her insistence that marriage would be the best solution for them all.
She’d promised Glenna she’d marry him.
Suddenly the prospect of being Mrs. Blake Tanner, if only in name, seemed the only option that made much sense out of the muddled mess she, Blake and Glenna had so unwittingly created. “And I’m going to do it,” she said before wriggling into a comfortable position and switching off the night-light.
* * * * *
“Have you made up your mind?” Blake asked Erin when she joined him for breakfast the following morning.
“Yes, I have.”
“Well?”
“I’ll marry you. I’ve thought it over, and I can’t see any better alternative. Still, I have reservations—lots of them. Some conditions, too.”
“Conditions?” Blake wasn’t anxious to hear about Erin’s reservations. He had plenty of his own.
“Timmy. I want him to believe this marriage is real.”
“So do I. I’ll do my part, if you’ll do yours. What do you propose we do to accomplish this?”
Erin looked confused. Maybe she hadn’t given the mechanics of making this farce of an arrangement look real any more thought than he had. “Do?”
“Exactly. Do we hold hands and kiss? Call each other pet names when the children are around? Sleep together?”
“I— I hadn’t thought of how.” Erin frowned. “But I don’t want Timmy to think I’m marrying you because of him or this baby. Maybe, we should just forget it.”
Blake met her concerned gaze. “You’re absolutely right that we should keep the reasons for this marriage to ourselves—for both children’s sakes. We can work out the details later.” What the hell? Not only would they have to deceive a little boy and a baby. They’d need to put on a show-stopping performance for half of Dallas as well.
And half of Dallas it would be. When he paused to consider the situation, he realized that to keep Timmy—and eventually his baby—thinking his and Erin’s marriage was a love match, they would have to fool their families, friends, and even casual acquaintances.
He looked away from the window with its view of lush grass and colorful flowers in full bloom this bright June morning, and settled his gaze on the ever-increasing girth of Erin’s midsection.
Erin’s question was small, reluctant. “When do you want—”
“As soon as possible, wouldn’t you say?” He met her gaze.
“I guess so.”
“I’ll make the arrangements. Saturday afternoon, if I can find a judge who’s free then. Do you have family you’ll want to be here?” As far as Blake was concerned, the simpler, the better. Still, one needed some family present in order to make this look real.
“Just Sandy. Our parents died when she was a teenager. And Timmy, of course. How about you?”
Blake lifted his left hand to brush a strand of hair off his forehead. “My mother is out of the country,” he replied. “Dad died a few years back.” He watched Erin’s gaze settle on his hand as it came back to rest on the tabletop.
“Do you intend to take that off?” she asked quietly.
Blake’s gaze followed Erin’s to the gold band that reflected the bright rays from the morning sun. He felt as if he were tearing out his heart as he slowly brought his right hand up to grasp the ring that had rarely left his finger since Glenna put it there, nearly fifteen years ago.
“Yes. I’ll take it off. I’ve worn Glenna’s ring since the day we married, but I obviously can’t wear it when I’m about to marry you.” He knew he sounded unnecessarily curt as he worked the wide gold band off his finger and put it in his pocket, but he couldn’t help it. “I won’t wear another wedding band.”
“I didn’t expect you would. I don’t need one, either.”
“You’ll get one, anyway.” This might be a loveless marriage he was entering into, but Blake would provide the bride’s ring that society would expect. He made a mental note to have his secretary go out and buy it as soon as she finished making other necessary arrangements.
“Will you be home this evening?”
He got up and shrugged into the jacket of a tropical-weight gray pinstriped suit. “Yes. I’ll let you know what arrangements I’ve made, at dinner.”
* * * * *
“You’ve heard from the judge already?” Greg asked as Sandy stood back to let Blake into his office. “You must be damn good.” It had taken months for his last attorney to write the alimony reduction petitions, much less get them acted upon.
Blake shook his head. “Hardly. I just filed the papers this morning. We should get hearing dates assigned within a couple of weeks. These things take time.”
“Then what brings you here? I told you, Erin is fine. It takes more than a simple fall like the one she had to hurt a healthy baby.”
“I need you to do a blood test.”
“On whom?”
“Me. Erin, too, but I assume you’ve got her tests on record here.”
“Go see your own doctor. My practice is limited to women. Wait a minute, my friend. What kind of blood tests? You certainly don’t think you need proof that the baby’s yours?”
“No. Damn it. We’re going to get married. I just need whatever test the state requires to get a marriage license.”
Greg stood and paced around the room while he wondered whether he should offer congratulations or commiseration. “You’re going to marry her?” he finally asked to ease the silence.
Blake shrugged. “I’m about to become a father, as you know better than anyone, including the baby’s mother. Don’t you think it’s reasonable that I provide my child with both its parents?”
Silently but fervently, Greg promised to avoid any future encounters with surrogate parenthood, as judiciously as Sandy kept him from accepting too many time-consuming charity cases.
