Paternity Crisis
There’d been a mistake at the fertility clinic. Now widow Erin Connell has to face the possibility that her baby son is not her husband’s child. And worse, that Connell Lodge, her son’s legacy and the only real home she’s ever known, may be lost to them both.
But billionaire Sam Thornton’s arrival at her bed-and-breakfast changes everything. Erin is stunned by the ferocity of her sudden attraction. Sam, too, is thunderstruck…and tormented. He’s come here for one reason only, and falling for the pretty owner isn’t it. He’s not leaving without her son—his son….
“I Want You, Erin.
Tell me to stop now and I will. Or tell me you want me, too.”
“I want you, Sam,” she said. “But I don’t know what you want out of this.”
He knew exactly what she meant. They were each so emotionally raw in their own ways.
“I don’t know, either,” he admitted. “But I know I’ve felt alone and empty for too long. I think you know how that feels. I think we can make that emptiness go away, for a while, together. We deserve that, don’t we?”
“And in the morning?” she asked. “What then?”
“I won’t think any less of you, Erin. I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since we kissed last week. I know you felt something then, just as I did. You even said it was what was right for us at the time. And so is this.”
Dear Reader,
Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we plot a book. This story has gone through many incarnations both in my mind, in the planning stages and, recently, as I’ve written it. As a result of the threads that needed to be woven and unwoven then rewoven in the telling of Erin and Sam’s story, I would like to take this time to send a deep and personal thank you to the wonderful Toni Kenyon for her assistance in making sure the legalities of Erin and Sam’s situation were very clear to me. Interestingly, that situation meant uplifting my characters from their original New Zealand based setting to one on the shores of another lake I love, Lake Tahoe. As a result of this move, I would like to send another deep and personal thank you to Alan Mazer for the U.S.-based legal information provided. Any mistakes in the story are very definitely my own.
Through the years, I’ve seen many couples, in reality and in books or on film, struggle with infertility. It’s such a difficult issue to face as we are born with an instinctive desire, well most of us, to procreate at some stage of our lives. The battles fought and won or lost in the quest to have a child can be heart-wrenching for all involved, both directly and peripherally.
One
“What are you going to do?”
Erin looked from the worried face of her friend to the letter in her hand and shook her head. “I don’t know what I can do.”
“You have to find out more. At least then you’ll be better informed if you have to fight it,” Sasha said vehemently. “What did that letter the other day say? That someone had come forward to say mistakes had been made at the fertility clinic? And with nothing to back up their claims? Seriously, it could just be a disgruntled employee creating trouble.”
“Well,” Erin said, waving the letter she’d received from a San Francisco law firm out of reach of her baby son’s grip. “Clearly someone believes in it enough to follow it up. And besides, if it’s true, if the tests prove Riley isn’t James’s son, do I have any right to fight it?”
“You’re his mother, aren’t you? You have every right under the sun. This Party A—” Sasha sneered over the moniker “—is no more than a donor.”
“Sash, really? That’s a bit harsh. The man and his wife were obviously going through the clinic for the same reason James and I were. I think it’s a bit cruel to say he’s no more than a donor.”
Erin pressed a kiss onto Riley’s head, inhaling his special baby smell and relishing anew the wonder of the life she held on her lap.
Sasha had the grace to look shamefaced. “Well, either way, you’re Riley’s mother. No one can deny you that, and it means the odds regarding custody are firmly stacked in your favor.”
It was little comfort, Erin thought as she studied the letter again. She hoped to see something, anything, that would give her some recourse to refuse to submit Riley to a DNA test to prove exactly who his father was—her late husband James or some stranger. She adjusted Riley on her lap as her heart constricted painfully. The whole situation was impossible. Riley had to be James’s son. He just had to be. Their security hinged on it.