Enchanting Baby
Enchanting Baby
Darlene Graham
She'll do anything to protect this babyWhen TV personality Ashleigh Logan became pregnant by artificial insemination of her deceased husband's sperm, she ignited a media frenzy and attracted a stalker. So she's sequestered herself in the mountains of New Mexico, under the watchful eyes of the midwives of The Birth Place. Here she can be safe until the baby arrives.And so will heGreg Glazier doesn't have an easy time tracking down Ashleigh. And when he finally finds her, he can't tell her his news–not until she's further along in her pregnancy. Because what he's got to say might come as a bit of a shock–he's the real father of her baby.
“I know you feel like it’s your baby, Greg. But the truth is—”
“No.” His interruption was harsh, like a slap intended to wake her up. “The truth is, I am this baby’s father, not Chad.”
She swallowed and put her spoon down with a shaky hand.
“I love you, Greg, and I know what you are trying to do.” She tried again in a low voice. “And that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. But you know very well where this baby comes from. And you know very well that this is not your baby. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. We’re both grown-ups here.”
“You’re not hearing me.” He swiveled his chair toward her, with his legs spread wide, forming a V around the chair where she sat. He grabbed her hands, and the seriousness in his deep gray eyes scared her. “This is my baby.”
Dear Reader,
You are holding in your hands the first book in an exciting new series set inside the Enchanted Circle north of Taos, New Mexico.
When I first visited that remote setting, I had to agree with Francis X. Aubry, an early explorer on the Santa Fe Trial in the 1850s: “There is something in the air of New Mexico that makes the blood red, the heart beat high and the eyes…look upward. Folks don’t come here to die—they come here to live, and they get what they come for.”
Greg Glazier and Ashleigh Logan have both fled to New Mexico for the sake of a new life—literally. As they struggle to protect the unborn baby they both cherish so dearly, they find an unexpected gift along the way: each other. True love between a man and a woman is as mysterious as the Enchanted Circle itself. And as you will see in this story, its power cannot be denied.
I joked with my editor that creating this series felt a bit like a long gestation that led to the birth of a beautiful baby. Or rather, six beautiful babies. Writing this series with six other wonderful authors was a blast. I thank each of them for their creativity, insights and most of all, friendship. Each of the books in THE BIRTH PLACE series stands alone, of course, but I think once you visit Enchantment, you will be drawn there again and again.
So join me now in the enchanting world of THE BIRTH PLACE.
My best to you,
Darlene Graham
I treasure your letters! Contact me at P.O. Box 720224, Norman, OK 73070. And visit my Web site at www.superauthors.com/Graham.
Enchanting Baby
Darlene Graham
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Devyn, who endured so much to give us the precious gift of Ava Rose.
And for Damon,
the most devoted and protective Daddy I have ever seen.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER ONE
THE NAME OF THE PLACE, Enchantment, struck Greg Glazier as slightly ironic. After all, hadn’t he driven to this remote town as if under some kind of spell, chasing the illusion that he was going to find and bond with the woman carrying his baby—a baby that was nothing more, at this point, than an enchanting fantasy?
And what about the woman? What was she to him? A cutesy television personality? A pretty face on the screen? Another illusion.
On her weekly TV show, Ashleigh Logan came across as intelligent and charming, but God only knew what she would be like in person.
The town lay in the valley ahead like a scene from a picture postcard. From his vantage point on the winding highway, Greg could see a desert vista to the south, grassy ranchland to the east, and to the north and west, the vast aspen-rimmed pine forests that rose to the mystical snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Greg might have attributed the breathless sensation in his chest to the stunning view if he hadn’t known it was actually altitude sickness, mixed with a walloping dose of anxiety and fatigue. Battling a killer headache and an unslakble thirst, he took a deep pull on his water bottle, then gritted his teeth as he steered his Lincoln Navigator around another curve as the highway snaked into the valley ahead.
He should have had more sense than to travel over the mountains straight off the eastern Colorado ranching plains. He’d lived in the shadow of the Rockies all of his life, but every time he went up into the thinner air, as soon as he ascended those steep, winding roads, he got sick.
But he didn’t have time to lay low now. Ashleigh Logan already had a two-day head start on him.
When Greg’s efforts to contact Ashleigh at the TV station and then at her home failed, he’d tried her sister’s house, but the woman had acted spooked when she answered the door.
“Ms. Miller?” he inquired while she peered at him with the privacy chain still fastened. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for your sister. Ashleigh Logan?”
The one eye he could see grew wide with surprise…or was it fear? “Wait here” was all the sister said. Then she slammed the door.
The next thing he knew, a black-and-white patrol car came zipping up to the curb. In short order, the officer made him produce identification and vacate the premises.
That’s when Greg had decided that somehow, this Ashleigh Logan woman had figured out what he was after and had bugged out on him. So he’d hired himself a detective.
In Greg’s opinion the private investigator in Denver had taken too long to figure out where Ashleigh Logan had vanished to. But what did Greg know? Even in his days as a deputy sheriff, he’d never done anything this crazy. No, he corrected himself. Chasing down the woman carrying his baby wasn’t crazy. It was vital. All-important.
But two precious days had ticked by before they traced Ashleigh Logan here, to Enchantment, New Mexico.
Enchantment. So named, Greg supposed, because it lay nestled in the heart of the Enchanted Circle north of Taos. He had to admit it was a pretty little town, with its clear mountain air, expansive blue skies, gurgling silver streams. Wide meadows flanked the curved road into town, where the highway narrowed and became the main drag of Enchantment, Paseo de Sierra. Avenue of the Mountains. The name made sense since the street pointed straight toward the Sangre de Cristo range, centering on Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico.
Centuries ago, the Spaniards had apparently thought Sangre de Cristo—blood of Christ—was an apt name for this rugged mountain range. Legend said they had come from the west and saw the range painted red by the setting sun. Coming from the east, the peaks actually looked hazy, purple, backlit by an apricot sun dipping below a bank of atomicorange clouds. It was aspen-turning time—late September—and the thick stands of shimmering golden trees added to the feeling of rarefied light. If he hadn’t been sick as a dog, he might have appreciated the stunning beauty.
In the village core he passed charming gift shops and rustic ski-rental establishments, plus a small adobe post office, a civic complex and library building, an American Legion hall, the office of the Arroyo County Bulletin—the town newspaper, he presumed—and an interesting-looking bed-and-breakfast. He’d come back there later, get a room and crash.
“After I find Ashleigh Logan,” he muttered to himself, and took another swig of water.
Finding her might prove harder than he thought. The town looked bigger than he’d imagined. From the base in the valley, new construction sprawled far up onto the mountainsides. Southwest-style log cabins, Alpine A-frames and classic chalets shared the foothills and mountainsides with cozy hotels and weathered homesteads. Subsistence farms dotted the lower surrounding countryside, while farther up, the vast windows of the lofty retreats of the wealthy glittered in the setting sun.
The main street led straight to an old Spanish-style square where there were more shops, restaurants and art galleries. Like the name implied, it was all very…enchanting.
But the place wasn’t totally charming. On the southern edge of town, Greg saw evidence of poverty—dusty, dented pickups, ramshackle trailer houses.
Why had Ashleigh Logan run away to this remote place?
If it was because she already knew the truth, Ms. Logan was certainly going to a hell of a lot of trouble to evade the father of her child. But he would find her and he would demand his rights. He would not allow anything to separate him from the only child he would ever have.
As close as he could tell, Ashleigh’s decision to come to this particular town was connected to a birthing center run by a bunch of midwives. The place was called—he glanced at the notes the private detective had given him—The Birth Place. It had better not be some hippie-dippy asylum where they used herbal remedies and scented oils instead of real medicine. Not if his baby was going to be born there.
He checked the map he’d printed off the Internet and turned the Navigator onto the narrow Desert Valley Road, where yellowing cottonwood trees on either side created a fluttering golden canopy overhead. He found the clinic at the end of the road.
Tucked in among sheltering pines, the place was a sleepy-looking two-story adobe building with softly rounded walls and deep-set mullioned windows, trimmed in that ubiquitous New Mexico turquoise. The little sign out front, modest enough, had the words The Birth Place stenciled in the same shade of turquoise against a snow-white background. A silhouette of a Madonna and babe, the clinic’s logo, he supposed, completed the sign.
His tires crunched over the rock-and-sand semi-circular drive as he bumped to a halt. His was the only vehicle in sight. He chugged down the last of his water, eased out and slammed the door.
The place felt as quiet as an abandoned homestead. He hoped he hadn’t arrived too late. No clinic hours were posted—he glanced at the sun disappearing over the mountain—but it had to be near closing time.
Greg stepped inside a rough-hewn cedar door, and was appalled by what he saw. His child was going to be born here?
The place was a cacophony of clutter, noise and activity. Behind a high reception counter, phones jangled, a copier hummed and zipped, and a teakettle whistled from somewhere beyond an open door. Muted voices came and went as doors opened and closed down a long narrow hallway. Despite the late afternoon hour, a couple of patients, grossly pregnant, still sat waiting in the small reception area. Their conversation was subdued, but their two small children were having a noisy fight over a toy in a corner play area, and lively female laughter rang out from the room behind the reception desk.
He cleared his throat and stepped up to the counter while every woman in the place, pregnant ones included, fell silent and gave him her rapt attention. Greg imagined his appearance was a little rough. He’d been traveling hell-bent all day in his worn ranching clothes. He was unshaven, unkempt, and probably looked a little gaunt and pasty to boot.
The middle-aged woman behind the desk frowned at him while she pressed her ear to a phone, holding up one finger that told him to wait.
“Sounds like her water broke,” she was saying into the phone.
Greg felt like an eavesdropper and stepped back, focusing his gaze away from the desk. The place reminded him more of someone’s home than an organized office. Lush potted plants rimmed the periphery of Mexican-tile floors that gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the multipaned windows. The whitewashed walls were covered with a jumble of Southwest art, photographs, homemade educational posters…even a few animal skins. A giant bulletin board held hundreds of overlapping baby pictures, as thick as leaves on a tree. In one corner, a rounded adobe fireplace still held the ashes from a recent fire. It was all very cozy, but for his baby, Greg had envisioned something stainless steel and sterile, a real clinic, for crying out loud.
“Trish!” a younger woman called as she sailed out of a back hallway. “I’m headed up to the Coleman cabin.”
Was this a nurse? Greg wondered. He had been told the clinic made house calls or home visits or whatever they called them. She was tallish and slender, wearing brown overalls and clogs, with a long graying braid hanging down her back. She stepped up to the high counter and set down a box containing some kind of equipment. As she donned a jacket she continued, “Would you sign me out?”
Trish made a not-now-I’m-busy face and continued to listen intently to the phone.
“I’ll sign you out, Katherine,” a pleasant voice called out from the open doorway behind the reception desk. A short round Hispanic woman in a denim jumper poked her head around the doorjamb, briefly eyed Greg, and then said to the woman in overalls, “You be careful out on that Switchback Road, sweetie!”
She disappeared back into the room, and then something, the ominous-sounding name of Switchback Road, his newfound suspicious state of mind—something—made Greg lean back slightly so that he could see through the open door. The chubby lady was using a marker to write on a dry-erase board next to floor-to-ceiling shelves housing a rainbow of patient charts. A wildly painted cabinet—pinks, oranges, blues in an artsy design that mimicked the patterns of a Navajo blanket—snagged Greg’s gaze for one instant before his eyes snapped back to the board and what the Hispanic woman was writing there, or rather, what she was writing next to…the name Logan.
His heart kicked against his ribs and his mouth went dry. Well, drier.
“May I help you?” The woman in the overalls stepped toward him as she studied his expression.
Greg nodded at the stethoscope around her neck. “Are you a nurse?” he asked as a stalling tactic, trying to decide if he should merely follow this woman when she left. The idea of sneaking around following people made him feel like a jackass, but on the other hand this nurse might lead him straight to Ashleigh Logan. How likely was it that the name Logan on that board was just a coincidence?
“No.” She smiled kindly. “I’m one of the midwives. Katherine Collins.”
Greg nodded and smiled, reluctant to reveal his own name. He looked around the waiting room as if searching. “I was looking for a friend who was supposed to be here, but I guess she’s already gone.”
“We have a couple of patients in the exam rooms.” The midwife’s voice was gentle and pleasant. “If you’ll tell me her name—and who you are—I’ll see if she’s in the back.”
“Uh…her name…” Involuntarily Greg’s eyes darted to the big board in the room beyond.
Immediately the midwife stiffened. Her eyes cut to the dry-erase board, her cheeks pinkened, then she stammered, “Would you, uh, would you wait here, please? I’ll get someone to help you.” She shoved the box on the counter toward the Trish woman with a meaningful look, then shot off down the long hallway.
Greg, meanwhile, quickly glanced in the box. Sure enough, the tab on the chart inside read Logan, Ashleigh M. The equipment, surrounded by a nest of webbed belting, looked like some kind of fax machine. It occurred to him that the thing could be a uterine monitor.
With her eyes making a wary sweep of him, Trish hung up the phone and snatched the box away. The two women in the back room had sidled out to stand near the receptionist. All three cast one another covert glances. Someone, he saw, had erased the Logan name from the board in the back.
The phone jangled again and the receptionist answered it, turning her face away from Greg. She mumbled into the handset while the rest of the room grew quiet and the other women kept their gazes fixed on Greg. Greg eased away from the counter as the place grew oddly still.
The midwife reappeared, walking fast, followed by a tall, distinguished-looking woman. The midwife slipped behind the counter with the other women, but the tall older lady walked right up to Greg. She was in her seventies, perhaps, but her movements were brisk and her posture was ramrod straight.
“I’m Lydia Kane,” she announced, “the director of The Birth Place.” She was almost as tall as Greg, who stood at just over six feet. Her steel-gray hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense bun that accentuated her angular, rawboned features. Her outfit—a simple white linen shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a pair of well-worn khakis—would have seemed austere except for a large pendant that hung from her neck on a long silver chain. Greg collected western art and artifacts, and that thing looked like a nineteenth-century heirloom, or a convincing copy. The oval stone at the center resembled genuine rose onyx, but Greg knew it couldn’t possibly be. All of the rose onyx in existence was embedded in the walls of the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver. But the swirling patterns of cream and maroon forming the silhouette of a Madonna and infant, similar to the logo he’d seen out front, certainly resembled the rare material.
She covered the pendant with her fingertips when she noticed him frowning at it. “How, exactly, may I help you?” Her tone was wary, cool.
For a moment Greg considered making an excuse to leave, waiting down the road, then following the midwife Katherine up to this Coleman cabin. But Katherine, huddled behind the desk with the others, apparently wasn’t going anywhere now. In fact, all of the women kept staring at him as if he was Jack the Ripper. Something warned him that all was not kosher at The Birth Place, and that maybe he’d better play it straight. “I hope it’s not any trouble, Ms. Kane, but I’m looking for a woman who might be a patient at this clinic,” he said.
“We don’t give out information about our patients, Mr….” Lydia Kane waited for him to fill in the blank.
Greg didn’t oblige. As a major land developer in Denver his name was fairly well known, but surely no one as far south as New Mexico would recognize it. Even so, having his identity linked to the highly visible TV personality Ashleigh Logan didn’t seem wise. He wasn’t ready for anyone to be privy to the reason he was in Enchantment. He hadn’t even decided what he was going to do when he found Ashleigh Logan, except that he was determined to somehow be a part of his child’s life. Greg was terrible at lying, and long ago he’d learned that it was better to simply be judicious with the truth. Nobody said you had to slap all your cards on the table at once.
“I understand about patient confidentiality, ma’am.” Greg kept his voice low. “But I have reason to believe that the woman I’m looking for might have come to your clinic for prenatal care and I don’t know how else to find her. I really need to see her. It’s…it’s fairly urgent.”
The expression in Lydia Kane’s sharp blue eyes indicated she was not inclined to divulge any information. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, making it sound vaguely like a threat instead of an apology, “I don’t think I caught your name.”
Greg realized, a little late, that maybe he should have sent the private investigator to Enchantment to flush out Ashleigh Logan before he came tearing down here himself. If he invented a fake name his poor lying skills would undoubtedly trip him up. But if he said anything now besides a name—my name’s not important or I’m nobody or she wouldn’t recognize me—it would sound lame, even suspicious. And if he kept up this lying now, what would they think of him when the baby came?
Again, he opted for a diversion, a partial truth. “I understand that you can’t give me any information, but I have…something she needs, and I was hoping you might at least contact her for me.”
Lydia Kane didn’t look at all amenable to that idea, either, even though she asked, “And what is her name?”
“Ashleigh Logan.”
“Ashleigh Logan…” Lydia repeated in a musing way, as if she were trying to place the name. “Ashleigh Logan.” She fingered the pendant again and glanced over Greg’s shoulder.
“Maybe you’ve heard of her?” he persisted. “She has a syndicated TV show. All About Babies. I mean, in your line of work—”
“I have seen that show,” Lydia said slowly. “So, is this urgent business somehow related to Ms. Logan’s television show?”
“Uh. No. It’s personal.” Again, Greg settled for a vague truth.
“I see.” Lydia shot another quick glance over Greg’s shoulder, toward the women clustered behind the receptionist’s desk. “Is it a medical matter?”
“Well, no. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it was urgent. It’s not anything of immediate importance….” Greg hesitated while he did some fast thinking. His gaze flitted to the pictures of healthy babies decorating the clinic walls. If this woman ran this clinic, then the welfare of babies must be a very high priority for her. “But it might eventually impact Ms. Logan’s unborn child.” That was the absolute truth, so Greg had no trouble keeping his expression sincere.
“I see.” Lydia Kane shot another furtive glance out the large window, then in the direction of the small waiting room, toward her patients, who appeared to be tuned in to the conversation. Even the two little children had gravitated toward their mothers and now sat still and quiet.
“I’d like to help you. But I’m afraid we’re very busy right now.” She smiled nervously at the women in the waiting room. “Would you mind waiting back in my office while I check on something?”
Greg decided there was definitely something fishy going on at this clinic. “Oh, that’s okay,” he said casually. “I’m running late, actually.” He looked at his wrist as if to check his watch, and realized that in his hurry to hit the road, he hadn’t put it on. The futile gesture seemed to undermine his credibility even further. “I think I’d better be on my way.”
“It will only take a minute. Please. My office is this way.” She swept a graceful arm toward the long hallway.
The woman was clearly trying to detain him—he saw that now. It was what she’d been doing all along. And in the next instant, Greg understood why.
The whoop of a siren caused everyone to turn to the paned window. A black-and-white cruiser braked behind Greg’s Navigator and a trim, muscular young cop jumped out and trotted around the trunk of the squad car. He was wearing a gray Stetson, a flawlessly pressed uniform, dusty brown cowboy boots and a sidearm in a swivel holster. He came bursting into the door of the clinic like a marine at a battle landing.
“This is the man, Miguel,” the Lydia Kane woman said loudly. She had stepped farther away from Greg.
“Come with me, sir.” The cop was about Greg’s size, clean cut and serious-looking. His heavy dark brows formed into a sharp chevron as he indicated the door with one outstretched palm. His name tag read “Eiden,” but this guy didn’t look German. With his hawkish nose and piercing dark eyes, he looked like he could be part Hispanic or maybe Navajo. The deep dimples etched on either side of his mouth somehow made his appearance even more threatening.
“Now, wait a minute,” Greg said as he backed up. Why in the hell did the cops show up every time he started asking questions about Ashleigh Logan?
“I need you to step outside, sir.” The cop reached for Greg’s arm, but again Greg instinctively backed away. The women and children had receded to the far edges of the room.
“Are you arresting me?” Greg demanded. He knew the law, and knew he hadn’t broken it.
“I’m simply conducting an investiga—” The cop’s shoulder radio squawked. He listened, then touched it off. “I just need you to come outside and answer a few questions.”
“Why?”
When Greg still didn’t move, the cop said, “Okay. Sir, I’ll need you to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“What?” Greg couldn’t believe this.
But the cop had already reached behind his belt and flipped out a pair of handcuffs. His other hand was poised near his holster.
“Okay!” Greg threw up his palms like a criminal in a TV drama. What choice did he have? He wouldn’t be much good to his baby if he got himself shot.
Before he could so much as blink, Eiden twisted Greg’s arms behind his back and slapped the cuffs on his wrists. With one hand on the cuffs and one hand on Greg’s shoulder, the cop pushed him outside.
Stunned, Greg tried to turn his face toward the man. “Officer, are you arresting me?”
The cop gave the cuffs an instructive jerk. “I could. For interference with official process. But I’ll settle for taking you down to headquarters for investigative detention.”
“What is this all about? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The cop didn’t answer. He quickly patted Greg down, making Greg grateful he’d left his firearm in the lockbox inside his Navigator.
When the cop was satisfied that Greg was clean, he said, “Please get in the vehicle, sir.” He opened the back door of the squad car.
“What about my vehicle?” Greg jerked his head toward the Navigator.
“I’ll lock it. If necessary, I can impound it later. Otherwise, I’ll bring you back here to get it.”
Again, Greg had no choice but to climb into the musty, plastic-lined back seat. He’d only ridden in the front of a squad car, never in the back. He’d never been on the bad end of an arrest, either. He felt awkward, like an animal in a cage, forced to sit sideways in the cramped space because of the cuffs. As he stared at the Plexiglas barrier to the front seat he thought, Great. This Ashleigh Logan woman is complicating my life more by the minute. He’d been in this backwater town less than an hour and already he was being hauled down to the local pokey.
CHAPTER TWO
AS SOON AS THE DOOR CLOSED behind the men, Lydia Kane and her staff rushed into the waiting room where the two mothers were clutching their toddlers to their pregnant bellies.
“Everything’s all right.” Lydia stretched her arms forth. “He’s gone now. Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine,” both of the patients answered at once, but their expressions remained wide-eyed and fearful.
“Was that guy dangerous?” one of them asked.
“I hope not,” Lydia soothed. “But we couldn’t take any chances. We have a patient here who has a restraining order against a stalker back in Denver, so we can’t be too cautious.” She turned to her staff. “Lenora, why don’t you go ahead and move these clients back to exam rooms where they can be more comfortable?”
As soon as the patients were gone, the receptionist, Trish, covered her mouth in shame. “I shouldn’t have put her real last name on the board.”
Lydia patted her shoulder. “It’s been a hectic day and you were just following the routine.”
“Don’t worry, Trish,” Katherine said, adding her reassurances. “While Lydia was calling the cops, I called Ashleigh and warned her. Another officer went out to the Coleman cabin while Miguel was on his way here.”
“Still, that awful man saw her name. Now he knows she’s in Enchantment!” Trish wasn’t going to forgive herself so easily.
“You had no idea he’d look back there,” Katherine reassured her further.
“I’m so glad you were alert!” Trish’s shoulders relaxed a bit.
“Yes. Good job, Katherine.” Now Lydia patted the midwife’s shoulder.
“And you did the right thing, Lydia.” Katherine smiled at her boss. “If that is the stalker, thank God Miguel has hauled him off.”
“Yes.” Lydia looked out the window as the cruiser pulled away. “Miguel Eiden isn’t about to let that guy hurt anybody.”
THE POLICE STATION WAS BACK on the main drag, Paseo de Sierra. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains so that Greg couldn’t see much through the grimy rear windows as they pulled into the gravel parking lot. But it looked like the police department was connected by a short breezeway to the civic complex that housed the library and the chamber of commerce. The building was a timber-and-adobe structure that looked as if it had been restored and added onto a couple of times.
The cop took him inside and led him down a narrow hallway to a tiny office, brightly lit and sparsely furnished. He unlocked the cuffs and said, “Take out your driver’s license and have a seat.”
Greg pulled his license out of his billfold, then sat down in a folding chair at a bare utilitarian table. A yellow legal pad and pen were already in place there.
The cop removed his cowboy hat and pitched it onto the table. Before he sat down he snatched up a beige wall phone.
“Ernesto? Miguel here. I’ve got the guy in the interrogation room. Go ahead and start the tape.”
“Tape?” Greg said, “You’re taping me? Isn’t that illegal?”
The cop pulled a wry smile. “Get real.” He checked Greg’s driver’s license, then sat in the chair facing him.
“This is unbelievable.” Greg leaned forward in his chair while the cop scribbled some notes. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
A pretty young woman stuck her head in the door. “Officer Eiden—” her voice was saccharine sweet “—you want this?” She waved a sheaf of papers at Miguel. Without looking up from what he was writing, the cop held out a hand and she took her time sauntering the few steps across the room to deliver the papers.
“Thanks, Crystal.” Giving his full attention to the papers, the cop dismissed her.
But she lingered at Miguel’s shoulder, giving Greg an avid once-over. “You think this is the guy?”
The cop cut her a sharp glance. “Crystal. You can go now.”
She swished out, and the cop perused the pages, occasionally stopping to copy something he’d read onto the legal pad. He looked like he was about Greg’s age—early thirties, maybe. In this part of the country there were a lot of people of Navajo descent, and this man’s bronze skin and straight dark hair hinted at this heritage. When he finished reading he made a two-fingered signal at a picture-window-size mirror set into one wall, then he favored Greg with a cool, assessing squint. “I suppose you think just because this is a small town, we don’t tape perps?”
“So I’m a perp?”
“You tell me.” The cop looked at his watch and jotted something else on the yellow pad.
“What is it that you want me to tell you?”
Still writing, Miguel said, “Just answer a few simple questions…and don’t forget to smile for our camera.”
Greg refrained from waggling a sarcastic wave at “Ernesto,” who was evidently already videotaping from beyond the dark glass.
“What’s your full name?”
Through the Plexiglas in the cruiser Greg had seen Officer Eiden writing down the tag number on his Navigator, and he assumed what the cop had in his hands was an NCIC report—and maybe some additional information from the Denver police. But Greg knew this tactic. The cop would make notes of Greg’s answers to see if they jibed with the official report. “Gregory McCrae Glazier.”
“Age.”
“Thirty-four.”
“Occupation.”
“Land developer.”
The cop calmly jotted down this answer without comment. A lot of people didn’t know what a “land developer” did—buying and opening up new plots of land for housing and business. Greg was anxious to skip ahead. While this cop was playing twenty questions, Ashleigh Logan could be crossing another state line.
“And—” Greg leaned forward, hoping this would help move the process along “—at one time I was a deputy sheriff.”
This, the cop did not calmly jot down. He fixed his gaze on Greg. “Was? Are you retired? Ex-cop? What?”
Greg was well aware that within the brotherhood of the badge, the difference between an ex-cop and a retired cop was vast. An ex-cop was suspect. Had he been drummed out of the force? Had he screwed something up bad? Couldn’t he handle it?
“I’m an auxiliary deputy, but for all practical purposes I’m inactive.”
The cop frowned. “From what agency?”
“The sheriff’s department out in Last Chance, Colorado. My dad was the sheriff until he got killed in the line of duty. My grandfather was the sheriff before him. I guess you could say I inherited the job.”
“Why’d you quit?”
“Technically, I didn’t quit. I had to spend all of my time in Denver for a couple of years.” When Kendra’s kidneys had failed entirely, he’d moved her near the dialysis center. “I found a good replacement, a foreman on my ranch. Ever since, I’ve been inactive.”
He might as well have quit. Greg was through with law enforcement. He had stopped trying to fill his father’s shoes as soon as he found out how sick Kendra was. Playing deputy and keeping the ranch going in the years after his father died had siphoned off precious time that he should have spent with Kendra. Time he could never regain. But to keep from having to explain all of that to this cop, he gave the simple answer. “I still carry a commission card.”
And my gun, he added mentally. He wasn’t sure that fact would win points with this guy, either. “But I don’t do much duty.”
Eiden was a bit of a bulldog. “Why not?”
“It’s pretty quiet where I’m from. The sheriff only calls us if he needs backup on something. Not much call for crowd control out in Last Chance.”
“Okay. I get it.” Eiden scribbled another note. “So, how long have you been a deputy?”
“Since I was nineteen. I was sworn in right after my father was killed.”
“In the line of duty, you say?”
“Yeah. It was a long time ago.” Greg was growing impatient. It was, indeed, a long time ago. And they were all gone. His dad. Kendra. Gramps. All that mattered now was the baby.
Eiden was studying him with the instinctual squint of a cop who suspected he wasn’t getting the whole story, but Greg was in no mood to share. The fact that he’d made a lot of sacrifices—including his ability to father a child—in his desperate but futile battle to save Kendra’s life was nobody’s business.
“Why am I here?” Greg was anxious to focus the conversation back into the now.
The cop put his pen down. “Ms. Kane told me you came to the clinic looking for a woman, someone you believe is one of her clients.”
Greg frowned, thinking, So? What a weird little burg this was. “Do you haul everyone who walks into that clinic looking for someone over to police headquarters for interrogation?” It was all so bizarre that Greg couldn’t help adding, “Is that some kind of crime in Enchantment, New Mexico?”
“Would you mind giving me the woman’s name?”
“Ashleigh Logan. The one with the TV show.”
Greg noticed Officer Eiden didn’t have to write that down. He waved the pen. “I know who she is. Why are you looking for her?”
“It’s personal.” That answer had seemed sufficient at the clinic. Well, no, it hadn’t. The people at the clinic had called the cops.
And this cop, evidently, didn’t like that answer, either. “I can detain you if you don’t cooperate with me, Mr. Glazier.”
“On what charges?” Greg wondered if he should call his lawyer, who was all the way back in Denver.
“I said detain. I didn’t say arrest. If you’re a deputy you know that I can put you in investigative detention. Now, I think you’d better tell me what business you have with Ashleigh Logan.”
If Lydia Kane’s furtive behavior hadn’t convinced Greg that the woman he was seeking had, indeed, come to Enchantment to hide, this cop’s pressure tactics sure did. Greg had the creeping sensation that he was dealing with something sinister here. That thought sent a chill through him, because if Ashleigh Logan was in some kind of danger, so was the child inside of her—his child.
The cop’s eyes glittered like dark polished stones while he waited for Greg to answer. No one, Greg decided, could look more threatening.
“Look,” Greg said, trying to sound reasonable. “I need to find Ms. Logan for reasons that are mine alone. It’s something between the two of us. Is she in some kind of trouble or something?”
“I asked you why you’re looking for her.”
“I’d rather not say. I need to explain the full situation to her first. She deserves that much. Like I said, it’s personal.”
The cop leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table with his smooth brown hands fisted together over the legal pad. “You her boyfriend or something?”
Greg took a measure of the guy, deciding whether to trust him or not. Miguel Eiden seemed solid and clean cut. Except for a scar on his square jaw that looked as if it’d been earned in a fight. So maybe the guy had a bit of a history. Didn’t everybody?
Eyeing him, Greg bet his top stud horse that the guy knew exactly where Ashleigh Logan was.
And if Ashleigh Logan was in Enchantment, the sooner he talked to her, the better. He had tried not to let himself consider this possibility, but if Ashleigh Logan had already found out about the disastrous mistake…well, she might do something rash if she was devastated enough. He had to make her see that there was more at stake than she knew. He suppressed his fears by reminding himself that she was the star of a show about having babies, and that her own unorthodox pregnancy had already been highly publicized. How would it look to her viewers if cute, bubbly Ashleigh Logan opted for a late-term abortion? And The Birth Place clinic didn’t look like the kind of place where a woman would come for such a procedure, anyway. Still, Greg couldn’t quell a certain sense of urgency. This was his child, the only child he would ever have. He had to ask.
“You know where she is, don’t you?”
Miguel Eiden’s mouth formed a tight line. “I asked you a question, Mr. Glazier. What is your relationship to Ashleigh Logan?”
They had clearly reached a Mexican standoff, and since the cop had the gun on his hip, Greg was bound to lose. He decided he’d have to tell the guy the truth if he was ever going to get out of here.
“I don’t have a relationship with her. We’ve never even met.”
The cop’s frown deepened.
Greg could see he was going to have to tell the guy all of it. “This has to be kept confidential.”
The cop leaned back and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’m a police officer, not a gossip columnist.”
Right. As if Greg needed reminding. “Ms. Logan is pregnant.”
The cop gave him a sarcastic frown that said, duh. Ashleigh Logan had chronicled every step of her pregnancy on her nationally syndicated cable TV show for all the world to see. “And?” Eiden pressed.
“The baby is mine.”
The cop’s eyebrows shot up. He dropped his threatening pose and his expression became incredulous as he leaned forward. “I thought you said you’ve never met her.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then you’d better tell me what gives, Mr. Glazier.” He leafed through the papers as if he’d missed something. “’Cause this deal is sounding stranger by the minute.”
Greg sighed, suddenly feeling beaten down by the combined effects of his bizarre situation and the nagging altitude sickness. “Strange isn’t the word for it. Seems like my whole life has been strange, and incredibly unlucky.”
“I wouldn’t call you unlucky, exactly.” The cop continued to study the printout. “I guess you realize we ran an NCIC on you. They had your prints—your being a deputy and all. And Denver had more.”
Greg nodded. The visit to the sister. Why were the cops so interested in him? Maybe that was the wrong question. Maybe he should be asking why they were so interested in Ashleigh Logan.
Eiden went on. “In the last two years you’ve made a killing off the property boom around Denver. You’ve been in the news a few times, doing civic stuff. On paper, you look like a real Boy Scout, unless you count a couple of speeding citations that you racked up out on Highway 63. Running back and forth to your ranch out on the Big Sandy, I’d guess.” The corners of Miguel Eiden’s mouth peaked downward grudgingly, as if to say Greg’s profile was no big deal.
“Yeah, that about sums me up.” Greg raked a hand over his face. Except for the fact that the love of his life had died a painful death at the age of twenty-nine, and his father had been shot dead by a pack of rodents, and his druggie mother had skipped off with some hippie when Greg was barely out of diapers, leaving him to be raised by his eccentric grandfather. “Could I please have some water?”
The cop went to the beige wall phone. Soon the flirtatious Crystal showed up with a plastic cup of ice water. Greg drank some, then started in. “When she decided to have a baby, Ms. Logan went to the sperm bank where she had stored her deceased husband’s sperm.”
The cop looked genuinely surprised at that, but he muttered, “To each his own.”
“So, she got artificially inseminated and she thinks she is pregnant with her late husband’s child. But I found out that’s not true. They made a mistake. The child is mine. I came here to tell her that.”
The cop’s face showed that something had finally clicked. “And that’s why you were trying to contact Ms. Logan in Denver?”
Greg nodded and the cop made a note. Greg hated to see this information go on record before he’d had a chance to explain this to Ashleigh Logan, but he supposed there was no help for it.
“You plan to tell her there was a mix-up at the sperm bank?”
“For starters.”
“Is there some way for me to verify your story?”
“I could put you in touch with the sperm bank in California. They would back up my story if I told them to release the information to you.”
“Okay.” Eiden poised his pen. “Give me the number.”
Greg pulled a card from his wallet and handed it over.
After he copied the number, Eiden said, “Okay. We’re done for now. I’ll take you back to your Navigator.” His chair screeched on the linoleum as he stood and reached for his cowboy hat.
“Wait!” Too fast, Greg also jumped to his feet. A wave of dizziness struck as he felt himself break into a cold sweat. A sudden sense of panic mixed with altitude sickness for a moment as he clutched the table and focused on the fact that he wasn’t going to leave here until he found out where Ashleigh Logan was. He had to say something to convince this cop that he needed to know where she was, right now. “There’s something else you should know.” He shook his head to clear it.
One of the cop’s black eyebrows spiked up. “You okay?”
“Altitude sickness.”
“Sit down.”
Greg did so, gratefully. He sipped some more cold water, then said, “This pregnancy—this baby. This is it for me. I won’t get any more chances. The sperm bank…mine’s all gone. They, uh, they accidentally let it…uh, defrost.”
The cop looked as if he was struggling to hide a split second of involuntary disgust, then his dark eyes flitted sideways with something like sympathy. “I get it.” He tugged his cowboy hat down, looking uncomfortable, embarrassed, as if he didn’t like discussing another guy’s sterility problems. Well, Greg didn’t like talking about it, either. But there it was. He was sterile. Though he wasn’t about to explain to this guy how that had come about. The salient fact was, this baby, Ashleigh Logan’s baby, was Greg’s one and only chance to be a father.
“Weird deal, huh?” he prompted when the cop didn’t say anything.
Eiden looked up.
“So maybe you can understand why this is so urgent to me,” Greg pressed. “What if she finds out the truth before I get to her? What if she’s come here to do something…rash?”
Eiden put a hand up. “They don’t do stuff like that at The Birth Place.” He looked at Greg as if he wanted to tell him more, as if he wanted to help. “Are you staying somewhere in town?”
“I was thinking about getting a room at that bed-and-breakfast down the way.”
The cop looked at his watch. “The Morning Light?”
Greg nodded.
“We’d better get you over there, then. Morning Light fills up pretty early during aspen-turning time.” He tugged on the brim of the cowboy hat.
“Aren’t you going to tell me where she is?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Glazier. For tonight, I want you to sit tight, okay? I’ll give you a call as soon as I clear up a few details.”
THE SUN HAD SLID BEHIND the mountains now.
After dropping Greg in the circular drive at the clinic, the cop waited, gunning the engine of his cruiser, with the alley lights blazing on Greg’s back as he walked up to the door of the Navigator. Greg wondered what the guy thought he was going to do. Break into the clinic? Rifle through the file cabinets? Dig out Ashleigh Logan’s records? Not a bad idea, actually. He assumed it was frustration that was making him think like this.
Greg got in his vehicle and fired it up, wondering if this whole odyssey was worth the grief. Maybe he should just head back to the family ranch and forget about this baby—if indeed there still was a baby.
The people at California Fertility Consultants had refused to give Greg the name of the man whose sperm had been confused with his, had refused to confirm that Greg’s sperm had indeed been used to inseminate some unknown woman. It was only the intense publicity surrounding Ashleigh Logan’s pregnancy that had finally tipped him off. When he’d seen the name of the clinic in that article in USA TODAY, he’d figured out the dates—her husband’s sperm would have been stored at about the same time his was. The article said the sperm bank was proud of the fact that they had successfully stored specimens for that long. Well, their storage techniques weren’t the problem. It was what they had done when they put the “specimens” into storage that had caused the damage.
Now two lives were thoroughly messed up. No, make that three lives. At first Greg had wanted to sic his lawyers on the idiots at that sperm bank, but after he’d calmed down, he’d realized that the threat of a lawsuit was his trump card. And he’d used it well.
Why, he asked himself again, was he doggedly pursuing this baby at all? It wasn’t like he didn’t have enough to occupy his time between the ranch and his business pursuits in Denver, especially now that Gramps had passed on. But the sad reality was that even though there was plenty of work to do, plenty to distract him out in Last Chance, Colorado, there was not a soul to share it with. There was no one to love.
In the last few years Greg Glazier’s world had narrowed down to two things: horses and money. Neither one seemed like enough of an anchor to hold him for the next forty or fifty years of his life. Hell, if he was anything like Gramps—and he was—his life might go on for another sixty years. Family, Gramps had kept repeating in his final days, whispering it over and over in the end, like a parting prayer. Family.
Greg drove the Navigator like a little old lady as Officer Eiden followed him back down Desert Valley Road into the center of town. After he turned off of Paseo de Sierra onto the short street that led to the Morning Light, he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw that the cop was gone, but he hoped he hadn’t seen the last of that guy. The cop knew where Ashleigh Logan was.
Greg had no trouble relocating the bed-and-breakfast he’d spotted earlier. He stepped through the door and headed toward reception. A rambling adobe villa with huge bougainvillea plants hanging from the eaves, stuffed with antiques, Pueblo pots and Indian trade blankets, the Morning Light was the kind of charming place that would have made Greg feel right at home under normal circumstances.
But tonight, the serene atmosphere did nothing to settle Greg’s churning thoughts. He followed a friendly older woman to an upstairs room, where he tossed his duffel bag into the closet and threw himself down to brood in a sagging horsehair chair by the darkened window.
Right now he’d like nothing better than a good stiff shot of his grandfather’s whiskey. But he was too nauseated to tolerate it, and what if the cop, finally willing to give him Ashleigh Logan’s location, called? He wanted to be ready to jump back in the Navigator and go straight to her.
And then what?
He let his head fall back against the hard, scratchy back of the chair.
Then, of course, all hell would break loose.
CHAPTER THREE
ASHLEIGH LOGAN STRUGGLED to arrange her girth in a comfortable position on the plump leather couch as she waited through a series of frustrating clicks while the long-distance connection went through.
Apparently, Enchantment, New Mexico, did not have the best phone service in the West. No surprise there. This place was isolated, all right. Her cell phone had gone into remote mode shortly after they hit the road that wound up from Taos, and the signal had ceased altogether when they got up on this mountain.
She surveyed the cabin that would be her prison for the next three months—at least she hoped she could hold out for the entire three months. For the baby’s sake.
The Coleman’s cabin was a lodgepole pine behemoth perched high on the mountainside, at the end of a steep, winding road. The decor of the place was rustic but luxurious. The great room where Ashleigh now reclined had a high ceiling spanned by twenty-foot-long cross beams with a moose-antler chandelier at the center. A wall of glass with a deck beyond framed the three highest peaks in the Sangre de Cristo range.
The rest of the place was all dark leather, rough-hewn cedar, native stone. Thick Navajo rugs. Huge, colorful Native American paintings interspersed with tall banks of windows.
Her mother was merrily clattering around in the adjacent kitchen, which would have been rustic, too, except for the marble countertops and heated travertine floors.
Ashleigh made a wry face. She supposed she could stand this joint.
“Hello?” Finally, Megan picked up.
“Hi, Sis!” Ashleigh forced a bright, upbeat note into her voice. “We’re in Enchantment. And I think we made it up here without being seen. Mom made sure the Suburban we rented had tinted windows, and I didn’t even stop for a potty break after we left Taos.”
Megan released a controlled sigh. “Ashleigh, let me say this again. I do not like this ill-conceived plan.” Ashleigh’s sister could cram more drama into one sentence than Ashleigh could milk out of a half hour of blather on her TV talk show.
“It’s not ill-conceived. The cops okayed it. My doctor approved it. Dr. Ochoa, the obstetrician in Enchantment, is one of the best in the nation, and Lydia Kane is simply top-notch—”
“But—”
“And we’ve already alerted the local police—”
“Well that’s good, because I’m trying to tell you something! After you and Mom left for Taos, a guy showed up here, looking for you.”
Ashleigh sucked in a breath and sat up straighter against the couch pillows. “What guy?”
“The cops said his name was Greg Glazier.”
“Never heard of him. Is he with the media or something?”
“No. He’s some kind of land developer. Has a great big horse ranch out east of Denver.”
“The cops told you that?”
“Yeah. They checked him out really well. Evidently he’s very well known and respected. And he’s a deputy sheriff. The cops don’t think he’s your stalker.”
“Then what did he want with me?”
“He told the cops you two had some holdings in common and he needed to talk to you about it.”
“Holdings in common? I never heard of this guy!”
“Exactly! Some stranger comes looking for you and the cops just let him go and now you’re way off in New Mexico. I don’t like any of this one bit!”
Ashleigh imagined Megan’s pinched little frown as clearly as if they were standing face to face. “Now, Megan, there’s no point in getting all upset. I’m doing everything reasonable to protect myself. I’ve practically become a hermit because of all of this.” Ashleigh rushed on before Megan could argue. “But it’s okay, because you should see this cabin. My gosh, it has every amenity you can imagine!”
“That cabin is also fairly remote,” Megan inserted quickly, going back to her point. “What if something happens and you need emergency care? Think of all you’ve been through to get this baby, think of—” Megan’s voice choked with threatened tears for a moment before she sputtered on with her argument against this plan—for the hundredth time.
Ashleigh listened to Megan’s diatribe, thinking that she didn’t need her sister undermining her resolve. Megan—a worrier, a crier, a sentimental sap—drove Ashleigh right up the wall with her roller-coaster emotions. But when it came to this baby, she supposed Megan was entitled to a little angst. From the start, this pregnancy had been incredibly emotional, for all of them. Ill-conceived. Ashleigh wondered if Megan realized how apropos her wording sounded.
Ashleigh had made her decision, firmly, six months ago, and in her heart, she knew Chad would support it. Ashleigh closed her eyes and bit her lip. She couldn’t allow herself to go into meltdown now. Her obstetrician in Denver had warned her about that. A woman battling preterm labor had to remain calm. Calm. Don’t think about Chad now, she warned herself. Think of the baby. His baby. At least you have his baby. Thank God they had decided to freeze Chad’s sperm before he had started his chemotherapy.
“Listen, Megan,” she said, finally interrupting her sister. “I’ll be fine. The local cops have been alerted. And when we drove through town we even stopped to see Lydia Kane at the clinic.”
“Oh. The Birth Place? How was it?” This diversion worked. Like her sister, Megan was fascinated by anything that had to do with babies.
“It’s adorable! Quaint. Real adobe, nestled in pine trees.”
“But do the midwives seem competent?”
“I’m sure Lydia runs a first-rate operation.” It hadn’t been easy, convincing her Denver obstetrician to transfer her to the care of an isolated clinic. But when Ashleigh had told Dr. Hill that the clinic was run by Lydia Kane, the impressive midwife she’d interviewed on her show a year earlier, he agreed to her plan. Ashleigh thanked her lucky stars she’d had Lydia Kane as a guest on the show and that when she needed a place to hide, Enchantment had come immediately to mind. It was geographically close enough to make a cautious road trip without stressing her system, but remote enough that the Denver media wouldn’t follow her. The story of the baby guru becoming pregnant with her dead husband’s sperm wasn’t exactly breaking news anymore, but it was bizarre enough to attract a dogged follow-up.
She didn’t blame the media. Their pursuit of her was nothing personal. Ashleigh herself had hounded sources to the ends of the earth to get something fresh, something startling.
Most important, hiding in Enchantment put distance between herself and this nutcase stalker.
“Lydia even came out to the Suburban to talk to me—” Ashleigh continued to try to sound upbeat for Megan “—so I didn’t even have to walk in. Isn’t that sweet?”
“I remember when you had her and those two midwives as guests on your show.”
“Yeah. Remember that?” Ashleigh encouraged her sister as Megan’s tone became less glum. “She’s a real earth mother. She listened to the baby’s heartbeat with a handheld device she called a Doppler, and she said a midwife named Katherine would come to the cabin this evening to get the home monitor set up. I’ll send in a reading by phone every morning and then I’ll go into the clinic tomorrow, and then once a week a midwife will check up on me here at the cabin. The cops and the staff at the clinic are the only people who will ever see me. The clinic has a private entrance in the back that leads straight to the birthing rooms. I guess it’s so the moms in labor can arrive in their nighties and robes if they want to. When I’ve safely reached thirty-seven weeks, I can even have a home delivery with a midwife if I want. In the meantime, I’m getting plenty of rest. Right now, I’m stretched out on the biggest old leather couch you’ve ever seen, and that’s where I’ll stay until Mom fixes dinner, so stop worrying.”
Again, Megan sighed dramatically. “I’ll try. I just wish this were over. You know we’ll do anything we can to get this baby here safely,” Megan reiterated. “Anything.”
Ashleigh smiled and felt a wave of pure love for her little sister. “Right now, getting this cabin for me was the best thing you could have done. If I’m going to be on restricted activity, this is certainly the place for it. Lots of windows looking out over the mountains. Wonderful light. Very peaceful, you know?”
“I thought you’d like it. It’s about as far from urban chaos as you can get.”
“Are you sure I can stay here until I have the baby? Three months is a long time to use somebody else’s house.”
“The Colemans are good friends and they don’t mind. They hardly ever go to that cabin now that their kids are grown. And they can be trusted to keep a secret. How does Mom like the place?”
“You know our mother. She can cheerfully adapt to anything. She’s in there cramming the cabinets full of nutritious food even as we speak.”
“God, Ash.” Megan’s voice grew quiet, sad. “Three months. I’m sure going to miss you. I wish I could come and rub your back or your feet or something.”
Ashleigh knew that Megan meant it. But they could not risk a visit from Megan or even from Ashleigh’s dad. The stalker might try to locate Ashleigh through her family.
Now that Ashleigh and her mother had made it to this remote New Mexico town, the plan was to stay put until the baby came. No one, except for Megan, their father, the local cops and people at The Birth Place, would have the slightest clue to their whereabouts.
“You just take care good of little Tyler and Justin, sweetie. When my baby is safely delivered, he’ll want to play with his cousins.”
“Oh…” Megan’s stifled squeak at the mention of the baby sounded as if she might start to cry again. “Don’t…don’t let anything h-happen,” she choked, “to either one of you.”
“I won’t. I’ll be careful, and Mom will be careful, too, okay? I’ve got really good medical care. Now, don’t cry. We’ve got to hang up now. This phone bill will probably be ridiculous.”
“Okay.” Megan sighed dramatically one last time. “Bye, Sis. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
When they hung up, Ashleigh felt immediately bereft. She scooted down on the couch and turned onto her left side, as her doctor had instructed her. She cradled an arm under her growing abdomen and tried to imagine Chad’s face, wondering if the baby would look like him. But after five years, she couldn’t clearly conjure up his features without the help of a picture. With a pang, she realized she hadn’t brought a picture of Chad with her. She consoled herself by thinking that soon she would see their baby’s face, and that was all that mattered. All she had to do was hold on and stay safe for the next thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks that already felt like thirteen years.
She looked at her surroundings and felt like an ingrate with her grumpy attitude.
As she’d assured her sister, the Coleman cabin was exceptionally comfortable, built to accommodate a large family on ski vacations. It wasn’t as if the place was claustrophobic. A high deck wrapped around the great room and master suite, facing the mountains, and several upstairs bedrooms were connected by open walkways that looked down over the great room. At the back of the long, sunny kitchen, down a short flight of steps, there was a large, airy mudroom, with coat hooks and storage lockers for skis and winter apparel, a deep enamel sink, even a washer and dryer. She surveyed the beautiful but foreign surroundings again, then closed her eyes and steeled her emotions, ordering herself not to give in to self-pity.
She hadn’t closed her eyes for long when the phone rang. Megan, she thought, stop your worrying.
But the caller wasn’t Megan. It was Ashleigh’s new midwife from The Birth Place, Katherine Collins.
“Ms. Logan, there’s a man here at the clinic,” she explained in a rush. “He’s looking for you.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Ashleigh breathed. “You didn’t tell him where I was, did you?”
“Certainly not. Lydia’s on another line, calling the police right now.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Ashleigh sat upright, fighting to stay calm, for the baby’s sake. She placed a protective hand on her belly. “Did he say what he wants?”
“No. But don’t panic. He could just be somebody from the media or something.” But Katherine’s voice didn’t sound too sure.
“What does he look like?”
“Tall, muscular, dark hair. Early thirties, maybe. Actually, he’s sort of decent-looking—handsome, even. Except he’s dressed kind of rough. Threadbare flannel shirt. Worn jeans. Scuffed boots. A heavy five o’clock shadow. But he’s driving a new-looking champagne-colored Lincoln Navigator. I’m looking at it out the window of Lydia’s office, but I can’t make out the tag. Hold on.”
Ashleigh heard Katherine talking to someone, then the midwife came back on the line.
“Lydia just told me that an officer is on his way up to your cabin.”
“Good,” Ashleigh said confidently.
But after she hung up she and her mother waited for the police to arrive like two women anticipating a jury verdict. Pensive. Intermittently clasping hands. Finally Maureen insisted on making hot tea, her cure for everything, but Ashleigh couldn’t even swallow a sip.
What if Megan was right? What if this whole plan to go into hiding turned out to be…ill-conceived? What if her fanatical stalker had traced her to this remote town? Where could she go to be safe then?
It occurred to her that she should have asked Megan for a description of the strange man who had appeared at her door. What was his name? Greg Glazier? She was about to call Megan back when they heard a car engine outside.
Her mother went to look out the front window of the cabin. “It’s the police,” she assured Ashleigh.
The officer, an older guy with a paunch, told the women not to worry, that Officer Eiden had taken the man at the clinic into custody for questioning. He told them he’d stay parked outside until they got word.
The next time the phone rang, Maureen answered it. She said the caller was Miguel Eiden, the handsome cop who’d talked to Ashleigh and Maureen when they’d first arrived in town.
Maureen McGuinness took the phone out on the deck so Ashleigh couldn’t hear. After the cop had assured her he’d keep a close eye on the Coleman cabin while Ashleigh was hiding up there, his tone had shifted, as if he had bad news. Now he was informing her that a man named Gregory McCrae Glazier had tracked her daughter all the way to Enchantment, New Mexico.
And when Officer Eiden told Maureen why Greg Glazier had tracked Ashleigh here, she was glad she’d retreated to the deck. Because it was all she could do to keep from dropping the phone.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAUREEN SAT IN A BOOTH by the wide window of a small coffee shop, watching as the police cruiser rolled up at the curb. At the sight of it, her chest tightened with dread.
She reminded herself that Ashleigh trusted Officer Eiden. And for that matter, so did she. He had shown her the papers on the man from Denver and had convinced her that this man’s story checked out with the sperm bank in California—the same one Ashleigh had used.
But before this man dropped his terrible news on Ashleigh, Maureen had convinced Eiden to arrange this meeting. Her daughter had endured enough stress in the last three days, the last three weeks. Truth be told, for the last five years.
Why did Ashleigh’s life seem to only get more and more complicated? All Maureen McGuinness wanted out of life was for her driven daughter to settle down and be happy and for her type-A husband to finally retire and share some golden years with her.
But Marvin was working harder than ever, and her beautiful, talented daughter kept having one major crisis after another. Chad’s illness had been so hard on Ashleigh, and Maureen had watched her daughter struggle to regain her balance ever since.
Maureen hadn’t approved of this controversial pregnancy, not at all. She’d wanted her daughter to look to a real future, with a real relationship, instead of finding one more way to wallow in the past. She’d wanted Ashleigh to find a good man and enjoy a happy marriage, the way her sister Megan had. But Ashleigh had forged ahead, intrepid as always, making her own tough decisions, executing her own bold plans. Maureen sighed. She did admire her daughter’s spunk.
But now it appeared all of the torture of Ashleigh’s decision had been for naught. This baby, apparently, wasn’t even Chad’s. It was a stranger’s baby.
Maureen’s jaw tightened with resolve as a dark head and a pair of broad shoulders emerged from the passenger’s side of Officer Eiden’s cruiser. They would make the man prove his claims beyond a shadow of a doubt. She supposed the only logical answer was that they would perform paternity testing on the newborn. Ashleigh’s baby. Her grandchild. That man’s baby.
She rubbed her brow, having no idea how to proceed. What was the proper course of action in such a bizarre situation? After all, this was Ashleigh’s child and therefore Ashleigh would have to make any decision about its welfare. Maureen was only the grandmother. Maybe Ashleigh would actually be glad to have a father for her child, if he was decent and kind…. Then a troubling thought struck Maureen. What if this man had been watching Ashleigh on TV and had some kind of thing for her? What if he was the stalker?
No. That didn’t make sense. Eiden had shown her the report. Oh, it was all so confusing. She had to realize she couldn’t make everyone’s life perfect. And if Ashleigh found out that Maureen had secretly met with this man… Maureen felt like she was wading into very deep water here.
She hated leaving Ashleigh alone at The Birth Place, but she trusted Lydia and the midwives to watch out for her, and it was the only way to talk to this Glazier man alone. They didn’t have much time. She was pretending to get milk. She would have to remember to stop at the store before she went back to the clinic. Maureen sighed. She despised subterfuge.
The little bell above the door of the café tinkled as it swung open, and there stood Officer Eiden. From behind him a handsome young man about Ashleigh’s age studied Maureen as curiously as she studied him. His dark hair needed a trim, but he had compassionate gray eyes that conveyed a worried, saddened state of mind. Well, this was a sad situation, wasn’t it? The fleeting thought that this man would probably father pretty babies crossed her mind, but she quickly banished that idea. Ashleigh did not want this man’s baby. She wanted Chad’s baby. What this man was claiming would throw her daughter’s whole world into chaos.
The two men approached her booth, but when the young officer started to speak, she raised a hand to silence him. “Not here.”
She slid from the booth, and with a jerk of her head indicated that they should follow her out onto the café’s wraparound deck, which featured a panoramic view of the mountains. When she was satisfied that the picnic tables out there were unoccupied, she pulled the collar of her jacket up around her ears, folded her arms tightly under her bosom and faced the two men.
“We don’t have much time. My daughter expects me to pick her up at the clinic soon. First of all, let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want my daughter to know we’ve had this conversation.” With an impatience that betrayed her anger, she slapped a silvery strand of hair away from her eyes. “Is that understood?”
The man, the one claiming to be the father of Ashleigh’s child, pushed a lock of his dark hair back against the mountain wind as well, then spoke quietly. “I assume you are Ashleigh Logan’s mother?”
She nodded tightly, flustered that she’d charged ahead without the proper introductions. Normally, she prided herself on her self-control and impeccable manners. But this was not a Junior League tea. This was a squaring off in a strange little town, facing a man who could destroy her daughter’s peace of mind, what little was left of it. A man who could simply be lying, for whatever twisted reason.
“I’m Greg Glazier.” He stuck out a strong, wind-chapped hand, but he quickly withdrew it when Maureen kept hers tightly closed in the folds of her jacket.
“I am Maureen McGuinness,” she said tersely.
He continued in a calm voice. “Thank you for letting Officer Eiden arrange this meeting.”
Eiden had stepped away and propped a boot on the rail of the deck, keeping his back to them.
“I’m not sure I had a choice, considering your outrageous claims.”
The aspen trees beside the deck made a golden flutter, and the pines whispered with a gust of wind that made Maureen shudder.
Seeming to notice her discomfort, the young man called to Eiden, “Is there somewhere where we can sit and talk privately, out of the wind?”
“I’m fine.” She pressed her lips together.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not.”
Maureen examined Greg Glazier more closely. He did look a little wan. His eyes, she noticed again, were kind and sincere. Not the eyes of a liar.
“Greg’s not well,” the cop explained as he stepped up.
“Altitude sickness,” Glazier elaborated. “It’ll pass.”
“I refuse to go anywhere where anyone could overhear us.” Maureen stood firm. “My daughter has endured enough negative publicity and speculation and gossip and stress as it is. I don’t want to take a chance that some hideous rumor might get back to her that might upset her again. And I don’t want any media to get wind of this.”
“I understand that, ma’am,” Greg Glazier replied mildly. “I agree.”
“We can go sit in the squad car,” Eiden offered, in an effort to temper Maureen’s palpable antagonism.
Maureen gave a short nod of agreement, and they rounded the side of the café and descended the plank steps to the sidewalk. Officer Eiden opened the back door of the cruiser for Maureen. “There’s a Plexiglas shield. So I’m afraid you’ll both have to get in the back seat if you want to have a private conversation. But I’ll be right here in the front seat if you need me.”
“Thank you.” Maureen climbed inside.
The space inside the cruiser was cramped, and with his long legs and broad shoulders, Greg Glazier made it seem even more so. As she settled herself next to him, he adjusted his muscular frame and held it stiffly canted so that his knees didn’t crowd Maureen.
Maureen did not waste words on niceties. “What is this about switching the sperm samples, Mr. Glazier?”
“It’s true.” Glazier scrubbed a hand down his handsome face and released a tense breath. “Even though it’s hard to believe. The cryo bank in California contacted me about a month ago.”
“California Fertility Consultants?” Maureen bit her lip. She shouldn’t have given him any additional information. She reminded herself to be careful with this stranger. He could be some kind of weird imposter, trying to get near Ashleigh. He could have made all this up, based on the storm of publicity that Ashleigh’s pregnancy had created. He could even be the stalker, although that seemed unlikely. Apparently he was a former deputy sheriff.
“Yes, ma’am. California Fertility Consultants. They informed me that the mix-up actually occurred way back at the time of…the storage.”
“Five years ago?” Maureen bit her lip again, rueing the slip, but she found this whole story utterly incredible.
“Yes. Your daughter’s husband and I both elected to bank our sperm at the same time, in October of ’98—”
“I know when it was, Mr. Glazier. It was just before my son-in-law started chemotherapy.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t make it.” Again the man’s hand scraped down his face. He was nice-looking, but right now his skin looked pale, clammy. Was that because he was lying? Maureen wondered if Marvin knew anything about this Greg Glazier. She’d have to make it a point to ask him, the next time she caught him between meetings.
“With the passage of time, our family has adjusted to Chad’s death.”
“I know how that is, believe me. And believe me, I don’t want to cause your family any more pain, but you’ve got to hear me out.”
“That’s why I am here.”
“The day the lab received your son-in-law’s samples, my samples from Colorado arrived in California in the same shipment. We used the same doctor in Denver.”
“I see. If I may ask, why did you elect to freeze your…sperm.” Maureen felt genuinely uneasy, having this highly personal conversation with a stranger. “If I may ask.”
Greg swallowed. He shot a look at the back of the cop’s head that told Maureen he was as uncomfortable about having this conversation as she was. “I’d rather not say,” he spoke quietly. “It’s not important now. The point is my samples were somehow confused with Chad’s.”
“But the lab in California told my daughter that they took extra precautions. Each client was given their own separate storage unit. Each storage unit had a duplicate in another location, in another part of the state.”
“Yes, the same process was explained to me.”
“Then how…” Maureen’s voice trailed off. It seemed pointless to argue this. No matter what he said, there would have to be paternity testing when the baby came.
“They didn’t discover the error until the brownout at their main site. When they went for retrieval of the backup samples at the alternative site, they discovered that the ones in both my storage unit and in Chad’s storage unit were actually Chad’s.”
“Which means that both the samples at the main storage facility were yours.”
“Exactly. When they went back and checked the containers that had gone bad during the brownout, they found that both storage tanks—mine and Chad’s—indeed had had my samples in them.”
Maureen covered her mouth with a shaky hand, suddenly seeing how the mishap had happened. “So,” she whispered through her fingers, “they kept all of your samples at the original facility, and sent all of Chad’s samples to the backup facility.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And Ashleigh was impregnated with…”
“Mine.”
Maureen’s tears were hot and angry. “How could they make such a horrid mistake?”
“It’s very rare.” His voice was gentle with compassion. “Like I said, Chad and I used the same doctor in Denver. Our samples were shipped together and they got confused when they divided them up to create the duplicate containers. We would never have known any of this if the brownout hadn’t occurred.”
“Why not?” She dabbed at her eyes. “Weren’t you planning on using your…samples someday?”
“No.” His look became slightly bitter before he amended. “Not unless I remarry.”
“You’re single?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“May I ask why you were storing…do you have some kind of health problem? We are talking about my future grandchild here. It’s something Ashleigh will want to know. She knows all about babies, including all the things that can go wrong.”
“No, ma’am. I’m perfectly healthy, except for this altitude sickness.” His disparaging smile might have been engaging, but Maureen wanted no part of it. His expression grew serious again. “My reasons for storing my sperm—it’s a long story. Let’s just say I wanted to be sure I could have children if that ever became possible.”
“But now…” Maureen drew a sharp breath, realizing another horrible truth.
“Now,” he confirmed sadly, “I have no samples left. All of my…material was destroyed in the brownout.”
“But we still have Chad’s.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s true. And I hope that will be some comfort to your daughter in all of this. But this baby…this baby is mine.”
Maureen sat as still as a stunned bird, staring at the Plexiglas shield, blinking while she absorbed the awful truth. And it was the truth, she was convinced of that now. Something else occurred to her then, and the thought made her angry. “How did you know Ashleigh was the patient who was impregnated with your last remaining sperm? The lab should never have told you that!”
“They had to tell me they…used it. But they wouldn’t tell me her name, at first. I figured it out from all the publicity about her pregnancy. Seems your daughter’s decision to carry her dead husband’s child made quite a human interest story.”
Silently, Maureen damned the media again for what they had done to Ashleigh’s life. “The publicity, I’m afraid, has exposed my daughter to an undesirable element.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Unfortunately, Ashleigh’s situation with this baby has drawn a stalker. And I’m afrai—”
“Wait a minute.” Greg thrust a palm up. “Wait just a damn minute. A stalker? What stalker?”
At the anger in his voice, Maureen flinched.
“I’m sorry.” He immediately softened his tone. “But when somebody uses the word stalker in the same sentence where she’s talking about my baby, my alarm bells go off.”
Maureen understood perfectly.
“What kind of stalker?” He kept his voice calm now.
She supposed, if the baby really was his, he had a right to know about this threat.
“The police think it’s some kind of fanatic. They only know his first name. Simon. We don’t have a last name. He first called in to the Q and A segment of Ashleigh’s show months ago. He seemed obsessed with the topic of babies and fertility. He started saying strange, startling things, trying to engage Ashleigh in an on-air debate. He expressed some truly bizarre attitudes about things like fertility treatments and surrogate mothers and human cloning. The producers figured out he was a nutcase and wouldn’t take any more of his calls. You have to understand—” she gave Greg Glazier a pleading look when she saw that his jaw was tightening in anger “—almost every media personality attracts these types.”
“When did he start to bother her?”
“A couple of months ago. He’s the reason Ashleigh finally took herself off the air and let someone else do the show. At least for now.”
“Why do the police think he’s stalking her?”
“Well, when Ashleigh’s pregnancy became public, this Simon tried to call the show for one reason or another almost every week. He seemed to think Ashleigh had no right to become a single mother. Of course, her staff never let him get through to her, except once when he used a different name.”
“Did he call himself John?”
“Yes.” Maureen was surprised. How did he know this?
“I, uh, I taped her last show.” He seemed embarrassed, admitting that. “When I became suspicious about the mix-up. So this guy is the caller Ashleigh had to cut off.”
Maureen nodded. “Mr. Glazier, do you have any idea how distressing it is to be a public figure, having your privacy invaded all the time?”
“What else had this stalker done?”
“E-mails. Calls to her home phone. Notes.”
“What kind of notes?”
“Messages left at the front desk at the studio, on the windshield of her car, in her mailbox at her condo. It seemed like he was trying to show her that he knew her movements and that he could get very close to her if he wanted to. And the content—very creepy stuff. Simon, or should I say whoever wrote the notes, seems to think that what Ashleigh has done is evil. He threatened Ashleigh…and her baby.”
“Threatened?”
“I can’t remember the exact words. But this person is deranged—some kind of pseudoscientist. He seemed to think that what Ashleigh was doing was unnatural, that she should be punished. That she doesn’t deserve to be the mother of her baby. The police seemed convinced that he could do her real harm.”
“So, that’s why she’s hiding up here in the mountains.”
“Yes. We had to choose our hiding place carefully, given Ashleigh’s condition, but we also hoped to get far enough away that he couldn’t locate us.”
“Oh, man,” Greg sighed. “It must have freaked you out when I showed up in town.”
“Yes. It alarmed the people at The Birth Place, too. But though the police have no real idea what this Simon person looks like, they do know his voice, and it’s nothing like yours.”
“I’m so sorry for the stress I’ve caused you.” He turned his kind, sincere eyes on Maureen. “I thought she might have chosen this remote place because she was hiding from me—because she already knew about the baby.”
“No. This is the first we’ve heard of you.”
“So the people in California didn’t tell her there’d been a mistake, or even about the brownout?”
“No. The lab most certainly did not contact my daughter.” Maureen eyed Greg Glazier. “Why didn’t they?” She had a feeling this young man knew the answer to that question.
“I, uh, managed to convince them to agree to let me be the one to tell the mother. I thought it might be easier if she met me—”
“Exactly how did you convince them?” Maureen interrupted, thinking he’d probably used money or influence or some such thing.
“I agreed not to sue them for the mix-up in exchange for letting me find Ashleigh in my own way and tell her the truth in my own time.”
Maureen’s eyes went wide, as the whole situation became suddenly clear to her. This young man had been as injured as Ashleigh had been. Ashleigh was not carrying Chad’s child as she believed, but this Greg Glazier would never have any other children. At least Ashleigh could still have Chad’s child in the future if that’s what she chose. Both Ashleigh and this man had been robbed of their dreams. Both would be completely justified in seeking legal recompense.
Greg Glazier looked up at her with an apology in his eyes, waiting for her to speak. Here was a man who valued his child, and perhaps even her daughter’s feelings, more than money, more than winning, more than being justified or proved right in a court of law.
“Mr. Glazier, forgive me for being so personal, but you have to admit this is a highly personal situation here.”
He swallowed and nodded.
“You are obviously a handsome, successful person.” Like my daughter, Maureen thought, and a fleeting notion occurred to her that this man might be a good match for Ashleigh. “Someday, surely, you will marry and build a life with some equally attractive and successful young woman. Surely, under the circumstances, you don’t want to complicate your future by laying claim to the baby of some other woman, a woman you don’t even know.”
“This is not some other woman’s baby.” A fierce determination undergirded his words. “This is my baby.”
“This baby means that much to you?”
“This baby…” He swallowed again and the sound was dry, desperate. “Mrs. McGuinness, this baby is the only person I have left in this world.”
Maureen stared at the young man who threatened to turn her daughter’s life inside out. “I have to think about this,” she said, finding she was barely able to draw a full breath. “I have to discuss the best course of action with Ashleigh’s doctor, if that’s possible without her consent.” She rubbed her brow.
“I understand,” he said very quietly, with a slight frown forming between those dark brows. “But you have to understand that I also have to do what I think is right. I’m still going to try in every way I can to make contact with your daughter.”
Maureen stared at him, hoping he wasn’t remembering that she’d said Ashleigh was at the clinic. As she stared at his strong profile, it struck her again that it was a shame Ashleigh couldn’t have met him under different circumstances.
“I have to go,” she said.
There were no door handles on the inside, so Greg tapped on the Plexiglas barrier and Officer Eiden got out and opened the door of the cruiser. Maureen scrambled out like a fleeing prisoner.
“Goodbye” was all she said to the cop before marching down the sidewalk.
“I’ll get in the front,” Greg told Eiden as he scooted across the plastic-covered seat.
Maureen looked back before rounding the corner of the café. She saw Greg Glazier unfold his long frame and step out into the New Mexico sunshine with the slow, steady movements of a man who could wait forever, if necessary, to get the one thing he really wanted.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FIRST THING SIMON FISCHER did when he got to Enchantment was locate the clinic called The Birth Place. On the way here from Denver, his car, a battered old Ford Crown Victoria, had started smoking from the tailpipe, and he wondered how far he would be able to make it once he hit the road with the baby. Mexico? That would be good.
In his trunk he had baby things he’d bought at a thrift store. He’d made up a fake e-mail address and sent one last message to Lydia Kane at The Birth Place before he had emptied his bank accounts and sold his only item of value—his computer. Then, he’d bought some photography equipment at the same pawn shop.
None of that mattered now. Simon was on a mission.
He sat in his car in front of the clinic, while the oily exhaust pumped out of the tailpipe and his tortured mind pumped out his risky, thrilling plans.
Simon felt his mind was his best weapon. When he’d discovered that Ashleigh Logan had left Denver, like a computer quick-searching files, his mind had fed him the name of this place. And then Simon remembered—oh, Simon Fischer had a great, long, ferocious memory—the All About Babies episode where that Lydia Kane woman and the two midwives had been guests. They were from this remote birthing clinic in the New Mexico mountains. A small town called Enchantment. With only a little time on the Net, Simon’s search efforts were richly rewarded. He printed the maps to Enchantment, counting on two things: Ashleigh Logan would feel safe in this remote place; and these women at the clinic wouldn’t mind a little publicity.
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Darlene Graham
She'll do anything to protect this babyWhen TV personality Ashleigh Logan became pregnant by artificial insemination of her deceased husband's sperm, she ignited a media frenzy and attracted a stalker. So she's sequestered herself in the mountains of New Mexico, under the watchful eyes of the midwives of The Birth Place. Here she can be safe until the baby arrives.And so will heGreg Glazier doesn't have an easy time tracking down Ashleigh. And when he finally finds her, he can't tell her his news–not until she's further along in her pregnancy. Because what he's got to say might come as a bit of a shock–he's the real father of her baby.
“I know you feel like it’s your baby, Greg. But the truth is—”
“No.” His interruption was harsh, like a slap intended to wake her up. “The truth is, I am this baby’s father, not Chad.”
She swallowed and put her spoon down with a shaky hand.
“I love you, Greg, and I know what you are trying to do.” She tried again in a low voice. “And that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. But you know very well where this baby comes from. And you know very well that this is not your baby. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. We’re both grown-ups here.”
“You’re not hearing me.” He swiveled his chair toward her, with his legs spread wide, forming a V around the chair where she sat. He grabbed her hands, and the seriousness in his deep gray eyes scared her. “This is my baby.”
Dear Reader,
You are holding in your hands the first book in an exciting new series set inside the Enchanted Circle north of Taos, New Mexico.
When I first visited that remote setting, I had to agree with Francis X. Aubry, an early explorer on the Santa Fe Trial in the 1850s: “There is something in the air of New Mexico that makes the blood red, the heart beat high and the eyes…look upward. Folks don’t come here to die—they come here to live, and they get what they come for.”
Greg Glazier and Ashleigh Logan have both fled to New Mexico for the sake of a new life—literally. As they struggle to protect the unborn baby they both cherish so dearly, they find an unexpected gift along the way: each other. True love between a man and a woman is as mysterious as the Enchanted Circle itself. And as you will see in this story, its power cannot be denied.
I joked with my editor that creating this series felt a bit like a long gestation that led to the birth of a beautiful baby. Or rather, six beautiful babies. Writing this series with six other wonderful authors was a blast. I thank each of them for their creativity, insights and most of all, friendship. Each of the books in THE BIRTH PLACE series stands alone, of course, but I think once you visit Enchantment, you will be drawn there again and again.
So join me now in the enchanting world of THE BIRTH PLACE.
My best to you,
Darlene Graham
I treasure your letters! Contact me at P.O. Box 720224, Norman, OK 73070. And visit my Web site at www.superauthors.com/Graham.
Enchanting Baby
Darlene Graham
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Devyn, who endured so much to give us the precious gift of Ava Rose.
And for Damon,
the most devoted and protective Daddy I have ever seen.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER ONE
THE NAME OF THE PLACE, Enchantment, struck Greg Glazier as slightly ironic. After all, hadn’t he driven to this remote town as if under some kind of spell, chasing the illusion that he was going to find and bond with the woman carrying his baby—a baby that was nothing more, at this point, than an enchanting fantasy?
And what about the woman? What was she to him? A cutesy television personality? A pretty face on the screen? Another illusion.
On her weekly TV show, Ashleigh Logan came across as intelligent and charming, but God only knew what she would be like in person.
The town lay in the valley ahead like a scene from a picture postcard. From his vantage point on the winding highway, Greg could see a desert vista to the south, grassy ranchland to the east, and to the north and west, the vast aspen-rimmed pine forests that rose to the mystical snow-capped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Greg might have attributed the breathless sensation in his chest to the stunning view if he hadn’t known it was actually altitude sickness, mixed with a walloping dose of anxiety and fatigue. Battling a killer headache and an unslakble thirst, he took a deep pull on his water bottle, then gritted his teeth as he steered his Lincoln Navigator around another curve as the highway snaked into the valley ahead.
He should have had more sense than to travel over the mountains straight off the eastern Colorado ranching plains. He’d lived in the shadow of the Rockies all of his life, but every time he went up into the thinner air, as soon as he ascended those steep, winding roads, he got sick.
But he didn’t have time to lay low now. Ashleigh Logan already had a two-day head start on him.
When Greg’s efforts to contact Ashleigh at the TV station and then at her home failed, he’d tried her sister’s house, but the woman had acted spooked when she answered the door.
“Ms. Miller?” he inquired while she peered at him with the privacy chain still fastened. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for your sister. Ashleigh Logan?”
The one eye he could see grew wide with surprise…or was it fear? “Wait here” was all the sister said. Then she slammed the door.
The next thing he knew, a black-and-white patrol car came zipping up to the curb. In short order, the officer made him produce identification and vacate the premises.
That’s when Greg had decided that somehow, this Ashleigh Logan woman had figured out what he was after and had bugged out on him. So he’d hired himself a detective.
In Greg’s opinion the private investigator in Denver had taken too long to figure out where Ashleigh Logan had vanished to. But what did Greg know? Even in his days as a deputy sheriff, he’d never done anything this crazy. No, he corrected himself. Chasing down the woman carrying his baby wasn’t crazy. It was vital. All-important.
But two precious days had ticked by before they traced Ashleigh Logan here, to Enchantment, New Mexico.
Enchantment. So named, Greg supposed, because it lay nestled in the heart of the Enchanted Circle north of Taos. He had to admit it was a pretty little town, with its clear mountain air, expansive blue skies, gurgling silver streams. Wide meadows flanked the curved road into town, where the highway narrowed and became the main drag of Enchantment, Paseo de Sierra. Avenue of the Mountains. The name made sense since the street pointed straight toward the Sangre de Cristo range, centering on Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico.
Centuries ago, the Spaniards had apparently thought Sangre de Cristo—blood of Christ—was an apt name for this rugged mountain range. Legend said they had come from the west and saw the range painted red by the setting sun. Coming from the east, the peaks actually looked hazy, purple, backlit by an apricot sun dipping below a bank of atomicorange clouds. It was aspen-turning time—late September—and the thick stands of shimmering golden trees added to the feeling of rarefied light. If he hadn’t been sick as a dog, he might have appreciated the stunning beauty.
In the village core he passed charming gift shops and rustic ski-rental establishments, plus a small adobe post office, a civic complex and library building, an American Legion hall, the office of the Arroyo County Bulletin—the town newspaper, he presumed—and an interesting-looking bed-and-breakfast. He’d come back there later, get a room and crash.
“After I find Ashleigh Logan,” he muttered to himself, and took another swig of water.
Finding her might prove harder than he thought. The town looked bigger than he’d imagined. From the base in the valley, new construction sprawled far up onto the mountainsides. Southwest-style log cabins, Alpine A-frames and classic chalets shared the foothills and mountainsides with cozy hotels and weathered homesteads. Subsistence farms dotted the lower surrounding countryside, while farther up, the vast windows of the lofty retreats of the wealthy glittered in the setting sun.
The main street led straight to an old Spanish-style square where there were more shops, restaurants and art galleries. Like the name implied, it was all very…enchanting.
But the place wasn’t totally charming. On the southern edge of town, Greg saw evidence of poverty—dusty, dented pickups, ramshackle trailer houses.
Why had Ashleigh Logan run away to this remote place?
If it was because she already knew the truth, Ms. Logan was certainly going to a hell of a lot of trouble to evade the father of her child. But he would find her and he would demand his rights. He would not allow anything to separate him from the only child he would ever have.
As close as he could tell, Ashleigh’s decision to come to this particular town was connected to a birthing center run by a bunch of midwives. The place was called—he glanced at the notes the private detective had given him—The Birth Place. It had better not be some hippie-dippy asylum where they used herbal remedies and scented oils instead of real medicine. Not if his baby was going to be born there.
He checked the map he’d printed off the Internet and turned the Navigator onto the narrow Desert Valley Road, where yellowing cottonwood trees on either side created a fluttering golden canopy overhead. He found the clinic at the end of the road.
Tucked in among sheltering pines, the place was a sleepy-looking two-story adobe building with softly rounded walls and deep-set mullioned windows, trimmed in that ubiquitous New Mexico turquoise. The little sign out front, modest enough, had the words The Birth Place stenciled in the same shade of turquoise against a snow-white background. A silhouette of a Madonna and babe, the clinic’s logo, he supposed, completed the sign.
His tires crunched over the rock-and-sand semi-circular drive as he bumped to a halt. His was the only vehicle in sight. He chugged down the last of his water, eased out and slammed the door.
The place felt as quiet as an abandoned homestead. He hoped he hadn’t arrived too late. No clinic hours were posted—he glanced at the sun disappearing over the mountain—but it had to be near closing time.
Greg stepped inside a rough-hewn cedar door, and was appalled by what he saw. His child was going to be born here?
The place was a cacophony of clutter, noise and activity. Behind a high reception counter, phones jangled, a copier hummed and zipped, and a teakettle whistled from somewhere beyond an open door. Muted voices came and went as doors opened and closed down a long narrow hallway. Despite the late afternoon hour, a couple of patients, grossly pregnant, still sat waiting in the small reception area. Their conversation was subdued, but their two small children were having a noisy fight over a toy in a corner play area, and lively female laughter rang out from the room behind the reception desk.
He cleared his throat and stepped up to the counter while every woman in the place, pregnant ones included, fell silent and gave him her rapt attention. Greg imagined his appearance was a little rough. He’d been traveling hell-bent all day in his worn ranching clothes. He was unshaven, unkempt, and probably looked a little gaunt and pasty to boot.
The middle-aged woman behind the desk frowned at him while she pressed her ear to a phone, holding up one finger that told him to wait.
“Sounds like her water broke,” she was saying into the phone.
Greg felt like an eavesdropper and stepped back, focusing his gaze away from the desk. The place reminded him more of someone’s home than an organized office. Lush potted plants rimmed the periphery of Mexican-tile floors that gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the multipaned windows. The whitewashed walls were covered with a jumble of Southwest art, photographs, homemade educational posters…even a few animal skins. A giant bulletin board held hundreds of overlapping baby pictures, as thick as leaves on a tree. In one corner, a rounded adobe fireplace still held the ashes from a recent fire. It was all very cozy, but for his baby, Greg had envisioned something stainless steel and sterile, a real clinic, for crying out loud.
“Trish!” a younger woman called as she sailed out of a back hallway. “I’m headed up to the Coleman cabin.”
Was this a nurse? Greg wondered. He had been told the clinic made house calls or home visits or whatever they called them. She was tallish and slender, wearing brown overalls and clogs, with a long graying braid hanging down her back. She stepped up to the high counter and set down a box containing some kind of equipment. As she donned a jacket she continued, “Would you sign me out?”
Trish made a not-now-I’m-busy face and continued to listen intently to the phone.
“I’ll sign you out, Katherine,” a pleasant voice called out from the open doorway behind the reception desk. A short round Hispanic woman in a denim jumper poked her head around the doorjamb, briefly eyed Greg, and then said to the woman in overalls, “You be careful out on that Switchback Road, sweetie!”
She disappeared back into the room, and then something, the ominous-sounding name of Switchback Road, his newfound suspicious state of mind—something—made Greg lean back slightly so that he could see through the open door. The chubby lady was using a marker to write on a dry-erase board next to floor-to-ceiling shelves housing a rainbow of patient charts. A wildly painted cabinet—pinks, oranges, blues in an artsy design that mimicked the patterns of a Navajo blanket—snagged Greg’s gaze for one instant before his eyes snapped back to the board and what the Hispanic woman was writing there, or rather, what she was writing next to…the name Logan.
His heart kicked against his ribs and his mouth went dry. Well, drier.
“May I help you?” The woman in the overalls stepped toward him as she studied his expression.
Greg nodded at the stethoscope around her neck. “Are you a nurse?” he asked as a stalling tactic, trying to decide if he should merely follow this woman when she left. The idea of sneaking around following people made him feel like a jackass, but on the other hand this nurse might lead him straight to Ashleigh Logan. How likely was it that the name Logan on that board was just a coincidence?
“No.” She smiled kindly. “I’m one of the midwives. Katherine Collins.”
Greg nodded and smiled, reluctant to reveal his own name. He looked around the waiting room as if searching. “I was looking for a friend who was supposed to be here, but I guess she’s already gone.”
“We have a couple of patients in the exam rooms.” The midwife’s voice was gentle and pleasant. “If you’ll tell me her name—and who you are—I’ll see if she’s in the back.”
“Uh…her name…” Involuntarily Greg’s eyes darted to the big board in the room beyond.
Immediately the midwife stiffened. Her eyes cut to the dry-erase board, her cheeks pinkened, then she stammered, “Would you, uh, would you wait here, please? I’ll get someone to help you.” She shoved the box on the counter toward the Trish woman with a meaningful look, then shot off down the long hallway.
Greg, meanwhile, quickly glanced in the box. Sure enough, the tab on the chart inside read Logan, Ashleigh M. The equipment, surrounded by a nest of webbed belting, looked like some kind of fax machine. It occurred to him that the thing could be a uterine monitor.
With her eyes making a wary sweep of him, Trish hung up the phone and snatched the box away. The two women in the back room had sidled out to stand near the receptionist. All three cast one another covert glances. Someone, he saw, had erased the Logan name from the board in the back.
The phone jangled again and the receptionist answered it, turning her face away from Greg. She mumbled into the handset while the rest of the room grew quiet and the other women kept their gazes fixed on Greg. Greg eased away from the counter as the place grew oddly still.
The midwife reappeared, walking fast, followed by a tall, distinguished-looking woman. The midwife slipped behind the counter with the other women, but the tall older lady walked right up to Greg. She was in her seventies, perhaps, but her movements were brisk and her posture was ramrod straight.
“I’m Lydia Kane,” she announced, “the director of The Birth Place.” She was almost as tall as Greg, who stood at just over six feet. Her steel-gray hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense bun that accentuated her angular, rawboned features. Her outfit—a simple white linen shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a pair of well-worn khakis—would have seemed austere except for a large pendant that hung from her neck on a long silver chain. Greg collected western art and artifacts, and that thing looked like a nineteenth-century heirloom, or a convincing copy. The oval stone at the center resembled genuine rose onyx, but Greg knew it couldn’t possibly be. All of the rose onyx in existence was embedded in the walls of the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver. But the swirling patterns of cream and maroon forming the silhouette of a Madonna and infant, similar to the logo he’d seen out front, certainly resembled the rare material.
She covered the pendant with her fingertips when she noticed him frowning at it. “How, exactly, may I help you?” Her tone was wary, cool.
For a moment Greg considered making an excuse to leave, waiting down the road, then following the midwife Katherine up to this Coleman cabin. But Katherine, huddled behind the desk with the others, apparently wasn’t going anywhere now. In fact, all of the women kept staring at him as if he was Jack the Ripper. Something warned him that all was not kosher at The Birth Place, and that maybe he’d better play it straight. “I hope it’s not any trouble, Ms. Kane, but I’m looking for a woman who might be a patient at this clinic,” he said.
“We don’t give out information about our patients, Mr….” Lydia Kane waited for him to fill in the blank.
Greg didn’t oblige. As a major land developer in Denver his name was fairly well known, but surely no one as far south as New Mexico would recognize it. Even so, having his identity linked to the highly visible TV personality Ashleigh Logan didn’t seem wise. He wasn’t ready for anyone to be privy to the reason he was in Enchantment. He hadn’t even decided what he was going to do when he found Ashleigh Logan, except that he was determined to somehow be a part of his child’s life. Greg was terrible at lying, and long ago he’d learned that it was better to simply be judicious with the truth. Nobody said you had to slap all your cards on the table at once.
“I understand about patient confidentiality, ma’am.” Greg kept his voice low. “But I have reason to believe that the woman I’m looking for might have come to your clinic for prenatal care and I don’t know how else to find her. I really need to see her. It’s…it’s fairly urgent.”
The expression in Lydia Kane’s sharp blue eyes indicated she was not inclined to divulge any information. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, making it sound vaguely like a threat instead of an apology, “I don’t think I caught your name.”
Greg realized, a little late, that maybe he should have sent the private investigator to Enchantment to flush out Ashleigh Logan before he came tearing down here himself. If he invented a fake name his poor lying skills would undoubtedly trip him up. But if he said anything now besides a name—my name’s not important or I’m nobody or she wouldn’t recognize me—it would sound lame, even suspicious. And if he kept up this lying now, what would they think of him when the baby came?
Again, he opted for a diversion, a partial truth. “I understand that you can’t give me any information, but I have…something she needs, and I was hoping you might at least contact her for me.”
Lydia Kane didn’t look at all amenable to that idea, either, even though she asked, “And what is her name?”
“Ashleigh Logan.”
“Ashleigh Logan…” Lydia repeated in a musing way, as if she were trying to place the name. “Ashleigh Logan.” She fingered the pendant again and glanced over Greg’s shoulder.
“Maybe you’ve heard of her?” he persisted. “She has a syndicated TV show. All About Babies. I mean, in your line of work—”
“I have seen that show,” Lydia said slowly. “So, is this urgent business somehow related to Ms. Logan’s television show?”
“Uh. No. It’s personal.” Again, Greg settled for a vague truth.
“I see.” Lydia shot another quick glance over Greg’s shoulder, toward the women clustered behind the receptionist’s desk. “Is it a medical matter?”
“Well, no. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it was urgent. It’s not anything of immediate importance….” Greg hesitated while he did some fast thinking. His gaze flitted to the pictures of healthy babies decorating the clinic walls. If this woman ran this clinic, then the welfare of babies must be a very high priority for her. “But it might eventually impact Ms. Logan’s unborn child.” That was the absolute truth, so Greg had no trouble keeping his expression sincere.
“I see.” Lydia Kane shot another furtive glance out the large window, then in the direction of the small waiting room, toward her patients, who appeared to be tuned in to the conversation. Even the two little children had gravitated toward their mothers and now sat still and quiet.
“I’d like to help you. But I’m afraid we’re very busy right now.” She smiled nervously at the women in the waiting room. “Would you mind waiting back in my office while I check on something?”
Greg decided there was definitely something fishy going on at this clinic. “Oh, that’s okay,” he said casually. “I’m running late, actually.” He looked at his wrist as if to check his watch, and realized that in his hurry to hit the road, he hadn’t put it on. The futile gesture seemed to undermine his credibility even further. “I think I’d better be on my way.”
“It will only take a minute. Please. My office is this way.” She swept a graceful arm toward the long hallway.
The woman was clearly trying to detain him—he saw that now. It was what she’d been doing all along. And in the next instant, Greg understood why.
The whoop of a siren caused everyone to turn to the paned window. A black-and-white cruiser braked behind Greg’s Navigator and a trim, muscular young cop jumped out and trotted around the trunk of the squad car. He was wearing a gray Stetson, a flawlessly pressed uniform, dusty brown cowboy boots and a sidearm in a swivel holster. He came bursting into the door of the clinic like a marine at a battle landing.
“This is the man, Miguel,” the Lydia Kane woman said loudly. She had stepped farther away from Greg.
“Come with me, sir.” The cop was about Greg’s size, clean cut and serious-looking. His heavy dark brows formed into a sharp chevron as he indicated the door with one outstretched palm. His name tag read “Eiden,” but this guy didn’t look German. With his hawkish nose and piercing dark eyes, he looked like he could be part Hispanic or maybe Navajo. The deep dimples etched on either side of his mouth somehow made his appearance even more threatening.
“Now, wait a minute,” Greg said as he backed up. Why in the hell did the cops show up every time he started asking questions about Ashleigh Logan?
“I need you to step outside, sir.” The cop reached for Greg’s arm, but again Greg instinctively backed away. The women and children had receded to the far edges of the room.
“Are you arresting me?” Greg demanded. He knew the law, and knew he hadn’t broken it.
“I’m simply conducting an investiga—” The cop’s shoulder radio squawked. He listened, then touched it off. “I just need you to come outside and answer a few questions.”
“Why?”
When Greg still didn’t move, the cop said, “Okay. Sir, I’ll need you to turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“What?” Greg couldn’t believe this.
But the cop had already reached behind his belt and flipped out a pair of handcuffs. His other hand was poised near his holster.
“Okay!” Greg threw up his palms like a criminal in a TV drama. What choice did he have? He wouldn’t be much good to his baby if he got himself shot.
Before he could so much as blink, Eiden twisted Greg’s arms behind his back and slapped the cuffs on his wrists. With one hand on the cuffs and one hand on Greg’s shoulder, the cop pushed him outside.
Stunned, Greg tried to turn his face toward the man. “Officer, are you arresting me?”
The cop gave the cuffs an instructive jerk. “I could. For interference with official process. But I’ll settle for taking you down to headquarters for investigative detention.”
“What is this all about? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The cop didn’t answer. He quickly patted Greg down, making Greg grateful he’d left his firearm in the lockbox inside his Navigator.
When the cop was satisfied that Greg was clean, he said, “Please get in the vehicle, sir.” He opened the back door of the squad car.
“What about my vehicle?” Greg jerked his head toward the Navigator.
“I’ll lock it. If necessary, I can impound it later. Otherwise, I’ll bring you back here to get it.”
Again, Greg had no choice but to climb into the musty, plastic-lined back seat. He’d only ridden in the front of a squad car, never in the back. He’d never been on the bad end of an arrest, either. He felt awkward, like an animal in a cage, forced to sit sideways in the cramped space because of the cuffs. As he stared at the Plexiglas barrier to the front seat he thought, Great. This Ashleigh Logan woman is complicating my life more by the minute. He’d been in this backwater town less than an hour and already he was being hauled down to the local pokey.
CHAPTER TWO
AS SOON AS THE DOOR CLOSED behind the men, Lydia Kane and her staff rushed into the waiting room where the two mothers were clutching their toddlers to their pregnant bellies.
“Everything’s all right.” Lydia stretched her arms forth. “He’s gone now. Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine,” both of the patients answered at once, but their expressions remained wide-eyed and fearful.
“Was that guy dangerous?” one of them asked.
“I hope not,” Lydia soothed. “But we couldn’t take any chances. We have a patient here who has a restraining order against a stalker back in Denver, so we can’t be too cautious.” She turned to her staff. “Lenora, why don’t you go ahead and move these clients back to exam rooms where they can be more comfortable?”
As soon as the patients were gone, the receptionist, Trish, covered her mouth in shame. “I shouldn’t have put her real last name on the board.”
Lydia patted her shoulder. “It’s been a hectic day and you were just following the routine.”
“Don’t worry, Trish,” Katherine said, adding her reassurances. “While Lydia was calling the cops, I called Ashleigh and warned her. Another officer went out to the Coleman cabin while Miguel was on his way here.”
“Still, that awful man saw her name. Now he knows she’s in Enchantment!” Trish wasn’t going to forgive herself so easily.
“You had no idea he’d look back there,” Katherine reassured her further.
“I’m so glad you were alert!” Trish’s shoulders relaxed a bit.
“Yes. Good job, Katherine.” Now Lydia patted the midwife’s shoulder.
“And you did the right thing, Lydia.” Katherine smiled at her boss. “If that is the stalker, thank God Miguel has hauled him off.”
“Yes.” Lydia looked out the window as the cruiser pulled away. “Miguel Eiden isn’t about to let that guy hurt anybody.”
THE POLICE STATION WAS BACK on the main drag, Paseo de Sierra. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains so that Greg couldn’t see much through the grimy rear windows as they pulled into the gravel parking lot. But it looked like the police department was connected by a short breezeway to the civic complex that housed the library and the chamber of commerce. The building was a timber-and-adobe structure that looked as if it had been restored and added onto a couple of times.
The cop took him inside and led him down a narrow hallway to a tiny office, brightly lit and sparsely furnished. He unlocked the cuffs and said, “Take out your driver’s license and have a seat.”
Greg pulled his license out of his billfold, then sat down in a folding chair at a bare utilitarian table. A yellow legal pad and pen were already in place there.
The cop removed his cowboy hat and pitched it onto the table. Before he sat down he snatched up a beige wall phone.
“Ernesto? Miguel here. I’ve got the guy in the interrogation room. Go ahead and start the tape.”
“Tape?” Greg said, “You’re taping me? Isn’t that illegal?”
The cop pulled a wry smile. “Get real.” He checked Greg’s driver’s license, then sat in the chair facing him.
“This is unbelievable.” Greg leaned forward in his chair while the cop scribbled some notes. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
A pretty young woman stuck her head in the door. “Officer Eiden—” her voice was saccharine sweet “—you want this?” She waved a sheaf of papers at Miguel. Without looking up from what he was writing, the cop held out a hand and she took her time sauntering the few steps across the room to deliver the papers.
“Thanks, Crystal.” Giving his full attention to the papers, the cop dismissed her.
But she lingered at Miguel’s shoulder, giving Greg an avid once-over. “You think this is the guy?”
The cop cut her a sharp glance. “Crystal. You can go now.”
She swished out, and the cop perused the pages, occasionally stopping to copy something he’d read onto the legal pad. He looked like he was about Greg’s age—early thirties, maybe. In this part of the country there were a lot of people of Navajo descent, and this man’s bronze skin and straight dark hair hinted at this heritage. When he finished reading he made a two-fingered signal at a picture-window-size mirror set into one wall, then he favored Greg with a cool, assessing squint. “I suppose you think just because this is a small town, we don’t tape perps?”
“So I’m a perp?”
“You tell me.” The cop looked at his watch and jotted something else on the yellow pad.
“What is it that you want me to tell you?”
Still writing, Miguel said, “Just answer a few simple questions…and don’t forget to smile for our camera.”
Greg refrained from waggling a sarcastic wave at “Ernesto,” who was evidently already videotaping from beyond the dark glass.
“What’s your full name?”
Through the Plexiglas in the cruiser Greg had seen Officer Eiden writing down the tag number on his Navigator, and he assumed what the cop had in his hands was an NCIC report—and maybe some additional information from the Denver police. But Greg knew this tactic. The cop would make notes of Greg’s answers to see if they jibed with the official report. “Gregory McCrae Glazier.”
“Age.”
“Thirty-four.”
“Occupation.”
“Land developer.”
The cop calmly jotted down this answer without comment. A lot of people didn’t know what a “land developer” did—buying and opening up new plots of land for housing and business. Greg was anxious to skip ahead. While this cop was playing twenty questions, Ashleigh Logan could be crossing another state line.
“And—” Greg leaned forward, hoping this would help move the process along “—at one time I was a deputy sheriff.”
This, the cop did not calmly jot down. He fixed his gaze on Greg. “Was? Are you retired? Ex-cop? What?”
Greg was well aware that within the brotherhood of the badge, the difference between an ex-cop and a retired cop was vast. An ex-cop was suspect. Had he been drummed out of the force? Had he screwed something up bad? Couldn’t he handle it?
“I’m an auxiliary deputy, but for all practical purposes I’m inactive.”
The cop frowned. “From what agency?”
“The sheriff’s department out in Last Chance, Colorado. My dad was the sheriff until he got killed in the line of duty. My grandfather was the sheriff before him. I guess you could say I inherited the job.”
“Why’d you quit?”
“Technically, I didn’t quit. I had to spend all of my time in Denver for a couple of years.” When Kendra’s kidneys had failed entirely, he’d moved her near the dialysis center. “I found a good replacement, a foreman on my ranch. Ever since, I’ve been inactive.”
He might as well have quit. Greg was through with law enforcement. He had stopped trying to fill his father’s shoes as soon as he found out how sick Kendra was. Playing deputy and keeping the ranch going in the years after his father died had siphoned off precious time that he should have spent with Kendra. Time he could never regain. But to keep from having to explain all of that to this cop, he gave the simple answer. “I still carry a commission card.”
And my gun, he added mentally. He wasn’t sure that fact would win points with this guy, either. “But I don’t do much duty.”
Eiden was a bit of a bulldog. “Why not?”
“It’s pretty quiet where I’m from. The sheriff only calls us if he needs backup on something. Not much call for crowd control out in Last Chance.”
“Okay. I get it.” Eiden scribbled another note. “So, how long have you been a deputy?”
“Since I was nineteen. I was sworn in right after my father was killed.”
“In the line of duty, you say?”
“Yeah. It was a long time ago.” Greg was growing impatient. It was, indeed, a long time ago. And they were all gone. His dad. Kendra. Gramps. All that mattered now was the baby.
Eiden was studying him with the instinctual squint of a cop who suspected he wasn’t getting the whole story, but Greg was in no mood to share. The fact that he’d made a lot of sacrifices—including his ability to father a child—in his desperate but futile battle to save Kendra’s life was nobody’s business.
“Why am I here?” Greg was anxious to focus the conversation back into the now.
The cop put his pen down. “Ms. Kane told me you came to the clinic looking for a woman, someone you believe is one of her clients.”
Greg frowned, thinking, So? What a weird little burg this was. “Do you haul everyone who walks into that clinic looking for someone over to police headquarters for interrogation?” It was all so bizarre that Greg couldn’t help adding, “Is that some kind of crime in Enchantment, New Mexico?”
“Would you mind giving me the woman’s name?”
“Ashleigh Logan. The one with the TV show.”
Greg noticed Officer Eiden didn’t have to write that down. He waved the pen. “I know who she is. Why are you looking for her?”
“It’s personal.” That answer had seemed sufficient at the clinic. Well, no, it hadn’t. The people at the clinic had called the cops.
And this cop, evidently, didn’t like that answer, either. “I can detain you if you don’t cooperate with me, Mr. Glazier.”
“On what charges?” Greg wondered if he should call his lawyer, who was all the way back in Denver.
“I said detain. I didn’t say arrest. If you’re a deputy you know that I can put you in investigative detention. Now, I think you’d better tell me what business you have with Ashleigh Logan.”
If Lydia Kane’s furtive behavior hadn’t convinced Greg that the woman he was seeking had, indeed, come to Enchantment to hide, this cop’s pressure tactics sure did. Greg had the creeping sensation that he was dealing with something sinister here. That thought sent a chill through him, because if Ashleigh Logan was in some kind of danger, so was the child inside of her—his child.
The cop’s eyes glittered like dark polished stones while he waited for Greg to answer. No one, Greg decided, could look more threatening.
“Look,” Greg said, trying to sound reasonable. “I need to find Ms. Logan for reasons that are mine alone. It’s something between the two of us. Is she in some kind of trouble or something?”
“I asked you why you’re looking for her.”
“I’d rather not say. I need to explain the full situation to her first. She deserves that much. Like I said, it’s personal.”
The cop leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table with his smooth brown hands fisted together over the legal pad. “You her boyfriend or something?”
Greg took a measure of the guy, deciding whether to trust him or not. Miguel Eiden seemed solid and clean cut. Except for a scar on his square jaw that looked as if it’d been earned in a fight. So maybe the guy had a bit of a history. Didn’t everybody?
Eyeing him, Greg bet his top stud horse that the guy knew exactly where Ashleigh Logan was.
And if Ashleigh Logan was in Enchantment, the sooner he talked to her, the better. He had tried not to let himself consider this possibility, but if Ashleigh Logan had already found out about the disastrous mistake…well, she might do something rash if she was devastated enough. He had to make her see that there was more at stake than she knew. He suppressed his fears by reminding himself that she was the star of a show about having babies, and that her own unorthodox pregnancy had already been highly publicized. How would it look to her viewers if cute, bubbly Ashleigh Logan opted for a late-term abortion? And The Birth Place clinic didn’t look like the kind of place where a woman would come for such a procedure, anyway. Still, Greg couldn’t quell a certain sense of urgency. This was his child, the only child he would ever have. He had to ask.
“You know where she is, don’t you?”
Miguel Eiden’s mouth formed a tight line. “I asked you a question, Mr. Glazier. What is your relationship to Ashleigh Logan?”
They had clearly reached a Mexican standoff, and since the cop had the gun on his hip, Greg was bound to lose. He decided he’d have to tell the guy the truth if he was ever going to get out of here.
“I don’t have a relationship with her. We’ve never even met.”
The cop’s frown deepened.
Greg could see he was going to have to tell the guy all of it. “This has to be kept confidential.”
The cop leaned back and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’m a police officer, not a gossip columnist.”
Right. As if Greg needed reminding. “Ms. Logan is pregnant.”
The cop gave him a sarcastic frown that said, duh. Ashleigh Logan had chronicled every step of her pregnancy on her nationally syndicated cable TV show for all the world to see. “And?” Eiden pressed.
“The baby is mine.”
The cop’s eyebrows shot up. He dropped his threatening pose and his expression became incredulous as he leaned forward. “I thought you said you’ve never met her.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then you’d better tell me what gives, Mr. Glazier.” He leafed through the papers as if he’d missed something. “’Cause this deal is sounding stranger by the minute.”
Greg sighed, suddenly feeling beaten down by the combined effects of his bizarre situation and the nagging altitude sickness. “Strange isn’t the word for it. Seems like my whole life has been strange, and incredibly unlucky.”
“I wouldn’t call you unlucky, exactly.” The cop continued to study the printout. “I guess you realize we ran an NCIC on you. They had your prints—your being a deputy and all. And Denver had more.”
Greg nodded. The visit to the sister. Why were the cops so interested in him? Maybe that was the wrong question. Maybe he should be asking why they were so interested in Ashleigh Logan.
Eiden went on. “In the last two years you’ve made a killing off the property boom around Denver. You’ve been in the news a few times, doing civic stuff. On paper, you look like a real Boy Scout, unless you count a couple of speeding citations that you racked up out on Highway 63. Running back and forth to your ranch out on the Big Sandy, I’d guess.” The corners of Miguel Eiden’s mouth peaked downward grudgingly, as if to say Greg’s profile was no big deal.
“Yeah, that about sums me up.” Greg raked a hand over his face. Except for the fact that the love of his life had died a painful death at the age of twenty-nine, and his father had been shot dead by a pack of rodents, and his druggie mother had skipped off with some hippie when Greg was barely out of diapers, leaving him to be raised by his eccentric grandfather. “Could I please have some water?”
The cop went to the beige wall phone. Soon the flirtatious Crystal showed up with a plastic cup of ice water. Greg drank some, then started in. “When she decided to have a baby, Ms. Logan went to the sperm bank where she had stored her deceased husband’s sperm.”
The cop looked genuinely surprised at that, but he muttered, “To each his own.”
“So, she got artificially inseminated and she thinks she is pregnant with her late husband’s child. But I found out that’s not true. They made a mistake. The child is mine. I came here to tell her that.”
The cop’s face showed that something had finally clicked. “And that’s why you were trying to contact Ms. Logan in Denver?”
Greg nodded and the cop made a note. Greg hated to see this information go on record before he’d had a chance to explain this to Ashleigh Logan, but he supposed there was no help for it.
“You plan to tell her there was a mix-up at the sperm bank?”
“For starters.”
“Is there some way for me to verify your story?”
“I could put you in touch with the sperm bank in California. They would back up my story if I told them to release the information to you.”
“Okay.” Eiden poised his pen. “Give me the number.”
Greg pulled a card from his wallet and handed it over.
After he copied the number, Eiden said, “Okay. We’re done for now. I’ll take you back to your Navigator.” His chair screeched on the linoleum as he stood and reached for his cowboy hat.
“Wait!” Too fast, Greg also jumped to his feet. A wave of dizziness struck as he felt himself break into a cold sweat. A sudden sense of panic mixed with altitude sickness for a moment as he clutched the table and focused on the fact that he wasn’t going to leave here until he found out where Ashleigh Logan was. He had to say something to convince this cop that he needed to know where she was, right now. “There’s something else you should know.” He shook his head to clear it.
One of the cop’s black eyebrows spiked up. “You okay?”
“Altitude sickness.”
“Sit down.”
Greg did so, gratefully. He sipped some more cold water, then said, “This pregnancy—this baby. This is it for me. I won’t get any more chances. The sperm bank…mine’s all gone. They, uh, they accidentally let it…uh, defrost.”
The cop looked as if he was struggling to hide a split second of involuntary disgust, then his dark eyes flitted sideways with something like sympathy. “I get it.” He tugged his cowboy hat down, looking uncomfortable, embarrassed, as if he didn’t like discussing another guy’s sterility problems. Well, Greg didn’t like talking about it, either. But there it was. He was sterile. Though he wasn’t about to explain to this guy how that had come about. The salient fact was, this baby, Ashleigh Logan’s baby, was Greg’s one and only chance to be a father.
“Weird deal, huh?” he prompted when the cop didn’t say anything.
Eiden looked up.
“So maybe you can understand why this is so urgent to me,” Greg pressed. “What if she finds out the truth before I get to her? What if she’s come here to do something…rash?”
Eiden put a hand up. “They don’t do stuff like that at The Birth Place.” He looked at Greg as if he wanted to tell him more, as if he wanted to help. “Are you staying somewhere in town?”
“I was thinking about getting a room at that bed-and-breakfast down the way.”
The cop looked at his watch. “The Morning Light?”
Greg nodded.
“We’d better get you over there, then. Morning Light fills up pretty early during aspen-turning time.” He tugged on the brim of the cowboy hat.
“Aren’t you going to tell me where she is?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Glazier. For tonight, I want you to sit tight, okay? I’ll give you a call as soon as I clear up a few details.”
THE SUN HAD SLID BEHIND the mountains now.
After dropping Greg in the circular drive at the clinic, the cop waited, gunning the engine of his cruiser, with the alley lights blazing on Greg’s back as he walked up to the door of the Navigator. Greg wondered what the guy thought he was going to do. Break into the clinic? Rifle through the file cabinets? Dig out Ashleigh Logan’s records? Not a bad idea, actually. He assumed it was frustration that was making him think like this.
Greg got in his vehicle and fired it up, wondering if this whole odyssey was worth the grief. Maybe he should just head back to the family ranch and forget about this baby—if indeed there still was a baby.
The people at California Fertility Consultants had refused to give Greg the name of the man whose sperm had been confused with his, had refused to confirm that Greg’s sperm had indeed been used to inseminate some unknown woman. It was only the intense publicity surrounding Ashleigh Logan’s pregnancy that had finally tipped him off. When he’d seen the name of the clinic in that article in USA TODAY, he’d figured out the dates—her husband’s sperm would have been stored at about the same time his was. The article said the sperm bank was proud of the fact that they had successfully stored specimens for that long. Well, their storage techniques weren’t the problem. It was what they had done when they put the “specimens” into storage that had caused the damage.
Now two lives were thoroughly messed up. No, make that three lives. At first Greg had wanted to sic his lawyers on the idiots at that sperm bank, but after he’d calmed down, he’d realized that the threat of a lawsuit was his trump card. And he’d used it well.
Why, he asked himself again, was he doggedly pursuing this baby at all? It wasn’t like he didn’t have enough to occupy his time between the ranch and his business pursuits in Denver, especially now that Gramps had passed on. But the sad reality was that even though there was plenty of work to do, plenty to distract him out in Last Chance, Colorado, there was not a soul to share it with. There was no one to love.
In the last few years Greg Glazier’s world had narrowed down to two things: horses and money. Neither one seemed like enough of an anchor to hold him for the next forty or fifty years of his life. Hell, if he was anything like Gramps—and he was—his life might go on for another sixty years. Family, Gramps had kept repeating in his final days, whispering it over and over in the end, like a parting prayer. Family.
Greg drove the Navigator like a little old lady as Officer Eiden followed him back down Desert Valley Road into the center of town. After he turned off of Paseo de Sierra onto the short street that led to the Morning Light, he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw that the cop was gone, but he hoped he hadn’t seen the last of that guy. The cop knew where Ashleigh Logan was.
Greg had no trouble relocating the bed-and-breakfast he’d spotted earlier. He stepped through the door and headed toward reception. A rambling adobe villa with huge bougainvillea plants hanging from the eaves, stuffed with antiques, Pueblo pots and Indian trade blankets, the Morning Light was the kind of charming place that would have made Greg feel right at home under normal circumstances.
But tonight, the serene atmosphere did nothing to settle Greg’s churning thoughts. He followed a friendly older woman to an upstairs room, where he tossed his duffel bag into the closet and threw himself down to brood in a sagging horsehair chair by the darkened window.
Right now he’d like nothing better than a good stiff shot of his grandfather’s whiskey. But he was too nauseated to tolerate it, and what if the cop, finally willing to give him Ashleigh Logan’s location, called? He wanted to be ready to jump back in the Navigator and go straight to her.
And then what?
He let his head fall back against the hard, scratchy back of the chair.
Then, of course, all hell would break loose.
CHAPTER THREE
ASHLEIGH LOGAN STRUGGLED to arrange her girth in a comfortable position on the plump leather couch as she waited through a series of frustrating clicks while the long-distance connection went through.
Apparently, Enchantment, New Mexico, did not have the best phone service in the West. No surprise there. This place was isolated, all right. Her cell phone had gone into remote mode shortly after they hit the road that wound up from Taos, and the signal had ceased altogether when they got up on this mountain.
She surveyed the cabin that would be her prison for the next three months—at least she hoped she could hold out for the entire three months. For the baby’s sake.
The Coleman’s cabin was a lodgepole pine behemoth perched high on the mountainside, at the end of a steep, winding road. The decor of the place was rustic but luxurious. The great room where Ashleigh now reclined had a high ceiling spanned by twenty-foot-long cross beams with a moose-antler chandelier at the center. A wall of glass with a deck beyond framed the three highest peaks in the Sangre de Cristo range.
The rest of the place was all dark leather, rough-hewn cedar, native stone. Thick Navajo rugs. Huge, colorful Native American paintings interspersed with tall banks of windows.
Her mother was merrily clattering around in the adjacent kitchen, which would have been rustic, too, except for the marble countertops and heated travertine floors.
Ashleigh made a wry face. She supposed she could stand this joint.
“Hello?” Finally, Megan picked up.
“Hi, Sis!” Ashleigh forced a bright, upbeat note into her voice. “We’re in Enchantment. And I think we made it up here without being seen. Mom made sure the Suburban we rented had tinted windows, and I didn’t even stop for a potty break after we left Taos.”
Megan released a controlled sigh. “Ashleigh, let me say this again. I do not like this ill-conceived plan.” Ashleigh’s sister could cram more drama into one sentence than Ashleigh could milk out of a half hour of blather on her TV talk show.
“It’s not ill-conceived. The cops okayed it. My doctor approved it. Dr. Ochoa, the obstetrician in Enchantment, is one of the best in the nation, and Lydia Kane is simply top-notch—”
“But—”
“And we’ve already alerted the local police—”
“Well that’s good, because I’m trying to tell you something! After you and Mom left for Taos, a guy showed up here, looking for you.”
Ashleigh sucked in a breath and sat up straighter against the couch pillows. “What guy?”
“The cops said his name was Greg Glazier.”
“Never heard of him. Is he with the media or something?”
“No. He’s some kind of land developer. Has a great big horse ranch out east of Denver.”
“The cops told you that?”
“Yeah. They checked him out really well. Evidently he’s very well known and respected. And he’s a deputy sheriff. The cops don’t think he’s your stalker.”
“Then what did he want with me?”
“He told the cops you two had some holdings in common and he needed to talk to you about it.”
“Holdings in common? I never heard of this guy!”
“Exactly! Some stranger comes looking for you and the cops just let him go and now you’re way off in New Mexico. I don’t like any of this one bit!”
Ashleigh imagined Megan’s pinched little frown as clearly as if they were standing face to face. “Now, Megan, there’s no point in getting all upset. I’m doing everything reasonable to protect myself. I’ve practically become a hermit because of all of this.” Ashleigh rushed on before Megan could argue. “But it’s okay, because you should see this cabin. My gosh, it has every amenity you can imagine!”
“That cabin is also fairly remote,” Megan inserted quickly, going back to her point. “What if something happens and you need emergency care? Think of all you’ve been through to get this baby, think of—” Megan’s voice choked with threatened tears for a moment before she sputtered on with her argument against this plan—for the hundredth time.
Ashleigh listened to Megan’s diatribe, thinking that she didn’t need her sister undermining her resolve. Megan—a worrier, a crier, a sentimental sap—drove Ashleigh right up the wall with her roller-coaster emotions. But when it came to this baby, she supposed Megan was entitled to a little angst. From the start, this pregnancy had been incredibly emotional, for all of them. Ill-conceived. Ashleigh wondered if Megan realized how apropos her wording sounded.
Ashleigh had made her decision, firmly, six months ago, and in her heart, she knew Chad would support it. Ashleigh closed her eyes and bit her lip. She couldn’t allow herself to go into meltdown now. Her obstetrician in Denver had warned her about that. A woman battling preterm labor had to remain calm. Calm. Don’t think about Chad now, she warned herself. Think of the baby. His baby. At least you have his baby. Thank God they had decided to freeze Chad’s sperm before he had started his chemotherapy.
“Listen, Megan,” she said, finally interrupting her sister. “I’ll be fine. The local cops have been alerted. And when we drove through town we even stopped to see Lydia Kane at the clinic.”
“Oh. The Birth Place? How was it?” This diversion worked. Like her sister, Megan was fascinated by anything that had to do with babies.
“It’s adorable! Quaint. Real adobe, nestled in pine trees.”
“But do the midwives seem competent?”
“I’m sure Lydia runs a first-rate operation.” It hadn’t been easy, convincing her Denver obstetrician to transfer her to the care of an isolated clinic. But when Ashleigh had told Dr. Hill that the clinic was run by Lydia Kane, the impressive midwife she’d interviewed on her show a year earlier, he agreed to her plan. Ashleigh thanked her lucky stars she’d had Lydia Kane as a guest on the show and that when she needed a place to hide, Enchantment had come immediately to mind. It was geographically close enough to make a cautious road trip without stressing her system, but remote enough that the Denver media wouldn’t follow her. The story of the baby guru becoming pregnant with her dead husband’s sperm wasn’t exactly breaking news anymore, but it was bizarre enough to attract a dogged follow-up.
She didn’t blame the media. Their pursuit of her was nothing personal. Ashleigh herself had hounded sources to the ends of the earth to get something fresh, something startling.
Most important, hiding in Enchantment put distance between herself and this nutcase stalker.
“Lydia even came out to the Suburban to talk to me—” Ashleigh continued to try to sound upbeat for Megan “—so I didn’t even have to walk in. Isn’t that sweet?”
“I remember when you had her and those two midwives as guests on your show.”
“Yeah. Remember that?” Ashleigh encouraged her sister as Megan’s tone became less glum. “She’s a real earth mother. She listened to the baby’s heartbeat with a handheld device she called a Doppler, and she said a midwife named Katherine would come to the cabin this evening to get the home monitor set up. I’ll send in a reading by phone every morning and then I’ll go into the clinic tomorrow, and then once a week a midwife will check up on me here at the cabin. The cops and the staff at the clinic are the only people who will ever see me. The clinic has a private entrance in the back that leads straight to the birthing rooms. I guess it’s so the moms in labor can arrive in their nighties and robes if they want to. When I’ve safely reached thirty-seven weeks, I can even have a home delivery with a midwife if I want. In the meantime, I’m getting plenty of rest. Right now, I’m stretched out on the biggest old leather couch you’ve ever seen, and that’s where I’ll stay until Mom fixes dinner, so stop worrying.”
Again, Megan sighed dramatically. “I’ll try. I just wish this were over. You know we’ll do anything we can to get this baby here safely,” Megan reiterated. “Anything.”
Ashleigh smiled and felt a wave of pure love for her little sister. “Right now, getting this cabin for me was the best thing you could have done. If I’m going to be on restricted activity, this is certainly the place for it. Lots of windows looking out over the mountains. Wonderful light. Very peaceful, you know?”
“I thought you’d like it. It’s about as far from urban chaos as you can get.”
“Are you sure I can stay here until I have the baby? Three months is a long time to use somebody else’s house.”
“The Colemans are good friends and they don’t mind. They hardly ever go to that cabin now that their kids are grown. And they can be trusted to keep a secret. How does Mom like the place?”
“You know our mother. She can cheerfully adapt to anything. She’s in there cramming the cabinets full of nutritious food even as we speak.”
“God, Ash.” Megan’s voice grew quiet, sad. “Three months. I’m sure going to miss you. I wish I could come and rub your back or your feet or something.”
Ashleigh knew that Megan meant it. But they could not risk a visit from Megan or even from Ashleigh’s dad. The stalker might try to locate Ashleigh through her family.
Now that Ashleigh and her mother had made it to this remote New Mexico town, the plan was to stay put until the baby came. No one, except for Megan, their father, the local cops and people at The Birth Place, would have the slightest clue to their whereabouts.
“You just take care good of little Tyler and Justin, sweetie. When my baby is safely delivered, he’ll want to play with his cousins.”
“Oh…” Megan’s stifled squeak at the mention of the baby sounded as if she might start to cry again. “Don’t…don’t let anything h-happen,” she choked, “to either one of you.”
“I won’t. I’ll be careful, and Mom will be careful, too, okay? I’ve got really good medical care. Now, don’t cry. We’ve got to hang up now. This phone bill will probably be ridiculous.”
“Okay.” Megan sighed dramatically one last time. “Bye, Sis. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
When they hung up, Ashleigh felt immediately bereft. She scooted down on the couch and turned onto her left side, as her doctor had instructed her. She cradled an arm under her growing abdomen and tried to imagine Chad’s face, wondering if the baby would look like him. But after five years, she couldn’t clearly conjure up his features without the help of a picture. With a pang, she realized she hadn’t brought a picture of Chad with her. She consoled herself by thinking that soon she would see their baby’s face, and that was all that mattered. All she had to do was hold on and stay safe for the next thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks that already felt like thirteen years.
She looked at her surroundings and felt like an ingrate with her grumpy attitude.
As she’d assured her sister, the Coleman cabin was exceptionally comfortable, built to accommodate a large family on ski vacations. It wasn’t as if the place was claustrophobic. A high deck wrapped around the great room and master suite, facing the mountains, and several upstairs bedrooms were connected by open walkways that looked down over the great room. At the back of the long, sunny kitchen, down a short flight of steps, there was a large, airy mudroom, with coat hooks and storage lockers for skis and winter apparel, a deep enamel sink, even a washer and dryer. She surveyed the beautiful but foreign surroundings again, then closed her eyes and steeled her emotions, ordering herself not to give in to self-pity.
She hadn’t closed her eyes for long when the phone rang. Megan, she thought, stop your worrying.
But the caller wasn’t Megan. It was Ashleigh’s new midwife from The Birth Place, Katherine Collins.
“Ms. Logan, there’s a man here at the clinic,” she explained in a rush. “He’s looking for you.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Ashleigh breathed. “You didn’t tell him where I was, did you?”
“Certainly not. Lydia’s on another line, calling the police right now.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Ashleigh sat upright, fighting to stay calm, for the baby’s sake. She placed a protective hand on her belly. “Did he say what he wants?”
“No. But don’t panic. He could just be somebody from the media or something.” But Katherine’s voice didn’t sound too sure.
“What does he look like?”
“Tall, muscular, dark hair. Early thirties, maybe. Actually, he’s sort of decent-looking—handsome, even. Except he’s dressed kind of rough. Threadbare flannel shirt. Worn jeans. Scuffed boots. A heavy five o’clock shadow. But he’s driving a new-looking champagne-colored Lincoln Navigator. I’m looking at it out the window of Lydia’s office, but I can’t make out the tag. Hold on.”
Ashleigh heard Katherine talking to someone, then the midwife came back on the line.
“Lydia just told me that an officer is on his way up to your cabin.”
“Good,” Ashleigh said confidently.
But after she hung up she and her mother waited for the police to arrive like two women anticipating a jury verdict. Pensive. Intermittently clasping hands. Finally Maureen insisted on making hot tea, her cure for everything, but Ashleigh couldn’t even swallow a sip.
What if Megan was right? What if this whole plan to go into hiding turned out to be…ill-conceived? What if her fanatical stalker had traced her to this remote town? Where could she go to be safe then?
It occurred to her that she should have asked Megan for a description of the strange man who had appeared at her door. What was his name? Greg Glazier? She was about to call Megan back when they heard a car engine outside.
Her mother went to look out the front window of the cabin. “It’s the police,” she assured Ashleigh.
The officer, an older guy with a paunch, told the women not to worry, that Officer Eiden had taken the man at the clinic into custody for questioning. He told them he’d stay parked outside until they got word.
The next time the phone rang, Maureen answered it. She said the caller was Miguel Eiden, the handsome cop who’d talked to Ashleigh and Maureen when they’d first arrived in town.
Maureen McGuinness took the phone out on the deck so Ashleigh couldn’t hear. After the cop had assured her he’d keep a close eye on the Coleman cabin while Ashleigh was hiding up there, his tone had shifted, as if he had bad news. Now he was informing her that a man named Gregory McCrae Glazier had tracked her daughter all the way to Enchantment, New Mexico.
And when Officer Eiden told Maureen why Greg Glazier had tracked Ashleigh here, she was glad she’d retreated to the deck. Because it was all she could do to keep from dropping the phone.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAUREEN SAT IN A BOOTH by the wide window of a small coffee shop, watching as the police cruiser rolled up at the curb. At the sight of it, her chest tightened with dread.
She reminded herself that Ashleigh trusted Officer Eiden. And for that matter, so did she. He had shown her the papers on the man from Denver and had convinced her that this man’s story checked out with the sperm bank in California—the same one Ashleigh had used.
But before this man dropped his terrible news on Ashleigh, Maureen had convinced Eiden to arrange this meeting. Her daughter had endured enough stress in the last three days, the last three weeks. Truth be told, for the last five years.
Why did Ashleigh’s life seem to only get more and more complicated? All Maureen McGuinness wanted out of life was for her driven daughter to settle down and be happy and for her type-A husband to finally retire and share some golden years with her.
But Marvin was working harder than ever, and her beautiful, talented daughter kept having one major crisis after another. Chad’s illness had been so hard on Ashleigh, and Maureen had watched her daughter struggle to regain her balance ever since.
Maureen hadn’t approved of this controversial pregnancy, not at all. She’d wanted her daughter to look to a real future, with a real relationship, instead of finding one more way to wallow in the past. She’d wanted Ashleigh to find a good man and enjoy a happy marriage, the way her sister Megan had. But Ashleigh had forged ahead, intrepid as always, making her own tough decisions, executing her own bold plans. Maureen sighed. She did admire her daughter’s spunk.
But now it appeared all of the torture of Ashleigh’s decision had been for naught. This baby, apparently, wasn’t even Chad’s. It was a stranger’s baby.
Maureen’s jaw tightened with resolve as a dark head and a pair of broad shoulders emerged from the passenger’s side of Officer Eiden’s cruiser. They would make the man prove his claims beyond a shadow of a doubt. She supposed the only logical answer was that they would perform paternity testing on the newborn. Ashleigh’s baby. Her grandchild. That man’s baby.
She rubbed her brow, having no idea how to proceed. What was the proper course of action in such a bizarre situation? After all, this was Ashleigh’s child and therefore Ashleigh would have to make any decision about its welfare. Maureen was only the grandmother. Maybe Ashleigh would actually be glad to have a father for her child, if he was decent and kind…. Then a troubling thought struck Maureen. What if this man had been watching Ashleigh on TV and had some kind of thing for her? What if he was the stalker?
No. That didn’t make sense. Eiden had shown her the report. Oh, it was all so confusing. She had to realize she couldn’t make everyone’s life perfect. And if Ashleigh found out that Maureen had secretly met with this man… Maureen felt like she was wading into very deep water here.
She hated leaving Ashleigh alone at The Birth Place, but she trusted Lydia and the midwives to watch out for her, and it was the only way to talk to this Glazier man alone. They didn’t have much time. She was pretending to get milk. She would have to remember to stop at the store before she went back to the clinic. Maureen sighed. She despised subterfuge.
The little bell above the door of the café tinkled as it swung open, and there stood Officer Eiden. From behind him a handsome young man about Ashleigh’s age studied Maureen as curiously as she studied him. His dark hair needed a trim, but he had compassionate gray eyes that conveyed a worried, saddened state of mind. Well, this was a sad situation, wasn’t it? The fleeting thought that this man would probably father pretty babies crossed her mind, but she quickly banished that idea. Ashleigh did not want this man’s baby. She wanted Chad’s baby. What this man was claiming would throw her daughter’s whole world into chaos.
The two men approached her booth, but when the young officer started to speak, she raised a hand to silence him. “Not here.”
She slid from the booth, and with a jerk of her head indicated that they should follow her out onto the café’s wraparound deck, which featured a panoramic view of the mountains. When she was satisfied that the picnic tables out there were unoccupied, she pulled the collar of her jacket up around her ears, folded her arms tightly under her bosom and faced the two men.
“We don’t have much time. My daughter expects me to pick her up at the clinic soon. First of all, let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want my daughter to know we’ve had this conversation.” With an impatience that betrayed her anger, she slapped a silvery strand of hair away from her eyes. “Is that understood?”
The man, the one claiming to be the father of Ashleigh’s child, pushed a lock of his dark hair back against the mountain wind as well, then spoke quietly. “I assume you are Ashleigh Logan’s mother?”
She nodded tightly, flustered that she’d charged ahead without the proper introductions. Normally, she prided herself on her self-control and impeccable manners. But this was not a Junior League tea. This was a squaring off in a strange little town, facing a man who could destroy her daughter’s peace of mind, what little was left of it. A man who could simply be lying, for whatever twisted reason.
“I’m Greg Glazier.” He stuck out a strong, wind-chapped hand, but he quickly withdrew it when Maureen kept hers tightly closed in the folds of her jacket.
“I am Maureen McGuinness,” she said tersely.
He continued in a calm voice. “Thank you for letting Officer Eiden arrange this meeting.”
Eiden had stepped away and propped a boot on the rail of the deck, keeping his back to them.
“I’m not sure I had a choice, considering your outrageous claims.”
The aspen trees beside the deck made a golden flutter, and the pines whispered with a gust of wind that made Maureen shudder.
Seeming to notice her discomfort, the young man called to Eiden, “Is there somewhere where we can sit and talk privately, out of the wind?”
“I’m fine.” She pressed her lips together.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not.”
Maureen examined Greg Glazier more closely. He did look a little wan. His eyes, she noticed again, were kind and sincere. Not the eyes of a liar.
“Greg’s not well,” the cop explained as he stepped up.
“Altitude sickness,” Glazier elaborated. “It’ll pass.”
“I refuse to go anywhere where anyone could overhear us.” Maureen stood firm. “My daughter has endured enough negative publicity and speculation and gossip and stress as it is. I don’t want to take a chance that some hideous rumor might get back to her that might upset her again. And I don’t want any media to get wind of this.”
“I understand that, ma’am,” Greg Glazier replied mildly. “I agree.”
“We can go sit in the squad car,” Eiden offered, in an effort to temper Maureen’s palpable antagonism.
Maureen gave a short nod of agreement, and they rounded the side of the café and descended the plank steps to the sidewalk. Officer Eiden opened the back door of the cruiser for Maureen. “There’s a Plexiglas shield. So I’m afraid you’ll both have to get in the back seat if you want to have a private conversation. But I’ll be right here in the front seat if you need me.”
“Thank you.” Maureen climbed inside.
The space inside the cruiser was cramped, and with his long legs and broad shoulders, Greg Glazier made it seem even more so. As she settled herself next to him, he adjusted his muscular frame and held it stiffly canted so that his knees didn’t crowd Maureen.
Maureen did not waste words on niceties. “What is this about switching the sperm samples, Mr. Glazier?”
“It’s true.” Glazier scrubbed a hand down his handsome face and released a tense breath. “Even though it’s hard to believe. The cryo bank in California contacted me about a month ago.”
“California Fertility Consultants?” Maureen bit her lip. She shouldn’t have given him any additional information. She reminded herself to be careful with this stranger. He could be some kind of weird imposter, trying to get near Ashleigh. He could have made all this up, based on the storm of publicity that Ashleigh’s pregnancy had created. He could even be the stalker, although that seemed unlikely. Apparently he was a former deputy sheriff.
“Yes, ma’am. California Fertility Consultants. They informed me that the mix-up actually occurred way back at the time of…the storage.”
“Five years ago?” Maureen bit her lip again, rueing the slip, but she found this whole story utterly incredible.
“Yes. Your daughter’s husband and I both elected to bank our sperm at the same time, in October of ’98—”
“I know when it was, Mr. Glazier. It was just before my son-in-law started chemotherapy.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t make it.” Again the man’s hand scraped down his face. He was nice-looking, but right now his skin looked pale, clammy. Was that because he was lying? Maureen wondered if Marvin knew anything about this Greg Glazier. She’d have to make it a point to ask him, the next time she caught him between meetings.
“With the passage of time, our family has adjusted to Chad’s death.”
“I know how that is, believe me. And believe me, I don’t want to cause your family any more pain, but you’ve got to hear me out.”
“That’s why I am here.”
“The day the lab received your son-in-law’s samples, my samples from Colorado arrived in California in the same shipment. We used the same doctor in Denver.”
“I see. If I may ask, why did you elect to freeze your…sperm.” Maureen felt genuinely uneasy, having this highly personal conversation with a stranger. “If I may ask.”
Greg swallowed. He shot a look at the back of the cop’s head that told Maureen he was as uncomfortable about having this conversation as she was. “I’d rather not say,” he spoke quietly. “It’s not important now. The point is my samples were somehow confused with Chad’s.”
“But the lab in California told my daughter that they took extra precautions. Each client was given their own separate storage unit. Each storage unit had a duplicate in another location, in another part of the state.”
“Yes, the same process was explained to me.”
“Then how…” Maureen’s voice trailed off. It seemed pointless to argue this. No matter what he said, there would have to be paternity testing when the baby came.
“They didn’t discover the error until the brownout at their main site. When they went for retrieval of the backup samples at the alternative site, they discovered that the ones in both my storage unit and in Chad’s storage unit were actually Chad’s.”
“Which means that both the samples at the main storage facility were yours.”
“Exactly. When they went back and checked the containers that had gone bad during the brownout, they found that both storage tanks—mine and Chad’s—indeed had had my samples in them.”
Maureen covered her mouth with a shaky hand, suddenly seeing how the mishap had happened. “So,” she whispered through her fingers, “they kept all of your samples at the original facility, and sent all of Chad’s samples to the backup facility.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And Ashleigh was impregnated with…”
“Mine.”
Maureen’s tears were hot and angry. “How could they make such a horrid mistake?”
“It’s very rare.” His voice was gentle with compassion. “Like I said, Chad and I used the same doctor in Denver. Our samples were shipped together and they got confused when they divided them up to create the duplicate containers. We would never have known any of this if the brownout hadn’t occurred.”
“Why not?” She dabbed at her eyes. “Weren’t you planning on using your…samples someday?”
“No.” His look became slightly bitter before he amended. “Not unless I remarry.”
“You’re single?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“May I ask why you were storing…do you have some kind of health problem? We are talking about my future grandchild here. It’s something Ashleigh will want to know. She knows all about babies, including all the things that can go wrong.”
“No, ma’am. I’m perfectly healthy, except for this altitude sickness.” His disparaging smile might have been engaging, but Maureen wanted no part of it. His expression grew serious again. “My reasons for storing my sperm—it’s a long story. Let’s just say I wanted to be sure I could have children if that ever became possible.”
“But now…” Maureen drew a sharp breath, realizing another horrible truth.
“Now,” he confirmed sadly, “I have no samples left. All of my…material was destroyed in the brownout.”
“But we still have Chad’s.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s true. And I hope that will be some comfort to your daughter in all of this. But this baby…this baby is mine.”
Maureen sat as still as a stunned bird, staring at the Plexiglas shield, blinking while she absorbed the awful truth. And it was the truth, she was convinced of that now. Something else occurred to her then, and the thought made her angry. “How did you know Ashleigh was the patient who was impregnated with your last remaining sperm? The lab should never have told you that!”
“They had to tell me they…used it. But they wouldn’t tell me her name, at first. I figured it out from all the publicity about her pregnancy. Seems your daughter’s decision to carry her dead husband’s child made quite a human interest story.”
Silently, Maureen damned the media again for what they had done to Ashleigh’s life. “The publicity, I’m afraid, has exposed my daughter to an undesirable element.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Unfortunately, Ashleigh’s situation with this baby has drawn a stalker. And I’m afrai—”
“Wait a minute.” Greg thrust a palm up. “Wait just a damn minute. A stalker? What stalker?”
At the anger in his voice, Maureen flinched.
“I’m sorry.” He immediately softened his tone. “But when somebody uses the word stalker in the same sentence where she’s talking about my baby, my alarm bells go off.”
Maureen understood perfectly.
“What kind of stalker?” He kept his voice calm now.
She supposed, if the baby really was his, he had a right to know about this threat.
“The police think it’s some kind of fanatic. They only know his first name. Simon. We don’t have a last name. He first called in to the Q and A segment of Ashleigh’s show months ago. He seemed obsessed with the topic of babies and fertility. He started saying strange, startling things, trying to engage Ashleigh in an on-air debate. He expressed some truly bizarre attitudes about things like fertility treatments and surrogate mothers and human cloning. The producers figured out he was a nutcase and wouldn’t take any more of his calls. You have to understand—” she gave Greg Glazier a pleading look when she saw that his jaw was tightening in anger “—almost every media personality attracts these types.”
“When did he start to bother her?”
“A couple of months ago. He’s the reason Ashleigh finally took herself off the air and let someone else do the show. At least for now.”
“Why do the police think he’s stalking her?”
“Well, when Ashleigh’s pregnancy became public, this Simon tried to call the show for one reason or another almost every week. He seemed to think Ashleigh had no right to become a single mother. Of course, her staff never let him get through to her, except once when he used a different name.”
“Did he call himself John?”
“Yes.” Maureen was surprised. How did he know this?
“I, uh, I taped her last show.” He seemed embarrassed, admitting that. “When I became suspicious about the mix-up. So this guy is the caller Ashleigh had to cut off.”
Maureen nodded. “Mr. Glazier, do you have any idea how distressing it is to be a public figure, having your privacy invaded all the time?”
“What else had this stalker done?”
“E-mails. Calls to her home phone. Notes.”
“What kind of notes?”
“Messages left at the front desk at the studio, on the windshield of her car, in her mailbox at her condo. It seemed like he was trying to show her that he knew her movements and that he could get very close to her if he wanted to. And the content—very creepy stuff. Simon, or should I say whoever wrote the notes, seems to think that what Ashleigh has done is evil. He threatened Ashleigh…and her baby.”
“Threatened?”
“I can’t remember the exact words. But this person is deranged—some kind of pseudoscientist. He seemed to think that what Ashleigh was doing was unnatural, that she should be punished. That she doesn’t deserve to be the mother of her baby. The police seemed convinced that he could do her real harm.”
“So, that’s why she’s hiding up here in the mountains.”
“Yes. We had to choose our hiding place carefully, given Ashleigh’s condition, but we also hoped to get far enough away that he couldn’t locate us.”
“Oh, man,” Greg sighed. “It must have freaked you out when I showed up in town.”
“Yes. It alarmed the people at The Birth Place, too. But though the police have no real idea what this Simon person looks like, they do know his voice, and it’s nothing like yours.”
“I’m so sorry for the stress I’ve caused you.” He turned his kind, sincere eyes on Maureen. “I thought she might have chosen this remote place because she was hiding from me—because she already knew about the baby.”
“No. This is the first we’ve heard of you.”
“So the people in California didn’t tell her there’d been a mistake, or even about the brownout?”
“No. The lab most certainly did not contact my daughter.” Maureen eyed Greg Glazier. “Why didn’t they?” She had a feeling this young man knew the answer to that question.
“I, uh, managed to convince them to agree to let me be the one to tell the mother. I thought it might be easier if she met me—”
“Exactly how did you convince them?” Maureen interrupted, thinking he’d probably used money or influence or some such thing.
“I agreed not to sue them for the mix-up in exchange for letting me find Ashleigh in my own way and tell her the truth in my own time.”
Maureen’s eyes went wide, as the whole situation became suddenly clear to her. This young man had been as injured as Ashleigh had been. Ashleigh was not carrying Chad’s child as she believed, but this Greg Glazier would never have any other children. At least Ashleigh could still have Chad’s child in the future if that’s what she chose. Both Ashleigh and this man had been robbed of their dreams. Both would be completely justified in seeking legal recompense.
Greg Glazier looked up at her with an apology in his eyes, waiting for her to speak. Here was a man who valued his child, and perhaps even her daughter’s feelings, more than money, more than winning, more than being justified or proved right in a court of law.
“Mr. Glazier, forgive me for being so personal, but you have to admit this is a highly personal situation here.”
He swallowed and nodded.
“You are obviously a handsome, successful person.” Like my daughter, Maureen thought, and a fleeting notion occurred to her that this man might be a good match for Ashleigh. “Someday, surely, you will marry and build a life with some equally attractive and successful young woman. Surely, under the circumstances, you don’t want to complicate your future by laying claim to the baby of some other woman, a woman you don’t even know.”
“This is not some other woman’s baby.” A fierce determination undergirded his words. “This is my baby.”
“This baby means that much to you?”
“This baby…” He swallowed again and the sound was dry, desperate. “Mrs. McGuinness, this baby is the only person I have left in this world.”
Maureen stared at the young man who threatened to turn her daughter’s life inside out. “I have to think about this,” she said, finding she was barely able to draw a full breath. “I have to discuss the best course of action with Ashleigh’s doctor, if that’s possible without her consent.” She rubbed her brow.
“I understand,” he said very quietly, with a slight frown forming between those dark brows. “But you have to understand that I also have to do what I think is right. I’m still going to try in every way I can to make contact with your daughter.”
Maureen stared at him, hoping he wasn’t remembering that she’d said Ashleigh was at the clinic. As she stared at his strong profile, it struck her again that it was a shame Ashleigh couldn’t have met him under different circumstances.
“I have to go,” she said.
There were no door handles on the inside, so Greg tapped on the Plexiglas barrier and Officer Eiden got out and opened the door of the cruiser. Maureen scrambled out like a fleeing prisoner.
“Goodbye” was all she said to the cop before marching down the sidewalk.
“I’ll get in the front,” Greg told Eiden as he scooted across the plastic-covered seat.
Maureen looked back before rounding the corner of the café. She saw Greg Glazier unfold his long frame and step out into the New Mexico sunshine with the slow, steady movements of a man who could wait forever, if necessary, to get the one thing he really wanted.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FIRST THING SIMON FISCHER did when he got to Enchantment was locate the clinic called The Birth Place. On the way here from Denver, his car, a battered old Ford Crown Victoria, had started smoking from the tailpipe, and he wondered how far he would be able to make it once he hit the road with the baby. Mexico? That would be good.
In his trunk he had baby things he’d bought at a thrift store. He’d made up a fake e-mail address and sent one last message to Lydia Kane at The Birth Place before he had emptied his bank accounts and sold his only item of value—his computer. Then, he’d bought some photography equipment at the same pawn shop.
None of that mattered now. Simon was on a mission.
He sat in his car in front of the clinic, while the oily exhaust pumped out of the tailpipe and his tortured mind pumped out his risky, thrilling plans.
Simon felt his mind was his best weapon. When he’d discovered that Ashleigh Logan had left Denver, like a computer quick-searching files, his mind had fed him the name of this place. And then Simon remembered—oh, Simon Fischer had a great, long, ferocious memory—the All About Babies episode where that Lydia Kane woman and the two midwives had been guests. They were from this remote birthing clinic in the New Mexico mountains. A small town called Enchantment. With only a little time on the Net, Simon’s search efforts were richly rewarded. He printed the maps to Enchantment, counting on two things: Ashleigh Logan would feel safe in this remote place; and these women at the clinic wouldn’t mind a little publicity.
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Darlene Graham
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: She′ll do anything to protect this babyWhen TV personality Ashleigh Logan became pregnant by artificial insemination of her deceased husband′s sperm, she ignited a media frenzy and attracted a stalker. So she′s sequestered herself in the mountains of New Mexico, under the watchful eyes of the midwives of The Birth Place. Here she can be safe until the baby arrives.And so will heGreg Glazier doesn′t have an easy time tracking down Ashleigh. And when he finally finds her, he can′t tell her his news–not until she′s further along in her pregnancy. Because what he′s got to say might come as a bit of a shock–he′s the real father of her baby.