His Miracle Baby

by Karen Sandler

  With a hand lightly pressed to the small of her back, he escorted her to the dining room. Mrs. Singh smiled and greeted Shani as she set salads on the table before hurrying back to the kitchen.

  The salad, butter lettuce with pears, dried cranberries and candied walnuts, took the edge off Shani’s appetite. She nearly inhaled the plateful, and one of the still-warm whole wheat rolls besides.

  When she caught Logan staring at her, she flushed. “Sorry. Based on past experience, I seem to be either starving or queasy when I’m pregnant.”

  “No need to apologize. I’m glad you’re able to eat.”

  “You might not be so glad when I’m big as a house.” She’d said it lightly, as a joke, but Logan’s expression was serious.

  “But the baby will be growing along with you. Arianna hardly gained an ounce.”

  Shani’s heart squeezed tight. A baby was all her friend had wanted. She would have been thrilled to watch her body expanding to accommodate her child.

  As Shani herself had been, eight years ago. Except sorrow had counterbalanced that joy. She could never allow herself to feel happy without reminding herself she was one day closer to the moment she would give up her son.

  Shani pushed aside the memories. “Was there something else you wanted to talk about tonight? A reason you invited me to dinner?”

  He tore apart a roll, the tendons on the backs of his hands taut. “Can’t I just invite you?”

  “I don’t understand what our relationship is supposed to be. We’re not friends…we don’t seem to like each other enough for that. And I refuse to consider this surrogacy a business arrangement. So why are we here together?”

  He set the roll on his bread plate. “I’ve told you before, I want to be part of this pregnancy. To do that, I have no choice but to be with you.”

  The way he said it, it sounded to Shani as if spending time with her was the last thing he wanted to do. The thought stung. “In that case, I agree. We’ll need to see more of each other.”

  “Dinners together make the most sense. I won’t obligate you every night, can’t promise myself due to my own commitments. But if you’re not otherwise occupied, I want you here for dinner.”

  It wasn’t an unreasonable request, but Shani chafed at Logan telling her what to do. “Sometimes I’m tired in the evenings when I get home from school. Too tired to want to come over here.”

  “Then I’ll have Mrs. Singh bring dinner to the cottage. We’ll eat together there, catch up on what’s happening with you. It won’t take more than an hour.”

  Even an hour with Logan could be exhausting by itself. Still, she told him, “I suppose that would work.”

  Mrs. Singh came in to clear the salad, then a few moments later brought them plates of beef bourguignonne. With the tumble of confusion inside her, Shani thought she wouldn’t be able to eat another bite. But the savory fragrance of beef and mushrooms overruled her emotions.

  “There was another reason I asked you over tonight. Beyond the issue of keeping tabs on the progress of your pregnancy.” Logan held the basket of rolls out to her. “That box in the great room—I wanted to give it to you.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Some of Arianna’s things. A necklace, some other odds and ends she’d collected over the years.” He stabbed a piece of beef, swirled it in the rich sauce. “And her diary.”

  Chapter Six

  The moment he told her about the file box in the great room, Logan could see Shani was eager to look through it. She finished her dinner quickly, then waited with thinly disguised impatience as he took his last few bites.

  “Go ahead,” he told her, picking up the plates to take to Mrs. Singh. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  But when he set the dishes on the kitchen counter, he couldn’t bring himself to immediately join Shani. Instead, he found a vantage point just inside the kitchen where he could watch her, to see her reaction when she opened the box.

  He’d kept the file box in a corner of the walk-in closet in his bedroom for the year Arianna had been gone. It contained the handful of things he could neither give away nor leave on display as a remembrance of her. The items in that cardboard box each had a significance to Arianna, a specialness he didn’t always understand. It had seemed best to simply store them out of sight, perhaps for a day when he would be able to make a better decision as to their disposition.

  Most of the rest of Arianna’s things, he’d given away to charity—her clothes and shoes, her books, a collection of unicorns she’d kept in her sitting room. Then there was the handful of belongings he’d arranged to have sent to Shani—a few pieces of jewelry, the childhood portrait, a silver brush-and-comb set—which Arianna had specifically mentioned during their discussion about settling her affairs and the disposition of the embryos if something happened to her.

  Only after he’d disposed of the rest of Arianna’s personal effects had it occurred to him he should have called Shani, to let her go through Arianna’s things, to see if there was anything she wanted. He was glad he’d at least thought to offer her these last few mementos. It seemed such a paltry gift compared to what she was giving him—his child.

  Shani had the lid off the box, but still hadn’t yet taken anything out. He could see from where he stood just inside the entry to the kitchen the mix of emotions on her face, the barest glint of tears in her eyes. Seeing her on the edge of crying hit him as hard now as it had earlier. He’d failed so many times to comfort Arianna; he couldn’t just leave Shani to deal with the grief alone.

  He headed out into the great room and sat beside Shani on the sofa, a hand on her back. Touching her was problematic; his body responded to her no matter how much he told himself he was out of line. But he could ignore the X-rated messages his body was feeding his brain. He wasn’t a damn teenager.

  Shani had pulled out a silver chain with a silver-and-amethyst unicorn pendant. She cradled the necklace in the palm of her hand as if it was the most precious treasure in the world.

  “I gave this to her,” Shani said, her voice husky from emotion. “On her thirtieth birthday.”

  He remembered seeing it around Arianna’s neck one day, had complimented her on how nice it looked on her. She’d smiled, said thank you, but didn’t mention its source. Maybe because she knew about the friction between him and Shani. Maybe because she so obviously preferred it to the expensive gold-and-diamond earrings he’d given her that year.

  “She loved that necklace,” Logan told Shani. “She wore it all the time.”

  Taking in a deep breath, Shani glanced over at him with a wobbly smile. “She’d wear it when we were together, but I thought she was just being polite. Sometimes it was hard to know what was going on inside her head.”

  That surprised him. “I thought you two talked about everything.”

  “We did. But she kept secrets, even from me.”

  He’d thought he was the only one Arianna hid herself from. That she held back from the one friend she’d allowed so deeply into her life astounded him.

  Shani removed three small tissue-wrapped bundles and peeled away the paper. She set aside the glass paperweight swirled with vivid jewel colors, then smiled in turn at the cat carved from blue stone and the pewter dragon on a quartz pedestal.

  “Did you give her those?” Logan asked.

  Shani shook her head. “We’d go to craft fairs sometimes on Saturdays. She bought the cat and dragon there. You should recognize this, though.” She held out the paperweight.

  “I know she kept it on her desk.” He took it from Shani, the smooth glass orb cool against his skin.

  “You bought this for her. Not long after you married, according to what Arianna told me.”

  With the heavy glass resting in his palm, the memory returned. He’d found it on a trip to Ohio. He’d spent the morning with a venture capitalist interested in investing in Good Sport and had been certain the visit had gone badly. It hadn’t—that infusion of cash kept the company afloat anothe
r year. On his way back to the hotel, he’d happened upon the glass-works, and had gone into their gift shop. The glass orb, with its tangle of color inside, had reminded him of Arianna.

  “It surprises me that she told you about this. I thought she didn’t like it. She kept it hidden away on her desk.”

  “It was the one thing you’d given her out of the blue, for no reason. That meant a lot to her.”

  Unexpected gifts—if only it had been as simple as that to make his late wife happy. But he suspected he would have found a way to give her the wrong gift.

  Only the diary remained in the box. Shani lifted the leather-bound volume out and set it on her lap. “Did you know she kept a diary?”

  “She started it a couple of years before she died. The few times I caught her writing in it, she’d put it away the moment she saw me.”

  Shani tugged lightly at the strap holding the diary shut. “It’s locked. Do you have the key?”

  “I don’t know where she kept the key. It would be easy enough to break the lock or cut the strap.”

  “No.” Shani hugged the book to her chest. “That wouldn’t be right. I’m not even sure I should be reading it.”

  “I emptied her desk, but I can look through it again for the key, if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” She set the diary back in the box, then rewrapped the cat and dragon. “You should keep the paperweight.”

  It sat heavily in his hand, far beyond the few ounces it weighed. He secured the tissue paper around it and returned it to the box.

  Shani’s arm pressed against his as she replaced the cat and dragon figures. She picked up the necklace, cupping it in her palm.

  He took it from her. “Let me put it on you.”

  It was a foolhardy move. The noise in the kitchen had quieted, which meant Mrs. Singh had gone to her room for the night. He and Shani were essentially alone here, nothing but his own self-control to keep him from doing something stupid.

  Undoing the clasp, he parted the chain and brought it around the back of Shani’s neck. He couldn’t help but touch her now. As his fingers fumbled with the slide on the clasp, his hand brushed the tender nape of her neck again and again. Her skin seemed hotter with each point of contact.

  When he finally got the slide open and fastened the clasp, he released the chain. But he couldn’t seem to pull away. His hands settled on the soft wool of her sweater, his thumbs along either side of her neck. With her head bowed, there was an inch of bare skin between where her hair ended and the neckline of her sweater. Just enough room to press a kiss.

  He would have pulled his hands away, would have risen to his feet and out of temptation’s reach, but for one small sound. Shani’s soft sigh, her breath catching as she released it. Then she shifted, not away from him, but closer, increasing the contact of his hands.

  When he lowered his mouth to her soft skin, stroked it along the curve where her neck and shoulder met, she sighed again and tipped her head back. He trailed kisses along the slender column of her throat, to the angle of her jaw, then the lobe of her ear. He touched that tender lobe with just the tip of his tongue, the briefest contact before he drew away again. Her breathy moan sent sensations shooting to the base of his spine.

  “Logan.”

  He could barely hear his name falling from her lips. He hesitated, thinking she might want him to stop, but she leaned closer again, her hand falling lightly on his thigh. Each fingertip seemed to burn through the fabric of his khakis to the heated skin beneath. His flesh, already hard and aching, seemed to swell even more at her touch.

  She turned her face toward him, angling her mouth toward his. He gave in to the urge he had ignored since that first day he’d seen her in his office. He brushed his lips against hers. Her mouth was even warmer, even softer than he’d imagined. He wanted desperately to dive inside, to taste the sweetness within.

  The slightest tension in Shani’s shoulders, a faint hesitation, brought him back to sudden sanity. He drew back, his mouth still moist from hers. Her eyes opened and she stared up at him, looking as stunned as he felt. Then she jumped to her feet, stumbling against the coffee table as she backed away.

  “I should go back to the cottage.” Her hands shook as she put the lid on the file box. “I need to get into work early tomorrow.”

  Logan rose, feeling like an idiot, appalled at the way he’d touched Shani, kissed her. He ought to apologize, say something, but she wouldn’t even look at him.

  She wrapped her arms around the lightweight box and picked it up, holding it in front of her like a shield. “Thank you for the…for dinner. For giving me Arianna’s things.”

  He followed her to the door, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow night,” he said as he opened the door for her. “As we agreed.”

  She nodded and slipped out. He followed her onto the porch. “I’ll walk you to the cottage.”

  “No!” Hooking the box under one arm, she hurried down the steps. “It’s only a few feet. I’m fine.”

  She was right, of course. He could clearly see the gravel path between here and the small guesthouse. Outdoor lights illuminated the way. He could keep an eye on her until she was safely inside.

  But he wanted to be with her. Wanted to walk close enough beside her that he could feel her warmth, take in her scent, hear the sound of her breathing. Completely wrong, completely inappropriate, but his awareness of her had somehow invaded him to his core. It was difficult to think of anything else.

  But he stayed on the porch, followed her every step to her door, raised his hand to answer her wave just before she disappeared inside the cottage. Then he returned to his own lonely house, with traces of Shani lingering everywhere.

  For the next few weeks, as Shani worked in the mornings at MiniSport, and during her classes, memories of Logan’s kiss persisted, almost as real as the act itself. The tantalizing images that danced in her mind were the worst in the evenings when she shared her dinner with Logan, when the subject of her fantasies sat across from her at the cottage’s small kitchen table. But her body reacted to him even when he wasn’t there, when the smallest thought of him flitted into her consciousness.

  And when they shared dinner, Logan’s presence seemed to charge the small cottage with electricity, sharpening Shani’s hunger, intensifying the taste of the food on her plate. At the same time, she could barely remember what she ate, if it had been meat or fish or chicken, one of Mrs. Singh’s Indian specialties or an ordinary hamburger.

  The second ultrasound at the eight-week mark further reassured Shani and Logan that the baby was developing well, that they could soon consider the pregnancy an ordinary one. As ordinary as the unusual arrangement could be.

  Temptation to open Arianna’s diary had been difficult to resist since she brought it to the cottage. It was more than simple curiosity. Shani wanted to know if Arianna had felt the same when she’d kissed her husband, if she’d found his mere presence as distracting as Shani did.

  Arianna hadn’t shared any of the intimate details of her marriage with Shani. But maybe she wrote about them in the diary. Maybe somewhere Arianna noted that in spite of Logan’s sometimes cold demeanor, women who spent time with him found him irresistible. That the emotions Shani was experiencing were simple lust and nothing more.

  When she’d found herself weakening, reconsidering her vow to open the diary only if she located the key, she removed the leather book from her nightstand drawer. After considering and rejecting several options for where to hide it, she stuffed the diary between the mattress and box springs, underneath the bedskirt.

  On the Monday of Shani’s fourth week of employment at MiniSport, after enduring her usual morning injections, she watched for Logan’s departure before heading out to work herself. First thing in the morning, she seemed to have fewer defenses against Logan, so she didn’t want to chance confronting him. She’d be seeing him later, anyway; the MiniSport team would be convening at Good Sport for
an all-hands lunch.

  She’d come to love her job at MiniSport, so much so that she wondered if it would be possible to continue working there after graduation. But she found it difficult to focus on her work with the prospect of seeing Logan at lunchtime looming over her, even though the setting would be a crowded meeting on employee benefit changes.

  So far, no one knew about Logan’s arrangement with her. At eight weeks, she’d only put on a few pounds. Even the most discerning would never guess she was pregnant. Still, Shani feared that someone would somehow divine the connection between her and Logan, would see something in the way Shani looked at him. Would see something in her face, in her eyes, that would give away her secret.

  Eventually, her pregnancy would show. She and Logan had agreed they would reveal the truth as needed. First, she’d simply let people know that she was acting as a gestational carrier. Later they could announce the child was Logan’s.

  Since she had to go directly from the luncheon at Good Sport to Sac State, Shani had to take her own car rather than carpool as a few of the others were doing. They left in a laughing group while she stayed behind to put a few finishing touches on a spreadsheet. After ten minutes, she headed out to the parking lot.

  As she waited to pull into traffic, she was surprised to see a familiar car stopped in the next driveway down. The owner of the dark green Nissan sedan apparently lived in Logan’s neighborhood and worked somewhere in Folsom. She’d first seen the car a couple of weeks ago and noticed it traced the same path to work as hers. Since then, she’d seen the car three or four times. Sometimes she had the feeling it was following her, but whenever she reached MiniSport, the sedan continued on, no doubt to one of the myriad office buildings along East Bidwell.

  The car had stopped well back from the street. Was the driver waiting for someone to exit the building next door? She tried to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face, but suddenly, he gunned the car’s engine, then veered up Bidwell with a screech of tires.