and enjoy life. But Colleen and I hit a roadblock right out of the gate. She was thirty-two when we started trying to have kids, and we didn’t think there would be a problem. But after two years, she still wasn’t pregnant. We both had all kinds of testing done. At age thirty-four then, she had an elevated follicle stimulating hormone level. The specialist told us as she grew older and those levels rose, the likelihood of having genetically abnormal eggs also escalated. So we decided to try in vitro with an egg donor.”
He’d thought about this over and over…analyzed every step. “Going back over everything that happened, I wonder if we weren’t meant to be childless. The testing, the in vitro, was tough on our marriage. When Colleen stroked out during the delivery process, I felt as if we’d gone against fate or something.”
Gazing into Sara’s eyes, he saw that she understood, maybe because of the losses she’d suffered.
She reached out and touched his hand. “You can’t think that.”
The contact was like fire, and he jerked his hand away. He’d loved his wife, but here he was, talking about her and his marriage, yet feeling some sort of chemistry with this woman he didn’t even know.
He bet the chemistry would quit when he questioned her about the money she received for donating her eggs. Maybe she did it to subsidize her high-powered career.
“Why did you donate your eggs? Did you need the money for college?” He tried to keep his voice non-judgmental. She might tell him it was none of his business.
She looked down at her hands and for a moment he thought maybe she felt guilty about it. After all, she could have used the ten thousand on a new car.
But then Sarah lifted her gaze to his, and the emotion in her eyes told him something else was coming…something he never expected.
“My mom became ill. She needed a bone marrow transplant but that treatment was considered experimental with her condition. Her insurance company wouldn’t pay.”
“Ten thousand dollars wouldn’t be nearly enough for that!”
“No, it wasn’t. But our church began holding fund-raisers. It seemed everyone in town wanted to help. But even with that, we were short on the down payment. The money I received along with the rest enabled my mom to start treatment.”
He’d been wrong about Sara’s motives and so had Ben. Chances were good they’d wanted to think the worst of her. That would make the whole situation easier…easier to push her out of Kyle’s life. But the woman before him had been willing to sacrifice for her mother. And after all that, tragedy had struck again.
“Tell me about your accident,” he requested gently.
“Do you really want to know the details?”
No, he didn’t. But for some reason he felt it was essential he gathered all the facts about Sara Hobart. Maybe he could figure her out then and what she truly wanted.
“Does it bother you to talk about it?”
“No.” She amended her answer. “Yes. Just when I think I’ve put it behind me, I remember I can never have children and it’s all there again.”
“I read the account of it on the Internet,” he admitted.
“It’s so cut and dry in the newspaper, isn’t it? A driver under the influence of cold medication passed out, jumped the median strip and plowed into me.” She took a deep breath. “I’m lucky to be alive. Lucky I don’t remember the actual accident or the ambulance trip to the hospital. But I remember everything from surgery on. Most of all, when the doctor told me he had to perform a hysterectomy.”
Nathan knew how much he’d wanted to be a dad. What if he’d gone to bed one night and awakened in the morning to a stranger telling him he could never father a child. He could hardly imagine how devastated Sara must have been.
Sara rearranged herself in her chair, took a few swallows of her milk and then admitted, “When I donated my eggs in exchange for the money, I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. I know the money was supposed to compensate me for my time, the physical distress to my body and all of that, but taking it bothered me. Still, it prolonged my mom’s life for five years. I had all these extra days and hours and minutes to spend with her. I’ll never regret that.”
“I think I hear a ‘but,’” Nathan replied gruffly.
“My career had always been my ambition, my vocation, my life. It gave me energy and purpose even throughout mom’s illness. Because of it, we could keep up with the bills and I could give mom what she needed. I could focus on a business that had somehow gotten into trouble—either with a lawsuit against it or red tape tangles—and escape for a time before I had to face the fact again that mom was slipping away. But…after my accident and the hysterectomy, like you, I tried to find meaning in everything that had happened, and I couldn’t. My career didn’t mean what it had before. It was all just too confusing to try to figure out. And I had to know if I had a child out there.”
Although he wanted to separate himself from Sara and her interference in his life, he could understand her reasoning and her longing. Nathan ate his sandwiches in silence. Once in a while, she sipped her milk, looked over at him, then glanced away.
He had the feeling they’d shared a little bit too much personal information too soon. He never talked to anyone about Colleen, what they’d gone through, what he’d felt after she and Mark had died. Why now? Why this woman?
Because she might be Kyle’s mother.
No matter how much he wanted to eradicate that fact, he kept bumping into it.
Finished eating, he stood and took his dish and glass over to the sink. Sara did the same. Unfortunately, they reached for the handle to the dishwasher at the same time. Their fingers tangled and this time neither of them pulled away. When Nathan gazed into her eyes, he felt a churning inside of him. It was uncomfortable, unwelcome and totally unsettling. He was standing bare chested and barefoot, with only sleeping shorts between him and her cotton nightshirt. The impulse to kiss her was so strong he had to close his eyes. He took a step back, and when he opened them again, he saw she had done the same thing. She was standing in the corner, both hands around her mug.
He opened the dishwasher, dropped in his plate and glass and waited for her to put her mug in.
“I have to rinse it,” she said softly.
When he lifted the door to close it, he didn’t step away fast enough. The next second she was there at the sink beside him, his body practically touching hers. She didn’t wear perfume, yet she did use a shampoo that smelled fruity. Standing this close, looking down at her, he found his gaze going to the V between her breasts under the nightshirt. He knew he should look away. He really should. But he hadn’t gazed at a woman in an intimate way in five long years. His desire and passion and need had been frozen. Now it all woke up and practically bowled him over.
Sara was biting her lower lip, and he was fighting for…what? Control? Composure? Propriety? He swallowed, mentally pouring freezing water over his libido, and turned away from her.
“I’ll be leaving for the airport around seven,” he called over his shoulder.
“Nathan?”
He stopped,
