on a woman ASAP.”
She laughed. “Is this personal or business?”
“Personal, but it’s not what you think.”
“Too bad. What’s her name?”
“Laura Ashley Morgen with an ‘e.’ She may live in Hale.”
“Do you want a partial or full report?”
“Everything you can find.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Dianne said.
“Great. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Something’s come up. Can you clear my calendar for the rest of today?”
“It’s done. Do you want me to cancel your meeting with that Johnson boy and the high school counselor or reschedule?”
“Go ahead and reschedule as soon as I have an opening. That kid is headed for trouble unless we can get him to find a new set of friends.”
“If anyone can reach him, you can.”
“Thanks. I wish I felt that confident.”
“Who is this Laura Ashley Morgen?”
He considered her question. Dianne had a penchant for being nosey, but this was personal. “You tell me.”
Back at his office, Hunter spent the next six hours thinking about the situation. Even though he’d had nothing to do with the clinic error, he knew everyone, including his family, would fear he had gone back to his old ways of drinking and carousing. Given his past, he really couldn’t blame them. He couldn’t expect them to believe those days were over. Forever.
He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his burning eyes with his thumb and forefinger, then reread the clinic’s report for the twentieth time. Patient: Laura Ashley Morgen. Sperm donor: Hunter Morgan. He punched in his brother’s speed dial number, needing to talk to the one person who would shoot straight without judging him. But after realizing how news of the baby would hurt Jared, Hunter hung up.
He scanned the report Dianne had given him as she’d left for the day. Since moving to Hale a year ago, Ashley Morgen had been employed at Barnett & Williams. How ironic she should work for the defense firm that opposed him on most cases. Fate obviously had a cruel sense of humor. His gaze skimmed over the information. He paused. Dread knotted his gut. His heart raced. He held his breath and glanced at it once more. Marital status: single.
A sick feeling replaced the knot in his stomach. He scrubbed a hand over his face and swore. Events from his past rushed at him. There hadn’t been a day in the last fifteen years when he hadn’t mourned the loss of his unborn baby. He’d been the only one to grieve, a fact that had irreparably stretched his already-strained relationship with his father to the breaking point. Hunter had never been able to be the perfect son his dad had wanted. By the time Hunter had become a teenager, he’d given up trying to please his dad and turned rebellious. He’d done things to annoy his dad like spinning his tires in front of Buck’s law office. He’d even tried to outrun the police once. It all seemed so long ago.
Now, despite Hunter’s diligence to use protection, he had fathered a child with a woman he’d never met. A single woman who would likely have to struggle to get by. A woman who, without regard for the hell she would put him through, had made him a father, when that was something he hadn’t thought he would ever be ready to endure again. Especially not now when he still awoke sometimes at night with tears in his eyes over the child he had never had a chance to hold.
When Hunter had agreed to let his brother raise any child resulting from Lauren’s fertilization, it was because he’d known they would take great care of the baby. But more than that, he couldn’t bear to see his brother suffering the same want of a child that would never be. Even though donating his sperm would make him an uncle, godfather and part of the family, the decision had been much more difficult than he’d expected. But this situation was entirely different. He knew nothing about this woman, except for a few impersonal facts. Hunter had made a hell of a lot of mistakes in his life. He wouldn’t make another. Not when an innocent child was involved. His unborn child.
Ms. Morgen wouldn’t like his interference. By this time tomorrow, she would likely hate him. Hell, if the situation were reversed, he would pull together a brutal team of lawyers who would go for the jugular. But the clinic had set things in motion when they’d used Hunter’s sperm without his knowledge. If he was more like his father, he would put his feelings on hold and view this as an inconvenience. But he wasn’t like his father.
Fifteen years ago, he’d been way too young. A kid who had no say in his future much less a child’s. Back then he could only watch as his and Courtney’s parents had decided what was best. Hunter’s father had even prepared voluntary relinquishment papers for Hunter and Courtney to sign. Now Hunter was a grown man who knew that sometimes all the medical technology in the world couldn’t stop a woman from miscarrying. This time he would have a say. This time his father couldn’t force him to sign relinquishment papers. He would go to any length to see that this stranger safely delivered his child. Then he would get custody because unlike his father, Hunter intended to be there for his child.
Tomorrow he would pay Laura Ashley Morgen a visit. She needed to know he wouldn’t walk away from the child he had fathered.
Despite not wanting to take a child from its mother, he intended to have a say in any decision involving his child. The only way to make sure that happened was to seek full custody. He didn’t want to hurt this woman, but this time he would take care of his baby.
He had lost one when Courtney had miscarried their child in her fourth month. He wouldn’t lose another.
“I’m Hunter Morgan. I’m the father of your baby.”
Laura Ashley Morgen stared at the man she recognized as the assistant district attorney. She couldn’t think, couldn’t accept what he had just said. No one but the clinic knew she was pregnant. “No,” she said as a wave of dizziness made the room spin.
“Aw, hell. I knew I should have waited and talked to you at home tonight, but was anxious and afraid you’d run if you learned what had happened at the clinic.” Hunter swept Ashley up into his strong arms, despite her protests, and settled her in a conference room chair. He pushed her hair back and gave her a searching look with blue eyes that seemed to see into her soul, then he frowned as if not liking what he saw there. “Talk to me, Laura. Are you okay?”
Without waiting for her answer, he scooped ice into a plastic cup and filled it with water from a beverage tray she’d earlier carried into the conference room.
Recovering from the shock of his words, Ashley realized just how close Hunter Morgan stood and what he had called her. “Ashley,” she managed to say. “I go by Ashley.”
He nodded, then pressed the cup to her lips. “Drink this.”
Ashley sipped, not that he gave her much choice as he tipped the cup. Once the room stopped turning, she pulled away and drew a shaky breath, noticing that what she’d initially thought was anger in his eyes had been quickly replaced by concern.
His sudden lack of arrogance surprised her almost as much as the claim he’d made. She didn’t know a lot about Hunter Morgan, but hadn’t thought him the type to go out of his way for others. Even more surprising was her noticing something personal about the man she’d come to think of as aggressive, condescending,
