way around, Scotty got to the point, and dropped a bomb that rocked Conner’s world. He wanted to know if Conner would consider fathering a baby for them. He figured that they looked enough alike that no one would ever know any different, and Conner was the only man alive he would trust with this—the only man he would ever consider as a sperm donor.
It had knocked Conner for one hell of a loop. And he was never sure how long he’d sat there, staring at his brother, feeling as if solid ground had been blown out from underneath him. It was as if his mind had locked on Scotty’s words, and it had seemed like forever before he’d been able to get his mind in gear, to ask his brother how Abby felt about this. Scotty had assured Conner that Abby was fine with it.
Feeling as if his whole existence had been turned upside down, Conner had told Scotty he needed some time to think about it. And he had stayed up all that night, thinking what it would be like, knowing she was carrying his child, knowing that a part of him was lodged deep inside of her. It nearly killed him at first.
Then slowly, so slowly, the possibility of his being able to give her his child began to ease that awful hole in his chest—that hole that had become a part of him. And he had realized that part of the burden of loving her was that he could never do anything to validate it. And now he had been handed his chance. He could give her the baby she wanted so much. And slowly everything changed, and the thought of his child growing inside of her gave him the first peace he’d had in a very long time.
It had been as if Abby knew he’d spent the night wrestling with the request. Because long before anyone was up, she had come down to the kitchen, where he was hunched over the table, working his way through yet another cup of coffee. Her hair had been wild around her face, and she’d worn a fuzzy blue housecoat with the belt pulled tight around her. She had sat down across from him, and they had talked. And she had told him, with tears in her eyes, how badly she wanted a baby, and why. If he hadn’t already made up his mind, he would have taken one look at the desperate longing in her eyes, and he would have made it up then. With emotion cramping his throat, he told her he’d be honored to do it.
It had been one hell of an experience—when he flew to Chicago to visit their fertility clinic. And no one would ever know what it had been like, shut in that tiny room, doing what he needed to do, everything he felt for her spilling out in that single donation. He had been such a damned mess afterward, he had gone straight to the airport, phoning Scotty from there. John Calhoun had already been diagnosed with bone cancer, and Conner had used that as a cover, making an excuse that some problems had cropped up at the ranch, and he had to get right home. He hadn’t been able to face his brother. And he sure in hell hadn’t been able to face her.
Ten months later, Cody John Calhoun was born, and sixteen months after that, Sarah Jane Calhoun had arrived. And it had been as if those two kids had given Conner somewhere to place all the emotions he had been carrying around inside of him. He would have gladly laid down his life for either one of them, and somehow their existence made everything right. He had never permitted himself to think of them as his. They were Abby’s kids. Always Abby’s. They had been his gift to her, and because of that, he’d never allowed himself to think of them as anything but his niece and nephew.
And along with that acceptance came something he had never expected. The hole in his chest had healed over. It didn’t mean that he didn’t get damned lonely at times, to the point where he would make trips out of town to find a little temporary companionship. And it sure in hell didn’t mean he had gotten over her. He would love her until the day he died. But it made a huge difference, knowing that he had given her the two babies she had wanted so much. It meant he could get through one day after another, almost content with his life. Almost.
The midnight chime of the old grandfather clock in the hallway brought Conner out of his somber reverie, and he pulled the towel from around his neck and tossed it on a chair, then raked both his hands through his hair. It was going to be a damned long night.
Leaving his bedroom, he went out into the hallway, to the wood panelled closet under the stairs, and located a very expensive monogrammed leather garment bag. It always gave him a hollow feeling in his chest when he used it. And the only time he used it was when he went to Toronto—because Abby had been so adamant he have it. It had belonged to his brother, and it was the one Scotty had always carried on road trips.
Picking up the bag, Conner turned off the light and closed the door, his expression grim. Sometimes he wondered about the legendary luck of the Calhouns—it had definitely gone astray in this generation, that was for sure.
He took the garment bag back to his bedroom and tossed it on the king-size bed, then unzipped it, that same old feeling of grief unfolding in his chest. Ah, Scotty, he thought, you didn’t even know you had it all. And once again the history piled in, taking him down the path to old, painful memories.
The only good thing that had happened that year was wee Sarah’s arrival. The rest had all been bad. Abby’s parents had been killed in a car crash, then John Calhoun had died two months after his granddaughter was born. And shortly after that, Mary’s health took a turn for the worse, and the arthritis she had been fighting for years had finally taken hold. It was as if John’s dying had depleted her resources, and she got considerably worse. They hadn’t seen much of Scotty and the kids—Scotty was always on the road, and Abby, with a degree in business management, started working part-time, certainly not for the money. Mostly, Conner had suspected, to compensate for Scotty’s absences.
It wasn’t until Scotty got traded to the team in Toronto that the cracks in their golden life began to show. Inferences on sportscasts that Scott Calhoun was not performing up to snuff, rumors of trouble with the club. And when Conner had taken his mother to Toronto for a brief visit, there was something frenetic in Scott’s behavior. As if he were wired all the time.
Scotty had been a season into a five-year contract when he was abruptly dropped from the roster, and Conner had started to wonder what was going on. But it wasn’t until he saw Abby on a trip through Toronto that Conner knew something was seriously wrong. She had started working full-time, and she had been so strung out and tense, it was as if she were fine crystal ready to shatter. Concerned about her, he had taken her aside, telling her that if she ever needed anything, she was to call. Unable to look at him, she had locked her jaw together and nodded. And that had been that.
Until two years ago, when Abby had called him. And he had found out what was really going on. The reason Scotty had been let go was that management found out he was heavily into drugs, and she didn’t know what to do. Conner had been in the process of throwing his kit together for an immediate trip to Toronto when he got the second call from Scotty’s agent, telling him that Scotty was on his way to the hospital, suffering from a major overdose. It was almost as if Scotty couldn’t face Conner knowing the truth about him.
That was one of the hardest things Conner had ever had to do, to tell his mother what was going on and why he was taking the red-eye to Toronto. But she hadn’t been in any shape to travel then. So it had been up to him. When he got to Toronto, he’d gone straight to the hospital. The first thing he had discovered was that Abby was barely hanging on. And the second thing he found out was that Scotty was in an irreversible coma. There was nothing they could do.
It had been equally hard, five days later, standing by her during the huge, media-driven funeral, the news of Scotty’s overdose plastered all over every sports page in the country.
But the hardest thing of all was leaving her behind when it was time for him to go home. If he’d had his way, he would have bundled her up and taken her and the kids with him. But he couldn’t do that. She was his brother’s wife.
After Scotty’s death, he had made a point of going to Toronto every three or four months, but Abby had totally walled up. That once vibrant smile was like an accessory
