Prologue
“So, do you feel any different?” Liz Van Zandt asked her twin sister, Bridget. They sat in the front seat of Liz’s shiny new Miata in the parking lot of the Statler Clinic.
Bridget fidgeted with the hem of her denim skirt. “No. Do you think I should?”
“How should I know?” Liz said. “I’ve never been pregnant. But it probably hasn’t happened yet. I’ve read that it can take hours, even days, for those little suckers to swim to the target.”
Bridget felt light-headed. She placed a protective hand over her abdomen, knowing Liz was just trying to rattle her cage. Liz, older by four minutes, was all in favor of Bridget having a baby. She just didn’t entirely approve of Bridget’s methods.
“You’re not having second thoughts, are you, Bridge?” Liz asked.
“It’s a little late for those.” No, she wasn’t having second thoughts. She and Liz had always agreed that if they hit thirty and were unmarried, they would attempt motherhood anyway. Together. “Still, it’d be nice if there was a father in the picture.”
Liz’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “You might as well give up that notion. Men run from single moms as if they have leprosy.”
“I don’t care,” Bridget said defiantly. “In twenty-one days, I’ll come back to the Statler Clinic and find out whether I’m pregnant.”
Liz sagged against the leather seat. “I guess it’s my turn. I’d better get cracking.”
“Oh, Liz, you aren’t really going to carry through with your harebrained plan, are you?”
“It’s not harebrained. I want to know exactly what kind of genetic material my baby is getting.”
“You can’t just tackle some man on the street and say, ‘Hey, could you give me some of your DNA?”’
“I plan to be a little more subtle. If I can even find a suitable…donor…” Liz’s eyes glazed over, and she stared at something in the distance. “Oo-la-la, there’s one now.”
Bridget gasped as she realized the subject of her sister’s appraisal. “Is that who I think it is?”
“It’s him, all right. He was on the cover of Inside Texas a couple of months ago. I recognize every blue-blood inch of him. And he’s even more gorgeous in person.”
The man in question, J. Eric Statler III, had just come waltzing out of the clinic that bore his name.
“What the heck is he doing here?” Liz asked.
“He does own the clinic,” Bridget pointed out.
“He owns half of Oaksboro,” Liz said, which was almost true. The Statler Clinic was only a tiny piece of the Statler empire, which included hospitals, oil companies, newspapers, restaurants and a tennis-shoe manufacturing plant. He had businesses scattered throughout north Texas. He even owned the ad agency where Liz worked.
Liz sighed. “He’s rich and good-looking, but nice, too. In that magazine article, it says he donates a lot of money to several local charities.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll donate his DNA,” Bridget said. “And if he’s so perfect, then why hasn’t he ever married?”
“Hasn’t found the right woman, so I hear.” Liz got a thoughtful look on her face. “Maybe he’s waiting for me.”
“Dream on, sister.”
“Now, wait a minute. I’m a successful account executive at Oaksboro’s biggest ad agency, I can eat fettuccini without making a mess, and I’m a darn nice person. Are you saying I wouldn’t be a good match for Eric Statler?”
Uh-oh. Bridget recognized that gleam in Liz’s eye.
“All right, maybe he wouldn’t marry me,” Liz continued, “but he’s good father material.”
“Liz, you don’t even know him.”
“I could meet him. It would be easy. I have contacts.”
Bridget laughed. “You’re nuts.” But she could tell Liz was warming to this idea, another one of her crazy schemes.
Suddenly Liz focused her sea-blue eyes on Bridget with the force of double laser beams. “Hey, Bridge, will you help me?”
Bridget cringed. When Liz got that light of zeal in her eyes, nothing could stop her. “I have a few contacts I could tap, I suppose,” she agreed reluctantly. She decided she’d better keep an eye on her competitive sister. If Bridget’s artificial insemination worked and she ended up pregnant, Liz would be desperate to keep up. And no telling what she might do in her quest for, as she so elegantly put it, a “donor.”
Chapter One
Bridget sipped her club soda nervously as she surveyed the jewel-and tux-bedecked crowd around her. Normally she favored a little something with the soda. But now that she was pregnant…
She paused in her thoughts, savoring the word. Pregnant. Today she’d had her official pregnancy test at the Statler Clinic. The results had only confirmed what she’d already known. At just three weeks from conception, her body was changing in some slight, indefinable way.
In a few months she would start expanding like a dashboard airbag. The prospect was scary but kind of exciting, too.
“See anyone we can mingle with?” asked Liz, standing beside her. They’d wangled invitations to the Oilman’s Ball from a dry-cleaning baroness, a family friend whose portrait Bridget had painted. The ball was Oaksboro’s social event of the season, and Eric Statler was guaranteed to be in attendance. But now that they’d arrived, the hard work began—finding someone who would provide Liz with a personal introduction to Statler.
“I’ve never been that great at mingling,” Bridget replied. “Wait…over there. Are those Eric Statler’s parents?” She nodded toward a distinguished-looking couple who appeared to be holding court.
“That’s them, all right,” Liz said. “Geraldine and Eric Statler, Jr. Everyone calls Mr. Statler ‘Two,’ you know. Because he didn’t like ‘Junior.”’
“And the son?” Bridget wanted to know. “Do they call him ‘Three?”’
“They call him just plain Eric,” Liz said, her eyes scanning the crowd.
“How do you know so much about the Statlers?”
“The Internet. Wait, I see one of our agency’s clients,” Liz said. “Let’s split up. We can cover more territory that way.”
Bridget nodded, only too happy to step away from Liz. They’d foolishly forgotten to check with each other beforehand, and they’d worn nearly identical dresses. Even their shoulder-length blond hair was styled in a similar fashion. That was one of the hazards of being a psychically
