Another Love Read online

  Prologue

  “You’re pregnant.”

  The implication of those two words hadn’t hit her right away, but as Erin Winters sat by her son’s hospital bed two weeks later and watched him sleep, it hit her hard.

  She was pregnant again, yet she was not going to keep the baby. And she knew nothing about her baby’s father except his name—James Blake Tanner IV—and the fact that he and his infertile wife apparently had money to burn since they hadn’t even haggled over paying the fifty thousand dollars she’d asked for to bear his child.

  It was just another job. A job that paid so well that she’d been able to come up with the deposit the hospital had demanded before admitting Timmy for the operation he’d had earlier today.

  But…it wasn’t just another job. A tiny human was growing inside her, developing his or her own unique features and personality. Would he be like Timmy, cheerful and bright in spite of his immobility and the pain that often dulled his eyes and made him look older than his seven years?

  Erin would never know, because she’d agreed to relinquish this baby the minute it left her womb. Closing her eyes, she lay back in the recliner and tried to rest.

  What if she weren’t a single mom? What if this unborn baby had come not from a test tube but as a result of hot, steamy sex? Sex like she hadn’t enjoyed for so long she’d almost forgotten what it felt like to take a man’s hard cock in her pussy and have his spurting climax trigger her own.

  She creamed her panties when she imagined her dream lover—tall, dark, handsome and just a little bit dangerous. Even though she was tall, her head would barely reach his shoulder. She’d have to stand on tiptoe to look over it. He’d be big, possessive, protective…a man she could lean on.

  A white-collar man with blue-collar calluses. A horseman who loved the outdoors. Adventuresome but not a daredevil. Never another one of those! He’d start out kissing her silly, then move on to the fun stuff. All sorts of fun stuff. There wouldn’t be an ounce of reserve in his gorgeous body when it came to sex.

  Her nipples tingled. His mouth descended, and he sucked one in. Oooh. Just the right suction to set off bursts of sensation that had her whole body aching. She skimmed her fingers over the rippling muscles of his shoulders…his chest…his ridged belly. Lower.

  He raised his hips, as if to give her better access to his big, hard cock. His heavy balls. God, how she wanted to taste the moist pearl that glistened at the blunt tip of his cock, suck that plum-like morsel and swirl her tongue around it.

  A playful lover, he gave her nipple a quick bite, then switched his mouth to the other aching bud. He used his hands, too, sliding his callused fingers over her bottom, her back, the incredibly sensitive spots behind her ears. And oh, yesss. Now he’d found her clit and was nibbling and tonguing it. God, yessss.

  Her pussy clenched, her pulse raced. He wrenched himself free, straddled her, and rammed his cock inside her. He was so big, so powerful, so incredibly male. His breath smelled sweet, yet when he kissed her she tasted herself on his sensual lips. He rammed into her over and over, faster and harder with each thrust until moments later she slumped against him, drained. Aftershocks coursed through her as he flooded her with his hot, spurting essence.

  Erin woke, trembling, her skin clammy and her panties soaked. She was pregnant, for real, but the closest she’d come to a lover lately, dream or otherwise, was a sterile syringe and her trusty vibrator.

  Chapter One

  Five months later

  Glenna Tanner just died in surgery at Parkland.

  Erin set down the phone. Like a zombie, she sank onto the worn sofa in her living room, sobbing as she hugged her distended abdomen.

  She’d worried about this surrogate arrangement from the beginning. But she’d never imagined some deranged maniac would go on a shooting spree in the infant department at Neiman Marcus and take out the mother of this baby. A sob tore itself from Erin’s throat. She’d liked Glenna, appreciated how much she’d wanted this child she’d never hold. Now the sweet woman who’d thanked her so profusely for carrying her baby would never get to rock it to sleep in the antique chair she’d told Erin about last week when they’d met for lunch.

  “What will become of you?” The baby’s only response was a hard, swift kick to Erin’s ribs.

  Though Erin had never met Glenna’s husband, her heart went out to him. This time the man had lost something no amount of his money could replace.

  * * * * *

  She’s gone.

  Blake stared at the bleak white closet wall that just this morning had been hidden behind Glenna’s bright colored dresses. Why had he told Mary to get rid of them today?

  Why the hell did he care? It wasn’t as though seeing her clothes would have cheered him. The memory of watching them lower Glenna’s coffin into the icy ground lay heavy on his mind, so heavy he doubted he’d ever smile again.

  Like a robot, he shrugged out of the jacket of his dark gray suit and hung it up. Sliding the mourning band off the sleeve, he felt tears well up in his eyes. His fingers tightened around the scrap of black material as he walked back into the bedroom he’d shared with Glenna for nearly fourteen years.

  Three days ago, they’d laughed and made love in this room, and he’d teased her gently about the baby that was due in less than four months. Then she’d gone shopping for a layette and gotten in the way of a stray bullet.

  Why in hell had he ever agreed to her insane demand that they find a surrogate mother to bear the child she’d been unable to carry? If he hadn’t given in, he’d still have Glenna. She wouldn’t have been in harm’s way when that crazy bastard had peppered the infant department at Neiman’s with gunfire.

  How the hell was he going to survive? “Oh, God.” Suddenly it struck him that the baby Glenna had wanted so damn much was still alive, still safe inside the body of the surrogate mother her gynecologist and his good friend Greg Halpern had found.

  Blake stripped off his dark tie and opened the collar of his shirt. Then he walked out and shut the door behind him. He’d never be able to sleep in their bedroom again.

  He knew one thing, though. He didn’t want the baby. Every time he’d look at his son or daughter, he’d remember the child had cost him his wife. His mind made up, he picked up the phone and called Greg.

  * * * * *

  “What are you going to do?” asked Erin’s younger sister, Sandy, the morning after Glenna’s funeral.

  “I can’t have an abortion. I just can’t.”

  “I told Greg that’s what you’d say. Oh, Erin, I’m so sorry I talked you into doing this for the Tanners.” Sandy used a soggy Kleenex to wipe away the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry. No one could have known it was going to turn out like this. When you told me your boss was looking for a surrogate mother for one of his patients and suggested that I apply for the job, it seemed like an answer to my prayers. A way I could manage for Timmy to have his surgery and still be home to take care of him.” When her sister’s tears didn’t abate, Erin took her hand. “I’m not sorry I did it. Look at how much better Timmy’s doing now. The therapist thinks he may even be able to start using crutches in another month or two.”

  Though Erin tried to smile, the thought that she was likely to be totally responsible for this new life growing inside her scared her half to death. It was all she could do to cope with Timmy’s special needs.

  “You could always give the baby up for adoption.” Sandy looked around Erin’s shabby living room, as though she realized there was no way Erin could take on any more responsibility now.

  “Wouldn’t Mr. Tanner have to agree? After all, it is going to be his baby as much as mine. More.” After all, he was the one who’d paid for her to have his child.


  “Yes. He would. But maybe he wouldn’t mind. Greg said he was adamant about wanting you to have an abortion.”

  “Even if I wanted one, it would be too late. Your boss has to know that. I won’t do it. This baby is alive and I can’t kill it—not for anyone, even its father. I have to talk to Mr. Tanner, Sandy. Make him understand how I feel.”

  “Greg’s already told him he needs to talk to you, I’m sure. He feels as awful about this as I do. Anyhow, I’ll have him relay your message to Glenna’s husband.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sandy looked at Erin, tears still glistening in her eyes. “It’ll be okay. Greg has known Mr. Tanner since they were college roommates. He says Mr. Tanner’s a good man—that he’ll come around and do what’s right.” She stood and picked up the key ring she’d set on the table. “I need to get back before Greg has the office turned inside out. Give Timmy a big hug from me when he wakes up.”

  Erin watched Sandy go downstairs and climb into Doctor Halpern’s silver two-seater sports car before going to Timmy’s room. She straightened his blankets, then bent and kissed his pale cheek.

  How could Blake Tanner not want his own child? If she hadn’t had Timmy, she didn’t know how she’d have survived the three long years since Bill’s sudden death. Exhausted, Erin went back in the living room and stretched out on the sofa.

  During the two weeks since Glenna’s funeral, Erin had found it increasingly hard not to think of the baby inside her as belonging to someone else. More so now that she knew its father wanted it destroyed.

  How could he? What sort of monster was he to have knowingly provided the sperm Greg Halpern placed in her body and paid her price to bear this child, only to demand, now that Glenna was gone, that it be thrown out like last week’s trash?

  No, this wasn’t Glenna’s baby anymore. It was her own, and Erin resented Blake Tanner. Hated him for what he wanted her to do. Ironically, though, she thought she understood some of what he was feeling because she’d grieved, too. Knew how crippling that emotion could be.

  * * * * *

  “I told you, I don’t want anything to do with this baby,” Blake repeated. “This was Glenna’s idea to begin with. And she’s gone.”

  “It will be your son or daughter.” Greg got up, paced nervously around Blake’s office. “The surrogate mother flatly refuses to abort it. Look, I know you’re grieving, but think of Mrs. Winters. She’s been carrying that baby for five and a half months. She feels it moving inside her several times each day. Frankly, I wouldn’t think much of her if she were willing to have an abortion at this stage. If you weren’t a lifelong friend and the circumstances weren’t as they are, I wouldn’t do it even if she were willing.”

  “What is she going to do?”

  “Have the baby. She might be willing to offer it for adoption to another family, but whether she can do that is up to you.”

  “Goddamn it.” Blake leaned back in his desk chair and rubbed his aching temples. “You know, I don’t feel like anybody’s father. Especially not of a baby whose mother I’ve never laid eyes on. Right now, all I feel is empty, and about all I can manage is to muddle along from one day to the next.”

  “Maybe this baby will give your life new meaning.”

  Blake appreciated his friend’s having come here instead of making him go to his medical suite where this whole mess had started. Still, he wished Greg would drop the counseling, however well-meant. “Hell, you know having a baby was Glenna’s obsession, not mine. Even before you told us she needed that hysterectomy, I’d resigned myself to not having children.”

  Greg leaned forward and rested his elbows on the corner of the desk. “Besides, you thought the surrogate arrangement was dangerous from the beginning.” He paused. “Don’t deny it. You told me how you felt about a woman offering to give up her child for money, and how you worried that she would keep making more and more demands to keep quiet about the arrangement. How could you not have had second thoughts? I did, and I’m not a lawyer.”

  “The legal uncertainties weren’t what bothered me most. The whole thing seemed damn unnatural. The contract. Jerking off into a bottle in one of your examining rooms. Handing over fifty thousand dollars the day you told me she was pregnant. It all was so fucking artificial.”

  “I offered to let you collect the semen at home.”

  “And I told you no. I did it, damn it, but I wasn’t about to use Glenna to help me get it up to fill up your container.”

  “Would you have rather done it naturally?”

  “With Glenna? Yes.” Blake felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. “With anybody else? Hell, no. Look, Greg, you can tell this Mrs. Winters I’ll up the ante by whatever reasonable figure she asks for, and I’ll agree the baby can be adopted when it’s born.”

  “You’ll have to tell her yourself, my friend. She’s not talking to me since I relayed your desire for her to have an abortion.”

  Livid now, Blake slammed his fist onto the desk, welcoming the pain that shot up all the way into his shoulder. “I have no desire to meet the woman who rented out her body for fifty grand,” he ground out. “Besides, she has to talk to you. You’re her obstetrician.”

  Greg stood and glared down at Blake. “Like it or not, you’re the father of that baby she’s carrying. You owe it to her to meet her and say what’s on your mind. Before you go making judgment about her character, you need to find out why she agreed to this arrangement.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Only that maybe you’ve misjudged the lady. And that you need to see that baby growing inside her and realize it’s as much a part of you as it is of her. I’ve got to go. I’m going to be seeing patients until seven o’clock as it is.” Greg took a folded paper from an inside pocket of his navy blazer, pressed it into Blake’s hand, and walked out without another word.

  Chapter Two

  Glenna’s Ghost

  No, Blake. My poor, heartbroken darling, you can’t mean you want to abandon our baby.

  Glenna heard Blake talking with Greg as clearly if she had been standing at his side, but she had to strain in order to visualize the man she’d loved for longer than she could remember. His image was hazy now, but not so faint that she couldn’t see the agony evident in his tear-clouded eyes and the burden he carried on those uncharacteristically slumped shoulders.

  What have you done? What have you done to Blake? To our baby? To Erin Winters? And to me? Glenna’s spirit raged at the twisted wretch who had ended her life with a single, barely audible blast. For a moment, she hated that faceless piece of humanity so much that, if she’d had the power, she’d have taken pleasure in turning his obscene little gun on him and blowing him straight to hell.

  Then guilt washed over her. That stranger pulled the trigger that took me away. But it was my obsession that has brought this awful grief to Blake, leaving him horribly alone yet responsible for the life of the unborn child in Erin’s body.

  He doesn’t want his baby now.

  My poor, sweet baby.

  And Erin. What is she thinking, carrying a baby whose father wants it destroyed?

  My God!

  Blake’s image cleared in her mind so Glenna finally got a good look at him. His despair was palpable as he stared, unseeing, at a scrap of paper in his hand.

  I’ve got to make this right. Can I come back? Just long enough to help them cope?

  She felt a highly charged energy deep inside her, energy that transported her from the limbo of nonentity to Blake’s office in a high-rise Dallas office building.

  Blake. Her lover. Her friend. How well she knew her strong, earthbound anchor whose calm and analytical way of viewing life had always been a perfect foil for her own whimsical and often impractical nature.

  They went back forever. Glenna’s spirit lightened when she remembered the quiet, often solemn little boy who had vowed his undying love for her in first grade, teased her when they were ten, and asked her to be his wife the Christmas after they’d graduat
ed from college. He’d always been serious, but she’d unearthed a sense of fun in him while he’d talked her out of the most impractical of her madcap schemes.

  They’d been soulmates. She, raised by loving grandparents to enjoy life’s every moment, and Blake, brought up by servants and imbued with a strong sense of responsibility and duty by his workaholic father, had been the odd couple whose lives had merged smoothly into one.

  She’d love him for all eternity, but now she needed to convince him how precious his son or daughter would be. She wanted to hold and comfort him and tell him time would heal his grief.

  More than anything, Glenna wanted Blake not to hurt anymore. She wanted him to see her, recognize her presence so she could tell him how sorry she was to have left him all alone. But she stopped short of making her presence known. She knew Blake as if he were her alter ego. He’d never accept her returning this way.

  If he even allowed himself to admit he saw me, he’d run, not walk, and commit himself into the nearest psych ward.

  No, she couldn’t show herself to Blake, so she willed her spirit to drift away.

  But I can work on Erin Winters. Glenna heartened at the thought that she might find an ally in the kind, caring woman she and Blake had hired to bear their baby. She recalled the sadness she’d seen in Erin’s soft, dark blue eyes when they’d talked about the baby, that day they’d met for lunch. The gentle woman couldn’t help but love the child she’d told Glenna she tried hard not to think about at all. Erin could be a real mother to their baby, not just a surrogate. If she would, she might heal Blake, too.

  Yes. It could work. She’d go to Erin. Erin would love their baby, and with a little luck she could also heal Blake’s grief. Taking a deep breath, Glenna gathered her strength for the long, hard task ahead.

  Chapter Three

  For a long time, Blake stared at the paper Greg had given him. All it contained was a name, phone number, and address. The name was Erin Winters. He couldn’t place the exact address, but from the zip code he deduced that it was in an area not too far from downtown Dallas, where the few residences that remained were pretty shabby and rundown. He’d have thought his fifty thousand dollars would have bought this woman a better place to live.