He started, explaining how the frozen embryo would be implanted. They usually used several embryos, to raise the probability of success, but obviously this was a special exception.

  “Meghan?” Thomas called her name.

  She’d forgotten he was there. Dr. Armstrong had been kind and convincing. He worked with many surrogates and wanted her to be comfortable with her decision.

  “I asked about the confidentiality of my identity and yours, although I never mentioned your name,” Meghan said.

  “Is that where you want to go?”

  “When I have it done?”

  He nodded.

  “I haven’t decided. I thought I’d discuss it with you. You and Ruth used another clinic. Do you want to maintain the relationship there?”

  “It wasn’t a relationship and I think wherever you go should be someplace that you have confidence in.”

  “The doctor said there is a preparation period. There are tests, hormones and injections I have to take over a period of time before the implantation.”

  He nodded. He knew it all too well, Meghan thought.

  “Have you thought about how you’ll feel if this doesn’t work?” Meghan asked.

  “Is that what this is all about? Fear? Are you afraid?”

  “A little,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

  He glanced down, then back at her. “I’m terrified,” he admitted. “Until Nina and Adam started this downhill train, I’d pushed the thought to the back of my mind. Now it’s the only thing I think about.”

  “So what will you do if it doesn’t work? The doctor told me the chances of one embryo being successful are very low.”

  Thomas waited a long moment. Meghan watched him, watched the play of emotions on his face. After a while, she didn’t think he was going to answer. He had no answer. He clearly wanted this child as much as he wanted to breathe.

  “I honestly haven’t thought of that. I refuse to let myself go there. But I guess I’ll have to live with it.”

  Meghan hadn’t thought of this being emotional when she and Thomas had first met. They were clearly on opposite sides. She never expected to see him except when absolutely necessary. Even though she insisted they marry, and they would occupy the same house, he was a workaholic. The marriage was in name only, so she would live in a nice house for nine months with only a little contact. Then she would begin the next phase of her life.

  But already Thomas was part of her life. With that came responsibilities, emotional responsibilities. And she found herself getting more emotionally involved than she had bargained for. She knew she would have to deal with the feelings, but what kept coming back to her were the doctor’s last words.

  She’d reached over to shake his hand and thank him. “You haven’t asked me the questions most women want to know,” he said.

  Meghan stared at him, unable to think of any other questions.

  “The one on sex,” he supplied.

  She was unsure which emotion racked her body—fear, hope, need—but she’d felt hot blood inch up her neck and knew her skin tone had darkened.

  “What about sex?” she ventured.

  “It’s permissible. Before the implantation. It won’t reduce the chance of pregnancy. In fact, the opposite is the case.”

  Meghan could hardly control her breath. Images of herself and Thomas naked on a bed flashed so suddenly into her head that she’d reached for her bottle of water to cool the internal furnace that counteracted the air-conditioned room.

  As she looked at Thomas now, that same furnace kicked on and rapturous images flooded her mind, and nothing could block out the image of his powerful body or her thoughts of being enfolded intimately within it.

  “Suzanne, it’s good to see you.” Meghan rushed forward and hugged her sister as she came through the security checkpoint at BWI Airport. “You’ve lost weight.” Meghan tightened her grasp. She was surprised at how much she had missed her sister.

  “I live in California. You know that do-as-the-natives-do thing and all…” Suzanne laughed as she spoke. “I missed you, too. I’m so excited about being back. This side of the world is so different from California.”

  “Yeah,” Meghan said. “The water is on the east.” It was a joke they used to use when Suzanne said she was accepting a job in Los Angeles.

  “For one thing.” Suzanne gave the response to the saying.

  Suzanne looked a lot like Meghan, despite them having different fathers. They both had long dark hair, although Meghan’s fell past her shoulders and Suzanne’s was threatening the middle of her back. They had similar bone structure and eyebrows that arched like their mother’s.

  “I can’t get over it,” Meghan said. “It’s only been a few months and you look like the west coast really agrees with you.” They joined the crowd headed toward baggage claim. Meghan surveyed her sister. Her skin glowed. Golden brown and healthy. She walked with an air of confidence that Meghan hadn’t noticed before. Men’s heads turned and appreciative smiles curved their lips as they passed. Suzanne didn’t appear to notice.

  “You look more relaxed,” Suzanne said. “Do we have Mr. Wonderful to thank for that?”

  “Mr. Wonderful,” Meghan said, laughing. “He’s anything but that.” Meghan didn’t know why she said that. She had never kept a secret from Suzanne, but she didn’t want anyone to know how much she liked Thomas. He was much the same person he’d been as a teenager, but he was so much more now that both mind and body were in sync with each other.

  They made their way down the escalator and into the large room with conveyor belts that snaked in and out and around the place. Electronic boards showed the flight numbers. They stood waiting and watching as bags began to circle the slow merry-go-round.

  “Let me see it,” Suzanne said.

  “See what?”

  “What do you think? The ring.”

  Meghan raised her hand. She still twisted the gold band constantly. Suzanne probably noticed Meghan fiddling with it.

  “Good grief,” she said. “I could skate on that.”

  Meghan blushed. “I tried to talk Thomas into something smaller, but…” She looked down at the stone.

  “You love it.” Suzanne finished her sentence.

  Meghan looked up at her sister. For a moment she said nothing. Feeling the smile curling her mouth up, she said, “I love it.”

  “He sure sounds like Mr. Wonderful to me. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  Suzanne always over-packed. Meghan watched two suitcases come off the conveyor belt. Along with the carry-on she was pulling, that made three bags. They’d been a graduation gift from her when Suzanne accepted the job in California.

  “How long are you staying?” Meghan asked when Suzanne identified the third bag.

  “Until the wedding.”

  “That’s three weeks away, if all goes well. What about your job?”

  “They’ll survive without me. And I took all the vacation I had coming to me.”

  Meghan understood the significance of the survive statement. She’d taken her job seriously. She was always there, rarely taking sick days or even mental health days.

  “You didn’t expect me to leave when your life is about to go through a major upheaval, did you?”

  Meghan’s footsteps echoed on the parking-lot pavement as they pulled the suitcases to the waiting car.

  “How did you get to be so wise?” Meghan asked, putting the suitcases in the trunk of the car.

  “I have a very wise big sister.” Suzanne smiled. “She taught me everything I know.”

  Meghan stopped what she was doing and looked at her sister. She was very proud of Suzanne. After they lost their parents, their lives could have taken a wrong turn, but they’d survived and both were independent now.

  “Thank you,” Meghan said, uttering the words softly, but the impact of them was monumental.

  Her sister was all grown up. For so long Meghan had thought of her as her little sister, but she would never think of her that way again. Her fledgling had wings. She could fly solo.

  “What did you mean back there when you said ‘if all goes well’?”

  “Nothing, really,” Meghan said. She was sorry she’d said it out loud.

  “Meghan,” Suzanne said, a warning note in her voice. “I’m a grown-up now. You don’t have to protect me.”

  “I’m not protecting you.” Meghan glanced at her before turning her attention back to the Parkway traffic.

  “Then answer my question.”

  “There’s a lot involved in this process and it might not work. In fact, the probability of it not working is higher than it working.”

  “So, what happens if it doesn’t?” Suzanne’s face had morphed into a mask of concern.

  “I’ll be all right.” Meghan hadn’t shared the exact terms of her and Thomas’s agreement with her sister. “I’ll have time to find another job and get back on my feet.”

  “Is that part of the arrangement you’ve agreed to?”

  Meghan nodded. She wasn’t going to elaborate. Suzanne seemed to understand that, because she changed the subject.

  “So, tell me about him.” Suzanne glanced out the window. The broadleaf trees along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway sped by as Meghan drove toward the city and home. At least for the next three weeks it was home.

  “I don’t know a lot about him. Most of what I know came from reading newspapers and magazines,” Meghan stated. She left out the talks they’d had in either her home or his.

  “You’re too sensible to agree to this change of lifestyle without knowing anything about the man. So, let’s start with what he looks like. Is he a staid businessman, or a royal hunk?”

  Meghan didn’t often think of the age difference between herself and Suzanne. But she could see it now in the gestures of her talkative sister.

  “Are those my only two choices?”

  “Is there anything in between?”

  “Maybe not in California, but this is Baltimore and we have a wide variety of personality types here.”

  “I’ve seen his picture,” Suzanne told her. “I looked him up on the Internet. But you know those pictures, even with the best resolution, can’t tell you what a living, breathing person is like. Although I’d place him in the royal hunk category on looks alone.”

  “He’s very nice-looking,” Meghan conceded.

  “I could see that.”

  “He’s very into his business. And he wants a child.”

  “You don’t want children,” Suzanne said. “You always said that. Of course, I didn’t believe you. You were too good a mother to me. Have you changed your mind?”

  Meghan shook her head. “It’s still true.” She tried to say it lightly. “I’m doing this because I lost my job and they aren’t easy to come by at this time and after the surrogacy I can return to school and eventually get a better job.”

  “You said that on the phone.”

  Suzanne was scrutinizing her. Meghan couldn’t do much but withstand it. She was driving and needed to keep her attention on the road.

  “Are you sure you want to do this, Meghan?” Suzanne paused. “I know we didn’t have it easy growing up. You had it worse than I did. You had to contend with me.”

  “You were never a burden,” Meghan said.

  “But I held you back.”

  “No, you—”

  “Don’t say that because I did and I know it. If Mom and Dad had lived, you could have done anything you wanted. You might even have been married by now. And you wouldn’t have to do this just to go back to school.”

  “I’m not doing this just to go back to school.” Meghan glanced at her sister. “I can enroll in night school. It would take longer to graduate, and I’d have to find a job to supplement my income. This is a job. That’s how I’m looking at it. And I don’t regret one minute of our lives. I wish Mom and Dad had lived, but we can’t change what happened. And I’m not that old. After this year, I can resume my life. I can do whatever I want, just like you said. Plus, I’d really be helping someone in need.”

  “Are you sure? Living with a man is different than living with your sister.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Suzanne said. “And for the record, no, I am not living with anyone.”

  “Have you met someone?”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Suzanne said a little louder. “We’re not changing the subject.”

  Meghan nodded.

  “Something could happen to the two of you in a year.”

  “Suzanne, this is not a movie. There will be no swell of music at the end of the year. No credits will roll as we discover our love for each other and kiss as the screen fades to black.”

  “Don’t be too quick to dismiss that. Why do you think movies end like that? Because there’s truth in them.”

  “A grain of truth,” Meghan reminded her. “Most of them are fantasy, at least the ones with the swell of music and the star-crossed lovers at the end.”

  “You could be star-crossed, too,” Suzanne whispered. Meghan felt her comment was almost a suggestion.

  “Are you saying you don’t think I could fall in love?”

  “No, I’m saying you won’t let yourself. Don’t make him one of your cases. You’ve been taking care of me, taking care of the foster kids and abused kids and other people in need. You don’t let yourself have time for you.”

  Meghan was poised to deny it, but then saw the truth in her sister’s words.

  “Give yourself a chance, Meghan. After this year is over, forget everyone else, even me, and live for Meghan.”

  Meghan pulled the car to a stop in front of their house. “I’ll give it some thought,” Meghan said. Then she smiled. “And you’ll be on the top of my list of people to forget.”

  The offices of Worthington-Yates Investments took up the fourteenth floor of the Roxbury Building near the Baltimore Harbor. From Thomas’s office window he had a panoramic view of traffic on the waterway. Sitting in his big leather chair, his hands steepled in thought, he watched the water flow. Somewhere out there, he thought, was Meghan Howard, the future mother of his child. He shook his head. Meghan was not the mother. Ruth was the real mother. Meghan was the incubator, a loaner body to carry and birth a child he’d conceived with the woman he loved.

  Thomas told himself this. He’d been silently repeating it ever since that night on her porch—and yesterday and the day before. Ever since he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her, held her thin body against his and felt every line and curve of her build.

  Meghan wasn’t his type, yet he found himself thinking of her more and more. He shifted and looked at Ruth’s photo on his desk. She smiled at him, offering him nothing in the way of advice. She neither approved nor disapproved of his decisions, yet he felt his allegiance to her ebbing. That bothered him.

  He’d given himself boundaries and for years he’d adhered to them. But his life was changing while hers remained constant in the photo frame. His chain links were melting in the heat of need and the feeling of protection that he felt for Meghan.

  He was forming a bond with Meghan, an emotional connection that seemed to grow stronger each time he was in her presence. He wasn’t sure if he wanted this connection to go forward, to follow its course to a natural conclusion.

  He’d been devastated when Ruth died. Without his in-laws, the three of them dependent on each other, supporting their grief like a three-legged stool, Thomas would have fallen apart and so would they.

  Looking away from Ruth, he spied the report lying on his desk. In fact, two reports lay there. His and hers. Meghan had sent a copy of her investigation to him. He hadn’t thought to do the same for her.

  There was nothing disturbing in hers. She wasn’t a model citizen, yet she cared about people. She had no criminal record, not even a traffic ticket or evidence of an overdue library book. He hadn’t expected one. She’d been very popular in college, but after her parents died, it was like she died, too.

  Thomas could identify with that. Ruth’s passing had taken his will to live, too. Had it not been for Adam and Nina, he didn’t know what he would have done. Meghan had no one to lean on. She had also taken custody of her young sister. Her neighbors loved her and looked out for her safety.

  Thomas admired her. She’d finally reached a point where she could focus on herself and then she’d lost her job. Thomas opened his folder and read through it again. It gave the rudiments of her life, the facts of her existence, but not the essence of it.

  Each time he talked to her he learned more about her, about the way she thought and felt. That’s really what he wanted to learn from the report, but he knew now that no report could delve into the inner personality of another individual. There was so much about her he didn’t know. There was much about him that she didn’t know. He’d read his own report and while it gave facts and figures of his life, it only skimmed the surface of who he was. He and Meghan were going to share the same living space for nine months. He was sure that in time they would know each other better.

  “Thomas,” his secretary said through the intercom. “Ms. Howard is here if you have a few moments.”

  Thomas’s body immediately lurched. His heart thumped at the idea of conjuring her up from his thoughts.

  “Send her in.” He got up and started for the door when it opened. A woman he didn’t recognize came through the door. She was clearly not Meghan. For a moment Thomas was disappointed. He searched for his fiancée and saw her come in behind the stranger. His heart lifted. Unsure of who the woman was with Meghan, Thomas slipped into his role. His arm went around Meghan’s waist and he greeted her with a smile and a kiss.

  Meghan stepped out of his arms. “This is my sister, Suzanne,” she introduced.

  Thomas gazed at Suzanne. Her face glowed from a California sun that had added a layer of coppery color to her skin and highlighted hair, bringing out the reddish tone. His gaze moved from one sister to the other, but after a moment, he stepped forward and shook Suzanne’s hand.

  “I’m so glad to meet you,” he said.