The admission hit him in the gut. She’d come straight to him first, with the news. He wanted the information. Had no good place to store it.

  Which left him in a quandary.

  “You better get calling, then. I’m sure there are a lot of people waiting to hear.” People he’d never met. Didn’t even know about.

  “No, actually, no one else knows yet,” she said. “Until I had your permission to use the embryos, I didn’t even know I’d be going through the process, and with the possibility of it taking so long, I didn’t want to endure added emotional situations with people checking in, or giving sympathy...”

  His Annie had been like that. Always looking out for others’ emotional health, sometimes to the risk of her own, in his opinion. And yet, he’d loved that characteristic. Annie was one of the least selfish people he’d ever met. Had that maybe made it easier for him to be more selfish? Had he gotten away with too much?

  He wished he knew. Looking back, it didn’t look that way to him, but folks rarely saw themselves in true light...

  And even as his thoughts sped by, he saw what he was doing. Making it about him.

  “I hate that you’re going through it all alone,” he told her. Acknowledging the instant pull he’d felt when she’d said the words. Admitting the feelings were there. Him not wanting her there all alone. Him wanting to be there for her.

  “I won’t be,” she assured him. “I’d decided to wait until I had a positive pregnancy, and then to start letting people in...”

  Good. He was off the hook. There’d be relief in that. Hopefully soon.

  “So...you’ll keep me informed?” he asked.

  “I’ll absolutely let you know if anything happens.” She came back with a surety she had every right to. “If the pregnancy doesn’t last... And, of course, I’ll notify you when the baby is born, if that’s information you want.”

  He’d been put in his place. A good thing for both of them. All three of them, his mind amended quickly. “Take care of you, Annie,” he said, wishing her well from his heart as he ended the call.

  He headed back to his car immediately upon reholstering his phone. Drove to work, onto base and parked in his reserved place. He went back to living his life.

  But knew, even as he denied the facts, that everything had just changed.

  Annie was pregnant from the embryos they’d made together.

  Whether he was included in any part of the pregnancy or the child’s life, whether he never had a single legal right, he was going to be a father.

  Chapter Six

  Annie’s Monday passed in a blur of activity and a roller coaster of emotion. She was fully present and focused on her job, but a tinge of surrealness was overshadowing everything she did. She told the captain, her immediate superior, about her positive pregnancy test. Talked to him about being on limited duty—meaning that she wouldn’t be out on the streets, which wasn’t in her job description anyway—and let him know that she was planning to take about six weeks’ maternity leave. She not only loved her job—she needed it. If all went well, she was going to have a family to support.

  And she went to dinner with Christa, who’d followed her down to Marie Cove PD from LA when Annie had taken the lieutenant job. Christa’s husband, the love of her life, also a cop, had been killed on the job a couple of years before Annie’s move and Christa had been ready for the change.

  Christa knew how badly Annie wanted to be a mother. It was an area where they differed: Christa, who loved kids, didn’t want to bring any into the world. Just like Christa didn’t want to be a lieutenant. She wanted to be in the streets, solving crimes. Protecting other people’s kids and loved ones.

  Her friend was fully supportive, excited, even, when Annie delivered her news over the Asian chicken salads they’d both ordered. Right up until she told her that she’d been inseminated with embryos created with her ex-husband.

  “You used...you’re carrying Seth’s baby?”

  Quickly shaking her head, even while the words reverberated through her, she said, “No. I’m having my baby. He wants nothing to do with it. And legally signed away ownership.”

  Frowning, her dark curls framing her porcelain doll features, Christa leaned across the table and said, “He did that years ago? When you divorced?”

  Smoothing her blouse over the brown pants she’d chosen that morning, Annie shook her head. “He did two weeks ago Wednesday.” She looked her friend in the eye, needing Christa to see what she couldn’t see herself. “I went to see him.”

  Christa’s fork froze in midair. Her jaw froze midchew. But her gaze worked overtime as she studied Annie.

  “Are you okay?” was all she said when the perusal was done.

  “Yeah.” Annie nodded. Smiled even. “How can I not be? I just found out I’m going to be a mother!”

  Christa’s smile wasn’t as big as it had been the first time Annie imparted the news. “Are you seeing him again?”

  Shaking her head, Annie ran a hand through her hair, feeling the short strands slide like soft silk through her fingers. A familiar sensation. Familiar touch. “He wants to be notified when the baby’s born.”

  “So...how was it, seeing him again?”

  She touched her hair again. Needing to find a way to connect to who she knew herself to be. “Honestly, I don’t know.” Honestly, she didn’t want to think about it. But needed Christa to have her back.

  Which meant her friend needed to know what to watch out for.

  “You know how much I loved him.” Christa had never met Seth, but she’d seen the state Annie had been in when she’d heard that Seth had remarried. And had been present for coffee on too many mornings after.

  “That’s what worries me.” Christa was no fool. And didn’t pull punches, either. “This situation is ripe for your heart to get broken all over again.”

  In some ways Christa knew her better than anyone else. They’d been through a lot together. Worked cases that left them with visuals neither of them would ever forget. Annie had been on duty with Christa when the call had come in that her husband had been shot. And Christa had been the one to stand beside Annie at her mother’s funeral.

  “When I saw him, the way our marriage ended was right there in the room, like a physical thing between us. I really think it’s going to be okay.”

  “You do?” Christa’s look was more nurturing than anything else.

  “I do,” Annie said, looking her friend straight in the eye. There was no way she’d be able to let something start up between her and Seth again. That kind of trust no longer existed for the two of them.

  Which was why, if Seth did want a place in the baby’s life at some point, she’d welcome his involvement. They weren’t kids anymore. They’d both matured and had reached success in their lives without each other.

  Not that she needed to get ahead of herself. Or start counting on a future with Seth in it—for her baby’s sake. She was having a child alone. And with the newfound knowledge of that life growing inside her, she was happier than she’d ever been.

  She felt the same a couple of hours later as she sat in her living room, having just shut off the television, but not yet ready to go bed. She just wasn’t sleepy. Her hand softly rubbing her belly in the lightweight flannel pants she’d pulled on with a short tank top, she quit fighting her mind. It jumped from thought to thought, vision to vision, memory to memory. Dr. Miller that morning, telling her that her test had come back positive. They’d had her in an examining room to deliver the news so she could have a consultation, either way. She kept thinking about the smile that lit up the doctor’s eyes.

  The grin on the clinic owner’s face, and that of the receptionist as she’d made her way out of the clinic. Those people weren’t regulars in her life, but they felt like family to her.

  And her mom, who Annie knew was surely smiling with her from the spirit world.

  And Seth? He’d seemed pleased. For her, of course, but still...

  What was he doing on the eve of finding out that their embryo was coming to life? Probably working. Or out having a working dinner. Or a beer with someone.

  A buddy.

  Or a woman.

  He could be on a date. For all she knew he was serious with someone. Maybe even living with her.

  Would that woman know about the embryo? Had he told her that his ex-wife was pregnant with their child?

  Why hadn’t Annie thought of that possibility before now?

  And why did it matter either way?

  Stop.

  She repeated that to herself several times and resolved to redirect her thoughts, but they found their back to Seth. So much so that it was a relief when her phone rang.

  Even if it meant a new case for her detectives, and a need to go into work.

  Grabbing her cell off the end table, she saw the name on the screen, and when she answered, pretended that she was still as calm as if the caller had been someone from work.

  “Seth? What’s up?”

  What’s up? What’s up? Like they were pals who spoke now and then? Or it was normal for him to be calling her at bedtime?

  “I’ve got a concern,” he told her. “I’m sorry to be calling so late, but I’m just leaving a dinner.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she told him, sitting up, leaning over with her arms on her knees, staring at shadows on the area rug that covered a big patch of the porcelain-tiled floor painted to resemble hardwood. “I’m still up. What’s your concern?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about having a legal guardianship set up in the event that something should happen to render you incapable of caring for the child.”

  That conversation wasn’t any of his business. Not even through The Parent Portal agreement.

  She opened her mouth to tell him so and closed it again. When they’d signed their contracts and made their embryos, they’d had every plan to raise any resultant children together. He’d done a good thing for her, honoring her request to have full ownership of those embryos.

  And the one thought that was superseding all others... Seth was once again taking action to tend to the good care of the life resulting from their long-ago union.

  Blinking back tears, she sat back, stared at the black television screen. “I plan to ask my friend Christa,” she said.

  Silence initially met her statement. She wasn’t sure what to say to break it. Couldn’t see enough to understand his current mindset, or determine how to proceed to a mutual understanding. Truth be told, she couldn’t see enough into herself to know for sure what she wanted that mutual understanding to be.

  She knew what it should be. What it had to be.

  But the fact that he’d called...

  What if, sometime in the future, they could actually be friends? What if he wanted a weekend visit with his baby? The child would benefit from knowing him. She had no doubt about that.

  “When did you plan to ask her?”

  He hadn’t asked who Christa was. What she did for a living. How long Annie had known her. How well she knew her. All questions Annie would expect.

  He probably wasn’t asking because he knew he had no right to do so.

  “Soon,” she told him. “Before the baby’s born, certainly.” She wanted to tell him she’d told Christa about the baby over dinner. Wanted to tell him how excited her friend had been. But was also reminded of Christa’s earlier worry, and her own knowledge that Seth could never again be a partner to her. Or even a close friend.

  Those kinds of relationships took a trust that was impossible between them. How could you emotionally trust someone who’d left once your own needs posed emotional difficulties?

  She got it. Even at the time, she’d understood his perspective. He’d lost his mother to law enforcement. Had been there when the official came to the door. He’d been understandably scarred.

  But it had still ripped her heart out that her Seth hadn’t had her back. Because while her head understood, her heart had needed him more than ever.

  “I’m happy to do the legal paperwork for you, if you’d like. Actually,” he continued, cutting off the polite refusal ready to roll off her tongue, “I’d prefer to do it. Or at least to have a chance to vet it.”

  What was he doing? “Seth...”

  “I know... I have no rights. And I feel good about that. I’m not trying to insinuate myself onto you or the baby,” he told her. “But this is all brand-new to me—the reality hasn’t really even sunk in. I gave you the embryos because it was the right thing to do. Because I owe you more than I’ll ever be able to give for letting you down in the past. And because it was your only chance to have what I know to be something you need more than pretty much anything else...”

  That was true now. Once upon time, when he’d been her prince, he’d been what she’d needed more than anything else.

  “You did me a solid, Seth. I’ll be grateful forever.”

  “I’m not looking for gratitude. I’m trying to live with the results of having made a monumental decision very quickly. I don’t regret doing what I did, and at the same time, I’m figuring out how I live responsibly, knowing that a young human being that is created from my biology is out in the world. I have a hundred percent faith in you, Annie. I have no concerns about the child’s welfare with you there. But what if you’re not around? That thought is on my mind.”

  A permanently closed part of her heart felt a shard of light suddenly shining. Painfully. He knew firsthand how a kid felt when he lost his mother. And Annie was in the same profession that had taken Seth’s mother from him.

  She’d known when she’d gone to him what she was asking of him. How could she not? His resistance to the risk of her career had been what had driven them apart.

  Had she really thought when he’d given his permission that he’d made peace with the past? Or had she just not let herself go there?

  The past was past. She’d laid those hurts to rest as well as anyone ever could. She was moving on to a new life now.

  But how was Seth going to feel when he found out that Christa was a cop, too?

  There was nothing he could do about any of it. He had no legal grounds to interfere with her life, or her plans.

  There was no reason for her to worry herself about it all.

  But... “I’d be happy to have you oversee the paperwork,” she told him.

  And then, holding back tears, told him good-night.

  * * *

  Seth drove up to LA to have dinner with his father the following Sunday, six days after he’d last spoken with Annie. He and his dad generally met about twice a month, and with his recent trip, they’d missed a week. He drove by the Marie Cove exit without stopping. As tempting as it might be to see where Annie was living, to reassure himself that she and her child were well positioned, or maybe, more truthfully, out of sheer curiosity—he did not get off the freeway.

  For the most part he was doing okay. Working ungodly hours. And volunteering when he wasn’t working. Maybe hanging out at the officers’ club a bit more than normal, having two beers instead of the one he usually had, and spending more time in the gym on base, but life was moving on and he was keeping up with it. Well...

  So yeah, he thought of Annie a lot. Anytime he had a break at work. When he met with a single mother at the community center. Sitting on a stool at the club. Running on the treadmill. And when a fellow officer he’d seen a time or two asked him to a yacht dinner function and he turned her down.

  She’d seemed to be getting somewhat attached and he’d sworn off allowing that after his second divorce. He wasn’t leaving any more women in tears.

  Randy Morgan was late getting home, and Seth had a pork roast in the oven when his father walked in the door of the home in which Seth had grown up. Randy, at sixty-one, still stood an inch taller than Seth’s six feet , and his hair was all gray now, but still as thick as it had ever been. The man worked out every day on the equipment that had been in their basement gym—in updated versions—since before Seth was born.

  Seth had no intention of telling his father about Annie’s visit, her request, or the result of such, and had warned himself to make certain that he didn’t give his father any inkling of the things on his mind. Randy, who still worked full-time as a county deputy, was not only observant, but when he decided to get to the bottom of something, was like a pit bull.

  His father spent the whole evening talking about the case that he’d just come from working. An arrest he’d been called to make on a man living outside of city limits—someone who was wanted in a couple of cold-case murders, found through genealogical DNA.

  “We get there, and the guy just starts shooting.” Randy shook his head, gaze lowered, as though he was trying not to see what was in his mind’s eye. They were sitting at the table, the food was there, but his father hadn’t served up his plate yet.

  Seth listened intently. Always hearing the legal implications, wanting to make sure that nothing was going to come back on his father—one of the best cops he’d ever known. And hearing his father’s inner need to protect the innocent. It was always there. In everything Randy did.

  And in everything Annie did, too. He got the implication. Annie hadn’t just made a choice to go into law enforcement because she’d found that she liked the work. Or even because she’d found she was good at it.

  She’d made the choice because she’d been driven to do so.

  He knew that now.

  And had known it back then, too. Which was why, when he’d realized his fears weren’t going to change, he’d told her he’d thought they should separate. He’d met someone else during the months she’d been deployed—another JAG attorney. And while there was no way he’d ever have been unfaithful to his wife, the fact that he’d been drawn to the other woman had scared the hell out of him. If he and Annie had been as close and connected as he’d thought, he wouldn’t have wanted to confide in, or want to have dinner with another woman.