The Best Laid Plans

But what choice did she have? It was this, or leave it to fate to throw the right man in her path before it was too late. And at the end of the day, she’d never believed in luck. She’d had to fight for every good thing that had ever come her way. Why should this be any different?

What she was planning wasn’t particularly pretty or dignified, but if it helped her reach her end goal, then so be it. Life, as she well knew, was often not pretty or dignified.

She stood and grabbed the scissors from the kitchen drawer then cut the relevant pages from the paper. She’d start a folder to keep track of the ads she’d responded to, in case she doubled up.

She was about to close the paper and return it to the recycle bin when her gaze caught on a small, neat ad in the bottom right-hand corner.

Sperm Donor Wanted

Our client is an independent woman with her own home and business. She has a wide support network and wishes to become a mother. She is seeking a donor with a clean bill of health and no family history of major illness. If you are a male between the ages of 18 and 45, you can help her attain her dream of motherhood by contacting Fertility Australasia at O2 9555 2801. Interstate donors welcome, travel payments available.

Alex stilled. For a moment there was not a single thought in her mind. Then she reached for the newspaper and read the ad again, and again. A sperm bank.

It simply hadn’t occurred to her before. She stared at the kitchen wall. Not five minutes ago she’d decided that she didn’t believe in luck and that she was prepared to fight for what she wanted, even if it smacked of desperation and meant loosening the tight grip she’d always held on her pride.

A sperm donor was a dead cert. There would be no equivocating or pussyfooting around worrying about compatibility if she went the route of sourcing frozen sperm, bought from a suitably qualified clinic. There would be no responding to want ads and waiting anxiously in coffee shops for her date to show up, no awkward first, second, third dates. She’d never have to judge when it was appropriate to sound out a man on whether he wanted children. She’d never have to worry about the relationship being based more on a biological imperative than mutual attraction and shared feeling. It would be clean. Direct. Honest. Best of all, it meant she was in control of her own destiny—as much as any person could be. Her body might not want to cooperate, of course, but at least she would have tried. Given it her best shot. Several best shots, depending on the costs.

She waited for her conscience to catch up with her, to sound a warning chime. But there was nothing.

This was not the way she’d wanted to have a child. She’d wanted to be one half of a couple, two people working together to bring new life into the world. A family.

But she was thirty-eight years old, staring down the barrel of her thirty-ninth birthday. She didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Mr. Right anymore. Not if she wanted to be a mother.

How much do you want this? Enough to do it alone?

She didn’t have to stretch her imagination to know what it would be like to have to cope with the pressures and stresses of raising a child on her own. She was all too familiar with the sense that there were not enough hours in the day, that she was utterly alone, with no help in sight, and that the only thing that stood between her mother and herself winding up on the street was her determination. She knew what it was like to live with the constant fear that there wouldn’t be enough food for tomorrow or that her mother would do something that would bring the wrath of social services down upon them.

She’d survived eight years of loving, nursing, corralling and policing her brain-injured mother after the accident. She could be a single parent. Absolutely she could.

She had money—more than enough to ensure she and her child would never want for anything. Years of obsessive saving had seen to that. She could easily afford to take a year off work, two years, even. She was resourceful and determined. And she wanted this. She wanted this with every fiber of her being.

Picking up the scissors, she sliced the ad neatly from the page.

ETHAN LEANED on the doorbell of his brother’s Blackburn home and waited. Sure enough, a small face appeared in the window beside the door, grinning like crazy.

“Uncle Ethan!”

“Hey, matey.”

There was the sound of fumbling from behind the door, then it was open and his eldest nephew, Jamie, was sticking out his tongue and making fake fart noises.

Ethan waited patiently for Jamie to get it out of his system. He could only blame himself, after all, that the first thing his nephews did when they saw him was to break out the noisiest, wettest raspberry they could come up with. His sister-in-law, Kay, had warned Ethan when he’d started teasing the kids with raspberries.

“You’re making a rod for your own back, Uncle Ethan,” she’d said. “You know you’re going to be Uncle Raspberry for the next ten years, don’t you?”

She’d been spot on, but he figured there were worse things in the world.

Stepping over the threshold, he grabbed Jamie around the waist and tucked him under his arm.

“Now, where’s your mom and dad?” he asked as Jamie bellowed a delighted protest.

He hefted his nephew up the hallway to the kitchen where Kay was stacking dishes in the dishwasher. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a tie and she was wearing her tailored work shirt over a pair of seen-better-days tracksuit pants.

“You just missed dinner. You should have called, I would have saved you some.”

“I’ve got stuff at home for dinner, but thanks anyway. I thought I’d drop in and see if Derek had finished with that boxed set of The Wire yet.”

“He’s finishing up some end-of-quarter figures for one of his clients in the study.” Kay wiped her hands on a tea towel and gave him an amused look. “Let me guess what’s on the menu tonight—wagyu beef, fresh green beans, potato dauphin, maybe some red wine jus. For dessert, vanilla semi-freddo with poached seasonal fruit.” She cocked her pinky finger in the air as though she was having high tea with the queen.

His love of good food and wine had always been a source of amusement for his family. He set Jamie on his feet.

“As a matter of fact, it’s chicken stir-fry. What did you guys have? Fish fingers? Mac and cheese? Beans on toast?” Two could play at that game, after all.

Kay laughed and threw the towel at him. “Walking a fine line there, buddy.”

“Uncle Ethan, come and see the new trick I can do on my bike,” Jamie said, tugging on his hand to drag him toward the door to the patio.

“Hold on there, mister. Didn’t I ask you to put on your jim-jams? It’s too cold and dark out there for you to show Uncle Ethan anything,” Kay said.

“But—”

Kay put her fingers in her ears. “Nope. Can’t hear it. We don’t have that word in this house.”

Jamie’s sigh was heavy with resignation. “All right. But you are one tough customer, lady.”

Kay and Ethan exchanged amused glances as Jamie slouched off to his room.

“Apparently I’m a tough customer,” Kay said. “And a lady.”

“Who would have thunk it? Where’s Tim?”

“In the bath. You can go wrangle him if you want.”

It wasn’t until he was helping his wriggling five-year-old nephew into his pajamas that Ethan understood why he’d come to his brother’s house instead of going home after racquetball. It had shaken him, hearing the longing and yearning in Alex’s voice tonight. Reminded him of his former life.

Because once, a long time ago, he’d wanted kids, too. He’d wanted to hold his sons or daughters in his arms. He’d wanted to dry them like this after the nightly bath. He’d wanted to teach them to read and kick a footy or ferry them to ballet classes. He’d wanted to guide them and help equip them with the skills they’d need to grapple with the challenges life would throw their way. He’d been so bloody certain that children would be a part of his life.

He smiled a little grimly. Alex would probably wet herself laughing if he told her that. She’d think he was being ironic or making fun of her. She didn’t know about his marriage. She only knew him as a guy in a slick suit with a fast car and a reputation for churning through women.

But then he didn’t know much about her, either, did he?

If anyone had told him that formidable, sharp, street-smart Alex Knight was even capable of breaking down the way she had tonight he’d have laughed. As for the surprising revelation that she wanted a child … He’d always thought of her as the consummate career lawyer, a woman who’d dedicated herself to the job and moving up the ladder.

Yet she’d cried tonight as though her heart was breaking because she was afraid that she’d missed the opportunity to have a family of her own. Again he felt the echo of old grief as he remembered the way she’d curled into herself, her shoulders hunched as she tried to contain her pain.

Tim’s pajama buttons were misaligned and Ethan fixed them. He didn’t let his newphew go immediately. Instead, he tightened his grip for a moment, hugging his nephew close, inhaling the good clean smell of him.

“Love you, little buddy, you know that, don’t you?” he said quietly.