Married Right Away

“That’s approximately what Ethan said,” Savannah confirmed.

“He’s right,” Andi said, combing her fingers through the mop of thick, blunt cut sable hair that fell to her shoulders. “A marriage would make this ‘problem’ a nonissue.”

“So you think I should marry him?”

“I don’t know what you should do—” Andi began.

“Marrying him virtually guarantees legal standing in a custody suit,” Mandi interrupted.

“He doesn’t need to marry her to get legal standing,” Lindsay said, as all eyes turned to the law student. “He has legal standing. He is the baby’s father. Actually, it’s probably more documented than if you had gotten pregnant because you were lovers. He doesn’t even need DNA tests. He has papers that prove his sperm created your baby.”

All eyes then turned to Savannah. “Does he have papers?” Becki asked.

“The Georgia State Police told me Barry forged Ethan’s signature to mainstream his sperm for use by the clinic. So, that’s one paper. They also had search warrants that let them roam the entire bed-and-breakfast looking for clues of where Barry might be. Since police don’t get search warrants from judges without a good reason, I’m assuming it’s all documented somewhere and that’s why Barry went into hiding.”

Becki caught Savannah’s gaze. “Do you know where Barry is?”

Savannah shook her head. “No. All I know is he called me and told me that he was leaving for a new job in Canada. Though he avoided telling me where the job was, I knew something was wrong. Then eight hours after he called, the police arrived and told me that when the clinic was auditing their procedures, they randomly chose my pregnancy to follow to make sure everything had been done properly. Apparently, Barry only got away because he saw what case they were going to audit and he left before they began pulling files. No one noticed he was gone until after they called Ethan. Because he had not originally been a sperm donor, they had to confirm he had reclassified his sample. Ethan, of course, had not. When they started putting two and two together with my pregnancy, Ethan’s reclassified sperm and Barry’s absence, it was already too late.”

“He does look guilty,” Becki said sadly.

“Yeah, he does,” Savannah agreed. “The ironic thing is that I don’t even know where to find him to tell him Ethan is dropping the charges if I marry him.”

“And just like that Barry can come home?” Mandi said skeptically. “No punishment, no problems.”

“He didn’t really do anything wrong,” Savannah insisted. “I’m the one who said I couldn’t do this without a guarantee that I would get a good father. He promised me a good father. He delivered.”

“Yeah, he delivered, all right,” Becki said. “He could have delivered you to a jail cell.”

“That’s not what he intended.”

“Savannah, you’ve got to quit defending that kid,” Mandi said.

But Lindsay stopped her with a look. “Barry is Savannah’s brother,” she quietly reminded Mandi, but Savannah knew what she was really saying.

“He’s my only family,” she said, not needing to remind everybody of past tragedies. “Besides if I don’t marry Ethan, he could sue for custody. And he’ll win because I can’t fight the McKenzie money.”

“Oh, Savannah,” Andi said, jumping from her chair to rush over and hug Savannah. “I don’t think you need to worry about him suing for custody. These people can’t afford bad press. Even if you don’t marry him, I don’t think he’s going to try to take this baby away from you.”

“You think the baby’s safe?”

“I think that if you stand your ground, the McKenzies will settle for whatever you are willing to give them to keep this out of the papers.”

“I agree,” Lindsay said, obviously thinking this through from a legal perspective. “Fathers have more rights than they used to, but if the McKenzies try for custody it will end up as a lawsuit. And if what you’re saying is true, Ethan McKenzie can’t afford an ugly lawsuit any more than he can afford for this story to leak. You’ve got some leverage here, too. If nothing else, you can expose the truth.”

“Except you don’t have the papers that prove any of it, do you?” Becki asked.

Savannah shook her head. “No.”

“Then get them,” Lindsay said. “Don’t wait until the evidence is mysteriously lost or destroyed. Call tomorrow. Because whether you marry him or not, the papers that prove you used in vitro fertilization are your best bet for making sure Ethan sticks to any deal you guys make.”

“You mean I’m going to have to resort to blackmail?”

“It’s not blackmail,” Andi said, placing her hand on top of Savannah’s in a gesture of support. “Just insurance.”

“Yeah, insurance,” Becki said, putting her hand on top of Andi’s in a show of solidarity.

Though Savannah smiled and nodded, she wasn’t convinced this was the right thing to do. She was pregnant because of a forgery. She was getting married to cover up a theft. And she would be getting the papers to prove it all.

She couldn’t help but think that if the original two wrongs didn’t make a right, getting the papers that proved them would do nothing but cause more trouble. Still, she saw what her friends were getting at.

“I’ll call tomorrow.”

“Early,” Mandi insisted.

She nodded and tried to smile, but couldn’t. In spite of the fact that it seemed like the right thing to do, she had a really bad feeling about this. Particularly since Ethan said he could have the paperwork shoved to a back corner of a filing cabinet by seven o’clock tomorrow morning. Saturday morning. They were about to enter a weekend where offices would be closed and police would be busier than normal. It was no wonder Ethan was so confident he could quash this story. By Monday morning the paperwork would be gone and everyone’s memory would be dulled by rapes and murders and drug busts.

“I think I’ll call Barry’s boss at home. Tonight.”

Chapter Two

The next morning, when Savannah opened her door to Ethan McKenzie, birds chirped in the trees in the front yard of her yellow Victorian home. The flowers lining her sidewalk and in the beds surrounding the wide gray porch seemed to be yawning and stretching in anticipation of the new June day. The sun was in the final stages of rising, leaving a band of pale reds and muted blues along the charcoal horizon, but there was sufficient light that Savannah noticed the strain in Ethan’s face, the tautness of his muscles, the caution in his approach.

“Good morning, Savannah.”

“Good morning, Ethan,” she said, motioning for him to enter.

She didn’t blame him for being tense. A great deal was at stake in this bargain. Not just his father’s career and her brother’s future, but also the future of their baby. Fortunately for her, she had spoken with Barry’s boss and with her own attorney in Thurmont, so she also wasn’t worried about custody anymore. Within a few days, she would hold the trump card in her hands. Though the proof of how their child was created had originally hurt her, it would now protect her. Even if she didn’t make any deal with Ethan, those papers were her insurance that he wouldn’t take away her baby.

Knowing her child was safe, she now had to do whatever she could to free Barry and protect Ethan’s father.

“I’ve decided getting married solves both of our problems,” she said immediately, if only because Ethan’s expression indicated he had worried about her answer. “I appreciate that you didn’t push me last night. But even after a few hours to think about the situation, I couldn’t come up with a better solution. So I’m in.”

To her amazement, he seemed to sag with relief. “And today we can finalize everything?”

“I think so,” she said, leading him into her kitchen. She wouldn’t tell him that after a short discussion with the clinic director about the right of an accused to see any evidence presented against him, he had agreed that she and Barry should be allowed access to the records once they secured legal authorization. She also wouldn’t disclose that she had contacted her attorney, Wallace Jeffries, who was in the process of drawing up legal documents. She was sure that behind the scenes Ethan was doing his level best to protect himself, too. He would be crazy if he wasn’t. And he would be naive to think she would go into this without precautions of her own. There was no need to discuss it. No need to threaten him. No need to tip her hand. Besides, if Ethan stuck to whatever bargain they made, she would never even use the information.

She led Ethan through the swinging door into her kitchen. Delicious aromas from freshly baked cinnamon rolls and coffee greeted them.

“Would you like something? Coffee? Maybe a cinnamon roll?”

Savannah watched Ethan glance at the syrupy rolls sitting on a plate in the center of her round table. “Did you just bake those?”

She grinned. “This morning.”

“Oh, God, please,” he said with a groan of pleasure. “Coffee and one of those rolls sounds like heaven.”

“Coming right up,” she said and gathered a plate, cup, saucer and appropriate silverware for her guest. For the first time since his arrival at her house the night before, she heard a tone of normalcy sneaking into their conversation and she desperately wanted to keep it. They didn’t merely need to be comfortable with each other to negotiate visitation fairly. They also needed to relax because they would be living together until after the baby was born. Somehow, they had to break through the awkwardness between them once and for all to make their lives bearable until they divorced.