Staking His Claim

That caught his attention.

As soon as she’d killed the call, he echoed, “Early next week? You’re not intending to go back to work that soon. Have you already forgotten that you have a newborn that needs attention?”

“Hardly.” Her teeth snapped together. “But I have a practice to run.”

“And a newborn baby to take care of.”

“The baby wasn’t supposed to arrive for another week!” Ella objected.

Keira laughed. “You can’t really have expected a baby to conform to your schedule, Ella. Although, if you think about it, the baby did arrive on a Friday evening. Maybe you do already have her trained.”

Ella slanted her sister a killing look.

It sank in that Ella had expected the baby to conform. Clearly, she rigorously ran her life by her calendar. Why shouldn’t a baby comply, too? Yevgeny started to understand why Ella could be so insistent that she’d never have a baby.

Her selfishness wouldn’t allow for it.

The woman never dated. She didn’t even appear to have a social life—apart from her sister. Keeping the baby would mean disruption in her life by another person. Ella was not about to allow that. Everything he knew about her added up to one conclusion: Ella was the most self-centered woman he’d ever met.

Except there was one thing wrong with that picture…

Keira must have begged to get her sister to agree to be a surrogate in the first place. Ella carrying the baby for nine months was the one thing that went against the picture he’d built in his mind. Allowing her body to be taken over by a baby she had no interest in was a huge commitment.

But Yevgeny knew even that could be explained—Ella was a lawyer. She knew every pitfall. And she was such a control freak she wouldn’t have wanted to risk some other surrogate changing her mind once the baby was born. This way she could make sure that Keira got the baby she and his brother had planned.

Ella was speaking again. He put aside the puzzle of Ella’s motivations and concentrated on what she was saying. “Well, that’s when I planned my maternity leave to begin,” she was informing Keira. “Another week and everything in the office would’ve been totally wrapped up—I planned it that way.”

“Oh, Ella!” The mirth had faded from his sister-in-law’s face. “Sometimes I worry about you. You need the trip to Africa more than Dmitri and I. In fact, you should visit India, take up meditation.”

“Don’t be silly! I’m perfectly happy with my life.”

It appeared Ella was not as calm and composed as he’d thought. The brief flare of irritation revealed she was human, after all.

From his position beside the bed stand, Yevgeny switched his attention to the younger McLeod sister. Keira was biting her lip.

“You were going to ask Keira about names.” Yevgeny spoke into the silence that had settled over the ward following Ella’s curt response.

“Names?” Ella’s poise slipped further. “Oh, yes.”

Yevgeny waited.

Keira twisted her head and glanced at him, a question in her eyes. “What names are you talking about?”

His brows jerked together. “The names you’ve been considering for the baby.” His sister-in-law shouldn’t need a prompt. The baby was so firmly in the forefront of his mind, how could it not be the same for her… and for Ella? What was wrong with these McLeod women?

“I hadn’t chosen one yet.”

“That’s what I told him,” Ella added quickly, protectively, her hand closing over her sister’s where it rested on the edge of the bed. “Keira, you don’t need to think about it if it upsets you….”

Relief flooded Keira’s face as she turned away from him and said, “Ella, you’re the best. I knew you would take care of everything.”

Those words set his teeth on edge.

Shifting away from the sisters, Yevgeny crossed the room. Foreboding filled him.

Keira’s confidence in her sister didn’t reassure Yevgeny one bit. Because it was clear to him that Ella couldn’t wait to get rid of the baby.

And that was the last thing he wanted.

Despite all the drama of the day, Ella surprised herself by managing to get several hours sleep that night.

Yet she still woke before the first fingers of daylight appeared through the crack in the curtains. For a long while she lay staring into space, thinking about what needed to happen. Finally, as dawn arrived, filling the ward with a gentle wash of December sun, she switched on the over-bed light and reached into the drawer of the bed stand for the legal pad she’d stowed there yesterday.

By the time the day nurse bustled in to remind her that the baby would be brought in from the nursery in fifteen minutes for the appointment with the pediatrician, Ella had already scribbled pages of notes. After a quick shower, she put on a dab of makeup and dressed in a pair of gray trousers and a white T-shirt. Then she settled into one of the pair of padded visitor chairs near the window to await the doctor’s arrival.

The baby was wheeled in at the same time that the pediatrician scurried into the room, which—to Ella’s great relief—meant that she wasn’t left alone with the wide-awake infant. The doctor took charge and proceeded to do a thorough examination before pronouncing the baby healthy.

Tension that Ella hadn’t even known existed seeped away with the doctor’s words. The baby was healthy. For the first time she acknowledged how much she’d been dreading that something might be wrong. Of course, a well baby would benefit by having many more potential sets of adoptive parents wanting to love and cherish her.

After the pediatrician departed, the nurse took the baby back to the nursery, and Ella’s breakfast arrived in time to stem the blossoming regret. Fruit, juice and oatmeal along with coffee much more aromatic than any hospital was reputed to produce.

Ella had just finished enjoying a second cup when Jo Wells entered her room. Ella had been pleased when she’d discovered that Jo had been assigned to processing the baby’s adoption to Keira and Dmitri. Of course, that had all changed. Now she was even more relieved to have Jo’s help.

Slight with short, dark hair, the social worker had a firm manner that concealed a heart of gold. Ella had worked with Jo a few times in the past. Once in a legal case where a couple wanted to adopt their teen daughter’s baby, and more recently in a tough custody battle where the father had threatened to breach a custody order and kidnap his children to take them back to his home country.

“How are you doing?”

The understanding in Jo’s kind eyes caused Ella’s throat to tighten. She waved Jo to the other visitor seat, reached for the yellow legal pad on the bed stand and gave the social worker a wry smile. “As well as can be expected in the circumstances—This is not the outcome I’d planned.”

Jo nodded with a degree of empathy that almost shredded the tight control Ella had been exercising since Keira had dropped her bombshell—was it only yesterday?

“I want the best for the baby, Jo.”

Focusing on what the baby needed helped stem the tears that threatened to spill. Ella tore the top three pages off the pad and offered them to the social worker.

“I knew you’d ask. So I’ve already listed the qualities I’d like to see in the couple who adopts her. It would be wonderful if the family has an older daughter—perhaps two years older.” That way the baby would have a bond like the one Ella shared with Keira, but the age difference would be smaller. Hopefully the sisters would grow up to be even closer than she and Keira were. “If possible, I’d like for her to be the younger sister—like Keira is. But above all, I’d like her to go to a family who will love her… care for her… give her everything that I can’t.”

Another nod. Yet instead of reading the long wish list that had taken Ella so much soul-searching in the dark hours this morning to compile, Jo pulled the second chair up. Propping the manila folder she’d brought with her against a bent knee, she spread the handwritten pages Ella had given her on top.

Then Jo looked up. “I spoke to Keira before coming here. She and Dmitri haven’t had second thoughts.”

Ella had known that. From the moment Keira had told her of their decision yesterday, she’d known Keira was not going to change her mind. But deep down she must have harbored a last hope because her breath escaped in a slow, audible hiss.

“Is there anyone else in the family who would consider adopting the baby?” Jo asked.

“My parents have just reached their seventies.” Ella had been born to a mother already in her forties and Keira had followed five years later. “They’ve just moved into a retirement village. There’s no chance that they’re in a position to care for a newborn.”

Even if they’d wanted to adopt the child, she wouldn’t allow it. Her parents had already been past parenting when she and Keira had reached their teens. She was not letting this baby experience the kind of distant, disengaged upbringing they’d experienced.