Her Christmas Future Read online

  No.

  It was too...everything. Too rushed. Too unplanned. Too out there. Too not at all what she saw for herself. Or her life. She didn’t even know if she was pregnant.

  She was not going to be a mother to a biological child. She’d accepted the diagnosis the day she’d buried her daughter.

  “Your insurance might not cover the process, so you’d want to consider cost.”

  Cost wasn’t an issue. Never had been. But the thought distracted her long enough to draw a full breath.

  “You came here for a reason.” Christine’s calm tone settled around her. Not holding her, but hanging out, almost within her reach.

  “You’re talking about the early days of in vitro fertilization.” Olivia was calm now. Fully in brain mode. “Before Louise Brown was born. She was the first official test tube baby...”

  Christine was nodding. Of course, being the founder of what was becoming one of the nation’s premier fertility clinics, she’d know the history of that particular medical science.

  “Before they fertilized eggs in petri dishes, they were fertilized inside a woman and then transferred from that woman to a surrogate...”

  “Or even to her own uterus if her fertility issues had to do with the fallopian tubes.” Olivia started to shake again as two parts of herself caught up with each other.

  Christine’s gaze was calm. Focused. “You want to try.”

  “It’s impossible.” There was no way.

  “I’d like to tell you that you’ve got time to think about it, but, unfortunately in your case, there is no time. If the embryo isn’t transferred before it implants in your uterus, you know what you’re facing.”

  A very difficult choice. Either terminate the pregnancy, or risk birthing another child who suffered as Lily had.

  With a chest so tight she could hardly draw air, Olivia quivered from the inside out. “There might not even be a baby.”

  “You aren’t willing to take that risk.” Christine didn’t ask. She knew.

  “I don’t even know of a doctor who’d be able or willing to do the procedure,” she said. “With modern technology and laboratory capabilities producing such improved results, no one fertilizes in the living organism anymore.”

  “I know of someone who used to work with my mom,” Christine said. “She lives in Europe, but is in the States on a teaching tour, so I know her license to practice here is up to date. The timing of that might not be a mistake.”

  Olivia’s heart leaped. And left a shard of anxiety shooting through her.

  Even if they could get someone to perform the procedure, the chances of extracting a healthy embryo and getting it successfully implanted in another woman were nil.

  If she was even pregnant.

  Christine hadn’t asked her why she’d had unprotected sex in the first place, let alone when she knew she was ovulating. She had no answer to that even if her friend posed the question. Thinking back to the night before...the last thing on her mind had been her menstrual cycle. She’d been hell-bent on escaping the responsibility and caution that guided every breath she took.

  Just for one night.

  Not a lifetime.

  “I have to talk to Martin.”

  Technically, she didn’t. If the baby was inside her, she could make the choice. But ethically?

  “Did you two ever talk about surrogacy in the past?”

  She shook her head. “Ten years ago success rates weren’t as good and it wasn’t even legal in some places. And... I was such a mess after Lily, I couldn’t imagine opening my heart to another baby, to the fact that I could lose another child. Even the idea of a surrogate miscarrying sent me into panic mode. Martin was just the opposite. He wanted to adopt right away. He was in his thirties and the only real goal he hadn’t met was having a family. He was so desperate to do that that he just wasn’t thinking straight. And certainly wasn’t able to understand where I was emotionally.

  “And then he and I started having problems that had nothing to do with having a family. Our age difference kept popping up—I was so young, just twenty-one, idealistic, starting a career. He’d made his money and wanted to scale mountains while he was still young enough to do so. I needed to make a difference in the world, to feel like I had worth, most particularly since it seemed I’d failed at motherhood. He’d already made his difference.”

  “How do you think he’d react to the idea of you having his baby with the help of a surrogate?”

  Shaking her head, she knew she couldn’t possibly be seriously considering the idea. She was teasing herself. Playing what-ifs as though she was still a kid. “I honestly don’t know,” she said, because Christine was waiting for an answer to her question.

  And then, thinking of Martin, she shook her head. He had his own millions but thrived on raising money for Fishnet, the licensed nonprofit he’d founded to provide supervised housing and incentives for underprivileged youth.

  With another shake of her head, she said, “I can’t imagine him staying in one place long enough to be part of a family.”

  That was partially why their odd association postdivorce had worked as long as it had. Not only were there no expectations, there wasn’t even opportunity for expectations to develop. They lived in two vastly different worlds.

  Marie Cove was her home.

  The world was his.

  Chapter Two

  Martin saw the text message come in from Olivia as soon as he’d come off the golf course. He read it again in the back seat of the limo taking him to the spa where he was about to try to relax enough to enjoy a massage, and then, joined by one or two others, time in a steam room followed by cucumber cocktails in an exclusive private bar on the premises.

  Call me, please?

  The fact that he wanted to do so immediately, at the risk of being late for his next engagement, had him putting his phone back in his pocket.

  It had taken him years to learn how to counteract Olivia’s inadvertent power over him. If there were an emergency, she’d call. It’s how they rolled.

  The massage was a bust. Instead of relaxing into the darkened space, he spent the entire hour conjuring up various scenarios to serve as the basis for Olivia’s text. She’d left something at his place and needed it before he left town was the one that won out.

  She had a key. She’d never used it. Said she never would. He’d given it to her in the event that anything happened to him. There were things he wanted her to have right away, before his lawyer executed his will. Pictures of Lily, for one. He’d told her where she’d find the sealed envelope that contained the complete list of the personal items and where to find everything.

  He’d give her the skin off his body if she could find happiness or comfort with it. Even before death. Anything he had, anytime...

  To make up for the happiness that he hadn’t been able to provide.

  He hadn’t been able to transform himself into a man young enough to have been able to be patient and wait out her grief before asking about adoption possibilities, or one who’d even still want children by the time she got around to being able to consider adoption.

  Hell, even if he’d been able to understand the maelstrom of emotion that had emanated from her after Lily’s birth. He knew grief, had experienced it firsthand and deeply even before he lost Lily—and had been suffocated by it when Lily had left them. But the only way he knew to survive the strangulating emotions, to breathe again, was to move forward.

  To make a new plan.

  To find another way.

  Olivia hadn’t been open to a new way. Nor, for that matter, had she seemed to have all that much room for him in her grieving process, either.

  The two congressmen who’d invited him to the spa joined Martin before he reconnected with his phone, and he went on to the steam room, to a private shower, a shave he didn’t need performed b
y a lovely lady he barely noticed—a fully clothed lovely lady—and was rejoined just as he was getting his personal belongings out of the locked closet in the dressing room he’d been allotted for the afternoon. After that, socializing took precedence over the text he needed to send Olivia.

  * * *

  Olivia was in her office at the hospital on Saturday afternoon, halfway through her tuna sandwich from the cafeteria, when her cell rang.

  Martin! The leap in her chest had to be contained. She couldn’t keep overreacting to every little thing.

  Slowly reaching for the phone, she saw the caller and her heart leaped again, though differently.

  Christine.

  She was at work to forget about her early-morning visit with her friend. She had her pill. All she had to do was swallow it. Which she was going to do just as soon as she spoke with Martin.

  If she were the guy...and there was a chance a baby had been made...she’d at least want to know about the choices. To be consulted.

  And maybe she was making way too big a deal out of the whole thing. Glancing at the chart she’d just been through in preparation for stopping in to see one of her newest patients, she put her mind on the things she wanted—helping young babies in the fights for their lives—and off the things she didn’t want. Make-believe internal conflicts. Drama.

  She didn’t want to hold on to the pain.

  The fifth ring sounded. Voice mail would answer on six.

  Olivia picked up the chart and, though she wasn’t on duty that weekend, headed up to the unit, and her real life.

  Baby V, Olivia’s own moniker for the three-pound infant who’d been born the previous Thursday, was doing better than expected. Better than Olivia had even hoped. While she wasn’t out of the woods, by any means, she was a strong little thing. Very little thing. She’d pretty much fit in the palm of Olivia’s hand.

  Back in her office, with the cell phone that had been blowing up her pocket the entire time she’d been on the unit back in hand, she was disappointed, though not surprised, to see that Martin hadn’t yet answered her text. He was a busy guy. Living life to the fullest.

  Doing good things.

  If she called him, he’d think it was an emergency and pick up. Or excuse himself from whatever, wherever, and call her right back.

  She didn’t have an emergency. She had a panic attack with a slow demise.

  And a friend who wasn’t going to give up.

  “Olivia?” Christine picked up on the first ring.

  “Yeah. Sorry, I—”

  “Where are you?”

  “In my office, why?”

  “You’re at the hospital?”

  Heart in her throat, Olivia sat forward in her chair, in ready mode. “Yes, why? What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I wanted to know! You always pick up or call me back. Always. I mean, we aren’t hoverers by any means, but we pick up the phone...”

  She was right.

  “You weren’t yourself this morning, at all. You’ve got a second or two to make a decision that might shape your whole life. Your mom isn’t back from her cruise until tomorrow and I know she’s the only other person you’d turn to. You left the center early and haven’t been at your place.”

  Christine didn’t get into flaps on a normal basis. Never, was more like it. Pregnancy hormones probably had something to do with her current, somewhat frantic state, but Olivia knew that she was partially responsible, too.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, settling back in her chair. “I just—”

  “I know.” Her friend’s voice calmed immediately. They really were a lot alike, the two of them. Nurturers of others. Always. Truly called by their work, naturals at what they did. Believing in what they did as a purpose in life, not just a way to make a living. “I was on my way to see if you were at the hospital, since you still weren’t picking up. I’m here now. I’ll be up in a few.”

  Pulling her thigh-length white coat more securely around her, Olivia mostly hid the slim-fitting knee-length beige-and-black dress she’d put on with her favorite flat shoes after her shower that morning, wrapping herself in what she was. A doctor.

  Christine entered her office after a brief knock, bringing the freshness of spring into that October fall Saturday with her bright flowery dress and red shoes.

  Christine always looked like she was going out to lunch with friends. Olivia felt reserved in comparison. Less full of life. Though she couldn’t remember ever having felt that way around her friend, or anyone, before. It wasn’t the clothes. Or the expression on Christine’s face. It was the baby bump.

  Christine could birth healthy children herself. Olivia couldn’t.

  Dropping her bag on one of the chairs in front of Olivia’s desk, Christine sat in the other. “How are you?” she asked, her gaze piercing.

  Olivia shrugged, pushed Baby V’s folder a bit forward on the desk in front of her. Wished it was back where it had been. Closer to her.

  Baby V. A fighter. A three-pound, intensively ill, premature fighter.

  Just as Lily had been.

  Except that it looked like Baby V was going to make it.

  There was something in that for her. A reason to cling to hope.

  “Did you take it?” Christine’s next question came almost right after the first. To the point.

  The pill.

  “Not yet.” Still in the cellophane wrapper, it was in the pocket of her lab coat. Testimony to her lack of control. Her harried state.

  Nodding, Christine didn’t seem to pass judgment. Or take hope. The only thing emanating from her friend at the moment seemed to be concern.

  Not something Olivia welcomed coming in her direction. Made her feel weak. Incapable.

  Made her into the crumbling woman she’d been as she’d watched her baby girl struggle. Because her body hadn’t been able to nourish her baby properly, Lily’s body couldn’t form normally.

  “Have you talked to Martin?”

  Hearing her ex’s name on Christine’s lips was still so odd to her. She spoke as if she knew him and she’d never met the guy. Had only known of him for such a short time.

  That seemed like forever now.

  Sometimes it was as though she and Christine had somehow been connected from birth. Olivia had a lot of friends—people she associated with on a social level—but Christine was different. She’d always respected the invisible barriers Olivia had been putting up since Lily’s death, and yet, somehow, seemed to see beyond them, to see what was hidden behind them. To tend to what was hidden behind them.

  “I texted him. Haven’t heard back yet.”

  Again, no judgment. Just a nod. And then, “I thought you weren’t on call this weekend.”

  “I’m not. Just wanted to check on a new patient...” She couldn’t say much. Laws prevented her from talking about her patients. Which made it easier to keep herself locked inside.

  Martin used to say it was an easy way for her to keep him locked out.

  Hindsight had shown her that he’d probably been right. And still, she knew she’d done what she had to do. Martin had never understood why she blamed herself for Lily’s anguish. “Your body’s inability to foster a fetus wasn’t your fault,” he’d screamed at her that last day.

  Right before he’d walked out of their shared bedroom for the last time.

  Christine cleared her throat and said, “I made the calls I told you I’d make.”

  Another pang shot through Olivia. She couldn’t go back there. Had spent all day getting beyond those few moments in Christine’s office that morning.

  She listened, though, as Christine started to speak.

  “Dr. Morrisette is willing to meet with you and, if all checks out, do the procedure. Tomorrow would work best for her.”

  Funny that Olivia was off the next day, as well. But there
was too much to be done. A surrogate to find. Lawyers. No way this was happening that soon.

  Organs were transplanted within hours of the need becoming apparent, in emergency situations, when all of the details fell into place and a life could actually be saved. But she didn’t even know if there was a life to be saved...

  “And I have a surrogate lined up to meet with you if you decide to give this a try. Beth and her husband, an EMT, have two children. The aunt who raised her and her sister is in need of a liver transplant and her sister has been cleared as the donor, but the aunt has an incredibly high deductible on her insurance and Beth can earn the money quickly enough through surrogacy. She has the family’s complete support. She was due to be implanted on Monday, is midcycle and has had hormone supplements, but the couple who’d chosen her broke up a couple of days ago and have decided against having a child together. Beth would love the opportunity to meet you and is fully ready to go.”

  Yes, but, even assuming they found that there was an embryo forming in her one fallopian tube, they’d still need compatibility testing. Or, at the very least, to check blood types.

  She knew hers and Martin’s. Had records still from their attempts to help Lily... A simple check would—

  “If Beth doesn’t find another couple soon, her aunt’s surgery will have to be canceled.”

  Olivia could loan her the money. Or give it to her. She didn’t generally use the account Martin had set up for her during their divorce. Not anymore. Not on herself. “What does she do for a living?”

  “Teaches kindergarten.”

  “Does the family have any pets?” She was just curious. Living alone, working long hours and being gone so much, Olivia didn’t allow herself to have a fur friend, but growing up with her grandmother, who’d raised her, she’d had a houseful. Two dogs. A cat. A bird. There’d even been bunnies for a while.

  “I have no idea,” Christine said, her face so expressionless she gave herself away.

  So this was the professional Christine her clients saw. Olivia wasn’t usually so slow on the uptake.