Come Home to Me. Brenda Novak

loved Dyl so much. She’d do anything to protect him, even concoct a daring plan like this. But she wasn’t a deceitful person. Keeping Wyatt’s true paternity a secret was enough of a burden for her. How would she cope with a much more personal secret?

      “Dylan has been through so much, Chey. And he’s always managed. He can handle this, too. I think you’re selling him short.”

      “It isn’t that at all! The question is why make him handle it? Why can’t I be his guardian angel for a change? He’s brought me so much happiness—I want to return the favor. If Aaron could lend me some sperm, Dylan would never have to cope with feeling inadequate. He won’t have to feel indebted, knowing how we got the baby, or jealous or disappointed, either. I mean, God, he deserves a break, right? Who deserves a break more than he does?”

      “But using Aaron to get pregnant? That’s your solution?”

      “Why not?”

      “For starters, he and Dylan fight like crazy.”

      “Doesn’t matter. Aaron would never tell a soul. I know he wouldn’t. He loves Dylan as much as I do. He’d do whatever was necessary to ensure Dylan’s happiness, especially if he understood what Dylan’s going through right now—how emasculating this is for him.”

      Presley had to agree. Aaron had his issues, but he was loyal to the bone and, whether he’d admit it or not, he admired Dylan more than any other person on earth.

      But there were as many reasons to reject Cheyenne’s idea as there were to consider it.

      “Are you sure it’s time to resort to fertility treatments? It’s only been a couple of years. Maybe his sperm count will go up.”

      “That’s highly unlikely.”

      “How do you know?”

      “I spoke to my doctor.”

      “And?”

      “She said there’s always a chance we could get pregnant, but in our case it would be slight. She suggested we look into alternatives.”

      “Are there things you can do to increase that chance?”

      “We’ve already done everything we can. We started trying for a baby almost as soon as we were married. The past six months, I’ve been taking my temperature and tracking ovulation. And I’ve never been on the pill. I was a virgin until I slept with him, remember? So it’s not as if we can blame the delay on the contraceptives we’ve used. If I was going to conceive in the usual way, it should’ve happened by now.”

      “Maybe not—”

      “I’m out of time. This is really upsetting Dyl. I want a baby, too, of course. Badly. But he’s feeling it was a mistake for me to marry him.”

      Presley slid Wyatt’s toys closer to him with one foot. “I’m sorry about that, but there are so many risks when you’re using a known sperm donor.” Her mind was racing through them. “I mean, on some level, it makes sense to use Aaron. The baby will be closely related to Dyl and will look like him and all of that, so there’s a much better chance he’d never find out.”

      “And I know Aaron’s medical history, know he’s healthy. Unless you think the drugs he took in the past—”

      “No. He smoked pot now and then, but he didn’t do nearly as much crack as I did. He’s fine. But what about how Aaron might feel, looking at your child and knowing it’s his? Would he be able to handle that?”

      “For Dylan’s sake? I think so. Aaron’s tough. Once he makes up his mind, there’s no changing it. He’d never go back on his word.”

      But he was sensitive, too. That was what so many people didn’t understand about him—that his toughness protected a very soft heart. “He might regret it.”

      “Why would he regret making his brother happy? We’d take excellent care of the child. And he can have other kids if he wants.”

      Presley had made having a secret Aaron baby look easy. She hadn’t even meant to get pregnant, and here she was with Wyatt. No doubt that figured into her sister’s thoughts. “It would be a perfect plan if there was some way we could get Aaron’s sperm without him knowing,” she mused. “Like I did—by accident. But how could we ever do that?”

      “We couldn’t. He’d have to go to a clinic and bank the sperm, and I’d have to go there afterward.”

      “Without telling Dylan?”

      “Yes, without telling Dylan!”

      “Would a clinic do that?”

      “Fortunately, we live in the most liberal state in the country when it comes to things like that. I asked an online doctor at one of those expert advice sites. According to her, there’s no law that a husband has to give his consent. She also said some clinics might demand it, but that I could find one that won’t.”

      “And if you can’t?”

      “Aaron has the same last name as my husband.”

      “You’d have him pose as your partner?”

      “Why not? I’d just need to go to a clinic or doctor that isn’t affiliated with the hospital where I’ll be giving birth. Otherwise, the fact that I was artificially inseminated would be noted on my chart, and one of the nurses could let it slip.”

      “I can see you’ve put a lot of thought into this. But that brings up another point. What if Dylan found out? If not now, then later? In five or ten years? How would he feel about it?”

      When Cheyenne spoke again, her voice was soft, defeated. “What am I doing? You’re right. That would be terrible. It won’t work.”

      “And yet you can’t help going back to the possibility.”

      “It would solve everything,” she said. “Using Aaron’s sperm instead of Dylan’s seems like such a...a technicality. It wouldn’t make any difference to me if I had Aaron’s child. Aaron’s so much like my husband. I love them both. And Dylan would adore a child. You’ve seen how he is with Wyatt.”

      “He’d be a good father.” There was no question about that. “But...why not adopt?”

      “That comes with as many risks.”

      “True, but—”

      “Anyway, I’m not opposed to it. I could see us adopting at some point. I just need Dylan to believe he gave me one.”

      “To salvage all that male pride?”

      “It’s the way he is,” she said defensively. “And I wouldn’t change him even if I could. Pride’s one of the things that carried him through the hard times, that gave him the determination he needed to soldier on. It’s—”

      “You want to do this,” Presley broke in, going straight to the bottom line.

      “If it’ll make Dylan feel better, I do. But I’m scared, too.”

      Now that she wasn’t so shocked by the idea, Presley tried to be more open-minded. In a way, it did seem like a technicality that it wouldn’t be Dylan’s sperm. She’d want to save her husband the humiliation and anguish, too, if she had a husband like Dylan and that husband had a brother like Aaron. “I guess you wouldn’t be the first person to use a known donor.”

      “People do it all the time.”

      More knowledge gleaned from the internet? “Without the consent of their spouse? I still think that’s asking for trouble.”

      “It’s not like I intend to sleep with Aaron, Pres. I won’t be cheating. Is it really that terrible to use, with the donor’s permission, some DNA that’s very similar to my husband’s? What Dylan doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”

      Presley sat on the edge of the couch and massaged