Classified Baby. Jessica Andersen

doesn’t make a man a father,” he said, voice nearly inflectionless, but he paced the length of the room, body language giving voice to the upset within.

      When he stopped at the window and worked the mechanism to open the blinds and look out at the night, she thought she saw something sad in the reflection of his eyes, something that defused her quick anger and left the hurt behind.

      “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “It’s not about you, or about what we did. It’s…” He turned toward her and spread his hands away from his long, lean body. “Let’s just say the world is better off if I’m in it by myself.”

      A flare of disappointment warned Nic that no matter how many times she’d told herself not to think foolish thoughts, some piece of her had been hoping for the happy nuclear family she’d always dreamed of. But she forced her voice level when she said, “I didn’t come looking for a marriage proposal. Lucky for us, society has evolved past shotgun weddings.”

      Though she had a feeling her professor father’s reaction wouldn’t be particularly evolved when he found out his first—and possibly only—grandchild would be born outside of wedlock.

      Ethan repeated, “I’m sorry.”

      “Me, too,” she said. “I wish…” She trailed off, not sure what exactly she wished. If she hadn’t gone into Hitchin’s that night, damned caution and hiked up onto a bar stool beside the hottest guy in the joint, she would’ve missed out on some pretty fabulous sex. And yes, she would’ve missed out on the life growing inside her. An unplanned life, perhaps, but one she already cherished.

      “I’m okay with it, really,” she said, not sure whether she was saying it for his benefit or her own. “I’ve always planned on having kids. Even thought I’d found the right guy once.”

      “Jonah,” he said, surprising her.

      She nodded, remembering that she’d mentioned her ex in passing during their brief bar flirtation. “Good memory. But that—obviously—didn’t work out.”

      Ethan looked over his shoulder at her. “Was that why you were at Hitchin’s that night? Because of him?”

      “No,” she said quickly, then stopped herself and went with the truth. “Or, not really. It was my thirty-fourth birthday that day. I had all these plans with my friends from the school.” She glanced at him. “Did I tell you I’m a teacher?” When he shook his head, she said, “Science. Donner High School. Anyway, we were supposed to have a girls’ day out—a few hours at the spa, a movie, that sort of thing. Simple fun. But I got up that morning, looked in the mirror, and all I saw was someone I never expected to be. Thirty-four, unmarried, no kids.”

      She shook her head. “That much I could’ve dealt with. I’d been dealing just fine. But then I checked my messages and found out that Toulouse Inc. was backing out of funding this biofuel project I’ve been working on with some of my students. We’ve built this great greenhouse.” She sketched the building with her hands. “Corn. Wheat. Soybeans. Easily renewable resources. And we’ve got a converter we designed…” She trailed off, aware that he was staring. “And I’m babbling. You don’t care about any of this. Sorry.”

      Jonah had always hated when she’d interjected her “little project” into dinner-party conversation, even though it had been his idea that she leave grad school for the more family-friendly schedule of teaching high school. The way she figured it, if Jonah hadn’t cared about the biofuel project, then Ethan certainly wouldn’t.

      “Sorry,” she said again when he just stared at her. She felt a hot flush climb her cheeks. “That’s not what you’re here to talk about, is it? You want to settle things, make sure I’m okay. Well, I am.” She took a deep breath to quell the taint of nausea at the back of her throat. “I didn’t go looking for you because I wanted a proposal, or money or anything like that. I’m fully prepared to have this baby and raise it on my own. Heck, I’m looking forward to it. If I’m lucky, I’ll meet a man and fall in love with him, and the three of us can make a family, make more babies, have the white picket fence, the Labrador and the whole nine yards.” She paused, then continued, “But that doesn’t change the fact that this baby is half yours, so I needed to tell you about him or her. What you do with the information is pretty much up to you.”

      She was babbling again, she realized. Or maybe she was speaking normally and it just felt like babbling because Ethan was so reserved, so remote.

      Still standing by the window, silhouetted against the darkness, he inclined his head in a brief nod. “Thanks for telling me. And I’m sorry you got caught up in what happened back at PPS. I just need… I need to take a walk.” He glanced from her to the door and back. “Don’t go anywhere until I get back.”

      “Where am I going to go?” she said, but he was already gone, the door swinging shut at his back, leaving her alone in silence broken by the faint hum of fluorescent lights and ventilation, the sense of movement and activity just beyond the door.

      Nic sat for a second, not sure how she felt other than sore everywhere, and unbelievably tired.

      Well, that was over. She wasn’t sure if she was more relieved or disappointed. She felt hollow, drained of just about everything. Her headache had even subsided, leaving her vaguely restless.

      She glanced down, making sure she wasn’t hooked to any machines before she sat up in the hospital bed. When that earned her only a long, lazy spin of the room and a thump of the headache, she decided to try using the bathroom. If she could make it there and back under her own steam, she was doing okay. Maybe even okay enough to go home.

      Suddenly, she couldn’t think of anything more appealing than her four-room apartment with the soft Navajo blanket on the bed.

      “Bathroom first,” she said aloud. Suiting action to word, she threw back the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet were numb and her whole body felt disconnected, as though her head was floating along under its own power as she made it across the room, nearly to the bathroom door.

      Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a dark shadow through the window of the hallway door. The shadow paused, then pushed through.

      Nic turned, expecting a lecture from Dr. Eballa. “I was just—” She broke off because it wasn’t her doctor. It was an unshaven, heavyset man wearing a white lab coat over a T-shirt, jeans and heavy boots.

      He grabbed her before she could react, and covered her mouth with his hand.

      Panic spurted as Nic screamed against his palm. She struggled, kicking him with her bare feet and scratching at him with her fingernails. He didn’t react, just held on as she felt a prick in her upper arm, then a fiery sizzle in her veins that quickly faded to cool numbness.

      Aware of her surroundings but unable to stay upright, she slumped to the floor and hit hard. He pushed through the door for a moment, then returned, pulling a gurney behind him. He grabbed her around the waist, heaved her up onto the gurney and covered her most of the way with the blanket from her bed.

      Then he wheeled her out of the room.

      Chapter Three

      Ethan walked the hospital corridors with no real destination in mind. He simply thought better when he was moving. He always had.

      Nicole’s child might have half his DNA, but he knew as well as anyone that biology didn’t make a father. Character made a man a father. Honesty did, and integrity. Wholeness.

      And though Ethan considered himself a logical, honest man, he was anything but whole.

      Seeing a knot of people in the hallway up ahead, he detoured down the next offshoot corridor. If he’d still believed in the religion his mother had tried to instill in him, he might’ve thought it no accident that the hallway dead-ended at the hospital chapel. Since he’d long ago renounced faith in a higher power, he thought only that it was a quiet, empty space with padded benches.

      He sprawled in one, let his head fall back with