Baby In The Making. Elizabeth Bevarly

I’m no expert in baby-making—and thank God for that—but even I know it doesn’t always happen the first time. Or the second. Or the third. You’re going to need all the time you can get.”

      Hannah closed her eyes at the reminder of what she already knew. “Thanks a lot, Grandpa. There’s nothing like the pressure of a ticking clock to bring a girl’s egg delivery to a crawl.”

      She snapped her eyes open again. Oh, God, did she actually just say that out loud? When she heard Yeager chuckle, she realized she had. Then again, this whole situation was kind of comical. In an over-the-top, stranger-than-fiction, absolutely surreal kind of way.

      She leaned forward and banged her head lightly against the table. In some part of her brain, she’d already realized that, if she wanted to inherit this money—and she very much wanted to inherit this money, since it would enable her to realize every dream she’d ever dreamed—she was going to have to make a decision fast and get herself in the family way as soon as possible.

      But now that the rest of her brain was getting in on the action, she knew the prospects weren’t looking great. She had nothing remotely resembling a boyfriend. She didn’t even have a boy who was her friend. And only one attempt at in vitro was way beyond her financial means. She’d already checked that out, too.

      Which left visits to a sperm bank, something she’d also been researching online tonight. If necessary, she could afford a few of those—barely—but if none of the efforts took, and she didn’t conceive by the six-month deadline, she would have drained what little savings she had. And fifty grand, although an impressive sum, wasn’t going to go far in New York City. These things came with no guarantees, especially if her anxiety about everything really did turn her eggs into the same kind of shrinking violets she was.

      What Hannah needed was something that could counter her potentially diminished fertility. A super-tricked-out, ultra-souped-up, hypermasculine testosterone machine that could fairly guarantee to knock her up. And where the hell was she supposed to find a guy like—

      She sat back up and looked at Yeager—and the super-tricked-out, ultra-souped-up, hypermasculine body that housed him. Talk about testosterone overload. The guy flew MiG 29s over the Russian tundra for kicks. He’d climbed Mt. Everest. Twice. He served himself up as shark bait on purpose, for God’s sake. The man probably produced enough testosterone for ten men. If he couldn’t put a woman in the family way, nobody could.

      Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the wine followed by the whiskey. Or maybe it was just the unmitigated terror of having finally discovered who she was and where she belonged and everything she could attain. It wasn’t just the reclaiming of a life that had been denied her, but the promise of a happiness she never thought she would have—and realizing she could lose it all in the blink of an eye or the shrink of an egg.

      And she heard herself saying, “So, Mr. Novak. Have you ever thought about donating your sperm to a good cause?”

      * * *

      Before he could stop himself, Yeager spat back into his glass a mouthful of whiskey, something that had never happened to him before. Then again, no one had ever asked him about his intentions for his sperm before, either, so he guessed he was entitled to this one social lapse.

      As he wiped his chin with his napkin, he tried to tell himself he’d misheard Hannah’s question. “Excuse me?” he asked.

      “Your sperm,” she said, enunciating the word more clearly this time. “Have you ever thought about donating it?”

      So much for having misheard her. “Uh...no,” he said decisively.

      She eyed him intently, her gaze never wavering from his. For a minute he thought she was going to drop it. Then she asked, “Well, would you think about it now?”