Baby's First Christmas. Cathy Thacker Gillen

she was about to stave off the truth and protest again, he touched a finger to her lips, reveling in the satiny softness as he effectively and quickly silenced what she was about to say.

      “And yes,” he continued as another thrill shot through him, “they did indeed mix up the vials, because his sperm is still in the deep freeze, perfectly intact, not a drop missing.” Aware his finger and her lips were both heating, he dropped his finger from her lips. His frown deepening, he finished, “Mine, on the other hand, is all gone, and the experiment I agreed to participate in has not yet been done.”

      Kate suddenly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Her heart pounding, she leaned against the open door of the van. She looked as shaken as he’d felt when he’d first done the detective work and confirmed for himself what had happened. “Is that how you found out there’d been a mistake?” she asked, aghast. “The lab called you?”

      Michael nodded grimly. “They asked me to come down and donate some sperm for the experiment on ways to improve genetic testing. I said I already had, months ago. They said I hadn’t. Obviously something had happened, so an investigation was done.”

      Kate gulped. Finally, it was beginning to sink in. “If this is a joke, Dr. Sloane,” she said, swaying slightly, “it is definitely not funny.”

      Michael put out a hand to steady her. He guided her to a sitting position in the back of the van. “Believe me, I didn’t think it was funny when I found out about it, either,” he said grimly as he knelt in front of her. In fact, it still seemed like a nightmare from which he’d never wake up. But it had happened, and had to be faced.

      Michael took her hand in his and clasped it firmly. “Look, I figured you wouldn’t want to just take my word for all this.”

      “You’re right about that much,” Kate said hotly. She pushed his hand away and leaped to her feet.

      “So I brought proof,” Michael said.

      Ten phone calls later, Kate finally appeared satisfied he was telling her the truth. Once again, they squared off in her private office.

      “The question is,” Michael said, as he stared into her flushed face, “now that we know what happened, what are we going to do about this?”

      THOUGH IT HAD been a shock, Kate had had time to think about it, and she knew what she had to do. Play her cards to the hilt. “Why should we do anything?” she asked with a great deal more serenity than she felt. “We could sue the clinic, but what would that bring us, except more unhappiness. We’re just going to have to deal with the situation as it exists.”

      Michael blinked, stunned by her casual assertion. “I beg your pardon?”

      Kate palmed her chest. “You didn’t plan for this baby. On the other hand, I did.” In her opinion, that gave her vastly superior rights.

      Michael’s eyes darkened as he closed the distance between them. “Be that as it may, this is still my child, too,” he stated.

      “I know that.” Kate smiled. Feeling as though she had a tiger by the tail, she planted both hands on her hips. “But you don’t have to feel beholden to either of us.”

      “I want to be involved,” Michael insisted.

      “You feel that way now…” she said.

      “I’ll feel that way forever,” Michael corrected, as his expressive brows lowered like thunderclouds over his eyes.

      Kate shrugged, aware the aching pressure in her thighs, which had been there all day, was increasing—maybe because of the amount of time she’d spent on her feet, pacing back and forth, as she talked to Michael about their situation. “We’ll see,” she replied cryptically.

      “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

      Kate stomped closer, not stopping until she and Michael were toe to toe. She angled her head at him, wishing he weren’t so tall, so fit or so unerringly handsome and masculine. “It means once the novelty wears off, you could lose interest in this baby and in me,” she said mildly.

      He flashed her a crocodile grin. “I don’t think so.”

      His soft voice sent another whisper of sensual awareness spiraling through her. Feeling as though she couldn’t breathe, Kate drew a deep—albeit shaky—breath and continued to study him like a problem she had no choice but to solve immediately. In the meantime, she still had her afternoon deliveries to do, a scheduled dinner with her mother and one last Lamaze class to attend.

      “Look,” she said finally, “if you still feel the same way in a couple of weeks, we’ll sit down and talk.” She was being vague, hoping against hope that time would take care of everything.

      “And work something out?” Michael pressed.

      Kate didn’t want to do anything like that, but she knew—out of fairness—that she had to consider his position, too. “I’ll try to do what’s right for all of us, as soon as I figure out what that is,” she promised sincerely. “Meanwhile, if you’ll excuse me, I have seventeen deliveries to make.”

      Michael caught her wrist in his hand and held her in place.

      “I still want to help you,” he insisted.

      The skin of his palm felt like hot silk around her wrist. “Everyone does,” she replied.

      His grip gentled. “What do you mean?”

      Kate shrugged. “Since I became pregnant, all sorts of people have seen fit to counsel me on the wisdom of my decision to be a single parent and raise this child alone. People who wouldn’t dream of telling me what brand of mustard to buy have no qualms at all about telling me I need a husband in a hurry.”

      Michael smiled in understanding, his hold on her becoming more intimate before he reluctantly released her altogether. “But you don’t see it that way,” he guessed softly.

      Kate sighed and—a hand to her aching back—leaned against the edge of her desk. In a continuing effort to get comfortable, she crossed her ankles in front of her and clasped the edge of the desk on either side of her. “It’d be nice if every child in this world could have a mother and a father who loved each other desperately, a ton of siblings and live in a house with a white picket fence. But that doesn’t always happen.”

      Michael pushed the edges of his sport coat back and braced his hands on his waist. “Still, whenever possible,” he repeated, his kind brown eyes locking with hers, “I think a baby should have a mommy and a daddy.”

      Kate, who’d done an awful lot of thinking about this very subject before becoming pregnant, stubbornly refused to concede the same. She angled her chin at him, determined to let him know, along with everyone else, that she could handle this. “I think every child needs lots of love, security and a sense of family. My child—” not our child “—will have all that and more,” she stated.

      “What about my child?” Michael asked, his expression determined.

      Kate looked away evasively, and her lips tightened mutinously. “When you plan for a child, then you can also plan the environment in which you will bring him or her up.”

      Michael did a double take. “Surely you’re not intending to cut me out of our baby’s life entirely?”

      Kate’s shoulders stiffened as she—once again—found herself in the unenviable position of having to defend herself. “I’m sure there will come a time, when our child is much older, that some explanation will be in order,” she asserted.

      Michael placed a palm on the desk on either side of her and towered over her, “And until then?”

      Kate planted a hand on his chest and pushed him away. Standing, she breezed past him haughtily. “Until then I suggest you think about it as much as you would’ve had your genes merely been guinea pigs in a genetics experiment.”

      He caught hold of