.

      As the machine beeped through several hang-up calls, she thought about whether she should have accepted Arielle and Morgan’s offer to pay for a couple of counseling sessions. Mary Jane had laughed and said she didn’t need no stinkin’ shrink. And she hadn’t needed one. Then.

      When she’d agreed to be a surrogate mom, she’d been so sure nothing would make her happier than to carry this baby for Arielle, the woman who had been a big sister, mother substitute and best friend in the entire world. Mary Jane owed Arielle, big time. Doing something this major was the only way she’d ever settle that debt. She’d felt honored to have the chance.

      But now, five months into the program, some other inconvenient emotions were getting her in trouble. Sometime after that first ultrasound, when she’d learned the baby was a girl, she’d begun having conversations with her. That had probably been a big mistake. Talking to the baby had started her thinking about how this little sweetheart would live in New York once she was born, and Mary Jane had no intention of ever leaving Austin.

      That depressed her. Of course she had only herself to blame. She’d known from the beginning that once she turned the baby over to Arielle and Morgan, that was the end except for visits. Even if she flew to New York three or four times a year, which would be a lot, really, she’d still have only a tiny slice of this baby’s life to enjoy. She’d be pretty much a stranger to the kid for the first couple of years, considering how fast young babies could forget people between visits.

      She wanted more than that. And wanting more made her feel darned ungrateful.

      As if Arielle and Morgan could read her traitorous thoughts long-distance from New York, Morgan’s voice came on her answering machine.

      Mary Jane.

      He sounded hoarse. Probably a head cold, Mary Jane thought. The weather wasn’t so good there, and as a pediatrician Morgan had his share of germy kids breathing on him. Plus he worked long hours. Both he and Arielle seemed consumed with work.

      Mary Jane liked Morgan Tate, but he sure was anal. In spite of his hectic schedule he’d found time to make constant phone calls in the past five months to remind her to exercise, take her vitamins, watch her diet, get her rest, yada, yada, yada.

      Once after a particularly lengthy session, Arielle had come on the line. With a chuckle in her voice, she’d begged Mary Jane to be tolerant of her dear husband. Being a prospective daddy and a pediatrician had kicked Morgan into overdrive.

      So here he was again, ready to give her another tip even if he was sick as a dog. There was a long pause on the tape, during which Mary Jane pictured Morgan covering the mouthpiece of the phone and sneezing his head off. Good thing germs couldn’t get through the phone lines.

      Mary Jane, he finally said again, and he was in no better shape than the first time. I have something—

      Well, he certainly did have something. The flu bug from hell, apparently. She listened for him to finish his message. Instead she heard a funny noise. It could have been Morgan clearing his throat, but it almost sounded like…a sob?

      Then came a click, as if he’d hung up. There were no more messages.

      A chill went down Mary Jane’s spine. She refused to acknowledge it as being more than her funky state of mind. There was a perfectly logical explanation for that weird message. Probably Morgan had called in the middle of a busy day to tell her he was sending a truckload of the latest mega-super-colossal prenatal vitamins he’d just discovered.

      She could picture the whole scene, having paid one quick visit to Morgan’s bustling office when she was in New York. Right in the middle of trying to call her he’d had a bad coughing fit and had decided to hang up and try later. Then Mrs. Very Pregnant had suddenly decided to deliver triplets, and he’d been called to the hospital to attend to the babies.

      Glancing at the clock, she figured the time difference. Morgan and Arielle wouldn’t be home yet. She’d put a message on their machine, anyway, so one of them could call her tonight and tell her what Morgan had wanted. Although Mary Jane complained to Lana about his fussing, she kind of liked it. Arielle and Morgan were the only people who had ever fussed over her.

      It wasn’t only because of the pregnancy, either. Arielle had always treated her as a precious and unique human being, and Morgan had picked up on that same behavior in no time. Mary Jane wished they could see their way clear to live in Austin, but Morgan had his practice in New York, and Arielle had made it clear that she loved the excitement of living in the heart of Manhattan.

      Mary Jane punched in their number and sure enough got Arielle’s voice on the welcome message.

      Hi. You’ve reached Arielle and Morgan Tate. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If this is an emergency, you can reach us at our pager numbers.

      Mary Jane listened to the pager numbers, which she also knew by heart, and wondered if she should try Arielle’s. Morgan obviously wasn’t free or he would have called again. But she hesitated. Arielle had said something about getting ready for a huge show for a big-name artist. Mary Jane didn’t want to interrupt her in the middle of that.

      Besides, a call on the pager might make Arielle think something was wrong with the baby. So instead she left a cheery message on the machine, asked them to call her when they got a chance and hung up.

      Then she turned on her CD player and headed for the kitchen to grab some eats. She’d call Lana later, after she’d decided whether or not looking at baby clothes would make her want to cry.

      For the next two hours she tried to forget about Morgan’s phone call, but she couldn’t settle down to anything. The tabloids she’d bought to amuse herself didn’t seem as exciting as they had on the rack, and she couldn’t find the right music to suit her mood, either.

      She prowled around upstairs looking for projects, but didn’t feel moved to give herself a manicure or sew on a button. Even her favorite hobby, crocheting, didn’t intrigue her tonight. She went downstairs again, watered all her plants and picked off any yellow leaves, but that didn’t take long. Finally she plopped down on the living room sofa with the remote. She then proceeded to channel surf and make way too many trips into the kitchen for more snacks.

      Good thing Morgan couldn’t see what she was eating, she thought as she popped a cherry Jolly Rancher into her mouth. Once that was gone, she chewed on a carrot stick to ease her conscience.

      The phone remained silent, and her restlessness grew. She walked to the small table that held the phone and answering machine to replay Morgan’s message. Then she ran it again and turned up the volume, trying to decide what that last noise had been. The more she played it, the more it did sound like a sob.

      Damn, now she was getting paranoid. If only she knew someone connected to Morgan and Arielle, someone she could call on a very casual basis to make sure everything was okay. She could think of no one. Arielle’s parents had died when she was a teenager, which was one of the reasons she’d taken the job as nanny to Mary Jane all those years ago. As for Morgan’s parents, Mary Jane had never met them and doubted she ever would. Arielle had admitted her in-laws weren’t in favor of the surrogate mother project.

      Against her better judgment, Mary Jane called the New York apartment again and left another message, this one even cheerier than the first, so they wouldn’t think something was wrong.

      An hour later she finally gave in and put a message on each of their pagers, but she began by assuring them nothing was wrong with either her or the baby. She made a joke that her hormones were to blame for all these calls. But she emphasized that she wanted a return call, no matter how late the hour.

      Until she found out that all was well in New York, she wasn’t going to have a very good night. She’d postponed calling Lana, postponed going to the store to stock up on food, postponed a long soak in the tub. No doubt she was making herself crazy for nothing, but the sick feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away no matter how she tried to distract herself.

      And still the phone didn’t ring.