A Family For Keeps Page 2

  He’d wanted to wallow in denial. His mind had screamed that the lab must have mixed up the blood samples. That was the only possibility. The only acceptable explanation he had been willing to entertain.

  But nope, neither of those were the case. Instead, he’d had to accept that his daughter was not his biological child. Somehow it wasn’t the blood samples that were switched. It was his child.

  Nathaniel had laughed hysterically because it had to be a joke. “She had been switched at the hospital.” He’d found it funny until he hadn’t because it was no joke. He’d immediately had his son’s DNA tested too. Who could blame him? He didn’t want to think about going through this twice. Who would have thought he would have to ascertain paternity. As a single dad that went through the surrogacy process by himself, why would he have to?

  When he’d gotten the results back, for a brief moment, he had hope. Especially after opening his ten-month-old Wyatt’s result. But that hope was quickly dashed. With the second envelope, Emma’s result stubbornly stayed the same. He knew that wasn’t how it worked. Hope and a prayer wouldn’t change science. But he’d hoped nonetheless. No such luck. It turned out it was just another instance of reality making him her bitch yet again.

  Granted, he was never one to take anything at face value; life had shoved that lesson down his throat a long time ago. But three different independent labs couldn’t be wrong. No matter how hard you wished they were.

  He didn’t even have time for self-pity. His baby girl was sick. And because life didn’t have him by the balls enough already, she figured it’s not enough to switch the kid. Let’s make her sick too. See how he deals with that too.

  The worst part was he needed to track down the people who shared her DNA. Nathaniel just couldn’t bring himself to use the term parents. His mind refused to even try to wrap itself around the fact that he had a biological child out there somewhere who was being raised by total strangers.

  Being someone that had made his living because of his mind, he felt like he was losing it.

  He hadn’t even started to digest the fact that his child, his perfect little baby girl, was ill before his mind started screaming that he also had another daughter out there. No matter how much he tried to shut those thoughts out, and he really did try, they kept getting louder, refusing to be ignored.

  Nathaniel, never being a praying man to date, had found himself doing a lot of it recently. He hoped this other child was in a loving home. But as someone that had gone through the foster care system and had very little faith in human beings, he knew even bio-parents could suck. Worst-case scenarios kept presenting themselves. Even when he tried ignoring them.

  Nathaniel had to constantly remind himself to focus on what he could control. Emma, his daughter, here right now with him, was very ill. And she was his daughter, and no test could change that.

  He looked at the envelope in his hands like there was a bomb in it. There might as well have been because the envelope contained information that would take his already shattered world and blow it up even further never to be put together again.

  Not only was he going to further shatter his life, but he was going to have to wreck another family as well. His investigator had gotten the information for him. He didn’t know how, and he couldn’t say he cared at the moment. The man had found out that there were two out of the nine other baby girls that could possibly match with the blood type and race, and the envelope contained the answer.

  He was sure the hospital’s legal team was going to get in touch with both families and request that they come in for DNA testing. But no way in hell was he trusting them. Not only was he no longer willing to wait for them to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape, but he also had resources they didn’t. Mainly an investigator whose definition of legal was very flexible for the right price. Also, unlike the hospital, he was not trying to cover his ass.

  He knew for a fact the lawyers would be scrambling. Their main concern would be the hospital and trying to minimize their liability.

  So he was going to find out everything he could by himself without waiting for the same institution that had fucked up the first time around.

  Nathaniel knew they would be in damage control mode. So it was up to him to look out for his baby and himself. He’d learned a long time ago that he was the only one who had his back, no one else. And since it was just him and his two kids, he would do anything to protect them both, now more than ever.

  His PI had done all the work and had certainly broken a few laws. But he didn’t dwell on that much. He needed answers and he needed them now. He didn’t want to know what the man did, but somehow he’d gotten samples from both families, and the test results were in this envelope. Now all he had to do was open it, and he would know which of the two children was his biological child.

  Again, Nathaniel stared at the envelope in his hands. Open it, he told himself. Then you can quit speculating and imagining.

  He had built the life he’d always wanted. Sure, he didn’t have the husband, but he had the family he had always wanted with his daughter and son, Emma and Wyatt.

  Nathaniel had always known he wanted children. So once his company got to the point where he could take a step back, only create when inspiration struck and handing over the day-to-day to someone he had carefully picked out and groomed, he started the surrogacy process for Emma. He had loved his child from the moment he had gotten the phone call from the surrogate confirming the implantation was successful.

  He’d paid for the best nursery he could buy and was involved every step of the way. He wanted his children to have everything he had never had growing up, and he felt like that envelope was threatening everything he had built. He felt like opening it would take away everything he had worked so carefully to build. Nathaniel felt like someone was trying to take his child out of his arms and run. He kept having recurring nightmares that he would wake up one day and Emma would be gone like she never even existed, and it was making him a nervous wreck. Completely wreaking havoc on his sleeping and waking hours.

  Emma and Wyatt were his greatest accomplishments. Giving them the life they deserved was all he ever wanted. It was why he had worked so hard and pushed himself so much.

  More than anything Nathaniel wanted to do school runs. He wanted soccer matches, ballet, baseball. Hell, he even wanted to join the PTA. He would happily chop orange slices and sit under the hot sun watching his kids play any sport they chose. He was even prepared to learn how to bake if he needed to. It may seem cliché, but growing up how he did, where he did, all he ever wanted was someone to love him unconditionally, someone that would notice if he was gone.

  He knew some people would call him selfish, but he didn’t care. His kids were everything to him. Nathaniel knew they would grow up and have their own lives, but he hoped to always have the close family relationships he saw on the TV shows growing up. His kids, their spouses, and his grandkids congregating at his house for all major holidays, maybe even weekly Sunday dinners, even cheesy game nights, and most definitely family vacations. It may seem small to some people, but it was all he’d ever dreamed of.

  He was so close to having it all, and now because some overworked nurse made a mistake, he could lose it. Just like that. He felt like he was suffocating. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the feeling.

  Finally, at thirty-two, he’d gotten to a place his eight-year-old self would have never dreamed of. But he could feel it all slipping away from him. Like the last vestiges of a dream when you first wake up.

  He couldn’t understand his reluctance. It wasn’t like he could un-know the information. He couldn’t go back in time and stop the doctors from telling him that Emma wasn’t his biological child. Still, he kept fingering the damn envelope, unable to bring himself to do the necessary task of opening it and watching his world change irrevocably. Not opening it wouldn’t change what was inside or the situation. For some reason opening the envelope seemed like the most impossible task
.

  Fuck that, he thought, angrily tearing open the envelope and pulling out the single sheet of paper that to him might as well have been a nuclear bomb.

  He reminded himself that his whole world was his daughter and infant son. Not the unknown child out there somewhere. He told himself that all that mattered was Emma, the child he’d stayed up with as a colicky baby. The child he had diapered, the one whose tummy he’d tickled and whose toes and fingers he’d counted because she was his perfect little gift. Emma who he’d read code to since she was born. His first child.

  Nathaniel remembered how he would tiptoe into her room at night just to look at her innocent little face. How his chest would hurt so much from the love he felt as he touched her tiny, perfectly formed hands and feet and how he would just stare at her, counting as her little chest moved up and down with every breath.

  He finally understood the saying having a child is like watching your heart walk around outside your body. Things like babies getting switched in the hospital didn’t happen, he brooded disbelievingly. It was every parent’s worst nightmare. Hospitals were supposed to have safeguards these days to stop something like this from happening. Weren’t they?

  The other parents, they could take Emma away from him, his lawyer had told him. He kept flashing to scenes of Emma being taken right from his arms, or someone telling him he couldn’t know anything about her because she wasn’t really his child.

  Nathaniel imagined the worst custody cases, and all he could see was Emma crying, screaming, and reaching for him, the only parent she had ever known, while her biological parents took her away. He really didn’t think he could be brave when faced with that situation, and if his baby didn’t need someone that shared her DNA, he would pack up his house and disappear. To an island, he plotted mentally. His heart was still trying to convince him that it was the only way to protect his child.

  He just knew watching Emma get ripped away from him would destroy him. His mind ruthlessly suggested that maybe he could pay the family off. But then would he want to leave his biological child with people willing to take money in exchange for a child? For a beautiful moment, he let himself imagine keeping Emma and also getting custody of the unknown child. Just for a moment. Until reality swooped back in.

  More than ever he wanted to curl up in a ball in his bed and pull the duvet up over his head, but he knew from experience that didn’t solve anything.

  Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

  He wished he could say nobody could ever know, but it wasn’t even his decision to make. He’d had to wonder if it was his choice would he put his child through months of waiting for a match, which may never come. When those other people could help him, what if she had siblings that could be near perfect matches.

  He knew the answer from the start. There was no way he could bury his head in the sand. Not only would it not it make it go away, but it would be breaking the promise he’d made to his children the day they were born that he would do anything and everything to make them happy, healthy, and safe. He wouldn’t be the father he wanted to be if he didn’t keep that promise.

  Emma!! As long as he was breathing, nobody was taking her from him. He’d die before he handed her over.

  He went back to the wonderful daydream of them disappearing. He imagined him and the kids lost to the world. He knew that was all it was. All fanciful thinking because his baby’s life depended on him doing this and doing it right. And doing it right was the only option because it was life or death. Emma’s life was on the line, and failure wasn’t an option.

  2

  Tristan

  Sigh, he really needed a massage, Tristan groaned inwardly while trying to stretch the kinks in his neck and back. He had just finished an eight-tier wedding cake, and the detailing had taken him days. But the bride wanted intricate flowers, so she got flowers that looked so real you felt like you should be able to smell them.

  He couldn’t wait to get home, soak in the tub, and have cuddle time with his Sammy. He felt like no matter how much time he spent with her, it wasn't enough. And fulfilling his dream was coming between him and his child. The dream he had promised his sister he would pursue.

  Sure, he had gone to school for his Business and Marketing degree. However his passion had always been baking. Another memory of his dad yelling at him, telling him he wasn’t manly enough came through unbidden. His mind tried to remind him, but he shook the thought off. None of that tonight Tristan, he sternly lectured himself.

  There were times he felt he wasn’t enough, that he wasn’t Shannon and Samantha was settling for second best. But he always did the best he could because Shannon had trusted him with her final most precious treasure, and God help him, he loved Samantha so much his heart hurt with it.

  He must be feeling maudlin. Too little sleep would do that to anyone. But that wasn’t going to change. His current schedule was frantic. He had some big-name clients’ orders to complete, and he felt like he had not spent more than a couple of hours at home in the past week, most of them in bed dozing. He’d missed bedtime too many days this month.

  Samantha was his miracle. The most wonderful child anyone could ever hope for. Bright, beautiful, talented, a little shy sometimes, sure. His daughter was his complete opposite, but she was his daughter nonetheless, in every way that counted. Sometimes he felt so much guilt for the gift he’d been given having the opportunity to raise her.

  She was everything to him, and he would never forgive himself for that moment after he found out about her birth when the doctors told him Shannon had died but the baby survived when he’d wished she was gone and his sister wasn't. He would never forgive himself for that. The guilt also came because Shannon was gone and would never know her child. But worst of all were the times his brain so helpfully supplied that if Shannon hadn’t died, he wouldn’t have Samantha. That had a cloud of darkness over him that took a while to shake.

  He felt like he didn’t deserve Sammy, but he would never let her go. Nor would he change those first confusing months when he brought her home, to his sister’s house and to the nursery she had created for her. He had a feeling that if he hadn’t had to take care of Samantha, his grief would have swallowed him whole.

  He knew these thoughts did him no good.

  As he pulled into his driveway, he focused on what he was thankful for. He was lucky to be a single dad that could afford a nanny, even though his nanny was more like a friend. He was lucky to have found Layla when he did. She was sweet and young and basically one of the family, and he didn’t know what he would do without her.

  He hated leaving Sammy at home or even with a nanny, but he’d promised his sister that he would live his dream. Whenever his mind tried to take him back to those days after he found out Shannon was gone, he always shut it down before it could take hold. All he focused on was making Shannon proud; not only with his life but with the way he raised Sammy because he knew she would have been the best mom.

  Snap out of it Callahan, he mentally castigated as he put away his shoes and grabbed the mail on the way to his room. All he wanted to do was have a hot shower and crawl into bed. The hot shower not being compulsory right now. But before he could even climb up the stairs, his stomach growled angrily and he realized he had not eaten for almost nine hours. He backtracked into the kitchen to see what he could find.

  He opened the fridge to find a plate with a note on it that said, “Knew you would forget to chow! ENJOY! XX”

  Did he mention how lucky he was to have found Layla? She was truly a Godsend or maybe a Shannon send, he mused humorously.

  While the microwave hummed, he thumbed through the mail and discarded half of it; honestly, almost all his bills were electronic, so why did he seem to get so much crap in the mail. Tristan was surprised to see that there was an envelope from the hospital. He fingered it thoughtfully, wondering why they would be contacting him. What could they want from him? All the bills from Shannon and Sammy’s hospital stay, short as it was, were paid. It had
all been taken care of immediately by Shannon’s insurance. What could they possibly want? They were probably just inviting him for some fundraising event he concluded mentally.

  Well, if he just opened it, he would find out. But as Tristan studied the letter carefully, a sense of foreboding overtook him. It was the same feeling he’d had after the phone call telling him Shannon has been in a car accident.

  OPEN THE LETTER, his mind screamed. But he couldn’t make himself do it. The last time he was in the hospital, his world came crashing down, and his life changed drastically. Irrationally he blamed them. He knew it wasn’t their fault, but he blamed them, the drunk driver especially and shamefully sometimes Shannon. Sure, he knew it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t help how he felt.

  So hearing from them made him feel all tangled up in his belly like he was that scared kid getting the news that his only family left in this world had just been taken from him.

  A letter from the hospital reeked of loss his mind kept shouting at him, rather insistently...

  Tristan read through the letter the first time without comprehending what he read. “A discovery had been made. At this point, the hospital officials didn’t know where to assign culpability. An investigation was underway. However, Samantha Jayde Callahan should undergo testing.”

  What the hell did his child need testing for? It was like his mind was blanking out the parts it didn’t want to process.

  “Due to certain unusual,” and they stressed, “never before seen circumstances, the father of a girl born on the same day as your daughter in this hospital has discovered that he has been raising a child who is not biologically related to him.”