Child of Her Heart by Cheryl St.John

Author:Cheryl St.John [St.John, Cheryl]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-02-14T01:44:03.609000+00:00

Twelve

The horrible realization caught him ful force.

“Malone.” He’d always heard the case referred to as

“the Malone woman.” “What’s her first name?”

Papers rustled on the other end of the line.

“Meredith.”

Justin’s scalp prickled. Dread engulfed his

senses. How stupid could he have been? A white

woman inseminated with the wrong sperm. A young

woman with a half-black baby.

“Could you talk to her, Justin?”

Talk to her.

Talk to her?

Talk to her! Oh, he’d done more than talk to

Meredith Malone.

“There’s a fear here that she’s going to sue the

clinic and expose the error,” Terrence continued.

“That, combined with this kidnapping thing, could

ruin us.”

She’d sue for a hel of a lot more than a sperm

mix-up if she thought Justin had come on to her with

an ulterior motive. Talk about a conflict of interests!

“I’m not in a good position here, buddy,” he said

when he found his voice. He gripped the back of his

neck in a gesture of frustration and felt the tension

knotting his muscles. “Holy— This is not good.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” He clenched his fist and struck

the side of his palm against the window casing.

“Justin?”

His memory rol ed back over Meredith’s reactions

to people looking at them in restaurants. She’d never

had the African-American lover he’d imagined.

She’d come by her mixed-race baby by accident. An

accident made by a clinic for which he was legal

counsel. How could he have never registered her

first name?

Was he so busy and legal-minded that the people

involved in his workload were merely case numbers

and statistics? The Malone woman. A problem that

needed taking care of.

The Malone woman. A soft, vulnerable,

courageous person who had survived breast cancer,

as wel as a man dumping her. “She had breast

cancer,” he said aloud.

Paper rustled again. “That’s not in this file. Her

medical records are private anyway, so how did you

know?”

“Her fiancé dumped her.”

“Oh.”

“She chose to have the child on her own.”

“You know a lot about her.”

“Apparently not enough.”

“Justin, what’s wrong? Have you seen her there?

Can you talk to her?”

“Oh, I’m going to be doing a lot of talking,” he

replied.

“I’m getting the impression that you’ve already met

her and you don’t want to do this. Tel me I’m wrong.”

Justin opened his mouth and shut it quickly. Panic

rose in his chest and his heart raced.

Terrence said something under his breath, but

Justin made out the curse word he himself had been

biting back because his kids were within earshot.

Anger rose up. The board had known that the two of

them would come in contact at the inn.

“You helped set this up?” he asked.

“I didn’t stop it,” Terrence admitted. “The board

was gung ho on the plan, and I guess I figured no

harm could come if the two of you ran into each

other. I’m sorry, Justin, because now it seems

underhanded.”

“I can’t talk about this right now,” Justin said final y.

“I’m going to need some time to think.”

“Keep in mind that the board’s restless. They want

this thing confronted and settled.”

“Of course I want what’s best for the clinic,” he

said. “But this is my life being screwed with.”

“You’l get back to me.”

“Yes.” Justin turned off his phone and stared out

the window at the gray morning fog over the ocean.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.