“You didn’t hurt me,” she settled for saying.
“Good.” A moment later, Houston asked, “Are you still recovering from the delivery?”
“No. I didn’t have a C-section, so I was back on my feet almost right away.”
And that seemed like way too much information to be sharing with him. Houston Sadler didn’t have the right to know anything about her personal welfare, other than that she was capable of taking care of Lucas on her own.
“But you must have had some health problems,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have had to use a donor embryo.”
“I’m sterile because of chemo I had to have when I was a kid.” Again, way too much information. “And I’d rather not talk about that.”
The silence turned awkward in a hurry, and Gabrielle didn’t like that he suddenly seemed to be feeling sorry for her, or for what he’d done. This was essentially war between them, and she wanted to hang on to every drop of the anger, because it would fuel her for the inevitable battle with the Sadlers.
Houston looked as if he might add something else, but then he shook his head, knocked once and opened the door.
Mack was standing behind his grand oak desk with the bay windows framing him from behind. He had several shots of liquor in a cut crystal glass and took at least one of those shots in one gulp.
“Dale said somebody tried to run you off the road,” Mack greeted. His attention landed on Gabrielle. “Was it because of her?”
“We’re not sure,” Houston answered.
“Well, son, we’d better find out because now that you know she’s got your boy, you can’t let anything happen to him.”
Gabrielle had to bite her tongue. She hated that this arrogant man felt he had the right to dictate anything about Lucas. Lucas was hers!
“How you handling things?” Mack asked Houston.
By “things,” he no doubt meant Lucas. But Houston didn’t even address that.
He put his hands on his hips and stared at his father. “Dale told you about the green Range Rover.”
“He did. What’s that all about? Why does it matter if I drove it or not? ”
Gabrielle didn’t wait for Houston. She jumped right in with her answer. “Three days ago, someone driving a Range Rover followed me. A PI friend traced the plates to one of your ranch vehicles.”
“I see.” Mack had another gulp of the liquor. “And you think it was me? ”
“Was it?” she demanded.
Mack didn’t jump to deny it. “I used the Range Rover,” he calmly admitted. “It was the anniversary of my wife’s death, and I just wanted to get out for a while. I drove into San Antonio, to the Menger Bar, and had a few drinks. Last I heard, that wasn’t a crime.”
He was denying his guilt, and that shot her anger through the roof. “You followed me. Why?”
Gabrielle expected Houston to jump in and tell her to back off, that his father was innocent, but he didn’t. He, too, stared at his father and waited for an answer.
Mack took a deep breath and eased into the chair behind his desk. However, he didn’t address Gabrielle’s question. Instead, he looked at Houston. “I was worried about you, son. It’s been three years since Lizzy died, and you haven’t moved on with your life.”
Everything inside Gabrielle went still.
Houston apparently had the opposite reaction. “What the hell does that mean? “ he snarled.
Mack dodged his son’s glare and slowly ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “It means I wanted to help you.” He paused. “And I did.”
She felt the knot form in her stomach, and Gabrielle slid her hand over it. It didn’t soothe her. Nothing would at this point. Her entire body was bracing itself for what Mack was about to say.
“How did you help?” Houston demanded.
Mack finished his drink, taking the rest in one gulp. “Almost a year ago, when you were out, you got a call from the Cryogen Clinic, the place where Lizzy had stored those embryos y’all were using before she got the cancer. I was worried the call would upset you, so I pretended to be you so they’d tell me what the problem was. They said there’d been a serious mixup.”
Houston shook his head. “What kind of mixup?”
Gabrielle could only stand there and listen. The knot tightened, and her breath began to race.
“Lizzy hadn’t signed an agreement,” Mack continued, “but the only embryo of hers that was left was accidently donated to someone. So I drove over there to talk to Salvador Franks, the head of the clinic. He didn’t want to tell me who’d gotten the embryo, but I said if he didn’t I’d sue him into bankruptcy. That’s when I learned Gabrielle here was the one who got it.”
Houston groaned and pushed his hands against the sides of his head. “You knew? All this time you knew?”
He took the words right out of her mouth. But she already knew the answer. Mack had indeed known, practically since the moment she’d become pregnant.
But the question was, what had he done about it?
“Why the hell didn’t you tell Gabrielle or me?” Houston demanded.
“I couldn’t tell you because you would have gone to her and spilled everything.” Mack got to his feet. “I knew she hated you. I thought she might do something to end the pregnancy.”
“Never,” Gabrielle snapped.
And she wouldn’t have. But she would have liked the time to come to terms with what had happened. She’d planned the entire pregnancy around a donor embryo and figured she would never know the identity of the couple who had given her such a precious gift. And that was exactly the way Gabrielle had wanted it.
Mack aimed his index finger at her. “You say that now, but you would have been riled to the core to learn about the screwup at Cryogen.”
Riled, yes. But not riled enough to end the pregnancy. She’d planned this pregnancy for years.
“Salvador Franks and I worked out a deal,” Mack added. “He agreed not to tell anyone about Gabrielle getting the wrong embryo. Now SAPD is investigating the whole damn thing, and Franks is trying to cover his butt. I figure he’s putting the blame on Gabrielle.”
She looked at Houston, and his gaze slowly came to hers. There. She saw it: the shock and the hurt. He wasn’t faking that, and that meant he probably hadn’t known about any of this before now.
That didn’t help.
It only meant Houston was another wounded party in all of this, but it didn’t change the fact that she had indeed given birth to his and his late wife’s son.
“You planned to buy off Gabrielle,” Houston stated, turning a glare to his father. “You thought you could buy the baby from her.”
“Well, after she defended her worthless brother the way she did, I didn’t think she was a woman of principle,” Mack answered. “I figured I could offer her enough money to hand over the baby to us.”
Houston was as obviously stunned as she was, because they both just stood there and listened.
“That’s why I’ve been following her,” Mack continued. “Or trying to, anyway. That woman’s like a cat with nine lives. She kept getting away from me. But I learned that SAPD had done DNA tests on the babies after that hostage mess, and I figured it was a matter of time before the cops figured out the boy was yours.