Emergency Baby. Alison Roberts

getting passed on.’

      ‘Especially yours.’ Sam was quite ready to pass this off as a joke and make sure none of these men came anywhere near guessing the real reason she had pocketed that pamphlet. ‘I was intending to leave it in your locker, as a matter of fact.’ She glared at Tom. ‘But somebody has spoiled the surprise factor.’

      Angus was still smiling. ‘I think you’re right, Alex. Sam does have a point. With the way you treat your women, it’s probably the only way you’ll ever see a son and heir.’

      ‘Except I wouldn’t see him, would I?’ Surprisingly, Alex seemed to be giving the notion serious consideration. ‘He’d be some stranger’s kid.’

      ‘There might be ten of them,’ Tom suggested. ‘You’d go to a job at a kindergarten one day and half the kids would look just like you.’

      ‘They wouldn’t do that.’ Sam didn’t like the idea of there being an unknown number of half-siblings for any child of her own. ‘Would they?’

      ‘Depends how short they are on the good oil, I guess.’ Angus certainly wasn’t going to take any of this seriously. ‘Personally, if I was going to have a kid, I’d want to know about it. And I’d want to be there while it was growing up.’

      A slightly uncomfortable silence fell for a moment as they all remembered that Angus had recently been dumped by the very woman he would have chosen to be the mother of his children. Alex cleared his throat and took on the task of making the atmosphere less strained.

      ‘I dunno,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Speaking as someone who has no intention of getting married, it seems like a socially responsible kind of thing to do. I wonder if they let you know about any kids. Send a photograph on birthdays or something.’

      ‘Doubt it,’ Tom said. ‘They probably wouldn’t want the sprog to know so they definitely wouldn’t want some stranger who’d insist on turning up at birthday parties.’

      ‘Try a private arrangement,’ Angus suggested.

      ‘Yeah.’ Sam didn’t want to appear silent for a suspiciously long time. ‘Put an ad in the paper,’ she said lightly. ‘“Sperm available to the right woman. No-strings baby required to preserve an exceptional gene pool.”’

      ‘No payment required either.’ Tom chuckled. ‘Provided the applicant has an exceptional body.’

      They all laughed.

      Except Sam.

      She was staring at Alex as she experienced her second light-bulb moment in the same day.

      He’d be perfect. Smart as a whip. Good-looking. Healthy. What more could she ask for? He wouldn’t make any claims other than genetic responsibility for the child’s best attributes and he’d probably be invited to the birthday parties in any case.

      But Alex was shaking his head firmly, almost as though he could read Sam’s thoughts.

      ‘No way. I’d probably end up having to pay child support for triplets. I’d rather spend my spare money on beer, thanks.’ He picked up the kit he’d abandoned by his feet. ‘Speaking of which…’

      ‘Yeah. Have a good night.’ Tom finally held the pamphlet out to Sam. ‘Here you go.’

      ‘You can keep it,’ Sam told him. ‘I really don’t need it anymore.’

      Turning, she caught a glimpse of Alex Henry’s back as he disappeared into the locker room. It was hard not to smile.

      Everything happened for a reason, didn’t it? It had been worthwhile picking up that pamphlet, that’s for sure.

      She could always go and get another one if she needed information but, with a bit of luck and some careful preparation, Sam was quietly confident that she would not need the services of a sperm bank.

      Something much better might just become available.