Out of the corner of her eye, Lacy saw Sharon, her friend and administrative assistant, grimace.
“Sorry,” Lacy muttered, realizing the statement was unusually raw even by her own standards. “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She knew her brash, “tell it like it is” opinions often did just that to the people around her no matter how well they got to know her. However, Lacy couldn’t help but softly add, “But it is the truth, darn it.”
Always quick to recover from her reactions to her boss’s outspokenness, Sharon grinned. “With all your big talk, a person would think you’ve had your bones jumped quite frequently.” One of her delicate eyebrows arched. “But you and I both know that the exact opposite is the truth.”
“Shh.” Lacy lifted her index finger to her lips. “Don’t go spreading gossip that I’m a good girl. Not when I’m trying to get a man—any man—to father my baby.”
The two women shared soft laughter, but if the truth were to be known, Lacy didn’t feel the least bit amused by her circumstance.
Frustration. That’s what had her feeling so out of sorts this morning. Disappointment fairly pulsed through her veins. The magnitude of it almost—almost—overshadowed the ever-present echo that haunted her…the bone-deep ache that called out from her very soul.
Lacy wanted a baby. She needed to have a child of her own. And she knew that, at thirty-eight, her time was quickly running out. The tick, tick, tick of her biological clock seemed to grow louder with each passing day.
“I guess this gray cloud hanging over you this morning—” as Sharon spoke, she went to the oak credenza and began organizing the contracts that Lacy had piled there to be filed “—means your meeting with Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t go well last night.”
A disgusted sound erupted from Lacy, and the mail she tossed on the desk went skittering and sliding across the wide glass top. “The man acted as if I was asking for his right arm.” She ran agitated fingers though her short locks. “I offered him an iron-clad guarantee in the form of a legal contract stating that I would never ask him for monetary support. I have more than enough to give my child everything he or she might need.”
Sharon cocked her head to one side. “You’re a fantastic businesswoman. That’s why Lacy Webs is so successful. Before you agree to create an Internet site for a customer, you make sure everything is signed and sealed.” The woman’s fist found her hip as she quietly pointed out, “But you can’t contract matters of the heart.”
“This isn’t a matter of the heart,” Lacy said. Unable to repress a sudden bout of humor, she chuckled as she quipped, “It’s a matter of the loins.”
“You’re impossible.” Sharon laughed, shaking her head as she returned to the filing.
Lacy sat pondering. She’d conducted her father-of-her-baby search just as she did her successful business: in a logical and rational manner. She’d developed a list of candidates, and approached each one with the common-sense plan she’d developed. But if Lacy had learned anything over the past months it was that, when it came to donating their sperm, men were neither logical nor rational.
Of course, more than one person had suggested she visit a sperm bank, but she simply couldn’t see herself doing that. The mere idea seemed so cold. Not to mention the horror stories she’d read in the national news of women who had mistakenly been impregnated with the wrong sperm. No, thank you.
“Maybe you should think about getting remarried,” Sharon suggested out of the blue. “Husbands are much more receptive to fatherhood than single guys, you know.”
“I’ve tried happily-ever-after. I’m hopeless at relationships.” The admission, and the defeated feeling it dragged along with it, had Lacy’s voice rushing out in a husky whisper.
Poor Richard. The man—or their two-year marriage—hadn’t stood a chance from the start. Not when Lacy silently-yet-constantly compared her husband to the most perfect man in the whole wide world…
Dane Buchanan.
Now, there was a man. Intelligent. Witty. Interesting. Athletic. Compassionate. Utterly fascinating. And more handsome than words could describe.
Lacy did her best to quell the euphoric shiver that washed over her when she remembered the chemistry she and Dane had shared all those years ago when she had been a freshman, he a senior, in college.
Certainly, if Dane knew about this cavernous ache tormenting her…if he was aware of this mothering instinct that relentlessly squeezed at her heart like a ruthless vise…he would understand. He would empathize. He would help.
Closing her eyes, she easily recalled the overwhelming electricity that coursed through her when Dane had touched her. When he’d kissed her. Even now as she sat at her desk, mere thoughts of the man made her skin prickle with awareness, made her heart thrum a staccato beat.
Thoughts of her perfect man had floated through her head often over the years. But lately, she’d found herself thinking of him during the day—and dreaming of him at night. Those night visions were becoming more and more sensual, more and more erotic each time she closed her—
The clunk of the file drawer closing startled her from her extremely corporeal musings.
“Don’t worry,” Sharon said, her hand on the doorknob as she prepared to leave Lacy’s office. “There’s a man out there just waiting to help you…a man who’s perfect for your needs.” The administrative assistant closed the door behind her as she left the room.
Lacy’s lips parted in surprise, her eyes wide and staring. She was struck by the coincidence of Sharon’s “perfect man” words aligning so completely with her own thoughts.
Coincidence? She blinked once, twice. That was no coincidence. It was a sign. A signal from fate. Hadn’t she just had the thought that Dane would help her if only he’d known of her plight?
Why, for weeks now, her own subconscious mind had been sending her blatant hints in the form of frequent thoughts and lustful dreams of the man. Why hadn’t she realized? Why hadn’t she grasped the meaning of it all?
Immediately, Lacy turned to her computer, maneuvered the mouse and clicked the proper links that would log her onto the Internet. There had to be a way to find Dane Buchanan. There just had to be.
Hope sprang to life in her…a kind of joyous optimism, a gleeful anticipation that she hadn’t felt in months.
Chapter One
An hour of torturous city traffic. Lacy groaned as she automatically reached to turn up the fan on her car’s air conditioner. August was a killer month in Virginia. It wasn’t actually the heat that made a person wilt like a cut flower, but the humidity.
She should have known not to rush out of town on a Friday afternoon. She should have waited until tomorrow morning when all the city employees were sleeping in and the roadways were clear. But she’d been too excited to wait a single minute longer to start her trip.
A mere two days had passed since she had pieced together her frequent thoughts of Dane Buchanan with her desire to have a child. In that time, she was able to find some sketchy information and a home address. But it had been enough to stir her excitement and get her on the road.
It was hard for her to imagine that her encounter with Dane had taken place nearly twenty years ago.
Encounter? A tiny voice in her mind questioned. It had been a date. A real, honest-to-goodness date complete with an end-of-the-evening kiss. A kiss, Lacy remembered, that had almost singed the wooden soles of the clogs she’d been wearing at the time.
Yes, but the facts of what had followed their one enchanted evening together were disillusioning. Dane had never called her. Never asked her out again, even though she’d blatantly suggested it. And