Secret Daddy: Minnesota Romance novel series

By Edna Curry

After secretly donating sperm so his sterile identical twin brother, Don, can pretend to father a child, Dave Langer finds himself in a legal quandary. Don and his wife Jenny have died, and Jenny asked her sister to adopt the baby boy, Cory. Dave has no proof Cory is his.

Cathy Kassig, illustrator, loves the baby but has money problems that Dave could solve if only she'd let him. Dave convinces her to come live near him and allow him to help her. Thus, he gets a second chance to at least be near and get to know his son. Only his son's new mother is wildly attractive—and falling in love was not on his agenda.
When she learns he's the baby's father, she's afraid he and his rich family will take the baby away. Can they learn to trust each other and get along?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edna Curry
• Release date: Sep 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536527513

Edna Curry

Edna Curry lives in Minnesota and often sets her novels there among the lakes, evergreens and river valleys. She especially enjoys the Dalles area of the St. Croix Valley, gateway to the Wild River, which draws many tourists who give her story ideas. Edna is married and is a member of the Romance Writers of America and one of its chapters: Northern Lights Writers. Visit her website: http://www.ednacurry.com https://www.facebook.com/Edna.Curry.author Twitter: @Edna_Curry Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/search/authors?search=Edna%20Curry Minnesota Romance novel series  These novels are stand-alone novels that can be read in any order. My Sister’s Keeper Best Friends Lost Memories Mirror Image Hard Hat Man Traveling Bug Double Trouble Flight to Love Circle of Shadows Secret Daddy Never Love a Logger (historical romance) I’ll Always Find You Meet Me, Darling Wrong Memories My Twin's Wedding *** Lady Locksmith Series: The Lilliput Bar Mystery – Book 1 Body in the Antique Trunk - Book 2 The Missing Banker - Book 3 Girl Who Cried Wolf - Book 4 Robbery at the Lilliput Bar - a short story Lacey Summers’ PI Mystery Series: Yesterday’s Shadow -- Prequel Dead Man’s Image –Book 1 Dead in Bed  -- Book 2 Eccentric Lady  Book 3 Related book: Earth in 2093 A futuristic romantic suspense novel starring Lacey’s granddaughter, Nell Summers and police detective Dave Barns. *** Non-fiction: The Jam of all Jams The story of the world’s largest logjam ever, that took place at Taylors Falls, Minnesota, in June, 1886.

Book preview

Prologue

You want me to father your child? Dave Langer’s office chair snapped upright, and his eyes widened as he stared at his brother. No way! Have you been drinking?

Don shook his head. No, I’m perfectly sober.

Then you’re crazy.

Perhaps I am. Crazy with wanting a family and not being able to have one. Don got up from the brown leather swivel chair and strode to the large office window. Rubbing the back of his neck with a trembling hand, he stared morosely at the Minneapolis skyline below.

Dave swallowed the wave of sympathy for his brother’s plight that threatened to change his mind. I know, and I’m sorry, but...

Don swung back to face him, a stubborn look creasing his full dark brows. Think about it. We’re identical twins. That means we have the same DNA, so your sperm can pass the same genes to my baby as mine would have, if I hadn’t had the bad fortune to contract mumps back in high school.

Well, yeah, but... He shifted in his chair.

What’s the problem? Don lifted his hands. You think I won’t take full responsibility for the baby? Might make you pay in some way? You know better than that.

Yeah, I do. It’s not that, Don.

Then what? It’s too embarrassing to donate some sperm at the doctor’s office?

Dave cast his twin a frowning glance. Come on, Don. That’s no problem. You know I’ve donated sperm before, back in college. And he remembered Don had refused to go, afraid even then of what the doctor might tell him.

Yeah, I remember, Don said. That’s what gave me the idea. Jenny wants a baby so bad. I told you she’s talked about it nonstop for the past two years. Now, she’s talking about going to a sperm bank back home in California to get pregnant.

But you don’t want to raise someone else’s child, Dave guessed.

I would, if there was no way to have my own. But there is...if you’ll just cooperate. Jenny told her doctor my sperm count was just low, so he’s agreed to do the artificial insemination for her. It’s not the usual way, but it would mean everything to us.

Dave hated the way Don’s brown eyes pleaded with him. He picked up his coffee mug and sipped the fragrant brew. How often had they negotiated in just this way over the years? Don always could talk him into anything.

So this is the ‘important family emergency’ that you flew back from California to talk to me about?

Don’s chin rose in that stubborn way he had. It may not look important to a bachelor like you, but it’s very important to me and Jenny.

Sure, but jeez, Don, this is more than borrowing a sweater or even a car. Dave rolled a pencil around in his fingers, then laid it down carefully.

Don’s eyes filled with tears. Yeah, Bro. It’s giving me back my manhood.

Aw, Don... Dave had pushed away all thoughts of fathering a child after his divorce. That had been the cause of many of the arguments with his ex-wife, Diane. He’d wanted kids, she hadn’t. He didn’t want to think about that now. He liked his life as a free and easy bachelor with no complications. One foray into marriage that ended in a bitter divorce was enough for any man. He’d learned his lesson the hard way.

Come on, Dave. It’s not that hard. Nobody will ever know except you and me.

Dave sent him a disbelieving glance. And Jenny. And the doctor.

Don met his eyes. Well, no, not even Jenny and the doctor. She doesn’t know I’m here in Minneapolis. I told her I had a business meeting to go to today. I don’t want Jenny to even know you’re in California, or she might get suspicious. I want you to just go in to her clinic and donate the sperm, pretending to be me.

Dave’s eyebrow lifted. Why the deception?

Don looked away. I never told Jenny about having the mumps or being left sterile from them.

Frowning, Dave asked, You never told her? Why the hell not?

His brother pulled a shoulder and flushed, looking at the skyline again. Being sterile is not exactly something a man brags about. I...I meant to tell her, but when she started talking with those stars in her eyes about a baby, well, damn it, he looked back at Dave, I just couldn’t squash all her hopes, could I? I mean, back when I was a teen, the doc never said I’d be sterile for sure. He only said it was a possibility.

So...

So, I was still hoping it wasn’t true, I guess. But after two years of trying with no luck, we started doing some tests, she with her doctor and me with mine. Hers said there was no reason she couldn’t have a baby and the problem must be with me. Mine said there was no way I could father a child. I was just floored, you know?

But you didn’t confide in Jenny?

Don shook his head. I told her my doc said my sperm count was real low and that we’d have a better chance if she allowed me to give her doc my sperm and he made sure it got where it’s supposed to go.

What if her doctor can tell it’s me and not you?

Shrugging, Don said, How would he know? Most people can’t tell us apart when we’re together. He doesn’t know I have a brother, much less a twin. If you fly out, go to her doctor’s clinic and donate the sperm as though you were me, no one will know any different. Who would care? It’s nobody else’s business. You’ll come back to Minnesota and no one will know about it. I’ll pay all your expenses, of course.

I can pay my own damn expenses. That’s not what I’m worried about.

Don grinned, accepting the comment as evidence of his brother’s weakening. Then you’ll do it?

Dave chewed his lip. How could he deny his twin something that meant so much to him? Especially when it would cost him so little? All right.

All right! With a wide grin, Don came over and clapped him on the shoulder. I’ve got plane tickets back to L.A. for us for this evening. I have an appointment to donate sperm at her clinic at nine tomorrow morning. Jenny says this week is her most likely time to get pregnant. So, if you’ll go over in the morning and do it, we’ll have a good chance of succeeding the first time.

Dave laughed. Before I change my mind, you mean?

Don shrugged. He sat down and picked up his coffee. Yeah, that too. Okay?

Okay. What if it doesn’t work on the first try?

Well then, we’ll just have to repeat this little charade in a couple months, won’t we?

Chapter 1

Eighteen months later:

Dave was in Tokyo, negotiating a business contract for one of his best clients. Now he stood at the front desk of his hotel, staring at the telegram in his hand.

No luck phoning you. Don and Jenny had a bad car accident. Come to California immediately. Dad

Numbly, he took the elevator to his room and dialed the number his father had included. When he finally heard his father’s voice, rough with pain, his stomach knotted further.

Dave, I’ve been trying to reach you. Did you get my telegraph?

Yes. How bad is it?

Don’s gone. Jenny’s very bad.

Dave closed his eyes against the rush of pain his father’s words brought. Don had had such a short few months to enjoy little Cory.

And Cory? he managed to ask, running a hand through his hair.

Cory’s safe. Luckily, they’d left him at home with a babysitter.

Thank God for that, at least. What happened?

They were coming back from a weekend vacation in the mountains. It was sleeting, and the road was icy. Those mountain roads can be so dangerous in the best of weather. Somebody in another car saw them skid over the cliff. They didn’t have much of a chance.

God. Give me directions to the hotel and hospital. I’ll be there as soon as I can get a flight.

With shaking hands, he wrote it down on the hotel pad, then hung up and phoned the airport. There was a flight out in an hour, but it was full. He agreed to standby and frantically threw his clothes in his suitcase, hoping to make that next flight out.

He phoned his client and gave him his regrets and explained the emergency. Then he took a cab to the airport. The next hours were only a blur: his frantic rush to the airport, buying the first ticket that would get him to California, standing in line over and over, desperately hoping to get a seat for the next leg home. He missed his connecting flight in Hawaii and sat down in the chairs near the gate to wait for the next, but didn’t dare let himself fall asleep for fear of missing the flight.

On the flight at last, he dozed on the long leg over the Pacific to California.

He couldn’t believe his twin was gone. He remembered the day Don had first come to visit him with his life-altering idea of Dave donating sperm for Don. Would either of them have considered it if they could have seen this in the future? He didn’t know. Maybe they would have done it anyway.

Amazingly, it had only taken two tries to get Jenny pregnant. He remembered how thrilled Don and Jenny had been at the news she was expecting.

Don had called him frequently, sounding happier than he had for years. Dave had felt a strange fascination with hearing the details of her pregnancy, the first time the baby moved, the due date, the names they’d chosen, their decision not to know the baby’s sex ahead of time.

Don had called him at midnight the night of the birth, ecstatic that they’d had a healthy, eight-pound boy. They named him Cory Donald. Dave had felt happy for them and more than a little envious, though since his divorce, he’d said a home and kids were not for him.

Well, at least Don had had those wonderful few months. Dave wiped away tears. Luckily the flight attendant had turned down the lights and most people on the long flight were asleep, so no one would notice.

* * * *

Late Sunday afternoon, Cathy Kassig was sitting at her easel, finishing the watercolor illustration for the children’s book she was working on when the phone rang.

With a sigh, she picked it up and heard her mother’s voice. Cathy! Jenny and Don had a car accident. I’m at the hospital now.

Oh my God. How bad is it?

Very bad. Please come.

Cathy’s heart pounded, and she tried to keep her voice even as she said, Of course. Give me directions.

As she wrote them down, she realized her hands were full of paint and she was in her old jeans.

Quickly she washed her hands, ran a brush through her long, unruly hair and threw on clean slacks and top. Grabbing her purse, she raced to her little red Chevrolet.

After battling traffic to the hospital, she took the elevator to the tenth floor as her mother had directed. She found her in the waiting room, in tears.

Don’s gone, her mother said brokenly, and Jenny’s in surgery. They don’t know if she’ll make it yet.

Cathy hugged her tightly and fought her own tears. What happened?

The road was icy coming back from their weekend in the mountains. They didn’t make one of those hairpin curves.

And little Cory? Was he with them?

Her mother shook her head. They’d left him with the neighbor who usually babysits for them. I called the sitter. She said she’ll keep him for another day or so for us. Then we’ll have to take him for a while, I suppose.

I’ll take him, Cathy said. If you’ll help when I have to go downtown to work.

Her mother nodded.

Cathy hugged her mom. We’ll work it out until Jenny’s home again.

Her father appeared with coffee from the machine. He looked shocked and uncertain, definitely unlike his usual take-charge self. He seemed suddenly old, and she realized his hair was getting thin and gray. She took the coffee.

There’s paint on your shoes, he said.

Cathy glanced down at her old sneakers and gave a little laugh. Dad, you notice the oddest things at a time like this. I was working. I didn’t change them, I guess.

He nodded and sat down in the chair.

The next day passed in a blur. They took turns getting some sleep and coming back to wait for news. Don’s parents arrived and went with her parents to make funeral arrangements for Don. Cathy sat numbly, trying to read in between short visits to Jenny’s room. Jenny lay in bed, pale and unresponsive. The sight kept Cathy’s stomach in knots of fear. The doctor said she had serious internal injuries and didn’t hold out much hope.

The next afternoon, the nurse said Jenny wanted to see her. When Cathy went into her room, Jenny was awake and seemed better, even managing a weak smile.

Hi, Cathy, she said softly. I’m a bit of a mess.

Cathy took her hand and leaned down and kissed her cheek. Don’t worry about that. Just get well.

Jenny shook her head. No, Cathy. That’s not going to happen.

You have to get well, Jenny! Cory needs you.

Jenny met her eyes. That’s what I need to talk to you about. I want you to take care of Cory for me. Adopt him.

But, Jenny, you’ll be okay. Don’t talk like that.

Jenny shook her head. No, Cathy, I won’t. Listen to me. I had the nurse call our lawyer, and I talked to him. He’s gonna make it all legal and bring papers here for me to sign. Will you do it? Jenny leaned up, trying to sit.

Cathy’s mouth went dry. Her adopt Cory? What did she know about babies? Of course, a few months ago, when she’d been engaged and Jenny was pregnant, she’d dreamed of having her own family too. But that went by the wayside along with her cheating fiancé. She couldn’t take Cory, could she?

Just rest, Jenny. Of course I will take care of Cory, if anything happens to you.

Promise? Jenny asked weakly.

She swallowed. She couldn’t let her sister down. I promise, Jenny. But you’ll get well. You have to think positive, Cathy said, trying to keep her voice even.

Jenny lay back against the pillow. Her face was almost as white as the pillow behind her dark head. Thank you, Sis. I knew I could count on you. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Cathy sat beside her for a while, then tiptoed out and went back to the empty waiting room, her stomach in knots.

Adoption meant forever. Adopt Cory? A six-month-old baby? She barely knew how to change a diaper! She’d taken care of him a few times, but keeping him for a few hours was a different thing from being his mother.

She stood at the waiting room window, twisting a dark curl and staring out at the traffic on the street below, and prayed harder than she ever had for her sister’s recovery.

* * * *

Dave Langer barely made it in time for Don’s funeral. The service was a blur. Jenny’s funeral followed within days, their burial side by side. His father and her family had seen to all the arrangements for both, and her sister, Cathy Kassig, was taking care of Cory.

Dave and his parents offered help, but the Kassigs coldly refused.

Dave got the irrational impression that, since Don was driving, they blamed him for the accident.

Feeling rejected and helpless, his parents and his sister Jody returned to Minnesota. Numb with shock, Dave stayed behind to do what needed to be done to settle their affairs. He sought out Mr. Anderson, Don’s lawyer.

Mr. Anderson was a heavy-set, affable middle-aged man who chain-smoked. He informed Dave that because Don had been killed instantly in the accident, but Jenny had lived long enough to call him and