Chapter Seven

And Whether Pigs Have Wings

"What do you mean you're not the father of this baby?" Jordan forcefully asked, her arms protectively going around her slightly expanding waistline.

Bug sighed, rubbed the back of his head, and turned away from her. "I'm not. I'm not the father of the baby. It wasn't my sperm they impregnated you with."

"Then who?"

Bug waved her question off. "It's confidential. I'm sworn to secrecy."

Jordan was silent for a moment, her mouth working, but no words coming out for a beat. "But…don't you think I deserved to know?"

"Jordan," Bug responded on an exasperated sigh, running his hand through his hair. "All you needed to know as a surrogate is that the donor is healthy and disease-free."

"But I thought the donor was you."

Bug gave her a painful look. "I'm sorry. It wasn't me."

"But….how come…."

He took a deep breath. "When I was a child in India, I came down with a high fever. Very high. And it..it…it.."

"Left you sterile."

Bug nodded, the motion as agonizing as the look on his face.

Jordan took a deep breath. "Did Lily know?"

He was silent for a long moment. "No. I wanted to tell her. Tried to tell her. But I couldn't. Every time we talked about why we couldn't have a baby, it always came around to her endometriosis. I didn't want to add anything else to that burden. And the surrogacy thing came up and she was so happy…so thrilled. I didn't want to tell her anything else that would upset her."

"So you omitted the truth to spare Lily further pain and stood on the street corner to flag down semen donors?"

"It wasn't like that." Bug leaned against the wall of his empty living room and slid to the floor, holding out his hand for Jordan's so that she could join him.

"When you agreed to the surrogacy, which by the way, surprised the hell out of me, I knew I had to act fast," he said when she had sat down beside him. I wanted the baby to look like Lily… so I found a donor with similar coloring…disposition….as closely as I could, anyway."

"What? They have the semen donors catalogued with a physical description at the sperm bank?"

Bug chuckled wealy. "Not exactly."

"Let me guess…you posted a list of potential donors on a bulletin board and threw darts to make a choice? No...that's not like you. You put all the information in a data base and had the computer pick a donor?"

Bug have her another painful look. "No. Nothing like that at all. I'm afraid this is one time I didn't think like a scientist and thought like father. Or at least tried to. I tried to think of a person, other than myself, that I would like to be the progenitor of my offspring. Someone that I wouldn't mind raising his child. Someone I admired, not so much for their intelligence, although that was a factor, but for their character, personality, and disposition.

"Someone I knew," he continued. "Maybe even admired a little. Envied at some point. Someone I knew was also healthy…."

Jordan blanched. "Tell me I am not carrying Garret's child."

Another painful chuckle. "No. But if I tell you, you have to swear to me you won't tell him you know."

Jordan nodded.

"It's Woody's. You're carrying Woody's baby."

It took three days for the shock to wear off. Every time Jordan looked in the mirror she was reminded of the fact that God, in His infinite wisdom, also has an infinitely odd sense of humor.

In her goodwill gesture to be a surrogate for her best friend, she ended becoming pregnant with the child of a man she had once loved and lost, and now could barely stand to be in the same room with.

A man, who at one time, she would have given anything to love, honor, cherish, share a bathroom with, and have his baby.

Now she was having his baby, but the rest of the old dream had vanished. Melted away, as she and Woody both were so very different people now than they were all those years ago when he was a fresh-faced, green detective straight from the backwoods of Wisconsin and she was only the slightly cynical ME from Boston. She sat back in the chair in her office and reflected on her reaction after Bug dropped the DNA bomb on her.

"The baby is Woody's?" she had managed to stammer out that afternoon on the floor in Bug's empty living room.

He had nodded.

"Didn't you think I just might want to know that?"

"Everything is confidential, Jordan."

"But…you led me to believe that you were the father…"

"No. I never said that. You assumed that."

She had thought for a moment. Bug was right. He had never outright said he was the sperm donor and all the legal papers she had signed simply referred to Bug as the legal father of the child – a child that would have to go through adoption procedures to finalize everything.

Now came the bonus question. "Does…does…Woody know that I'm…I'm…."

"No. He has no idea that you're the surrogate. Although once you start showing, I have a feeling he may put the whole surrogate-baby-sperm donor puzzle together rather quickly."

"Great. So how am I…supposed to….You're leaving, aren't you?"

Bug nodded again. "I need to get away. I see Lily everywhere here. I need to go somewhere and clear my head."

Jordan sighed. "Maybe for forever, right?"

Another nod. "It's a good possibility."

"But the baby. Your child…"

"I'll be back. I promise. Meanwhile, your medical bills will continue to be paid. The doctor and hospital have all that information. And there's extra money to do whatever you need with…"

"Why would I need extra money?" Her voice sounded strangled to even herself then.

"In case I'm not back exactly when the baby's born…."

"Jordan."

Her name being called loudly from her office door brought her back to reality. "Ummm, yeah?" She turned towards the sound.

She jumped when she saw it was the father of her child.

"Are you okay?" Dimples were intact as he grinned. "I called your name three times."

"Yeah, sure." Her arm went protectively over her slightly protruding tummy. "Case. Difficult one…just kinda lost in thought."

Woody nodded, his face still slightly puzzled. "The Snider file? Are you through with the reports?"

So that was all he wanted. She stifled a sigh of relief and gave him a genuine smile. "Sure." She reached for it on her desk and handed it off. "Anything else I can do for you, Woody?" Still smiling.

"No. This is good." He turned to go. "Are you sure you're feeling okay, Jordan?"

"Never better."

"You can run, but you can't hide…"

Jordan remembered the words of her father, spoken many times to suspects when Max worked as a detective.

You can't hide…

And Jordan knew she couldn't. She could avoid Woody. And she did that. As much as she could, as many times as possible.

But as her pregnancy became more noticeable, it became harder and harder to do.

First, of course, were the inevitable questions from Garret and Nigel. Jordan only revealed that Bug and Lily had asked her to be a surrogate for them. She didn't go into details, just revealed the information that they needed to know. Both men were touched by her "generosity of spirit."

Of course, they assumed that all of the basic reproductive components came from Lily and Bug. Jordan did nothing to clear up that indiscretion.

Woody…Woody became harder to dodge…and Jordan knew it wouldn't take long for the detective to figure things out and corner her. But as far as Woody knew, it was Lily's egg. Jordan was only the carrier of her best friend's egg and her ex-whatever's sperm.

So when Woody finally caught sight of her protruding belly, he simply raised an eyebrow and caught her alone as soon as he could.

"It's you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. It's me."

He grinned. It was one of those smiles that his dimples didn't participate in. "I should have figured Lily would ask you…her best friend … to carry a child she couldn't."

Jordan dropped her head and examined her fingers that were busy tying themselves in knots. "Yeah, she did. I was honored then. Now that she's…Lily's…gone, I'm even more honored."

Woody regarded her carefully for a moment. "How are you doing now that Bug's left the country?"

"Okay… I guess. I'm worried...about him…about…" she raised her head and looked him in the eyes. "Scared, I guess is the right word."

"That he won't come back?"

Anxiety gripped her cold and tight. She had never verbalized the fear herself, much less heard anyone else say what she had been afraid of. Throat tense, she simply nodded again.

"It's his baby. He's got to come back," Woody told her.

If only it were that simple….

But it wasn't. It wasn't that simple, although Jordan was glad Woody initially believed it.

However that belief didn't last for long.

Woody washed the last dinner dish and hung the towel over the handle of the stove with a sigh. It had been a long day and now he was going to settle down with a Guinness and watch the BoSox until the game was over or he fell asleep on the couch. Whichever came first.

He kept telling himself that being single and free was the best thing for him. No woman to answer to. No one to try to please, keep up with, or keep from going to prison. Just a string of mindless dates when he wanted company. Dates that could end with a chaste good night kiss at the door or something else more satisfying when both parties agreed.

He uncapped a bottle of the beer and picked up the remote to his TV, when the ringing of a telephone interrupted his plans. "Hoyt."

"Woody? It's Bug…we need to talk."

The next half hour turned Woody's world on its ear. In a voice laced with tears and guilt Bug revealed to him the truth. Just as Bug hadn't been able to donate his own sperm to the creation of the child, neither had Lily been able to donate her own egg.

"Whose was it?" Woody asked, all the time knowing in his heart of hearts exactly whose egg it was. He just needed his concerns confirmed.

Twenty minutes later, he was striding down the halls of the morgue, looking for her. A quick call to Garret had confirmed she had to work a double and was still at the morgue for the duration of the evening.

She wasn't in autopsy, she wasn't in the crypt. Trace was empty except for a couple of interns looking at reports. He turned on his heel. Her office. She had to be there.

And she was. Stretched out on her couch, sound asleep, Patriots blanket pulled over her, and her arm wrapped protectively around her abdomen. Looking so tired and worn out he hated to wake her.

But he needed answers. He needed explanations. She had known for at least two months and hadn't breathed a word. It didn't seem possible. It was surreal. It was something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The woman he once loved was now pregnant with his child without him having sex with her and he didn't know it until now.

Damn modern medicine.

To top it all off, in Bug's semi-drunken confession of guilt, he insinuated that he had no plans to leave England anytime soon. The baby and Boston would dredge up too many memories of Lily. It was up to Jordan and Woody who would raise the baby. He…she…..them…..Bug was leaving it up to Woody and Jordan. The baby would receive every dime of Lily's life insurance money as recompense.

Reluctantly, Woody reached out a hand and shook her. "We need to talk," he told her in a clipped, cold voice as soon as her eyes fluttered open.