The Surrogate's Secret Read Free

her gently. Quivers worked their way up her arms, bypassing her common sense, and exploded in the pit of her stomach.
    Desires, dormant for the last few years, suddenly awoke and invaded her body. Pleasurable surges overflowed. The kind she hadn’t experienced since she’d been a teenager making out with the horny love of her life. Without forethought, she glanced up and noticed his eyes were glued to hers. The heat she saw shocked her and became too hot for her to handle. Instead, she looked down at their locked fingers.
    “Querida, calm yourself. I had no way of knowing you were the true mother of the babies. When Felipe phoned me at the start of the pregnancy to tell me that you had agreed to surrogate for them, he mentioned nothing about this not being their own child.”
    Yanking her hands from his, she crossed her arms to hide her trembling and flopped back onto the sofa. “Felipe never knew. Mary-Anne made me swear to keep it a secret. Your brother was determined to have a baby. Even though he knew my friend’s injuries from an accident in her teens would make her chances slim-to-none that she would ever get pregnant, he persuaded her to undertake all the tests. Mary-Anne agreed to go along, but only if we could use a clinic other than the one he owned.”
    He frowned. “Sneaky.”
    “No. Protective. She knew how much a baby meant to him, and it was her dearest wish to make him happy.” Tears gathered and a sob broke down Sheri’s restraint. “Now see what you’ve gone and done. You’ve made me cry. I hate crying.”
    His eyes widened. “Please don’t….”
    Wails, building in volume and coming from the direction of the bedroom, signalled the babies were in sync with their tearful mother. “You’d better leave. They’re awake, and I have to go to them.” When he hesitated, she added. “Miguel, I can’t handle any more stress right now. Please!”
    He left but not before stating firmly, “I’ll return tomorrow to visit my niece and nephew when you’re more rational. We’ll talk then.”
    She nodded and then looked away until she heard the door close behind him. He could talk all he wanted. There was no way in hell she’d give her babies to him, or anyone for that matter.
    She tiptoed into the nursery then watched as her son and daughter gooed and waved at each other. It still mystified her how she’d ever thought she could give them up. Even to Mary-Anne who’d been her favorite person most of her life. She guessed a woman never truly understood the intensity of maternal love until she held her child close to her heart.
    Her daughter, Carrie-Anne, stretched and started to half crawl , half roll to get closer to her brother, Rafael, who watched her with interest. His motor skills were behind his sister’s, and he had far less energy. As if she sensed his weakness, Carrie-Anne watched over him constantly, and cried when she lost sight of her twin.
    As quiet as Sheri had been, Carrie-Anne nevertheless noticed her mother hovering nearby. With joy filling her pretty baby face, and features that resembled her mother’s, Carrie-Anne’s arms went up.
    Rafael, watching his sister’s actions , looked over and also smiled his welcome. Sheri’s breath caught. Both babies had inherited the smoky gray eyes from their father’s side, but where her daughter looked more like Sheri, her son was the spitting image of his Uncle Miguel. 

Chapter Four
     
    Later, after Sheri had dealt with the needs of the twins, she felt like a zombie. Her thoughts resembled a pinball game, ricocheting between maybes and what ifs. Sleeping seemed to be the only way to shut them off. She tried to nap, but her crazy mind was too wide-awake and full of the man who’d spun her secure world off its axis. The strongest memory, insidious, unshakable, was Miguel soothing her, touching her. The more she tried to stop thinking about him, the more his image returned.
    When the doorbell rang, spasms of delight and fear sparred in her