Read Online SH Medical 07 - The Detective's Accidental Baby by Jacqueline Diamond - Free Book Online

he’d been a scared twelve-year-old who hid his feelings behind a defensive wall of anger. Gradually, guided by his new family’s combination of strictness and love, he’d begun to trust them enough to open up. Now, Lock couldn’t imagine not prying into his brother’s business.
    Mike leaned his tall frame against the counter. “I’ve applied to become a sperm donor.”
    Lock blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Money isn’t that tight.”
    A rude noise greeted this remark.
    “It can’t pay all that much, anyway.” Lock stretched his leg and massaged the thigh. Although it hurt less these days, it still felt tight.
    “I’m not doing it for the money, which is about a hundred dollars per specimen, if you must know,” Mike said.
    “Then why?”
    His brother’s blue-gray eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Does it matter?”
    “It must matter to you, or you wouldn’t go through this,” Lock stated.
    “I’m helping women and couples have families. Isn’t that enough of a motive?”
    “No.”
    Mike gulped the juice and set the glass in the sink. “The idea’s fascinated me ever since I heard the hospital was opening a sperm bank.”
    “Does this have to do with Patty’s husband working there?” Lock queried.
    “He’s an embryologist. Different department,” Mike said. “Okay, here’s the deal. After spending years helping out with foster kids, I have no desire to be a father. But I’m arrogant enough to want to pass along my gene pool.”
    Hence the health kick and the medical history. “What if your kids come looking for you someday? Or a woman demands child support?”
    “There are laws protecting my rights and theirs.” Those issues didn’t appear to trouble him. “Think about it. I come from a high-achieving family with no history of drug or alcohol abuse. All but one of my grandparents lived into their eighties in good health. Why not pass those genes to another generation?”
    Lock had a ready answer. “I can’t imagine knowing you’ve got a kid out there, or maybe several kids, that you’ll never meet. Wouldn’t you wonder every time you see a child whether it might be yours?”
    “I think having a lot of kids would be cool, as long as I don’t have to take care of them,” Mike returned evenly.
    Surely he hadn’t weighed all the implications. “Suppose you get married. How do you think your wife will feel about this?”
    “I tried marriage. Didn’t work for me.” Mike’s marriage had fallen apart after he’d caught his wife having an affair. In the years since then, he’d dated only casually.
    Lock wasn’t finished. “You grew up with foster kids. You saw what being thrown away does to them.”
    “I’m not throwing anyone away. I’ll be making a donation to women who badly want a family,” he replied smoothly.
    “You have no idea what it’s like not knowing where you came from or what your real parents were like!”
    His brother fixed him with a steely look. “If you’re hung up about your genetic parents, bro, why don’t you check them out? You’re a detective. Shouldn’t be hard to find your birth mother.”
    “I’ve considered it.”
    “Consider it harder. Now quit bugging me.” Mike propelled himself away from the counter. “I’m going to hit the treadmill.”
    That meant an hour of mechanized creaking and churning next to Lock’s bedroom. If he’d had any plans for hitting the sack early, he could forget about them.
    Grabbing the laptop he’d left in the den, he carried it into the living room and set it up on the coffee table. For an unguarded moment, he reflected on how totally unlike Erica’s place this was, with its threadbare couch and chairs facing a giant TV screen. Not even the most dedicated bargain hunter would bother to refinish this scarred coffee table, decorated only by mug-size rings and the scuff marks of countless shoes.
    Erica. He saw again the defensiveness in her crossed arms and tight expression after she’d learned