Prologue

      Natalie Browning sat in the middle of her darkened living room and watched the nightly news, a pillow pulled up to her face just below her eyes. Delia Jones, her former assistant at KRTV and now a weekend anchor for KXAV, had called twenty minutes ago to warn her about Karen Kaufman’s lead story.

      The beautiful redhead with the face of a Mucha model and the heart of a viper smiled benevolently at the camera.

      “Welcome to Channel 4 News. I’m Karen Kaufman,” she said in a flawlessly clear voice. “The final chapter of the Moss Laboratories story played out today in court when Donald Parker was indicted on seventeen counts of fraud, thanks to the tireless efforts of Philadelphia’s KRTV newswoman, Natalie Browning, who was herself a victim of the sperm bank’s deceptions.

      “Her investigation uncovered Parker’s practice of creating false donor profiles and filling orders with his own sperm. The ruse was uncovered when Browning’s fertility specialist requested a second delivery of sperm from the laboratory, after the first attempt at impregnation proved unsuccessful.”

      Natty felt pain and humiliation splash over her like a cold shower. She clutched the pillow more tightly.

      “When that also failed,” Karen continued with what appeared to be genuine concern, “Browning’s doctor had the sperm sample analyzed, thinking he might discover that it hadn’t been handled properly in the transfer from the laboratory. What he discovered instead was that the sperm was indeed motile, but that both samples had precisely the same DNA pattern—and therefore the same donor.”

      “And that the impregnation problem,” Natalie said to the television, her voice thick because she had a head cold, “lies with Browning and not with the sperm. Thank you, Karen. Kind of you to point that out.”

      “Investigation of other samples proved that Parker had been perpetrating his scam for some time,” the redhead continued relentlessly. “The laboratory has been closed pending the outcome of the trial.”

      She could have lived through that, Natty thought, pressing a tissue to her sniffly nose, but the last segment was a feature called “Celebrity Dish”—a sort of gossip roundup dispensed by Jolie Ramirez, a perky brunette who loved uncovering the most embarrassing details about the most notable people.

      Tonight it seemed that a male vocalist was in rehab, an actress on Broadway beat her baseball-playing husband’s Jaguar with his own bat, and “Natalie Browning, the darling of the nightly news on Philadelphia’s Channel 6, apparently is no one’s darling at home, considering her story about Moss Laboratories, the now-infamous sperm bank. It was a story she stumbled upon while availing herself of the lab’s services.

      “‘She appears beautiful and sexy,’” according to an old boyfriend who preferred to remain anonymous, “‘but she has the cold heart of an old maid. No wonder she had to go to a sperm bank.’”

      Natalie stared at the screen, aghast, then threw her pillow at it, barely suppressing a scream. That action brought on a coughing fit.

      She knew the anonymous former boyfriend was Artie Webb, producer of the Channel 4 nightly news, whose advances she’d spurned at a weekend news conference in Boston three years earlier. He’d been married at the time—to Karen Kaufman—but his ego had never forgiven Natalie. Jolie Ramirez, unfortunately, was just doing her job.

      Natalie clicked off the television, called the airport and made a reservation to fly out to Portland, Oregon, on the red-eye. Then she went into her bedroom to pack.

      Tomorrow morning she’d probably be front page news and the subject of every radio talk show on the Atlantic seaboard. She didn’t want to be around for that, and she still had four weeks left of the three-month leave she’d taken to get pregnant.

      Six weeks ago, the story had developed and the professional in her had come to the fore, pushing her own concerns aside in the interest of protecting and informing the public.

      She’d suspected as she had filed the story that she might become part of the news—an undesirable consequence for any good reporter. But she hadn’t counted on Channel 4 taking its exploration of her involvement in the story to such lengths.

      Even as she threw clothes haphazardly into her suitcase, she understood that such things happened. Enemies in the business were vengeful, and the only response was silence.

      But this was the final straw in a long series of events that conspired to make her feel like a failure as a woman. What, after all, could contribute to that feeling more completely than the inability to reproduce, and having that news spread over the entire East Coast network?

      She threw several pairs of shoes into her case, along with her makeup bag, an extra box of tissues and several chunky sweaters. Dancer’s Beach, Oregon, would be chilly in November.

      She was willing to admit to herself that she was running away, and she knew that was probably cowardly. But she needed a comforting shoulder and there was nobody around who could provide one.

      Her mother had been against the whole sperm bank thing in the beginning and was happy to say “I told you so.” Natalie’s brothers were geniuses, but generally clueless about her. And what friends she had time for in her busy schedule all had husbands and children, and she couldn’t burden them with her problems.

      But she’d recently reconnected with her cousin Dori in Dancer’s Beach. They’d been great friends as children, and Natty suddenly longed for her smiling understanding.

      It occurred to her seven hours later, at about nine o’clock the following morning, that it would have been wise to call first, despite the lateness of the hour when she’d made her decision. Because there was no one home.

      A smiling older man walking by with a golden retriever on a leash said politely, “The Dominguez family is away for a few weeks.” His eyes went to her suitcase, then to her probably puffy face and red nose. “Is it important that you reach them?”

      She sighed and shook her head. The long plane ride had made it feel like a brick with ears. “No, thank you.” She walked down the steps and was snuffled by the friendly dog. “I made a last minute decision to visit without calling first. Can you recommend a motel?”

      The man pointed up the street. “See that greenand-white Craftsman on the corner? That’s Lulu Griffin’s B-and-B. Very comfortable. Good food. And Nugget and I just walked by. The Vacancy sign is out.”

      “Thank you.” Natalie shook his hand. “I appreciate your help.”

      “It was my pleasure.”

      As the man and the dog walked on, Natalie headed for the bed-and-breakfast, barely able to breathe, and feeling lower than she’d ever felt in all her twenty-six years. With her demanding mother and her genius brothers, she’d always felt inadequate.

      Then, after years of trying to fit a little social life into her busy schedule and finding the singles scene soul-deadening, she’d met Kyle Wagner. A young actor with fire and passion, he’d seemed like her dream come true. Until they’d become engaged and his fire and passion turned to complacency and only mild interest in her life.

      But she’d wanted a baby more than she wanted anything, and she’d almost settled for Kyle—until he told her he didn’t want children until he was in his forties.

      She’d broken the engagement and turned to the sperm bank. And then she hadn’t been able to become pregnant, even under perfect conditions.

      What was left for her? she wondered as she climbed