The Baby Battle Read Online Free PDF

covered his face with his hands. His heart pounded to an uncomfortable degree.
    “Tag?” she prodded. “You all right?”
    “I’m fine. Give me that.” He took the envelope from her. As if removing a bandage, he tore the packet’s sealing tape fast. Removing the contents, he forced a deep breath, and then read.
     
    “T HANKS FOR COMING ,” Olivia said to Stephanie. They shared a corner table at Morgan’s—a coffeehouse just off Fifth and Cummings in the heart of Valley View.
    Usually the beach-scene wall murals and tangle of tropical plants put her at ease. If those didn’t work, the luau classics usually did. Something about drinking coffee with Don Ho crooning brought a heavenly slice of Hawaii to Arkansas. The scent of freshly baked breads and cookies never hurt, either.
    On this day, however, no amount of kitsch was going to con her brain into a mellow mood. Olivia knew she should have been brave enough to open the paternity results on her own, but for whatever reason, she wasn’t.
    Flynn had been deep into his afternoon nap at his Montessori school day care, so she’d left him in capable hands.
    “My pleasure,” Steph said, sipping chai tea. “I tried finding the rest of the gang, but no one else could make it on short notice. My sister’s with the twins.”
    The FedEx envelope holding the test results sat between them on the table. The portion of her cappuccino Olivia had already downed was burning a hole through her stomach.
    “Well?” Stephanie opened the pack of butter cookies she’d bought to go along with her tea.
    “I can’t do it,” Olivia said, shoving the packet to her friend. “Please, can you open it?”
    Her friend solemnly nodded.
    In the moments it took Steph to tug open the pull strip, Olivia fought to breathe. All her hopes hung on the paternity test to return with a zero probability ofTag being Flynn’s father. Closing her eyes, she prayed, Please, please, please don’t let him —
    “Oh, Liv…”
    Olivia opened her eyes to see her friend look near tears. Happy or sad?
    “I’m so sorry. But, sweetie, tests prove that with 99.9 percent certainty, this Tag character is Flynn’s biological father.”
    Though Steph babbled more apologies and words she no doubt meant to be a comfort, her sentiments registered in slow motion. For how many years had Olivia prided herself on being able to hold her calm through any storm? Yet here she was in the midst of the single most horrible thing to have ever happened to her, and she was falling apart. Now was the time for her to steel her resolve to see this matter through.
    So what if Tag O’Malley was her son’s father?
    In her book that entitled him to diddly-squat. There was way more involved in being a parent than just numbers on a test. If Tag had been so eager to be a dad, why had his sperm ended up at a lab in the first place? Why hadn’t he just gone the traditional route? The man didn’t have a ring on his finger, which Olivia assumed meant he wasn’t married, so what gave him the right to think he could just bust in on her carefully planned life, demanding she share her child?
    Easing her fingers into the hair at her temples, she pulled, desperate for her mind to find answers. There had to be obscure case law somewhere concerning a matter ofthis nature. She just hadn’t searched far enough. Studied nearly enough. But she would. Okay, so she appeared in court tomorrow. That was all right. She’d put every one of the firm’s junior attorneys on this matter. Every paralegal, every secretary—heck, every custodian.
    By tomorrow Tag O’Malley would be annihilated.
    “Liv?”
    Olivia glanced up.
    “Honey, say something. You’re worrying me. Your expression is…well, for lack of a better word, thunderous. What are you thinking?”
    With a sad laugh, Olivia said, “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
     
    “T HIS MAY BE UNORTHODOX ,” the Honorable Judge Marsbury said from his bench Friday afternoon, “but in a case