Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(28)
How had she missed all the media coverage of this man? Amy always joked that she lived in a cave. This was embarrassing proof that she let far too many things escape her notice. She would’ve called Amy, but didn’t want to interrupt her weekend in Vegas. She also didn’t want whoever Amy was with to overhear what she needed to talk about. She regretted saying what she had to Don. He’d already left her three messages since she got home.
“Hudson’s a professional athlete, Ellie. He probably has women in every city he plays in. Who knows how many kids. He won’t care about you or your child, certainly won’t want to take on the duties of a father. But I’m here to help. Call me, okay?”
Next message: “Ellie, you’d be crazy to tell King. Whatever happened between you must’ve been quick and dirty if you didn’t even realize who he was. He won’t be thrilled to have you pop up in his life again. Why not save yourself the rejection? What if he tries to take the baby away? Leo and I have a better solution. So will you please call me?”
Next message: “Ellie, pick up. Come on. I’d really like to talk to you. Leo and I have discussed everything, and he’s hoping for a chance to assure you that he feels the same way I do. We’d both love to raise this child. We’re nearly forty. It’s the perfect time for us, the only thing we’re missing.”
“Why wouldn’t I go for that? I live to make you happy,” she muttered when she heard his last message and turned off her phone. She didn’t need Don’s interference. She’d decide the future of her baby, not him.
So...what was she going to do? Now that she knew who Hudson was, she could search online and learn all kinds of things about him. When she put his name in Google, she was presented with a list of articles dating back several years.
Most of the information was sports related—his stats, his responses to wins or losses, whether or not he’d been injured in a particular game and how long he might be out if he was. Some personal stuff came up, too, however—more than she would’ve wanted circulating about her if she was a public figure. She focused on one article in particular.
What’s in a name?
Ask one of the best quarterbacks ever to play football. Hudson King was named after two cross streets in Bel Air, a ritzy Southern California neighborhood, where he was found hidden under a privacy hedge at less than a day old. No one knows who his parents are or why he was abandoned the day he was born. The police investigation turned up no legitimate leads...
“Wow, that’s terrible,” Ellie muttered, but it was obviously true. She discovered plenty of other articles to confirm his background. After going in and out of foster care for a number of years—and trying to steal a car when he was only fourteen—he’d been sent to a place called New Horizons Boys Ranch. Although Ellie wasn’t familiar with boys ranches, she quickly learned that they were reformatory boarding schools for troubled teens. This one was in Southern California somewhere. It was at New Horizons that Hudson’s athletic ability began to shine. Somehow he got his life turned around, went to UCLA, won the Heisman Trophy his senior year and entered the NFL. He’d been with the Devils ever since. Ellie read that he’d taken less from the Devils on his last contract than he could’ve gotten elsewhere so he could stay in California and the organization would still be able to get some experienced talent at receiver. He mentored many of the boys who went to his old high school and didn’t want to leave the area.
The fact that he was so interested in the welfare of the students at New Horizons brought Ellie a degree of comfort. She had a good impression of him from the night they were together, but one night, especially one spent making love more than talking, didn’t reveal a whole lot. He was largely an unknown to her.
She saw another article about his involvement in the school. The administrator, someone named Aiyana Turner, said he’d donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships and sporting equipment, so much that the football field at New Horizons had been renamed in his honor this year. Ms. Turner admitted he’d had a few brushes with the law when he was a kid, but she’d been quick to add that was all in the past.
Ellie touched her stomach. She’d gone four and a half months thinking this was her baby and hers alone, that her child’s biological father would never be part of the picture. Seeing Hudson on TV had upended all of that. So what now? Did she dare keep the news to herself?
She was tempted. Her silence could eliminate several risky variables. What if Hudson wasn’t as good as his service to New Horizons made him appear? What if he gave her nothing but grief? What if he demanded shared custody? They lived across the country from each other. She didn’t want to be putting her child on a plane every other weekend.
She’d be much smarter to keep her mouth shut. But would that be fair? Didn’t she owe it to Hudson to tell him? Beyond Hudson, what about her responsibility to the baby? Did she have the right to deny her child some kind of connection with the man who’d fathered him or her? Didn’t common decency suggest she do everything possible to facilitate that relationship?
Fathers were important; they could make a big difference. Her own father was the parent who seemed to understand her and who’d nurtured her the most while she was growing up.
If Hudson didn’t want to be involved, that decision should come from him. But how would she even approach him to find out? What would she say? “Excuse me, do you remember that night in Miami?” Chances were he wouldn’t remember her at all. Professional athletes were notoriously promiscuous. She was probably just one of many women he’d been with in the past several months.