Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(29)

He won’t be thrilled to have you pop up in his life again...

Don obviously agreed. But she wasn’t going to let her ex-fiancé’s skepticism get inside her head. Hudson hadn’t even had any birth control with him.

On the other hand, that could mean he’d simply used it all...

She was about to watch the game for the second time, as if that might show her something she hadn’t already seen, when she discovered a video clip on YouTube that held her spellbound. It was part of a press conference, in which one intrepid reporter kept asking Hudson personal questions that should’ve been out of bounds, since those questions had nothing to do with what he was there to discuss, which was, of course, football.

“How do you feel being abandoned as a baby has figured into your view of life?” the reporter asked. “Would you say your history’s made it more difficult for you to succeed as an individual?”

Ellie watched Hudson’s eyes narrow as they focused more intently on the woman who’d asked that question. “Excuse me?”

Ellie was pretty sure that almost everyone else who’d received such a look would’ve slunk into the background. Not this girl. She repeated the question, loud and clear.

A muscle moved in Hudson’s cheek, but then he grinned as if he was just a good old boy who didn’t care much about anything. “I wouldn’t consider it a positive thing,” he joked. “No one wants to be discarded like trash. But that was thirty-two years ago. I’ve had plenty of time to get over it.”

“The holidays are coming up,” the woman said, going after him again. “Do you find that a particularly difficult time?”

Somehow, Hudson managed to keep his smile in place. He was acting the part of a big, tough football player, and he was doing it well. But Ellie had spotted an almost-imperceptible wince, knew that question had blasted a hole through him, even if the stupid reporter didn’t. “I’ve got lots of family,” he said. “They’re just not related by blood.”

“Have you ever done any of your own searching, hoping to find out who left you under that hedge?” she persisted.

Hudson responded as though he didn’t hear her third question. He scanned the crowd and called on someone else. But since the first reporter had ventured beyond how the Devils were planning to prepare for the next game, or whether Hudson thought they had a serious Super Bowl bid this year, the next reporter couldn’t seem to resist following her lead. “Would you want a relationship with your mother if she ever did step forward?”

“Looks like we’re out of time,” Hudson replied briskly, and Ellie nearly cheered when he stood, putting an end to the conference.

“Poor guy.” With a sigh, she pushed her computer away and turned on her phone. She’d told herself she wouldn’t call Amy, but she had to talk to someone about this, and her parents still didn’t know she was pregnant. Whenever she spoke to them, she pretended nothing had changed since her breakup with Don, which meant she still had that daunting conversation ahead of her.

As soon as her phone powered up, she saw that Don had stopped calling but had been texting instead. Leave me alone, she wrote back.

Before she could reach Amy, however, another call came in, this one from Diane DeVry. Amy felt it would be rude not to answer, since she’d been so rattled when she left the Super Bowl party.

She pushed the talk button, hoping to reassure her colleague.

“Is it true, Ellie?” Diane demanded.

A sick feeling came over Ellie. This wasn’t the question she’d been expecting. “Is what true?”

“Hudson King isn’t the father of your baby, is he?”

Ellie dropped her head into her hand. Don had told Diane, had probably announced it to the whole party. Why? Why would he do that if he didn’t even want her to tell Hudson? she asked herself.

But the answer was obvious. He couldn’t resist. The news was too exciting not to share.

So...should she lie? Deny her child’s paternity now before the news could spread throughout the BDC? Or should she admit the truth?

She had no choice, she decided. Not really. This affected two other lives; it wasn’t something she could keep to herself indefinitely. She figured she might as well be honest from the start. She was going to have to tell Hudson, anyway.

“Yeah,” she said. “It is.”





8

Hudson’s address was unlisted. Ellie couldn’t find any way to contact him online—no PO box where she could send a letter or Facebook page where she could message him. She called the general number for the team, and a number that was published for his agent, but she didn’t dare leave detailed messages, and her name wasn’t enough to get a call back from either one. They probably thought she was yet another woman wanting to hook up with him. She was wondering what she should do next when the answer became clear. The boys ranch where Hudson helped out had a webpage that gave quite a bit of information, including the fact that it was located in a town of only five thousand people. Surely, in that small a community, someone should be able to reach him—or know someone who’d know someone who could. With football season over—the Devils had lost their Super Bowl bid to the Bears in overtime—she hoped he might live close to the boys ranch. One article she ran across mentioned that he’d purchased a property not far away. Even if he wasn’t in town, she felt there was a strong possibility Aiyana Turner, the woman who ran the school, could pick up the phone and call him.