Prognosis: A Baby? Maybe

by Jacqueline Diamond

  He couldn’t go on pretending. “I think it’s time we laid our cards on the table.”

  “What card game did you have in mind?” As she spoke, she sat up, revealing a luscious pair of pink-tipped breasts.

  “Strip poker?” Jason teased, thoroughly distracted from his train of thought.

  Her expression lightened. “I’d say stud poker was more like it.”

  “Suits me.” He ruffled her springy hair and moved closer. Forget the chitchat. Nothing brought two people closer than making love.

  As his hand slid toward those luscious orbs, Heather gripped his wrist. “You were right. We need to talk first.”

  “I’d rather…”

  “I know what you’d rather do. So would I. But we need to clear the air about this false idea you’ve got.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.” Jason remembered his new philosophy of living in the moment. In the morning light, he approved of it even more than he had last evening.

  “My mind is racing,” Heather said. “I’ve got to say what I have to say, or I’ll keep interrupting you.”

  “If you insist.” Reluctantly, he sat back.

  “You need to accept the truth,” she said. “You fell asleep and, the next morning, you gave me the cold shoulder. End of story.”

  Briefly, Jason considered pretending to agree so they could proceed to something far more important: making love. But that wasn’t why they’d come here this weekend, he reminded himself. It was time to get to the point, although he preferred to ease into the subject diplomatically.

  “I’m afraid that wasn’t the end of the story. You know it, and now I know it, too,” he said. “It was Quentin Ladd who gave me the final clue.”

  “You’ve lost me.” Heather rested her cheek on her knees as she listened. “The clue to what?”

  “Last weekend, Quent and I went out for breakfast.” Jason wanted to tell the whole story of how he’d figured out about Ginger, step by step, so she’d understand that he hadn’t been snooping or indulging in idle gossip.

  “I’m glad to hear you shared in some male bonding, but Quent doesn’t know anything about Atlanta,” Heather said. “Nobody does.”

  He wasn’t sure what to make of that remark so he let it go. The point was to reach the next level, the one on which she acknowledged him as Ginger’s father. “He told me about how clueless Patrick was when Natalie got pregnant.”

  “Yes, that story has already passed into Doctors Circle lore,” she said drily. “So?”

  “Edith told me how you took two months leave last fall for personal reasons,” he said. Heather simply sat watching him. Surely by now she caught his drift! “I may be as clueless as Patrick in some respects, but I can add.”

  “I’m afraid I’m slow on the uptake today.” Heather tilted her head quizzically. “You’ll have to spell this out.”

  “Eight months after we supposedly didn’t make love in Atlanta, you went on leave,” Jason said.

  “And?”

  “And you came back with a baby who has your red hair and my green eyes,” he said.

  Heather’s jaw dropped. Jason hoped she wasn’t going to continue denying the truth.

  “What conclusion did you draw?” she said.

  “You know what conclusion I drew!”

  “Humor me,” she said.

  “If you insist.” Determined not to provoke a fight, he said slowly and patiently, “Ginger is my daughter. And yours, of course.”

  She watched him with an unreadable expression. “Tell me something,” she said. “Where does Olive fit into this scenario?”

  “I figure she’s the nanny.” He supposed he might have guessed wrong there. “Or she might be your niece, as you said. But she doesn’t resemble Ginger in the least, and she takes off whenever she feels like it. I mean, honestly, you can’t expect me to believe that you’re this devoted to your great-niece.”

  A half-dozen emotions flitted across Heather’s face, from amusement to dismay. “You’ve concluded that I not only had your baby but also kept my pregnancy secret from the entire staff at Doctors Circle except maybe Quentin Ladd?”

  “That about sums it up.” Jason wished he weren’t getting an uneasy feeling from her reaction. Still, he didn’t see what other conclusion he could have drawn.

  The warmth drained from Heather’s expression. “Wait a minute. Is that why you brought me here this weekend, to soften me up so I’d confirm that Ginger is your daughter?”

  Although Jason was sorry if he’d made her angry, he wished she’d quit toying with him and come clean. “I didn’t plan what happened between us. I simply hoped that once you felt comfortable with me, you’d open up.”

  “You weren’t falling in love with me last night,” she said, more to herself than to him. “You were winning over the mother of your child. I’ll give you credit. You’ve apparently taken a shine to Ginger.”

  “Of course I have.” This conversation wasn’t tracking the way Jason had hoped. Although he hated to spoil any remaining trace of the tenderness between them, he decided to press the point until Heather quit denying the obvious. “Under the circumstances, I forgive you for keeping me in the dark, but I’m entitled to share my daughter’s life. She’s part of me, part of my genetic background, part of my future.”

  “What about me?” Despite the evenness of tone, her voice struck him as dangerously low. “Where do I fit into this charming picture?”

  “You’re her mother, of course.” Jason didn’t understand her anger. What had he done wrong? “I want the whole package. I want my family.” It was as close to a declaration of love as he knew how to make.

  Whatever he’d expected, it hadn’t been this look of sheer disgust. “You mean, you want us as long as we don’t get in the way of your ambitions, right?”

  “My ambitions are irrelevant,” he said, bewildered.

  “Not to your family.” She gave the words a puzzling emphasis. “You don’t want to buy a house or plant flowers because it might tie you down. You have to be free to pursue professional opportunities anywhere in the world so you won’t end up being merely a good doctor. Did I get any of that wrong?”

  Jason scratched his ear as he tried to figure out what had ticked her off. “I confess, I haven’t thought the whole thing through.”

  “You don’t really want a family,” Heather said. “Or a woman who’s anything more than a temporary convenience. What this whole weekend has been about is securing your title to your genetic heritage.”

  “Wait a minute!” How on earth had she gotten so far off course? “That’s not true.”

  “I can’t believe I let you fool me this way.” She bristled with outrage. “First you lure me up here on a pretext and then it turns out you had a hidden motive the whole time. ‘Establish a professional relationship,’ my foot! You didn’t even want to establish a personal relationship. All you want is to stake a claim to your DNA.”

  Jason raised his hands to stop the onslaught of words. “Let’s be rational about this. I don’t want to have to take you to court, Heather.”

  “Take me to court?” She gave a bitter laugh. “Just a minute.” Throwing off the covers, she hopped up, not seeming to care that she was stark naked. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  She vanished down the stairs. Jason punched a pillow into position against the headboard and tried to figure out how this conversation had veered 180 degrees from common sense.

  He didn’t view his daughter as a vessel for his DNA. He wanted to be her daddy, to read stories to her and, when she got older, to give her boyfriends the third degree, like a father on an old-fashioned TV sitcom.

  As for Heather, the last thing he’d had in mind was treating her as a convenience. She was the most inconvenient woman he’d ever met. Of course, he conceded, that wasn’t what mattered.

  True, he hadn’t given any thought to what a relationship with her might entail. A man didn’t have to
plan out every moment of his life in advance, did he?

  Heather reappeared. Although he’d half expected to see her carrying her daughter, there was no sign of the baby. “Is she still sleeping?”

  “She’s playing happily. I gave her a few more toys.” Heather plopped onto the quilt and handed him a photograph. “Look at this.”

  It was a wedding picture, the kind shot with an instant camera. The bride, whom he recognized as Olive, beamed at the lens. The groom smiled down at the baby in his arms. The child was instantly recognizable as Ginger.

  “Okay, so it was Olive’s wedding you went to in Las Vegas,” Jason said. “I still don’t get it. Why is her husband holding Ginger?”

  “Notice anything about his coloring?” Heather demanded.

  “He’s got red hair.” You couldn’t miss that.

  “I’m sorry his eye color doesn’t show up. It’s a splendid shade of green,” she said.

  “So who is he? Besides being Olive’s groom?” Jason wished the guy would disappear, that the entire photo would vanish, that this conversation had never taken place. Or, rather, that it was going in the direction he was absolutely convinced it should be taking.

  “He’s Ginger’s father,” Heather said.

  “I’m Ginger’s father!”

  “His name is John Hiram,” Heather said. “He just mustered out of the marines and married Olive. She has his coloring. Not mine and not yours.”

  This man couldn’t be Ginger’s father. Jason’s brain immediately hit upon a flaw in Heather’s account. “If they’re Ginger’s parents, why is she staying with you this weekend?”

  “Because they’re on their honeymoon,” she said.

  Oh, right. He’d forgotten about honeymoons.

  Yet none of this made sense. The reality he’d accepted last Sunday had become so much a part of Jason’s world view that even this evidence in his hand couldn’t instantly dispel it.

  He had a daughter. He’d fallen in love with her, and looked forward to years of playtime and cuddling. How could all that vanish because of a photograph?

  Jason struggled to consider the possibility that the puzzle pieces that had slid so neatly together also fit a completely different picture. Although, as a scientist, he relied upon his powers of deductive reasoning, it was beginning to seem as if he’d gone agonizingly astray.

  However, Heather still hadn’t tied up all the loose threads. Perhaps this was simply a dodge to throw him off the scent.

  “You’re telling me that the timing was pure coincidence.” Jason didn’t try to repress the irony in his tone. “It just so happened that eight or nine months after we met, your niece gave birth. As her aunt, you decided to leave your patients for two months to be with her and then, afterward, invited her to live with you. I have to say, that’s pretty darn generous of you. There can’t be very many aunts like you in the world.”

  Heather flushed crimson. No one but a redhead could turn that color, Jason reflected. If they hadn’t both been in such dismal moods, he’d have told her she looked like a rose.

  “There is one point of the story that I haven’t been honest about,” she said.

  “Aha!”

  “Don’t ‘aha!’ me!” Heather retorted.

  “Can’t a man say ‘aha!’ when an important revelation is about to be made?”

  “No, because you’re being sarcastic,” she said. “Now listen carefully. Only a very few people at Doctors Circle know what I’m about to tell you, and if you don’t mind your manners, you won’t be one of them.”

  Jason decided to obey, even though he found her logic hard to follow. “Shoot.” He leaned against the pillow, holding on to a tendril of hope.

  Perhaps, miraculously, this latest revelation would change everything back to the way it had been earlier this morning. He wanted his adorable daughter back. He wanted his warm relationship with her beautiful mother, too.

  “The short version is, I got pregnant when I was a teenager and relinquished the baby for adoption,” Heather said. “That baby was Olive.”

  “She has dark hair.” He wanted this story not to be true. Oh, how badly he wanted that.

  “Her father, who was a father in name only, had dark hair,” she said. “Last year, Olive contacted me. Her adoptive parents had died and John was overseas, so I went to be with her during the birth. I invited her to stay with me while she finished college.”

  “Olive’s your daughter.” If he repeated the words often enough, maybe they’d finally sink in.

  “I don’t know if my redheaded genes skipped a generation or if she got her hair from John,” Heather said. “Ginger did inherit his eyes, since mine and Olive’s are brown. End of story.”

  Despite his reluctance to believe it, the story made sense. It tied up the loose threads, leaving no strand that even a desperate father could cling to.

  A desperate non-father, apparently. Jason couldn’t fully absorb his loss in a single moment.

  He bowed his head in a gesture of defeat. “I guess I’ve been acting like an idiot. That seems to be a habit with me where you’re concerned.”

  “That would be an understatement.” Heather didn’t intend to go easy on him, obviously.

  Jason wanted the other Heather back, the woman who’d thrown herself into his arms last night. He missed her playfulness and their emotional closeness.

  He also missed the bond that had begun to form between him and Ginger. “Is there any chance you’ll be raising the baby yourself?”

  “I’m afraid not. She’s moving to Texas with her parents after they return on Monday,” Heather said. “I don’t even get to watch my granddaughter grow up.”

  “Your granddaughter,” Jason repeated. His brain chugged along, barely functioning.

  “I suppose it’s time I let the gossips at Doctors Circle know about my past.” Heather stood up, taking the photograph with her. “Maybe I should hold a press conference. Better idea: I’ll let Cynthia spread the word. She’s normally discreet but she can put a bug in a few indiscreet ears.”

  “People at Doctors Circle have indiscreet ears?” It was easier to joke about absurdities than to accept the fact that he had no claim on Ginger. Or on Heather, either.

  “Are you planning to make fun of everything I say?” she snapped.

  “I wasn’t making fun. I’m a little confused,” Jason admitted.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but you’ll get over it,” she said. “Now I suggest we go downstairs and fix breakfast before we head home. It’s a good thing we didn’t bother to unpack, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so.” He couldn’t summon the willpower to move. After a moment, she whisked away.

  Jason listened to the rustle of her bare feet going down to the first floor and heard the baby’s happy babble rise in greeting. He pictured Heather lifting the little girl from her playpen and giving her a hug.

  No wonder she loved the child so much. That was how grandmothers were supposed to act.

  He felt bereft. It was ridiculous, Jason supposed. He hadn’t actually lost anything, yet his heart told him otherwise.

  For a little while, he’d been both a daddy and a lover. He’d had a family and a future filled with special moments. He missed his illusion.

  He’d lost something else, too. This weekend, Heather had given him another chance, which he’d ruined by laying his assumptions on her. Where did they go from here? That was up to her, and he got the distinct impression she wanted nothing further to do with him.

  He’d let his emotions get the better of his judgment. As with Eileen and Mary Alice, it had been a mistake.

  With a wrench, Jason tried to release the dream he’d nurtured so intensely. This wasn’t going to be easy. Still, he couldn’t afford the luxury of wallowing in his disappointment.

  In the next few months, he faced a tremendous challenge. With the clinic opening, he’d have to juggle administrative tasks, the needs of his staff and the demands of his medical practice. Jason had to be prepar
ed to devote as many hours as necessary, including evenings and weekends, to his job.

  He thought of Eva LoBianco, brimming with the hope of having another child, and of Loretta, agonizingly afraid she might never be a mother. As he recalled his delight in Ginger, the child who had almost been his, his heart twisted with longing.

  It occurred to him that, for the first time, he had an inkling of how his patients actually felt.

  AS SHE DROVE down the mountain, Heather held herself rigidly in check. She refrained from glancing at Jason, who’d chosen to sit beside her this time instead of in the back.

  However, he’d helped feed the baby at breakfast and had carried her to the car. Heather could almost have sworn he’d studied the little girl wistfully. Under other circumstances, she might have spared him some sympathy.

  What stopped her was the knowledge that he’d never given Heather a moment’s consideration in all his machinations. He’d lured her to the cabin on false pretenses and made love to her under the guise of wanting her for herself, when what he’d really wanted was to take possession of Ginger.

  “I’m sorry,” Jason said into the silence.

  “You should be.” Heather’s chest squeezed every time she remembered her foolish hope that he might love her.

  “I don’t just mean I’m sorry that Ginger isn’t my daughter.” His rich voice contained a thoughtful note. “I’m sorry for the distress I’ve caused you.”

  “I’ll survive.” She wished she weren’t so aware of his arm flung across the seat back, inches from her neck. It made the hairs prickle. And it made her want to rub her cheek against his skin and invite him back into her bed.

  “If you like, I’ll make a full confession to Patrick,” he said. “Although all I told him was that I planned to use it to boost morale.”

  “You certainly didn’t boost my morale.”

  “You have every right to be furious with me.” Jason sounded so crestfallen that she decided to give him a break. Besides, she had no desire for the details of their encounter to become known around Doctors Circle.

  “As for what happened between us, it’s none of his business,” Heather said. “As far as I’m concerned, we went to the mountains to talk about the clinic, and that’s what we did.”