0373659504 (R)

by Brenda Harlen

  “You were trying to get pregnant?”

  “No! I didn’t plan any of what happened between us that night,” she promised him. “But when I realized it was possible that we might have conceived a child, I just didn’t do anything to stop it.”

  “A decision I’m still struggling to understand,” he told her.

  She nodded, acknowledging that she owed him a more thorough explanation of her actions. “When I graduated from medical school, I had a fiancé and a five-year plan.”

  His brows lifted at that, but he remained silent, allowing her to continue.

  “The plan included a wedding and, a few years after that, a baby. Then my fiancé decided to go ahead with that plan with someone else, and I moved on with my life without him.”

  “And moved to Charisma,” he guessed.

  She nodded again. “I’ve helped a lot of women deliver a lot of babies, and I always believed that someday it would be my turn. But I’m thirty-two years old and maybe my biological clock isn’t actually ticking just yet, but that someday doesn’t seem to be getting any closer.”

  “You still had no right to make a decision that could affect both of our futures without talking to me,” he told her.

  “I know,” she admitted. “But I promise you, if it turns out that I am pregnant, I will take full and complete responsibility for the baby.”

  “You don’t want anything from me?” he challenged. “Not child support? Not even my name on the birth certificate?”

  She shook her head, eager to give him the reassurance he seemed to be seeking. “Nothing,” she confirmed. “No one will even need to know that you’re the baby’s father.”

  “Which only proves you don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that if all you wanted was a sperm donor, you should have gone to a clinic.”

  “Hey, I didn’t plan for this, either,” she reminded him hotly. “I didn’t seduce you or sabotage birth control. We both acted impulsively and if it turns out that I am pregnant—and that’s still a pretty big if at this point—it will be the culmination of various factors that neither of us could have predicted.”

  “When will you know?”

  Her cheeks burned. Somehow, talking about her monthly cycle with him seemed even more intimate than what they’d done in the supply closet. “Sometime in the next seven to ten days.”

  “Okay,” he said. “So between now and then, we’re going to spend as much time together as possible.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “It’s absolutely necessary,” he told her. “Partly so that the people around us—friends, family, coworkers—start to see us as a couple. But mostly, and much more importantly, if you are pregnant, we need to know one another a lot better in order to coparent our child.”

  She stared at him, horrified. “Coparent?”

  “I might not have had any say in the choices you’ve made up to this point, honey, but I promise you, I’ll be involved in any decision making that takes place going forward.”

  He kept his eyes on hers, implacable and unyielding. “If you are pregnant—you don’t just get a baby. You get me, too.”

  * * *

  His words had sounded more like a threat than a promise, but Avery decided not to worry too much about what Justin had said in the heat of the moment. She understood that he was angry—and that he had reason to be. They’d both forgotten about birth control on New Year’s Eve, but she’d unilaterally decided to accept the possible risk of pregnancy.

  And maybe it was foolish to want a child under the current circumstances, but she couldn’t deny that she did. Even if this wasn’t the way she’d envisioned it might someday happen, she refused to have any regrets. She had no illusions that being a single mother would be easy, but she was fortunate to have a job she enjoyed along with a steady income that would pay her bills. She had a lot of patients who lived under much more difficult circumstances on a daily basis.

  She’d seen Justin frequently in the week that had passed since the night they’d had dinner at her apartment—and he’d made a point of being seen with her as often as possible—but she’d managed to keep their conversations mostly short and impersonal.

  The prospect of coparenting with him made her more than a little uneasy, but there was no point in worrying about that unless and until her pregnancy was confirmed. And even then, nine months was a lot of time. She was confident his determination to be involved would wane long before their baby was born. Maybe that was an unfair assumption to make considering how attentive and solicitous he’d been, but he had a notoriously short attention span when it came to his relationships with women.

  She could have taken a test already. The presence of hCG, the hormone that indicated pregnancy, could be found in very low levels within seven days after conception. But she wasn’t ready to confirm her pregnancy just yet. Because as soon as she knew for certain that she was going to have a baby, she’d feel obligated to tell Justin, and she wanted to hold the excited anticipation close to her own heart for a while before he trampled all over it.

  Three more days.

  The words echoed in her head as she waited for sleep to come.

  She awoke a few hours later with a crampy feeling low in her belly. Uneasy, she got up to go to the bathroom. That was when she realized her instincts and intuition were wrong.

  She wasn’t pregnant, after all.

  She crawled back under the covers of her empty bed, in her quiet apartment, and cried softly.

  * * *

  When Justin finally got a break and went in search of a much-needed caffeine fix, he found Avery sitting alone in the cafeteria with a single-serving tub of cookies ’n’ cream ice cream in front of her. He took his extralarge cup of coffee over to her table, wondering if the ice cream was evidence of some kind of pregnancy craving or just strange eating habits.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  She glanced up when he stopped by the chair across the table from her. “Of course not.”

  He lowered himself into the empty seat. “Breakfast?” he asked, nodding toward the ice cream container.

  She dropped her spoon into the melting dessert and shook her head. “I was hoping to see you today.”

  He was surprised and pleased to think that she wanted to see him rather than avoid him, which was her usual modus operandi. “You were?”

  “I figured you’d want to know as soon as possible that you’re off the hook.”

  “Off the hook?” he echoed, the implication of her words taking a moment to sink into his brain. “Oh.”

  She nodded. “I got my period last night.”

  “Oh,” he said again.

  “We successfully dodged that bullet.”

  But her clichéd phrases and the forced cheerfulness warned him that her feelings weren’t as simple or straightforward as she wanted him to believe. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m relieved, of course.”

  “You are?”

  She shrugged. “Sure, I’m a little disappointed, too,” she admitted. “But considering the circumstances, it’s probably for the best.”

  “You’re probably right,” he agreed.

  He was certainly relieved to have “dodged the bullet,” and grateful that their impulsive actions wouldn’t have long-term consequences. He liked his life just the way it was and hadn’t been thrilled to think of the adjustments he would need to make to accommodate a child. Of course he would have, if it had turned out that she was pregnant, but he was undeniably relieved that wouldn’t be necessary just yet.

  “Now our lives can go back to normal,” she said, her words echoing his own thoughts.

  “By normal, you mean that you intend to go back to ignoring me as much as possible,” he guessed.

  “I mean that you can go back to dating a different woman every weekend,” she countered lightly.

  He
started to protest her erroneous assumption of his habits, but what was the point? She’d made up her mind about him a long time ago and obviously nothing he’d said or done in the past couple of weeks had changed her opinion.

  Instead, he nodded his agreement. “There is that.”

  * * *

  “Who was that?”

  Justin glanced up as Nora slid into the seat Avery had recently vacated. “What are you doing here?”

  “Thanks to the introductions you made, I’ve got an interview with Jovan Crncevic,” she explained, naming the supervisor of the hospital’s physiotherapy department. “Of course, I came way too early so I decided to stop in here and grab a cup of coffee and I saw you having a deep tête-à-tête with...your girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Ex-girlfriend?”

  “No,” he said again, lifting his own cup to his lips to finish his coffee.

  “Really?” she challenged. “Because I’m pretty sure that was the same woman who stopped by your condo when I was there, and there were some serious vibes between the two of you just now.”

  “We work together,” he explained.

  Nora laughed. “It was definitely not a work vibe.”

  He scowled. “How long were you watching?”

  “Long enough to know it was not a work vibe,” she assured him.

  “We had a thing,” he admitted.

  “A thing?”

  “A shared moment of insanity.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “A thing.” She sipped her coffee. “You still hung up on her?”

  “No.”

  “I think I understand why it didn’t work out—she’s probably intimidated by your conversational prowess.”

  “You’re a real smart-ass, you know that?”

  “I always figured it was better than being a dumb ass.”

  His lips twitched a little in response to that, but all he said was, “Shouldn’t you be preparing for your interview?”

  She shook her head. “Even thinking about it makes me nervous—your love life is a great distraction.”

  “Glad to be of service.”

  “Do you want my advice?”

  “No,” he said bluntly.

  She frowned. “Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I don’t have any wisdom to offer. I’ve got some experience in matters of the heart.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I’m only telling you because I recognize the symptoms of a serious infatuation.”

  “Dr. Wallace is not infatuated with me,” he assured her.

  Nora laughed. “I wasn’t talking about Dr. Wallace.”

  Chapter Six

  Life did go back to normal—eventually.

  Although Avery had lived with the possibility of a baby for only a couple of weeks, she’d wanted to be pregnant so much that she’d let her imagination run with it, and it took a few days to shake off her melancholy.

  The depth of her disappointment forced her to reevaluate her life and her choices. It was time, she decided, to stop being passive and go after what she wanted. Which meant that she needed to start dating again—and actually make an effort to meet the man who might want to father her future children.

  Maybe she’d even ask Amy to set her up again—as soon as she shook the exhaustion that had recently taken hold of her body and which she suspected was a result of some lingering disappointment.

  “Are you up for grabbing a drink?” Amy asked, when the last patient of the day had finally exited the clinic.

  “I thought you’d be anxious to get home to Henry,” Avery said, referring to her friend’s fifteen-month-old son.

  “He’s spending the night with Ben’s parents.”

  “So that you and your hubby can have a romantic evening together?” she guessed.

  “That was the original plan,” her friend admitted. “Until his brother snagged a couple of tickets to a Canes game and asked Ben to go with him.”

  “In that case, a drink sounds good.”

  “And nachos?” Amy prompted hopefully.

  She laughed. “Marg & Rita’s?”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Avery left her white coat on the hook behind the door in her office, untied the fastener around her ponytail, brushed out her hair and added some lip gloss. A quick glance in the bathroom mirror confirmed that she looked better—but she still felt like crap.

  She arrived at the restaurant first and didn’t wait for her friend. It was Friday night, which meant that if there was a table available, it wouldn’t be for long. Shortly after she was seated, the waiter brought two menus. Knowing her friend’s preferences, she ordered a Top Shelf margarita for Amy and a virgin classic for herself along with a platter of deluxe nachos.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Amy said, sliding into the empty seat across the table. “Ben called as I was on my way out to remind me to watch the game so I can see him on TV.”

  “Maybe we should have gone to the Bar Down,” Avery said. “No doubt the game will be on one of the screens there.”

  Her friend shook her head, then smiled at the waiter who set her frosty drink in front of her. “I have less than zero interest in hockey and I’ll see Ben when he gets home.” Then she picked up her drink and tapped the rim of her glass against Avery’s. “I didn’t think this week was ever going to end.”

  “It’s not over for me yet,” she said. “I’ve got morning rounds at the hospital tomorrow.”

  Her friend made a face. “I’m planning to sleep in late and then have leisurely morning sex with the man of my dreams.”

  “I’d be happy enough just to sleep in,” Avery told her. “I’ve been exhausted and nauseated for the past several days.”

  “Maybe tequila isn’t the best medicine for that,” her friend said worriedly.

  “I didn’t think so, either,” she agreed. “That’s why mine is a virgin.”

  The waiter delivered their heaping platter of nachos and they both dug in.

  “Exhausted and nauseated you said?” Amy queried a short while later.

  “Trying not to think about that right now,” Avery told her.

  “Well, I was just thinking that’s how I felt when I was pregnant with Henry.”

  “I’m not pregnant,” Avery said quickly.

  “I wasn’t suggesting that you were,” Amy agreed. “Unless you somehow managed to orchestrate an immaculate conception.”

  When she didn’t respond to her friend’s teasing comment, Amy’s gaze narrowed. “Or is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “There are a lot of things I don’t tell you,” she said.

  “Such as?” Amy prompted, brushing a jalapeño off her nacho chip.

  Avery glanced around to ensure there was no one they knew within hearing range, but still dropped her voice to a near whisper before confiding, “Such as the fact that I had sex with Justin Garrett.”

  Amy choked on her margarita.

  “When did this happen?” she asked, when she finally managed to stop coughing.

  “New Year’s Eve—actually, in the early hours of the morning on New Year’s Day.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  Avery nodded.

  “So...” A smile teased at the corners of her friend’s mouth. “How was he?”

  She took her time selecting another chip. “A colossal disappointment.”

  Amy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “No. Not really.” She sighed. “In fact, it was the single most incredible sexual experience of my life, which probably tells you more than you ever wanted to know about my sexual experience.”

  “I always wondered if his reputation was exaggerated,” her friend confessed.

  “It’s not,” she admitted unhappily. “And now I belong to the not-so-exclusive club that includes almost every other woman who works at the hospital.”

  Her friend smiled. “Sweetie, if Dr. Romeo slept with even half the women who claim to have slept with him, he’d hardly ha
ve time to get out of bed.

  “I’ve known Justin a long time,” Amy continued. “There’s a lot more to him than most people realize—and he’s not nearly as indiscriminate as his reputation would imply.”

  “So you don’t believe he’d get naked with someone in a supply closet in the middle of his shift at the hospital?”

  “No way,” her friend said. Then her eyes went wide. “Are you telling me that’s what happened?”

  She nodded.

  “Oh. My. God,” Amy said again. “You and Justin. In a supply closet. Wow.”

  “It was wow,” she agreed.

  “So...are you guys together now?” her friend asked hopefully.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s Dr. Romeo and I don’t want to get involved with a man described in either of those terms.”

  Amy sighed. “Your parents really did a number on you, didn’t they?”

  “They taught me an important life lesson,” she countered. “Which is that two career-focused medical professionals cannot make a marriage work and definitely should not be parents.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Says the woman married to a newspaper editor.”

  “I was in love with Ben long before he was a newspaper editor or I was a doctor,” Amy pointed out.

  “Since I didn’t know you in high school, I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “Now—getting back to the exhausted and nauseated part of our conversation, I have to ask...were you careful?”

  She felt her cheeks burn. “You’d think, being a doctor, I wouldn’t be anything else.”

  Amy nodded, accurately interpreting her response as an acknowledgment that she hadn’t been. “Then is it possible that you’re pregnant?”

  Avery shook her head. “I got my period last week.”

  “Did you take a pregnancy test?” her friend pressed.

  “I was going to,” she admitted. “And then, there didn’t seem to be any point.”

  “You know as well as I do that it’s not unusual for a woman to experience some bleeding in the early months of a pregnancy.”