No Exchanges, No Returns

by Laurie Kellogg

  Chapter 13

  Oh, God, she didn’t want him to see her this way. Brianna dragged herself off the sofa to answer the soft tap just before midnight on Tuesday. Undoubtedly it was Marc. He’d shown up at some point every evening for the last two and a half weeks.

  She could just pretend to be asleep already, but in truth, she loved the way he tucked her in and held her all night before slipping out at dawn each morning to do his rounds.

  She stopped at the mirror by the door and stared at her pale, sunken cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes. The chemo and radiation were really taking their toll. She grabbed the baseball cap on the table and covered her head. At the rate her hair was falling out, any day she was going to look like a cue ball.

  The pixie cut she’d gotten before her surgery had looked cute on her, and she’d actually begun to enjoy the freedom of having short hair. Losing what was left of her beautiful locks was traumatic.

  She might not look so awful if she were completely bald the way Sigourney Weaver had been in Alien. Unfortunately, Brianna’s head was still sprinkled with stubborn strands that refused to let go and simply made her head look like a hairy honeydew melon.

  She swung open the door just as Marc was walking away from it. “Wait, I’m awake.”

  He turned and flashed that killer smile of his. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I had an emergency. I wasn’t sure if you’d still be up, so I tried to knock softly so I wouldn’t wake you if you weren’t.”

  As he slipped by her in the doorway, the odor from the antibacterial soap he used made her stomach churn. She slapped her hand over her mouth and raced for the bathroom. Marc followed her into the claustrophobic john and rubbed her back while her body wretched violently through a case of dry heaves.

  “Breathe deep, Angel. It’ll pass.”

  “I’m sorry.” She gulped a mouthful of air. “It’s the surgical soap you use. Certain smells set me off.”

  He squeezed by her to the sink and rinsed his hands, washing them with the scented soap on the counter. Grabbing a towel to dry them, he smacked his elbow on the rack. “Shit!” He rubbed his arm. “If this bathroom were any smaller, I’d have to be a midget to fit in here with you.”

  “It’s an old building. They used to call bathrooms water closets for a reason.”

  “Would you quit being so obstinate and just move in with me, already? It’s insane for you to be paying for this rat hole when I’ve got three huge bedrooms sitting empty in my house—four if you count the fact that I haven’t slept there in two—”

  “Okay.”

  “—weeks. My cleaning lady thinks I’ve moved out. I’m paying her to change sheets I haven’t even slept—” He interrupted his tirade and stared at her for a second, indicating her answer must have finally registered. “Did you just say, okay?”

  She heaved a sigh and nodded. “You’ve worn me down. And since we’re already practically living together, we might as well do it for real. But I’ll only agree if you let me give you the rent I’m paying here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want your damn money. Do you have any idea how much I made last year?”

  “Then what do you want?”

  He tipped her chin up and stared into her eyes. “Why do you think I have to want something?”

  “I simply don’t see what you get out of coming here every night. With the shape I’m in, it’s not like you’re gettin’ laid or anything.”

  “Is your self esteem so low you can’t believe I just like being with you?”

  She turned and looked into the medicine chest’s mirror. “You must, seeing as you’re still comin’ around now that I look like this.”

  For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like just a pretty face. After all, how could she?

  “You’re as beautiful as ever.”

  “And you’re a liar.” Either that or he was blind. She flipped the baseball cap off her head. “I look like a hag who eats small children for breakfast.” She flinched at the bang of the toilet lid closing.

  “Sit down.” He pointed to the commode’s seat.

  “Why?”

  “For once, don’t argue. Just sit,” he ordered. While she complied, he pulled out the can of shaving cream and razor he’d left in her medicine cabinet. “You’ll look better once we get rid of these stragglers.”

  While he lathered her scalp and proceeded to shave it clean, he told her about the accident victim he’d had come in that evening carrying a twenty-eight week fetus and suffering from an acute subdural hematoma.

  Twenty-eight weeks. The woman was at the same point in her pregnancy as Casey—not far enough along for the baby to survive without suffering major disabilities.

  “You operated on her, right?” Brianna asked while he scraped off the last of the shaving cream.

  He wet a washcloth and wiped the foam residue from her head. “Yeah. But right now, it doesn’t look good. Sam Crockett is taking over for the weekend while I’m off. He’ll be the one who has to tell her husband if she’s going to recover or if we need to keep her on life support until we can safely deliver his son.”

  It amazed her how he could deal with death and tragedy on a daily basis and still want to take a terminally ill woman into his home.

  She stood up and studied herself in the mirror. She really didn’t look too bad bald. Unlike some patients, she’d at least kept her eyebrows and eyelashes so far. “Thanks. This is a lot better.”

  “The pleasure was all mine.”

  “Marc, there’s something we need to get straight before I move in with you.”

  “Hmmm?” He rinsed the razor and stowed it in the cabinet with the shaving cream. “What’s that?”

  “If the day comes that I can’t take care of my own physical needs, I’m moving to a nursing home.”

  “Uh-huh. Is there any of that spaghetti from last night left?” He wandered out of the bathroom. “I’m starving.”

  She stomped after him across the hall to the kitchen, jamming the baseball cap back on her head. “Did you hear me?”

  He slid the bowl of pasta out of the fridge. “I heard you.”

  “So what’s that uh-huh about? You’re just placating me?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” He slapped his forehead. “I forgot. You want me to argue with you, so you know how much I love you.”

  She stared at him silently for several seconds. “You do?”

  “Yes, damn it! Why else would I be putting myself through this again?”

  “Again?” She moved around in front of him. “What do you mean, again?”

  “Look!” He slammed the bowl of pasta down on the counter. “I’m not ever sending you to a nursing home. I refused to let my wife go, and I’m not about to do any differently with you if, God forbid, we can’t beat this thing.”

  “You were married?” she whispered, staring at the man she thought she’d gotten to know fairly well in the last month. All this time he’d let her think he’d always been single. “Why would you keep something that important from me?”

  “Why do you think? Cause it hurts too fucking much to talk about it.” He squeezed his eyes shut as his voice quivered. “Francie’s only been gone eighteen months. She died after battling ovarian cancer for two years.” He opened his eyes and shrugged. “There. Now you know.”

  “Oh, Lord. I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I can’t imagine how much you must’ve suffered.” Suddenly his nagging about telling her family about her condition made sense. After what he’d been through, he must be terrified of getting involved with her. Unless....

  She backed away from him. “Wait a minute. Are you some kind of sick masochist who preys on terminally ill women? Do you get your jollies out of watching them vomit and lose their hair? Maybe the whole reason you became a doctor was because you have some twisted compulsion to make people dependent on you.”

  “No, I just have the great misfortune of falling in love with the wrong women. So you can stop
looking at me like I’ve grown a second head.”

  “I’m sorry, Marc. What you’ve told me changes everything. I’m staying here.”

  “It doesn’t change a damn thing. We’re the same people we were ten minutes ago.”

  Yes, except ten minutes ago she didn’t know he’d already had his heart shattered once. She refused to break it a second time. “I can’t.”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “I know you’re scared, Angel. If you won’t move in with me, would you at least stay at my house this weekend? I don’t relish the prospect of spending my two free days with you cooped up in this dump.”

  Neither did she. She’d seen his house, and although it was a little smaller the one David and she had built, it was just as nice.

  “Watch it, Doctor.” She drew back and scowled up at him in mock outrage. “That dump you’re talking about is my home.” She narrowed her gaze at him. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.”

  “What?” His suppressed smile proved his bewildered tone was feigned innocence.

  “You think if you take me someplace luxurious for two days, I won’t be able to face coming back to my so-called dump.”

  “Will my plan to pamper you change your mind?”

  That’s what she was afraid of. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Actually, I hadn’t really thought it would. I was simply hoping to finally get laid, and I don’t want to do it in a postage stamp bed or to the hum of a window air-conditioner that can’t keep up with the humidity.”

  Horrified, she snapped her gaze to his and parted her robe to reveal how much weight she’d lost. “You want to make love to this bag of bones?”

  His half-lidded gaze slid over her scrawny body and locked on her bare breasts. There was no faking the intense lust lighting his eyes as he breathed out an almost reverent, “Oh, yeah.”

  ~*~

  “I really appreciate you driving tonight,” Casey told Andy, locking the front entrance to the preschool on Thursday evening before her childbirth prep class. She waved toward the luxury SUV parked next to her friend’s red compact. “I really don’t want everyone at the hospital to see me behind the wheel of that thing.”

  “No problem.”

  “So did Paul whip out an Uzi on Friday night and force you into his bedroom at gunpoint?” Casey teased her.

  “No, worse.” Andy yanked open the driver’s door on her Sentra and lowered all the windows to let the July heat escape. “He kissed me.”

  Now there was a big surprise.

  Casey tossed her pillow for her class into the back and climbed into the passenger seat. “That lecherous cad.” She gasped in mock horror. “I’ll demand David challenge him to pistols at dawn to defend your honor.”

  “Go ahead, laugh.” Andy started the engine. “The guy kisses like Lucifer in the flesh.”

  “I’m not familiar with Satan’s technique.”

  “Think hotter than the fires of hell and more tempting than Godiva chocolates on one of those don’t-talk-to-me PMS days.”

  “Oooh—” Casey sucked air through her teeth and winced. “A kiss like that could land a woman in a guy’s bed.” She should know. David’s were just like that.

  “No joke.” The car’s tires spit gravel as Andy pulled out of the preschool’s parking lot and turned the vehicle toward the hospital. “I swear the man uses an aphrodisiac lip balm. One kiss in the car, and I was a goner. The next thing I knew, we were inside his living room, tearing each other’s clothes off. He got me so worked up I fell into this erotic daze, murmuring, What’s a condom?”

  Casey pursed her lips, suppressing a grin. “So I guess he really does know his way around a woman’s body, huh?”

  Andy glared at her. “That wasn’t me, Casey. I’m not into one-night stands.”

  “Wait a minute. Weren’t you the one who told me just physical could be good sometimes?”

  “I talk a good game. Casual sex may be fine for some women, but not me.”

  “Was it just casual?”

  “What the heck would you call it? I’ve never even been on a date with the guy, and then, wham, I’m shacked up with him for a weekend orgy.”

  Casey did a double take. “The whole weekend?”

  Andy’s cheeks turned deep red. “I never did find my underpants when I got dressed to drop him off at the hospital Monday morning. They’re lost somewhere in his house.”

  “It sounds as if you enjoyed yourself.”

  “Let’s not go there.” Andy held up one hand as she stepped on the brake for a traffic signal. “The English language doesn’t contain a word that wouldn’t be an understatement.”

  “So, if it was so darn incredible, why are you so upset about what happened?”

  “I wasn’t—at least not until I went to get him at his office on Monday night to take him to pick up his Jeep from the garage. His patients talk about him as if he’s God’s gift to womankind, and you never told me our Lamaze instructor is his nurse.” Andy rolled her eyes. “A body like that should be illegal.”

  “Yeah.” Casey massaged her belly through a Braxton Hicks contraction. “Tammy could make Miss America feel frumpy. But Paul’s not interested in her. He wants you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I sat in his waiting room, watching all these women coming out smiling, and I realized he’d just been touching every one of them.”

  “Oh, come on, Andy. As one of his patients, I can vouch for his professionalism. You can’t really think Paul would—”

  “No, I’m not saying he’d do anything unethical during an examination. I just don’t want to fall for another guy who has his hands all over gorgeous women every day.” Andy’s ex-fiancé had been a masseuse at a day spa and made his living by rubbing scented oil on svelte female bodies. “I only caught Rod with one of his clients, but afterward, I found out she was just one among many.”

  “So you’re not planning to see Paul again?”

  “Not if I can avoid it. I’ll finish out the class with you, but you won’t need me in the delivery room. I’m sure David will be more than happy to be your labor coach there.”

  Casey stared out the side window and sighed. David would parade through the hospital cafeteria in drag if he thought it would convince her to keep his baby under his roof. Just as he’d promised, he’d bent over backward the last five nights to do everything he could to entertain and please her and make her as comfortable as possible.

  He’d brought her ice cream and the newest DVDs to watch, shampooed her hair, took her shopping, gave her a pedicure and a massage. Then he’d spent every night holding and pleasing her, despite his own obvious frustration.

  Her guilt mounted, making her feel like an ingrate and a shrew for refusing to make love with him the night of the party. Yet whenever she’d tried to reciprocate since then, he’d stopped her, reminding her that eunuchs couldn’t have sex. It seemed as if he were testing himself or something.

  And as if the one-sided sex weren’t enough, three middle-aged candidates for the job of housekeeper/nanny had arrived that morning for interviews—regardless of her adamant objections.

  It wouldn’t do Casey any good to claim none of them were suitable. Each had impeccable references and was just the sort of motherly woman she would want caring for her child. Not to mention, David was right about her needing a babysitter in the mornings when she began teaching again in November.

  It was pointless to fight the inevitable. His tenderness made her yearn for an even deeper intimacy, rendering her incapable of stopping him from crawling into bed with her each night. She didn’t have the heart to deny him the chance to share in her pregnancy in any way he could—not when he already loved their unborn child as much as she did.

  ~*~

  Ummmm....

  David rubbed his face in Casey’s silky hair, a week and a half later, while they watched the Shrek DVD she’d insisted he had to see to prepare for fatherhood. He slid his hand under her nightshirt to stroke her sw
ollen belly. The baby kicked every time she laughed.

  Squeezing her closer on the overstuffed sofa, he opened his mouth wide so she could deposit another handful of the popcorn she’d made.

  Could life get any better than this?

  The mound under his palm shifted, and he stiffened as her abdomen rolled again and its shape changed completely.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Casey whispered. “Did you feel that?”

  “Uh-huh.” He smiled, feeling blessed in witnessing one of their child’s milestones. What were the odds of him holding her at the exact moment their baby turned in the womb to be born?

  She drew in a deep breath and slid his hand up to the hollow between her breasts and her belly. “For the first time in a month, I can actually breathe.”

  “That’s ‘cause his head is engaging and fits further down in your pelvis than his body did. Enjoy it.” He chuckled, nipping at her ear. “Your bladder will pay the price.”

  “I’m hoping my back will stop hurting so much.”

  “Don’t count on it. It may actually get worse now that his head can press against your coccyx. Face it, Tinkerbelle, you’re too tiny to carry that kind of load out front without a backache. Spend some time in the pool every day. That should help relieve the strain a little.”

  “I’ll try that.” She sighed. “Isn’t it a bit early for the baby to move into the birth position? I’m not due for another nine weeks.”

  “A little, but it’s nothing abnormal for a primigravida.”

  “Speak civilian, Doctor.”

  “The term refers to a woman in her first pregnancy.” He splayed his hand over her belly. “He feels like a good size for seven months. It was probably just getting a little cramped in there for him.”

  “It’s still scary.”

  “Why?” He licked the coating of salted butter from her fingers.

  “I guess cause it reminds me, in only two months, I’ll suddenly be responsible for someone other than myself. I’m not sure I’m up to the job.”

  “You’re gonna be a great mother.” He held her tighter as she relaxed and turned her attention back to the movie.

  He just prayed he’d be half as good a father. Unfortunately, if his child didn’t live with him, he’d have a tough time being the kind of parent he wanted to be.