The Nurse's Baby Secret

by Janice Lynn

  What he wanted was to crawl up into the bed beside her, to hold her close and be there in case she needed him.

  But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t be soft where she was concerned. Not even if she was sick.

  But he wasn’t leaving. That much he knew.

  He eyed the empty side of the bed where he’d laid dozens of times. He had no rights where Savannah was concerned.

  Which was something he suspected would haunt him a lot longer than he cared to admit.

  He’d stay the night and be there if Savannah got sick again, would be there if she needed anything. Then he’d go back to being the world’s biggest jerk.

  * * *

  Savannah woke with a start, stretched her arms above her head, then realized her living room throw was tucked around her.

  Everything from the night before came rushing back. Charlie. Getting sick. His putting her to bed.

  She glanced at her alarm clock. It was early. Much earlier than she’d like to be awake on a Saturday. But at least her stomach wasn’t churning as it had been the night before.

  At least, not yet.

  So far, every day this week, she’d had mild nausea in the mornings that had escalated throughout the day and peaked in the evenings. Leave it to her to have such oddly timed “morning” sickness.

  But other than the woes of her breakup with Charlie, her nausea, and some fatigue, she felt good. She had a doctor’s appointment in two weeks and supposed she’d find out then how she was really doing. Until then, she’d take her prenatal vitamins and just take each day as it came.

  She got out of bed, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, then left her room to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water and a couple of crackers in hopes of warding off nausea later in the day.

  The moment she stepped into the open floor plan of her living room/dining room/kitchen, her gaze landed on the man draped across her sofa. He was too long for it and looked horribly uncomfortable.

  But there was also a peace on his face as he slept.

  A peace she hadn’t seen over the past few weeks.

  Because, despite how much he’d devastated her with his decision, Charlie wasn’t walking around ecstatic either. Actually, every time she’d seen him he looked stressed, tense.

  She stared at him way longer than she should have, studying his features, yet again wondering if their child would look like him.

  Lord, she hoped so.

  Yet did she really want a constant reminder of the man who’d broken her heart?

  Their child would be a constant reminder regardless of who he or she looked like.

  She’d been right about one thing. The rest of her life was going to be entangled with Charlie’s. Not in the way she’d dreamed, but they would share a bond.

  Because of that bond, she’d eventually have to make peace with him, would have to figure out how to just be his friend or his acquaintance or whatever it was they were destined to be.

  They were going to be parents together.

  Savannah got her water, went back to her room, and crawled beneath the comforter, all too aware that a month ago Charlie would have been in bed beside her and she’d have snuggled up against him. Now, she had no right to touch him, no right to snuggle next to him.

  Not that she wanted him in her bed. She didn’t. She was just fine by herself. Better than fine.

  She didn’t need him. Only...

  Tears came quicker than they should have, but eventually she dozed back into sleep.

  * * *

  “I wasn’t sure what you’d feel like eating this morning, if anything, so I made you a few choices.”

  Stretching in her bed, Savannah blinked at the man carrying in a tray of food. “You cooked for me?”

  Not meeting her eyes, he nodded. “It’s not much, but I went with what I could find.”

  Which was pretty limited. Eating had been a chore the past week and she’d not bothered going to the grocery store. She’d made sure to eat a small healthy meal each evening, but otherwise she’d been grabbing food from work.

  “I’m surprised you found anything at all.”

  She eyed the scrambled eggs, toast, oatmeal that had to be made from an instant package, small glass of juice, and another that had water. “Looks good, but you shouldn’t have.”

  Really, he shouldn’t have. She needed to stay angry with him. Anger was so much better than the alternative emotions running rampant through her.

  Setting the tray on the bed, he studied her. “You look better this morning. You got really pale last night. Virus?”

  Now was the time to tell him the truth. He’d given her the perfect opening to tell him about their baby. Only she couldn’t find the words that early in the morning to tell him. She tried. She opened her mouth but the words didn’t come out, no matter how hard she tried to force them out.

  “I’m not sure if anything’s been going around the hospital or not,” he continued, studying her as if he were gauging how she was going to react to him this morning. “Nothing on the cardiac unit, at any rate.”

  “Hopefully it will stay that way.” Those words had come out just fine. Why hadn’t the others? One simple two-word sentence was all she needed. I’m pregnant. She eyed the food and her stomach growled. She picked up a piece of toast, took a bite, and was grateful it settled happily into her stomach. She ate slowly, but felt better than she had all week. Hopefully that was a good sign that she wasn’t going to be as nauseated.

  “What are your plans for the day?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “I’m headed to Nashville to look at a couple of apartment complexes. I’m pretty sure I’m going to lease one of them, based on online reviews and a virtual tour, but wanted to take a look at a few others before committing.”

  Yeah, he wasn’t so good at committing.

  Which probably wasn’t fair since he’d never given her any reason to think he would commit, other than just be in a relationship with her for a year and treat her as if she was his every desire. Which was good enough reason, right?

  “Do you want to go with me?”

  Her head shot up. He looked as surprised as she felt, then his face took on a remorseful appearance.

  “You threw up last night and here I am trying to put you in a car for four plus hours today. I wasn’t thinking.”

  No, he hadn’t because he obviously regretted the invitation.

  “I am feeling better this morning. I’m not nauseated.” Not that the idea of four hours in a car appealed to her, but she did have news she needed to tell him. Maybe being trapped in a car with him would help her find the right words to tell him that she was having his baby.

  Although she probably shouldn’t be bragging too much about not being nauseated because this was the first morning in over a week that she’d not felt at least a little ill.

  “I don’t have other plans so I guess I could go with you.”

  He looked torn at her answer and for a moment she thought he was going to take back the invitation.

  No worries, Charlie, she silently assured him. I’m not going to beg you to change your mind about us. We are through.

  But on the way home from Nashville would be the perfect opportunity to tell him the truth. Not with the fun little baby items she’d bought the day she’d done the pregnancy test. Not with any cute little reveal ideas she’d looked at online. Just the blunt facts while he was trapped in a car with her so they could discuss the ramifications of the fact they were going to be parents.

  * * *

  “What do you think?” Charlie asked Savannah as she walked through the last apartment they were looking at. He couldn’t believe she was there with him. The invitation had slipped out of his mouth and when she’d agreed he hadn’t been able to bring h
imself to withdraw it.

  “They’re all nice.” She sounded almost bored.

  “But?”

  “The first one we looked at seems the most practical. With being on Twenty-First Avenue, it’s close to the hospital and I like its layout the best. It doesn’t have much of a yard available, but you don’t really need a yard. Centennial Park isn’t that far if you felt the need for grass beneath your feet.”

  “That’s the one I liked best, too.” It was part of a small apartment complex that housed ten units. She was right that there wasn’t much of a yard, but that wasn’t a deal-breaker.

  She averted her gaze, not wanting him to see whatever he’d see in her eyes. She supposed she would visit him there at some point. They’d be sharing custody of their baby.

  Not that the baby would be able to be away from her for the first year, as she intended to breastfeed. But there would come a point in time where she’d be dropping her child off to Charlie for them to spend time together.

  Sadness hit her. Just the thought of being away from her child unnecessarily made her heart ache. Made her all the more angry at Charlie, at herself, that she’d put so much stock into their relationship.

  “I’m going to go back there so I can sign the appropriate papers and get this checked off my to-do list.”

  “Is it a long list?”

  “Long enough. Moving isn’t easy. Haven’t you ever moved, Savannah?” He sounded incredulous that she might not have.

  “Sure, but only from home to college, then into my apartment after graduation.”

  “You always lived alone?”

  “Nope. I had a roommate in the dorm and one when I first moved into the apartment. She got married and I just never replaced her.” That had been right before Charlie had come into her life.

  She sat in the car while he ran in to sign the forms at the apartment complex, then they grabbed a meal at a restaurant a friend had told him about. Amazingly, Savannah’s stomach held out okay, but she ordered fairly bland just in case.

  Their conversation ranged from awkward to relaxed when they’d forget their new status for a few minutes, then back to awkward when they remembered.

  Savannah’s heart ached and she had to remind herself of why she was there—not to make nice with Charlie, but so she could tell him about their baby on the drive home.

  But by the time they got into the car, her head pounded and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t tell him. Not like this. Not in a car, when things felt so wrong. Not until after her doctor’s appointment and she knew more details.

  Not until she could handle whatever reaction he might have.

  * * *

  “You’ll understand if I don’t invite you in,” Savannah said, her fingers clutching the car door handle.

  Charlie frowned. He hadn’t planned on going in. Getting some space between him and Savannah was what he needed. Still, something in her tone irked him and he found himself saying, “You should invite me in. We could have a good last month together, Savannah.”

  She gave him a horrified look. “You mean sex?”

  She made the word sound like it should have four letters and he pushed on. He needed to destroy whatever glimmers of feeling she still had for him.

  “You can’t deny it,” he said with a tone so smooth it almost disgusted him. He could only imagine how dirty it made Savannah feel.

  “You were more to me than sex, Charlie.”

  Were. As in past tense. Which was how it needed to be. She needed to find someone who could protect her and give her a fairy tale. Too bad the thought of her with someone else made his blood boil.

  “I could make you feel good.” He raked his gaze over her. “That hasn’t changed and we both know it.”

  “Everything’s changed.”

  He wanted to argue that some things would never change, but then realized what he’d be admitting if he said that. Did he believe he was going to spend the rest of his life wanting this woman? Missing this woman?

  To think that was foolishness. They’d both move on—her to someone who deserved her, him to his career. She deserved so much better.

  He was to blame for her misery. No surprise there. He’d been making people miserable since before his birth. So much so his own mother had preferred death to him.

  Savannah hesitated on opening the handle, looking indecisive, but, without another word, she opened the door and disappeared into her apartment complex, leaving him to wonder what she’d been considering saying.

  “Goodbye, Savannah,” he said to his empty car and drove away without a backward glance. She was right. Everything had changed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “HER ECHOCARDIOGRAM SHOWED an ejection fraction of fifteen percent, but apparently that is an old finding and related to a myocardial infarction she suffered three years ago. She’s here because the defibrillator she had put in at that time keeps going off, causing her to lose consciousness.”

  Charlie studied Savannah as she kept her voice professional and monotone, just as she had at every other point their paths had crossed over the past two months.

  “Defibrillator malfunction?” he asked.

  “The ER doctor who admitted her didn’t think so. She’s been in and out of ventricular tachycardia since arriving. He started her on—” she named the medication “—which has stopped the defibrillator from firing, but her shortness of breath is worse.”

  “That’s why you called me?”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line, displaying her annoyance with his question.

  “Her heart rate has stayed in the low sixties and her blood pressure on the low side of normal, but when I assess her I know something is spiraling downhill.”

  He wasn’t familiar with Iva Barton. He was taking the call for one of the other cardiologists, who’d squeezed in a vacation prior to Charlie’s last day.

  Which was quickly approaching.

  Just one more day and he’d be in Nashville.

  He and a couple of friends had moved his personal items last weekend. He was leaving most of his furniture to stage his house and had signed the real estate agreement just this week. Everything was happening fast.

  Like the seconds ticking away with Savannah staring at him in question because he’d not commented on her assessment.

  “I’ll go check her.”

  “Thank you.” Relief flickered across her face. Had she thought he wouldn’t?

  “Come with me?”

  She looked hesitant, then shrugged. “Okay, Dr. Keele.”

  He could almost smile at the way she’d let him know she was only going with him because doing so was her duty. Fine, he was only asking in his professional capacity. He’d soon be gone. Asking her to come wasn’t going to hurt a thing.

  A pale woman in her early seventies lay in the hospital bed with multiple lines and telemetry wires attached to her frail body. Her gaze went to his the minute he entered the room, as if she wondered what poking and prodding he’d be doing.

  “Hello, Mrs. Barton. You already know this, but Dr. Richards, your regular cardiologist, is out of town, so you’re stuck with me. Your nurse has been filling me in. Sounds like you’ve had quite the day. How are you feeling?”

  She grimaced. “Like I was kicked in the chest.”

  “When did that start?”

  “When my defibrillator went off this morning.” The white-haired woman clutched at her thin chest, rubbing across her sternum. “I haven’t felt right since.”

  “Dr. Richards had scheduled her to see an electrophysiologist, thinking her defibrillator wasn’t working correctly,” a woman in her early thirties said from the chair next to the hospital bed. “Her appointment was actually scheduled for tomorrow, but then it went off this morning and she passed out. I called for an am
bulance to come get her.”

  “You did the right thing,” he assured the concerned woman, obviously the patient’s daughter, then turned back to his patient. “Your heart is weak and your tests show that your defibrillator is going off because your heart keeps going out of rhythm. That’s why you’ve been feeling funny.”

  “Why has my rhythm changed?”

  “There are lots of things that can do it, but most likely it’s due to the large chunk of damaged cardiac muscle from your heart attack a few years ago. Your body is working hard to try to compensate for that loss, but not doing so well. I’ve looked over what tests you’ve previously had at Chattanooga Memorial and the ones from the emergency room this morning. I’d like to schedule you for a viability test. I think a mechanical heart pump called a LVAD would be of benefit to ease the workload of your heart and increase your ejection fraction.”

  “Dr. Richards mentioned that to me at my last office visit, but said we needed to figure out this rhythm thing first.” The woman glanced toward her daughter, then said, “I think my defibrillator is malfunctioning.”

  “From the way your rhythm looks, I’d say the defibrillator was doing exactly what it’s supposed to and saving your life.”

  The young woman next to the bed stood, took her mother’s hand. “What do we need to do?”

  “We’ll get the further testing done and go from there as to our next step.”

  When they stepped out of the ICU room, Savannah pinned him. “You think an LVAD is going to solve her problem?”

  “Only one of them. I’d bet money she needs a ventricular ablation to correct that rhythm. The sooner the better.”

  “You want me to get the tests ordered?”

  He nodded. “Once we get that and she’s stable, we’ll talk about transferring her to the heart failure team at Vanderbilt.”

  Savannah’s face paled at the mention of where he would be transferring to himself. “Drumming up some business?”

  “They are cutting edge when it comes to LVADs.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “You should know that I do what’s right for my patient. Always.”