The Nurse's Baby Secret

by Janice Lynn

  She opened her eyes, looked up. “What do you want me to say?”

  Good question. What did he want her to say?

  That she forgave him for doing this to her.

  Only which this did he mean?

  Her pregnancy or her car wreck? For being the same jerk his father had been? For not being able to give her the things she deserved?

  He sank into a chair. “I’m not sure. I just don’t like this awkwardness.”

  “You expected otherwise?”

  “With us? Yes,” he admitted, raking his fingers through his hair. “I guess I do. You and I should never be awkward.”

  “Why not?”

  Another good question.

  “Because of what we shared.” Which really didn’t make sense, even to his own ears. They were no longer a couple.

  “What we shared no longer matters, Charlie. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  He understood what she was saying. She’d fancied herself in love with him. She was no longer under any false illusions, but that didn’t mean they had to be enemies.

  “You will always matter to me, Savannah,” he admitted.

  “Because of the baby?”

  He thought for a moment. “The baby doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that what we had was special. You were special.”

  Her lashes lowered as she looked away. “Not special enough.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m through with this conversation.” She tugged the blanket up around her and turned her head away from him. “None of this matters anymore, Charlie. Not to me.”

  Frustrated, mostly with himself, Charlie sat in the chair and watched her, could tell the moment her tense body relaxed with sleep and she rolled back toward him. Still, he watched the rise and fall of the blanket, the peace that settled onto her bruised, swollen face.

  A face that was more precious to him than any other.

  A face that had haunted him.

  He’d gotten so attached to Savannah that he’d recognized letting her go was going to be difficult. So he’d taken the decision out of his hands by doing something he’d known would upset her and make her push him away.

  He’d purposely flubbed up his relationship with Savannah, making her hate him, because, deep down, he’d worried whether or not he’d be able to do right by her and walk away.

  * * *

  Savannah woke with a pressing need to go to the bathroom. Opening her eyes, it took her a moment to remember where she was.

  Charlie’s apartment.

  In Charlie’s living room. On Charlie’s sofa. With Charlie asleep in a chair a few feet away.

  The soft rise and fall of his chest mesmerized her. She struggled to tear her gaze away from his relaxed body. Tears pricked her eyes. She’d never thought she’d see him sleeping again. Had never dreamed she’d be staying in his Nashville apartment, that he’d be taking care of her.

  She still didn’t fully understand why she was here, why he was shifting his life around to accommodate her.

  Guilt?

  Probably.

  Was that why he’d deeded her the house?

  Why he’d volunteered to keep her at his apartment?

  Because he felt guilty that she’d loved him and he hadn’t felt the same? That she was pregnant with a baby he didn’t want?

  Didn’t he realize none of that mattered now? She no longer loved him and didn’t need him to help her with the baby. She had this. Or she had before her wreck, and soon enough she’d be back on her feet and have her life back under control.

  Trying to make as little noise as possible, she scooted up on the pillow, then slowly sat up, wincing in pain as she did so. Her eyes stayed on the sleeping man.

  He didn’t really look as if the past month had been overly good to him. He looked tired. Plus, he’d lost weight from his already lean frame, making his face look a little gaunt.

  Her bladder reminded her of why she’d awakened. She’d toured the apartment with him prior to his leasing it so she knew where the guest bathroom was. She hated to wake Charlie to help her to the toilet when she’d be just fine going by herself. She preferred going by herself.

  She didn’t need him for that either.

  Gritting her teeth to keep from groaning at the pain, she slowly stood from the sofa, made sure she wasn’t tangled in the blanket, then hobbled to the bathroom.

  See, she had this, and hadn’t needed him at all.

  * * *

  Charlie woke with a start, his eyes immediately going to the sofa.

  The empty sofa.

  Savannah was gone.

  “Savannah?” he called, leaping out of his chair. “Savannah?”

  “Here,” she answered, calming his racing heart as she limped into the living room. “I had to go to the bathroom.”

  “You should have woken me.”

  “Why?” she asked, settling back onto the sofa without taking the hand he offered. “I’ve been going to the bathroom by myself for more than two decades.”

  “Why can’t you accept my help?”

  “I am accepting your help. I’m here, aren’t I? But I refuse to be treated like an invalid. I can see myself to the bathroom without you hovering over me.”

  “Point taken, but for the record I want to hover over you.”

  “Why?” she asked, staring at him pointedly. When he didn’t immediately answer, she shook her head. “Never mind. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.”

  Which was just as well because he didn’t know the answer—just that he wanted to take care of her.

  “Are you hungry?”

  She didn’t look interested in food. Or much of anything else other than closing him out. “Not really, but I know I need to eat for the baby.”

  “And for you,” he reminded.

  She shrugged. “The baby is more important.”

  Charlie didn’t respond because she wouldn’t like his answer. “What would you like?”

  “Just whatever you have is fine.”

  “My housekeeper grocery shopped today. I put several items I knew you like on her list. I can make you pretty much anything.”

  “Make me a fairy princess,” she said without looking at him and without any inflection in her voice.

  “Let me clarify,” he began. “I can make you anything to eat you want. If I don’t have whatever it is you’re hungry for, I can run down the street and pick it up at the grocery store on the corner.”

  “Just something light would be good. I really don’t want to be a bother. Maybe some eggs and toast?”

  She wasn’t a bother. Far from it. He was glad she was there, that he was able to do something to help, something to stop himself feeling so helpless, something to help amend all the wrong he’d done.

  “With strawberry jam?” he offered, knowing she loved the stuff.

  Her face perked up. “You have strawberry jam?”

  Bingo.

  “I do as of this morning.”

  “Then, yes, I’d like jam with my toast.”

  * * *

  Charlie had waited on her hand and foot for the past couple of evenings. Her friend Chrissie had sat with her during the daytime, which was great and gave Savannah someone to spill her heart to.

  “Being here is driving me crazy,” she moaned. “How am I supposed to forget the man when I’m staying at his house?”

  “Doesn’t matter. You weren’t forgetting Charlie when you were in Chattanooga and he was here.”

  Savannah frowned at where her friend sat on the floor playing with her two-year-old son. She started to argue that she was, but Chrissie didn’t look as if she’d believe her. “Sure I was. But it helped when I wasn’t having t
o look at him every night.”

  Chrissie’s eyes widened. “He’s sleeping in here?”

  “Only because I’m in his bed and he hasn’t set up the guest bedroom yet. I tried to get him to let me stay on the sofa, but he said he didn’t want me lying on the sofa day and night.” Because he was being thoughtful. Ugh. This would be easier if he wasn’t being so nice. If he was being a jerk, like he was in Chattanooga, she could tell herself she was better off without him. She was better off without him. He’d told her point blank that she didn’t matter as much as his career did. He’d left her when she’d thought things were perfect. “So,” she continued, “I’m in his bed night after night. It’s torture being here.”

  Chrissie snapped two blocks together and handed them to Joss. “Because it’s where you want to be?”

  Okay, so she wasn’t as immune to the man as she’d like to be. This wasn’t breaking news. But she didn’t want to be here.

  “I know his housekeeper changed the bedding before my arrival, but the room smells like him. This whole apartment smells like him. Everywhere I look, every breath I take, he’s there. I’m surrounded by him,” she whined. “And, even though I can’t stand him, it is torture to have to be here when he’s pretending to be all nice.”

  Helping with another two blocks, Chrissie laughed. “Keep telling yourself you can’t stand him, if you must, but you still have it bad, girl.”

  “No, I don’t. I took my heart back when he made the decision to move from Chattanooga without so much as a word to me first.”

  Chrissie shrugged, eyeing her son. “Since when does the heart just let us take it back when it’s convenient? The heart knows what it wants even when our brain tells us otherwise.”

  Savannah eyed her friend, grateful for what she heard in her voice because it distracted her from her own woes.

  “You never told me about Joss’s dad,” she gently reminded.

  “Yeah, well, that’s because he isn’t what my heart wants so don’t go getting ideas about me,” Chrissie warned. “He was just a guy I met in Atlanta at a charity fundraiser we’d both volunteered at. I never saw him again. He hasn’t been at the annual fundraiser since so I don’t imagine I ever will.”

  Interesting that her friend had obviously thought he might be. “He worked in the medical profession?”

  “I think he was a nurse or a paramedic. I don’t know.” Chrissie shrugged. “He was working triage so I guess he could have been anything.” Her friend gave a wicked little smile. “We really didn’t talk much.”

  Interesting. It was difficult to imagine her friend hooking up with a man she didn’t know. Chrissie had barely dated prior to Joss being born and almost never now that she had her son. “A wild weekend, I take it?”

  Chrissie’s smile faded. “A weekend where I forgot who I was and just went with the flow. Look where that got me.” She gestured toward her son, who looked up at her and grinned a grin destined to break a million hearts someday. Chrissie’s face lit with love.

  “Right where you wouldn’t trade lives with anyone,” Savannah reminded her. “He’s precious.”

  Chrissie smiled and leaned forward to kiss the top of Joss’s head. “That’s true. I love this little guy more than anything.”

  Savannah was going to feel the same way about her baby. She already did. Her and Charlie’s baby. Could she fully love her child and detest the father? She sighed. “I’ve got to make some type of peace with him, haven’t I?”

  “It’s not like you’re at war. He wants to be a part of your life.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” she denied. “He moved to get away from me.”

  Chrissie’s brow rose at Savannah’s claim. “He moved to take a ridiculously awesome career opportunity.”

  Savannah frowned. “Whose side are you on?”

  “I’m not picking sides.”

  Savannah waved her hand as if trying to get Chrissie’s attention. “Hello. Best friend here. You’re automatically supposed to be on my side.”

  “Let me point out to you that the man took care of your mother while she sat at the hospital with you, and that he kept vigil at the hospital while you recovered. And, oh, yeah, he even deeded you his house in Chattanooga. And we’re not talking a shack. We’re talking about a gorgeous home in a great neighborhood. Not that I’m taking sides...”

  Yeah, there was all that. There was also that she’d thought they were wonderful and she’d been wrong, that he’d betrayed her trust, betrayed her heart, and that she would never trust him again. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  “I’m impressed,” Chrissie admitted.

  “I’m impressed.” Joss repeated his mother’s words and both women smiled at the boy who was otherwise ignoring them and building a fort with his blocks.

  “I’ll also point out he brought you to his home so he could take care of you and, best of all, he’s paying me a load of money to do something I offered to do for free.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you do that,” Savannah pointed out, considering all her friend said.

  “Neither would he.”

  “So, he has a few redeeming qualities.”

  Chrissie arched a brow. “A few?”

  “Need I remind you that, despite those redeeming qualities, he made the decision to move to Nashville without even mentioning the possibility to his girlfriend—me—who he’d been seriously dating for a year?”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Savannah frowned. “You’ve decided that was okay?”

  “No.” Chrissie’s brows rose. Joss climbed into her lap and ran his little finger along the bunched skin between her eyes. Chrissie took his hand and kissed his fingertip over and over, making him giggle and wrap his little arms around her. “What I’ve decided is that I’m sticking with my original thoughts. He’s crazy about you, but works for the CIA and is on a secret assignment.”

  “You and your secret agent theory.” She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t work for the CIA. He’s a cardiologist. He had a great job. Yes, maybe this one is better, but he doesn’t act as if he’s happier here.”

  “Maybe he’s not.” She punctuated her sentence with a kiss to Joss, who still hugged her. “Maybe he realizes he made a huge mistake. Maybe, rather than shutting him out, you need to remind him of how good it was between you two.”

  Savannah put her hand over her belly, thinking that before long she’d be the one loving and being loved by her child. The thought made her heart sing.

  “That’s a lot of maybes, the biggest one being that maybe I want him back. I don’t.”

  “You’re right,” Chrissie agreed. “It is a lot of maybes. It’s obvious he has strong feelings for you.”

  Her heart squeezing a little, she asked, “How is that obvious?”

  “Savannah, have you paid attention to how he looks at you? I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. I’d give my right arm for a man to look at me the way Charlie Keele looks at you.”

  “That’s...” She stopped. Lust? She wasn’t exactly what dreams were made of. Perhaps she never had been, but especially not now, with her black eye, bruised, swollen face, healing leg, and pregnant belly.

  “That’s what?” Chrissie asked, tickling Joss and causing him to twist and turn in her arms.

  “I don’t know. I started to say that it was just sexual attraction, but I’m about as far from sexy as a woman could be.”

  “Don’t even think that man doesn’t want you, because he does. It shows in how he watches your every move.”

  She wasn’t sure if Chrissie’s observation disappointed her or thrilled her. Maybe a little of both. She might be physically recovering from her wreck, but she wasn’t dead. Her body reacted every time Charlie was near. “So you think this is still just about sex?”

  “I didn’t say
that.”

  “Then what?” she asked in exasperation.

  “I think you need to set aside your pride for the remainder of time you are here and remind Charlie what he lost.”

  “You think I should seduce him? Hello, even if I wanted to, which I don’t,” she quickly added, “look at me.”

  Chrissie ignored her protest. “Pride, or whatever it is keeping you two apart, needs to be set aside to give whatever feelings are there a chance to flourish.”

  “We had a year to flourish,” Savannah reminded her. They had flourished. Then he’d killed them. “I don’t need him, Chrissie. I’m better off without him.”

  “You have the rest of your life to regret not opening yourself up to the possibility that maybe Charlie was more torn about his decision than you give him credit for. Maybe his taking the job was a test to see if you’d go with him. Or maybe it was a test to see if he’d get over you. Or maybe—”

  “Or maybe he did exactly what he wanted and my being pregnant threw a big ole wrench in his plans to move on with his life and he feels guilty that he knocked me up.”

  “Maybe.” Chrissie kissed Joss’s forehead, then was the recipient of a very wet smack to her lips, smushed together between his little hands.

  “Again, that’s a lot of maybes.”

  Chrissie nodded. “All I’m saying is that I think you need to set the chip on your shoulder aside and just remember this is the man you are in love with and this may be your last opportunity to show him the error of his ways.”

  “Apparently you aren’t hearing a thing I’m saying. I’m not in love with him, and you mean I should fight for him, but why shouldn’t he be the one fighting for me?”

  “Maybe in his own way he is,” Chrissie suggested.

  “He left me.” Did she sound as whiny as she felt?

  Chrissie didn’t look sympathetic. “You let him.”

  “I couldn’t have stopped him.”

  Chrissie just gave her an expectant look that said she didn’t believe her.

  “I couldn’t have,” she repeated, knowing it was true. She hadn’t mattered enough for Charlie to stay. Besides, even if she could have, Charlie had wanted to go, to pursue his dreams. “I wouldn’t have.”