‘Really?’ Now he couldn’t avert his eyes because, if she’d had a mastectomy, it wasn’t apparent. And he’d only flicked over the treatment plan—he hadn’t read it in detail. ‘Did you have a reconstruction?’
Her hands self-consciously stayed where they were. And under them she could feel the long-term results of her disease—full, soft breast on one side and a gap on the other side, currently filled with a pale pink silicone breast enhancer. ‘I meant to but, no, not yet,’ she murmured.
His brow crinkled. ‘So what stopped you?’ She was a beautiful young woman. It seemed strange she hadn’t completed her treatment and moved on to the next part of her life. Most young women he’d ever met, and it was only a few, who’d had breast cancer had had some kind of reconstruction done at a later date.
Amy ran her hands over her baby bulge. ‘I haven’t really had time to get around to it. But it’s in my plans.’
Lincoln’s eyes fell again to her stomach. His brain was working overtime, trying to remember dates. If she’d had a cancer diagnosis just after leaving the boat, then undergone surgery and treatment, could she have had five years cancer-free before falling pregnant?
No. It didn’t add up. According to his calculations she just fell short. Lots of physicians were wary about the effect pregnancy hormones could have on cancer cells. Was it really wise for her to be pregnant? What age was Amy? Thirty-two? She could have waited another year before doing this. Had someone pushed her into it?
He remembered the empty next-of-kin box in her notes and tried to pull his professional head back into place. ‘Do you have a husband? A boyfriend I can call for you?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s just me, Linc.’
The enormity of the words hit him. She was alone. And while one part of his heart wanted to suddenly break into song, he immediately felt angry. Who had left a woman like this, alone and pregnant, after she’d already been through breast cancer?
He stood up, his voice rising in pitch, ‘What do you mean, you’re alone? Where’s the baby’s father? Why isn’t he here with you?’
‘It’s just me,’ she repeated, the words almost whispered. Most days she was fine with this. Most days she was confident and sure of herself. Confident in her abilities to be a single parent and to stay on top of her previous diagnosis. But sometimes, just sometimes, particularly when someone made a comment around her, she realised the enormity of the task in front of her. If this baby was born prematurely then she might have to deal with a whole host of complications. How would she feel then? Would she still feel confident in her abilities?
Then there was Linc, standing in front of her and right now looking like her knight in shining armour. But what if he refused to help? What if, over the last six years, he’d met someone, fallen in love and now had a whole host of other responsibilities that meant he wouldn’t be comfortable helping her?
She raised her eyes to meet his. ‘What about you, Linc? Are you on your own, or are you playing happy families somewhere with a wife and a houseful of kids? Is there a real Mrs Adams?’
She held her breath. Why was this answer so important?
Linc looked momentarily thrown by the question. A flickering parade of a variety of short-term lovers passed in the blink of an eye, ending with an image of an irate brunette. He hesitated then answered, ‘No. There’s no Mrs Adams. It’s just me.’
Amy could almost feel the relief flush over her body. Then curiosity got the better of her. ‘So what happened? Did the playboy never meet his match? Haven’t you met Miss Right?’
The words hung in the air. She saw a flash of something in his eyes—was it annoyance? Linc looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t know how to answer that question.
‘I thought I had. I was engaged a few years ago to girl called Polly, a pharmaceutical rep. We even had the wedding planned. But in the end it just didn’t feel right. So I had to end it.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘And it wasn’t pretty.’
Amy sat back in her chair. ‘What happened?’ She was fighting the horrible sensation that was creeping across her skin. Lincoln had been engaged. It made her feel sick.
‘I called it off just after we’d paid the deposit for the reception, the photographer and the cake. I came home to find my apartment cleared out and samples of wedding cake smeared into my suits.’
Amy’s eyes widened. ‘Wow. I guess you weren’t popular, then. The playboy struck out.’
He paused, stopping his mouth from saying the first words that came into his brain.
Amy Carson had shaken him to the core. He’d been a fool, with a playboy reputation that he hadn’t ever meant to earn. It had only been when she’d never come back that he’d realised how special she’d been.
She was joking, he could tell by her tone, but the playboy jibe had cut deeper than he liked, leaving him feeling distinctly ill at ease. It was too late at night for conversations like these. He looked at the half-eaten plate of food in front of her. ‘Do you want anything else?’
She shook her head and rubbed her hands across her stomach. ‘I don’t think I’ve got room for any more. Junior takes up more space in here than you think.’
‘Junior?’ He raised his eyebrow at her. ‘That’s what you’re calling your baby?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, I know I’m having a boy and I have picked a name, but I want to wait until he’s here before I share it. So for the moment he’s Junior.’
Lincoln’s brow furrowed. ‘I’m kind of surprised you found out what you were having. I would have taken you for a surprise kind of girl. We used to call you Miss Unpredictable on the boat.’
‘You did?’ Her eyes widened. She’d never heard the nickname before and, what’s worse, it suited her—or at least it used to. She couldn’t afford to be unpredictable any more. Amy’s lips tightened. ‘I wanted to plan ahead. Decorate the room for the baby coming, pick him some clothes, buy a stroller.’ She stared off into the distance. ‘I always thought I’d want it to be a surprise too, but when the time came I had to have a few detailed scans and because I work in a hospital where they do maternity care I’m used to looking at scans—it was kind of hard to hide the obvious.’
Lincoln’s brow furrowed. ‘Why did you need detailed scans? Did they suspect a problem?’ He hadn’t seen anything in her notes that would have made him think there was something wrong with the baby.
Amy lifted her eyes to meet his and for the first time tonight he noticed how heavy they were. She was exhausted. She leaned her chin on her hands. ‘No. No problem. It’s just that the clinic where I had my IVF wanted to keep a close eye on me. My embryos had been frozen for five years and then there was a problem…’
‘What problem?’
She sighed. ‘I had been planning on using the embryos but I was going to wait until I was five years clear of disease and I’d had my reconstruction surgery.’
‘So what happened?’
‘The storage facilities were compromised.’ She lifted her hands. ‘We live on the San Andreas fault. Earthquakes are an occupational hazard.’
‘An earthquake? Surely any IVF storage facility made plans for that?’
‘Even the best plans can be compromised. The DEWAR tank containing my embryos developed a slow liquid nitrogen leak. Some of my embryos perished in the thawing process but I was lucky. A few good-quality embryos survived and I had to make a decision quickly about what I wanted to do.’
He gestured towards her stomach. ‘So you went ahead with implantation before you were ready?’
‘I had to, Lincoln. This was my only chance to have a child of my own.’ She leaned back in her chair again. Was it the conversation making her uncomfortable or was it something else? That was the third time she’d shifted position in as many minutes. She shrugged her shoulders, ‘I’m not really that dif
ferent from lots of other people who find themselves pregnant before they’d planned to be.’
He shook his head, ‘But you are different, Amy. You’ve got a completely different set of circumstances. You had a disease that threatened your life. This baby didn’t materialise out of thin air—or as the result of failed contraception.’
‘I know that, Linc.’ Her eyes clouded over. ‘You can’t possibly understand.’ Her voice lowered. ‘You can’t possibly know how it feels to have the world whipped out from under your feet. One minute you think you have your whole life to plan a family, to choose when you have it and with whom. Then the next minute you’re asked hard questions and you’ve got about two minutes to make up your mind—because they have to schedule surgery for you and a whole plan of chemotherapy. And in the meantime the clock is ticking because every second you delay could be the second that means your cancer grows and spreads somewhere it shouldn’t. The second that could be the difference between life and death for you.’
Lincoln drew in a deep breath. She was tired, he knew she was tired. It was two o’clock in the morning and she was sitting in a strange place, with symptoms that could affect her baby, and with someone she hadn’t seen in six years. So why did it feel as if someone had just fastened a thick fist around his heart and squeezed tightly? Why did the heart-wrenching words she’d just said make him feel as if his stomach had just turned inside out?
She fixed her green eyes on his. ‘This was it for me, Linc. This was my only chance to have a baby of my own—and even then there was no guarantee that the embryo would take. But I had to try. I couldn’t give up that one chance just because the timing wasn’t perfect.’
‘And the father?’ It was a loaded question, and the one he was most interested in.
She gave a rueful smile. ‘I didn’t have a significant other when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was advised to freeze embryos instead of eggs. So I used a sperm donor. What else could I do?’
A sperm donor. An anonymous man who would never know he was the father of Amy’s baby. Did that make him feel better or worse?
The words were echoing in his head. She didn’t have a significant other when she was diagnosed. But she could have. She could have had him.
He looked down. The plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs that had seemed so appetising ten minutes ago now seemed to turn his stomach. The last time he’d felt like this he’d been out on the town with his friends and had had no idea how or when he’d got home.
Amy shivered. The hairs on her arms were standing on end. How stupid of him. He was sitting here in theatre scrubs and a white coat and all she had on was a hospital gown. He was an idiot. He pushed his chair back. ‘Come on,’ he said as he walked around the table and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re cold. It’s time I tucked you into that extremely comfortable hospital gurney and let you get some rest again.’
She rolled her eyes and nodded as she stood up next to him, her small frame fitting perfectly under his arm.
Then something struck him. Amy was wrong. He did know how it felt to have the world whipped out from under your feet.
It had happened to him six years before when she’d gone on holiday and had never come back.
CHAPTER FOUR
LINCOLN glanced at his watch as he strode down the darkened corridor. Twenty-four hours later and he still hadn’t left this place. Sleep was apparently for the faint-hearted. At least that’s what Val, the nurse practitioner, had told him when she wakened him at 2:00 a.m. to come and help with baby Esther.
Jennifer Taylor was really struggling with breastfeeding. Esther, on the other hand, had taken to cup feeding like a duck to water. She was already sleeping for two-hour stretches, but still showed no interest in latching onto her tear-filled mother.
Lincoln knew that the next few days were crucial in helping establish the feeding and that mother-baby bond. There was also the small issue of the world’s press. They had developed a persistent interest in how the premature First Baby was being fed. There was no way he was going to say that even though the First Lady had attempted to breastfeed, it had so far been unsuccessful. What kind of message was that to send? And more importantly how would that make Jennifer feel? If people knew that the First Lady had chosen to breastfeed her baby, it could encourage other expectant mothers to do the same. This was a chance to try and influence other people to give their baby the best start in life.
Then there was the matter of Amy. And how he felt about her being here.
In one way, he was relieved he’d finally seen her again. But circumstances for both him and her weren’t great. Had she really just come looking for him again to be her baby’s doctor? Or could there be something else?
There was no getting away from the fact she was pregnant, had pre-eclampsia, and in all likelihood would deliver this baby early. But deep down Lincoln really wanted to believe there was more to this. More than just the fact he was a good doctor.
He stopped at the door to the side-room and pushed it gently open. 3:00 a.m. and Amy was sleeping soundly on her side with the arm with the blood-pressure cuff attached lying above the covers. The soft hum of the cuff starting to inflate began and Amy started.
‘Damn cuff,’ she muttered under her breath.
Lincoln smiled and sat down on the chair next to her bed. She was definitely a restless sleeper. Her brow furrowed and her nose twitched as she lay against the pillows, her long red curls spilling over the covers.
He almost felt guilty watching her like this. But he hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to her today and she’d been moved from the E.R. to one of the ward side-rooms for monitoring.
Her eyelids flickered open as the cuff tightened on her arm. ‘Linc?’ she whispered, peering at him through sleep-filled eyes.
He leaned forward and touched her arm. ‘Hi, Amy.’
She didn’t move, didn’t seem surprised to see him. Instead, she seemed to snuggle even closer into the pillows, as if she was sinking into a dreamlike state. ‘Hi, yourself,’ she murmured as a smile danced across her lips. ‘Did you bring food?’
He blinked and held up his empty hands remorsefully.
‘No, sorry.’ His eyes flickered around the room to the empty bed table and locker. Amy didn’t know anyone here. She wouldn’t have had any visitors today. No one to bring her grapes or magazines or the occasional bar of chocolate. Why hadn’t he thought ahead? ‘Do you want me to go and get you something?’
She grimaced as the cuff reached its tightest point, shifting onto her back. ‘No, it’s fine really. Just wishful thinking perhaps.’
He smiled and leaned forward. ‘Wishful thinking about what?’
She ran her tongue along her bottom lip and shrugged her shoulders. ‘That when the hero finally appears he usually brings the sleeping princess some gifts. I was kinda hoping for cookies.’
‘So now I’m the hero?’
‘You were in my dream…’ Her voice trailed off, as if she hadn’t really thought about what she was saying. Her eyes fixed on his, which were fixed on the monitor at her side. The thoughts of a medic were written all over his face. So much for dreaming.
‘David started me on some anti-hypertensives today.’
He pulled his eyes from the monitor screen—conscious of the fact she’d been watching him. ‘And how do you feel?’
He knew better than to rely on readings from instruments when a patient could tell you exactly what you needed to know.
Amy gave a sigh of relief as the cuff released then propped herself up in the bed. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ears.
Lincoln fisted his hands, resisting the urge to do it for her.
‘Crabbit.’
‘What?’ That got his attention. Miss Unpredictable.
She gave him a wicked smile. ‘Crabbit—that’s how I feel. I could cheerfully take that blood-pressure monitor and lob it out the nearest window.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘It is kind of noisy.’
‘It’s not the noise—it’s the discomfort. Every time I think I’m about to fall asleep the damn thing goes off again.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I thought hospitals were supposed to be places of rest, Dr Adams?’
‘No chance,’ he muttered, sagging back in the armchair, his legs and arms flopping in exhaustion.
She raised her eyebrow. ‘No rest for the wicked?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know about the wicked but there’s definitely no rest for me. I keep snatching a few hours here and there, but I feel as if I’m walking about this place in a trance.’
Amy nodded slowly. It was always like this for a doctor on call. As soon as their head rested on the pillow, their pager would go off again. By the end of their shift they looked like death warmed over.
Although still one of the best-looking men she’d ever laid eyes on, Lincoln looked tired. Bags hung under his eyes, and the little lines surrounding them seemed deeper—more ingrained.
She was angry with herself. Had she forgotten the amount of responsibility he had right now? He must be stressed up to his eyeballs, and her presence here couldn’t be helping.
She felt a surge in her chest. Her heartbeat started to quicken. Lincoln was looking tired and vulnerable, but sexy as hell. He was watching her through half-shut lids and it was sending tingling sensations along her skin. Why had she come to find him? Was this only about safeguarding her baby? Or was this about something else?
In the whole six years since she’d left the boat she’d never met anyone else like him. No one else had had the same effect on her that he’d had. And it wasn’t just the sexual attraction. It was the friendship, the conversation and the flirting. And she’d missed it. She’d missed it all.
West Wing to Maternity Wing! Page 6