The Accidental Daddy

by Meredith Webber

  ‘You have got to be joking!’ Max muttered. His mind was heading off on all sorts of tangents. How could he feel protective of...his sperm? A stranger’s pregnancy? All he knew was that he was.

  ‘You and I both remember men and women from our university days who would make appalling parents,’ he told Pete. He was sounding a lot less flustered than Pete right now, more in control. ‘Medical training doesn’t include extensive courses on good parenting, and even if it did, it wouldn’t have got through to people like Mike Wills, whose eyes were on the dollar signs right from the start, or that daffy woman who was always forgetting her handbag or her lecture notes and kept losing her car in the car park. Can you imagine how she’d be with kids? “Now, did I have two or three of them when I left home?” she’ll be saying.’

  He was talking drivel, but it was helping him back towards a semblance of normality. It was strengthening his determination to meet the woman who would be the mother of the child he hadn’t wanted to have.

  ‘How far along is the pregnancy?’ he demanded, and then, as Pete didn’t answer, he grabbed the file and flicked it open. And almost reeled. ‘That’s... It’s due in two weeks! Pete...’

  ‘You’re not supposed to know,’ Pete bleated, but he’d lost control and he knew it.

  ‘Make an appointment for me to see her today—you can spin some story to get me in there.’

  ‘Max—’

  ‘Now!’

  ‘But it’s all confidential.’ Protest getting weaker.

  ‘Until your clinic screwed up!’

  ‘I’ll get to the bottom of it,’ Pete promised, but Max had picked up the phone and handed it to him.

  ‘Getting to the bottom of it might protect your clinic in the future, but it’s not doing a damn thing for me or this woman. Phone her!’

  Pete stared at him for a long, helpless moment—and then made the call.

  ‘Jess will give you the details,’ he said as he set down the receiver and slumped back down in his chair. ‘And leave Jess your information so I can keep in touch with you. That’s if I can’t find an unsealed window and take a leap from it.’

  ‘You’re on the second floor—you’d probably only break a leg.’

  * * *

  Slipping her feet back into the sandals she’d discarded under her desk, Joey heaved herself upright so she could walk out through the waiting room with her favourite patient. With her arm around the just-teenager’s shoulders, she opened the door into the waiting room.

  ‘Now, you behave yourself,’ she said to Jacqui. ‘Go to your own GP if your insulin levels are playing up and phone me if you’re worried about anything at all. You’ve got both my numbers.’

  ‘Thanks, Joey,’ Jacqui responded, turning to kiss the specialist on the cheek. ‘You take care yourself and have a rest before the baby arrives.’ She grinned, then added, ‘That’s if there is only one!’

  Smiling at the girl’s remarks, Joey saw her out and was about to return to her office to check who was next on her patient list when she registered the man sitting in the corner of the waiting room.

  A tense man, although, for all his tension, there was something about him.

  Something disturbing.

  Physically disturbing.

  Special...

  She continued into her office, hoping she hadn’t been caught in mid-step, gazing at him instead of ignoring his presence.

  But she obviously hadn’t ignored his presence for it seemed as if every detail of his physical appearance had registered in her brain.

  Even sitting, she’d been able to tell he was tall—a rangy man, with brownish-reddish hair. A swatch of it hung across a high forehead. Dark eyebrows above eyes that had seemed to be studying her, a fine, neat nose and lips—

  Surely to God she hadn’t just noticed his lips—hadn’t noticed how well shaped they were...

  Pregnancy brain!

  She’d put it down to that—as she put all the silly things she was doing lately down to it.

  Settling carefully behind her desk, she lifted her phone.

  ‘There’s a man in the waiting room,’ she muttered to Meryl, her receptionist and the mainstay in her life right now.

  ‘He’s from the fertility clinic—some kind of rep, I suppose. They phoned and made an appointment for the end of the day.’

  ‘End of the day? He’s going to sit there while I see another four patients?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Meryl said, sounding so completely unfazed by the man’s presence that Joey realised she’d have to pull herself together.

  Difficult when every time she brought a patient in, or walked a family to the door, she’d see the man.

  So?

  * * *

  She was beautiful!

  He wasn’t sure why this should surprise him, but it did. Dark hair and pale, creamy skin—hugely pregnant and looking very tired, but still beautiful.

  The receptionist had told him he couldn’t get an appointment until the end of the day and suggested he go off and get himself a coffee somewhere, but he’d felt he needed to stay—to see her—to hear the chat in the waiting room. It had all been positive. In fact, from all accounts she was an angel set down on earth, a miracle worker, and so kind, so caring, so...

  He’d certainly got the picture her patients and their parents painted of her—seen her kindness as she’d shown the young teenager out, although offering her private phone number when she was about to have a baby?

  Surely that was above and beyond the call of duty!

  Pete had told him she was a paediatrician, so he wasn’t surprised to see the waiting room with its big cane basket full of brightly coloured toys and the prints from Alice in Wonderland on the walls. A welcoming, non-scary place for kids.

  But it was the woman herself who drew his attention, appearing at the door to her rooms to summon in the next small patient, always greeting the child first, then the parent, ushering them in, speaking directly to the child or adolescent all the time.

  Her dark hair was pulled ruthlessly back into a knot on the back of her head, but from the tendrils escaping to frame her face, or dangle enticingly down the back of her neck, he could tell it was curly.

  He felt a pang of sympathy for her as she followed a little group through the door, for she’d put one hand behind her and was rubbing just above her left hip.

  Thirty-eight weeks... Why was she still working?

  Money worries?

  A string of questions rattled in his head.

  Surely he wouldn’t be expected to help out financially—it was all a mistake, and not his mistake.

  But this was his child. If she needed financial help, how could he deny it?

  His child?

  What was he thinking?

  But when she appeared again, he found himself staring, riveted by the bulging belly.

  That was his baby in there.

  The baby he’d decided he wasn’t ever going to have for a whole fleet of excellent reasons.

  This woman was having his baby.

  His gut churned, then she glanced his way, flashed a smile at him and other bits of him reacted as well.

  From a smile?

  He smiled back although it was probably such a poor effort she might not have recognised it. But here he was, the man who, not so many hours ago, had made the final, definite ‘no children in my future’ decision, getting twinges of attraction—well, more than twinges—towards a woman carrying his child.

  * * *

  She’d been doing okay until he’d smiled. Admittedly, she’d sneaked a glance at him every time she’d walked into the waiting room, but apart from registering that he was a very attractive man—and her body registering the same thing in a most inappropriate manner for someone eight-and-a half-mon
ths pregnant—she really hadn’t been taking that much notice.

  The smile changed everything.

  The smile made her think of things she’d long given up considering.

  Like sex?

  It had to be her hormones, all out of sync now she was getting so close to giving birth. The man was a total stranger—someone she’d never see again in her life. And so what if he was talking to Sam Wainwright, a hyperactive six-year-old, and actually calming him down...

  But the smile had lightened the tension she’d read earlier on his face, and revealed strong white teeth, framed by those well-shaped lips—

  Get out of here! Get your mind back on the job. Do not go out the door again—get Meryl to send the next patient in.

  Disobeying the orders from the sensible part of her brain, Joey pushed herself to her feet and went to the door.

  ‘Your turn, Sam,’ she said, pretending to a professionalism she was far from feeling, her eyes drawn to the man who now was pulling coins from behind Sam’s ear.

  ‘Can Max come in with me and Mum?’ Sam asked, smiling up at the man, who, fortunately for Joey as she’d been struck dumb, smiled at the boy and explained it wasn’t his turn yet.

  Of course his voice would be just that tad husky, just the kind of male voice that had always got her in.

  Joey closed her eyes and prayed for sanity.

  A little bit of sanity—surely not too much to ask for!

  It came, in reaction to Sam seizing one of her legs and hugging hard, protesting that he didn’t want her to go away, even for a little while.

  Sensing he was genuinely upset—and assuming she’d fall over if she tried to walk—Joey eased Sam off her leg and squatted, uncomfortably, so she could look into his freckled face.

  ‘But I have to go to hospital to have the baby, then stay home to look after it for a bit,’ she reminded him. ‘We talked about it, and you know Dr Austin, who’ll be seeing you while I’m away.’

  She ran her hand over his hair, and in a moment of complete insanity added, ‘Maybe once I have the baby, you can come and visit me in hospital and meet it.’

  She was about to struggle back to an upright position when a firm hand with long, strong fingers grasped her elbow and helped her up, the husky voice murmuring, ‘And think what havoc he could wreak in a maternity ward,’ in her ear, as he made sure she was balanced before releasing her arm.

  But she wasn’t thinking of Sam, or the chaos he could cause. She was trying very hard to work out why the touch of a stranger had made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and a shiver travel down her spine.

  The kind of shiver she hadn’t felt for seven years...

  The kind of shiver David’s touch had given her...

  Somehow she managed to get Sam and his long-suffering mother through the door and close it behind them, but the feel of the man’s fingers on her arm lingered, and something very like excitement skittered along her nerves.

  * * *

  He should leave right now, Max told himself. He’d seen the woman. Pete could contact her about the mistake. Even from the small interactions with her patients that he’d witnessed, he could tell she was competent and caring.

  That was really all he needed to know. The baby was nothing to do with him.

  So why were his eyes drawn to her belly whenever she entered the room?

  Why did he feel the gut-wrench thing—the ‘that’s my baby in there’ reaction—whenever he looked at her?

  Because she was attractive?

  Because he was drawn to her in some in explicable way?

  Because he was having an almost primeval reaction to the news that this was his baby?

  All those reasons were dumb. He could go now, forget this had ever happened, and if Pete told her—when Pete told her—about the mix-up, he needn’t mention who the father was.

  As for the woman—well, she was attractive, there was no denying that, but she wouldn’t want him interfering. A woman with a child deserved stability and certainty in her life. She was a widow. She was beautiful, desirable, ripe to meet someone who could make her happy again. And if he was on the scene...

  He was way ahead of himself. Thinking, stupidly, of relationships? He didn’t need to go there. A man who’d already let down two women he’d loved, and who’d loved him, couldn’t be trusted not to hurt a third. And to hurt a woman with a child was unthinkable.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE WAITING ROOM was suddenly empty.

  He still had time to leave, but when the door opened, and the tired, very pregnant but still beautiful woman walked out, he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stare at her.

  ‘Joanne McMillan,’ she said, holding out her hand,

  Suddenly aware of his own manners—bad ones that he’d stayed sitting—he surged to his feet and stepped towards her, tripping on a toy he hadn’t noticed on the floor, and all but crash-tackling the woman to the floor.

  Great start!

  She was far more with it than him—stepping to one side but putting out a hand to steady him as he regained his balance.

  ‘Sorry! Max Winthrop,’ he muttered, grasping her free hand—the other still holding his arm.

  And for the second time in the morning he was dumbstruck.

  Her eyes were blue—not pale and wishy-washy blue but a clear, almost violet blue.

  Mesmerising.

  ‘You made an appointment?’

  She’d dropped her hand from his arm, and it was probably just politeness that she hadn’t let go of the one he was clasping.

  He had the weirdest sensation that something was passing between them, bearing a warmth he didn’t understand.

  Of course, there was a good chance he’d completely lost his marbles. Shock could do that.

  ‘Meryl tells me you’re from the clinic. Is it just a polite visit to check if I’m okay?’

  He looked into the blue eyes, drowned in the blueness, stepped back a little but somehow kept hold of her hand.

  He couldn’t tell her, couldn’t destroy this woman’s happiness because that’s what still shone through the tiredness—happiness and a little excitement.

  * * *

  Was she really standing in her waiting room, holding the hand of a complete stranger?

  Studying the complete stranger as if it was important to take in every detail of his features?

  Now he was closer and she could see the fine lines fanning out from his eyes, the smile grooves bracketing his lips.

  She probably should keep her eyes off the lips, and reclaim her hand...

  She managed both, though how she wasn’t sure for the man seemed to have cast some kind of spell over her, so they’d stood in a time-proof bubble for who knew how long.

  ‘You’re from the clinic? Is this just a courtesy call?’

  Somehow she’d managed the repeat the question she’d asked earlier, pretending to a normality she was far from feeling. But she’d no sooner spoken than the man turned pale, pain of some kind straining the features she’d found so mesmeric.

  ‘Yes! No!’

  He’d stepped back a little, which was just as well because his close proximity had certainly added to the strange mix of sensations she’d been experiencing.

  Although his confusion was now transmitting itself to her in definite twinges of anxiety.

  ‘Yes, or no, which is it?’ she asked, producing a smile to cover the anxiety.

  ‘Oh, hell, I’ve no idea. I should walk right out the door, right now—out the door and out of your life.’

  Out of my life? ‘But you’re not actually in my life,’ Joey pointed out. ‘In my rooms, yes, but hardly in my life!’

  Max Winthrop—she was almost certain that was the name he’d given—groaned, tur
ning even paler.

  ‘Perhaps you should sit down,’ Joey told him, and placing her hand very carefully on his arm she guided him back to where he’d been sitting earlier.

  Touching him was probably a mistake as all the sensations she’d experienced earlier returned a thousandfold.

  This was insanity. The man was a stranger. Okay, so he was an attractive stranger, but in truth she’d met many better-looking men, knew a dozen of them and had dated quite a few.

  With absolutely no physical reaction whatsoever...

  Not since David!

  She patted her stomach and tried to think.

  The clinic!

  And for the first time since Meryl had mentioned the clinic, the man and the attraction were forgotten, and she felt a surge of panic.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

  She’d been looking down at him, but now he stood up and put his hand on her arm again.

  ‘Perhaps we should both sit down,’ he said, so softly, so gently, the surge turned into a roaring tsunami of fear, invading every cell of her body.

  Both hands now protectively cradling her belly, she stared at the man.

  ‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

  Had she lost colour that he almost forced her into the chair? Sat her down then settled beside her, his hand still grasping her arm.

  It was comforting, that hand, but why should she need comforting?

  ‘Talk!’ she ordered, trying to read his face—a strong face, unused, she was sure, to uncertainty or confusion, although both emotions seemed to be in evidence right now.

  He opened his mouth as if to respond then closed it again, but not before it had attracted her attention to the extent that she had to confirm it was a very nice mouth—and little lines she’d noticed earlier were evidence that he smiled a lot.

  But he was not smiling now.

  Was he so uncomfortable sitting beside her that he needed to move to squat, awkwardly, in front of her, the way she did when speaking to a small patient?

  Or did he need to see her face while he said whatever he had to say?

  Fear was creeping into the panic now and her heart was thudding in her chest.