Hazardous Husband

by Christine Scott

  Now he was the one paying the price. Every time he looked at her, touched her, he found himself wanting her more and more. He had no one but himself to blame for his misery. He slouched in his chair.

  “Is the doctor always this behind in his schedule?” he asked, casting an impatient glance around the crowded room.

  “Well...” Lily scrunched her eyebrows thoughtfully in an unsuccessful attempt to appear innocent. “I did have to wait awhile for my last visit.”

  Eric studied her for a long moment. When she’d asked him to drive her to an appointment with the doctor, he’d seen this as a step in weakening her resolve to remain unfettered by marriage. Finally, he had thought, Lily was beginning to realize that she needed him.

  As usual, he was wrong. Lily didn’t need him. In her subtle way, she was trying to prove a point. The point being, he wasn’t cut out for the duties of a husband.

  And Eric was beginning to think she was right.

  He felt guilty leaving work during the middle of the day. He felt uncomfortable sitting in a doctor’s waiting room filled with pregnant women. He felt frustrated and peeved with Lily for forcing him into this situation. But he’d be damned if he’d let his true feelings show. Lily wasn’t going to be able to say “I told you so” this time.

  “I should be next,” she said. “All the other women came in after us.”

  Eric threw the magazine onto the rose-colored Formica end table. “I need to give my office a call. Let them know I won’t be much longer.”

  “I feel awful about this, Eric. I had no idea we’d have to wait so long.” She placed a hand on his arm.

  Eric felt an instant jolt of desire.

  “Maybe I should phone a taxi to pick me up, so you can go back to work.”

  “A taxi?” he mumbled, confused for a moment. The way his body was reacting, she might have been suggesting they leave for an afternoon of passion and pleasure. He gritted his teeth. “You haven’t eaten in almost twelve hours while you’ve waited for this lab test. That’s a record for you, Lily. Why do you think the doctor advised you to have someone else drive? You’ll probably pass out from hunger if someone’s not keeping an eye on you.”

  “I’m not that weak.” She scowled.

  He stood. “I’m staying. End of argument.”

  Eric strode to the pay phone near the entrance of the clinic and made a hurried call to his secretary. When he returned, he found the nurse already talking to Lily. He joined them quietly, catching bits of the conversation.

  Lily shook her head and said, “No, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to do that.”

  “He wouldn’t want to do what?” Eric asked.

  Lily jumped. As he’d suspected, she hadn’t known he was there.

  The nurse gave him an assessing glance. “I was asking Mrs. Gerard if you’d like to sit in on the ultrasound.”

  “I already told her you wouldn’t be interested,” Lily said.

  “I understand.” The nurse turned to Lily, excluding him from the conversation. “Most men are a little hesitant when it comes to tests involving the birthing process. Maybe some other time.”

  Lily and the nurse exchanged knowing smiles.

  He could almost read their minds. They were chucking him off as a squeamish, weak-kneed male. Irritation took the place of common sense. He hadn’t been waiting for the past hour and fifteen minutes just to be passed over. If there was something he could do, then by God, he was going to do it.

  “Mrs. Gerard’s wrong,” he announced, looking Lily squarely in the eye. “I’d be thrilled to sit in on the ultrasound.”

  Lily’s mouth dropped open.

  “That’s wonderful.” The nurse gave him an approving nod. “I’ll be out for you as soon as Mrs. Gerard is ready.”

  Lily shot him a prohibitive glance.

  Eric smiled.

  With a swing of her auburn hair, Lily turned and left.

  Eric collapsed into his chair. What in the world was he thinking of? He had a very low tolerance for anything that involved pain. The sight of blood made him queasy. When he’d sprained his ankle last year playing baseball, he’d nearly passed out during the X-ray. He couldn’t watch an ultrasound. He frowned. What was an ultrasound? He gave an involuntary shudder. Whatever it was, it sounded omi-nous.

  Minutes later, the nurse returned. Eric’s feet felt like lead as he followed her to the examining room. Silently he cursed his big mouth and the trouble it always seemed to get him into.

  Lily was lying on the examining table, wearing a hospital gown. The lower half of her body was discreetly swathed in a green sheet.

  “Have a seat.” The lab technician motioned to a stool at the head of the table.

  Lily’s irritable mood had changed. She looked uneasy, almost glad to see him. She gave him a tentative smile.

  He grinned in return, determined not to let his own nervousness show.

  “Ready?” the technician asked. Not giving them a chance to answer, he moved the sheet and squirted a clear gel on Lily’s stomach.

  Lily jumped reflexively.

  Eric flinched. “Does it hurt?”

  Lily shook her head. “It’s as cold as ice.”

  Instinctively Eric picked up her hand, warming it in his. He shot the technician a glowering look. “You could have warned her,” he snapped.

  The technician appeared surprised. “Sorry, I just didn’t think...” He gave Lily an apologetic glance. “The rest of the ultrasound is painless. I promise.”

  “It’d better be,” Eric growled.

  Lily squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, Eric.”

  His reaction had been quick and unexpected. He’d acted on gut instinct to protect her. Now he felt a bit foolish. “Sorry, Lily.”

  The technician dimmed the lights and directed their attention to something that looked like a grainy TV screen. Eric kept a wary eye on the technician as he slowly glided a wand over Lily’s exposed stom-ach. Then he studied the screen, his gaze skeptical. Lily wasn’t quite ten weeks pregnant. He didn’t expect to be able to see much.

  He was wrong.

  The screen came alive with a pulsing movement. He felt himself leaning forward to get a closer look. “What in the world is that?”

  “That’s the baby, Eric,” Lily said, sounding amused.

  The technician pointed at the screen. “See that? That’s the heart.”

  A lump of emotion lodged in his throat. He swallowed hard, trying his best to concentrate on the screen. Until that moment, he’d thought of the baby as an extension of Lily, not alive with a heart of his or her own.

  Lily asked the technician questions about the baby’s position and size.

  Eric watched and listened, too overwhelmed to speak. With each grainy image flickering across the screen, he saw a baby develop before his eyes. Slowly he realized Lily was more than just pregnant.

  She was carrying his child.

  * * *

  “I think it’s a boy,” Eric said, squinting at the black-and-white photo he held in his hand.

  “It’s too early to tell the baby’s sex by ultrasound, Eric. Today’s test was just to determine whether the pregnancy is viable and if the baby’s in the correct position.”

  Eric leaned across the restaurant table and pointed to a large blob on the photo. “This kid’s endowed.” He winked. “He takes after his father.”

  Lily nearly choked on her western omelette.

  Before her doctor’s visit, Eric had squirmed in his chair, dropping hints that he was wasting valuable time as he waited for the doctor. He’d looked ready to renege on his responsibilities and run at a moment’s notice. She had felt content knowing that her intuition was right. Eric had only needed a gentle nudge to show him he wasn’t ready for fatherhood.

  But all that changed after the ultrasound. She’d been nervous about the test, worried they might find something wrong with the baby. Then Eric had joined her. He’d been kind and gentle, a calming strength. She’d been relieved to have him with
her. She had to admit—seeing her baby for the first time with Eric at her side had been special.

  When they’d finished at the doctor’s office, Eric had insisted on taking her out for breakfast. She’d reminded him of his duties at the office, but he’d waved off her concern, saying he had all day to work. Now, sitting across the table from her at the diner, he was raving about the ultrasound picture and acting like a typical expectant father.

  “Eric, whether the kid’s endowed is impossible to determine at this stage,” she said, feeling her temper flare. “Besides, the kid is a girl, not a boy.”

  He frowned. “How do you figure that?”

  “My family always has girls. It’s part of the curse.”

  He snorted his disbelief.

  Irritation shot through her veins. “It makes more sense than you pointing to a spot on the photo and proclaiming it’s a boy.”

  “Sounding a bit tetchy, aren’t we, Lily?” Eric scooted his untouched plate of toast toward her. “Have something more to eat.”

  She grabbed the plate with the intention of returning it, but their fingers linked on the rim. A sensual rush of heat swept her body. She remembered the way his hand had felt holding her, caressing her. Lily clenched her teeth. One touch and he had her quivering inside. She had the backbone of a jellyfish, she chastised herself silently.

  “Stop treating me like a child,” she said, dropping her hand from the plate.

  “Then stop acting like one,” he countered.

  Their eyes met across the width of the table.

  The waitress chose that moment to warm their coffee. She snapped her gum. “Need some more bacon? Or how about another glass of juice?”

  “No,” they answered simultaneously, their eyes still deadlocked in a battle of wills.

  “Uh-huh.” The gum snapped again. “Well, have a nice day.” She slapped the bill on the table and scurried back to the kitchen.

  “Happy, Eric? You just scared that poor girl.”

  “Me? I’m not the one who started this.” He pointed a finger at her. “You did.”

  When she refused to answer, he leaned toward her in a confiding manner. “What’s the matter, Lily? Experiencing one of those mood swings of pregnancy I’ve been reading about?”

  “You’ve been reading about?” She threw her napkin on the table. “Why would you want to read up on pregnancy?”

  “So I can figure out what’s wrong with you, that’s why,” he shouted, ignoring the stares they were receiving from their fellow diners. “One minute you’re sweet as honey, the next you act as though you took a bite out of a lemon. Help me out here, Lily. I don’t know how to act around you.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “You don’t have to act, Eric. If you’re uncomfortable, stop spending time with me.”

  “You’re the one who asked me to drive you today.”

  “Obviously that was a mistake.”

  “Why? Because I didn’t react the way you thought I would?”

  His question took her by surprise.

  “Admit it, Lily. You were hoping I’d shirk my responsibilities and hightail it back to the office at the first sign of a problem, weren’t you?”

  She averted her eyes. His assumption came too close to the truth.

  “Well, thank you for your high regard of my character,” he said, his voice steeped in sarcasm. “I guess this throws a kink in your theory that I’m not ready for marriage, doesn’t it?”

  She caught her breath. Eric had scored a direct hit. What she felt for him went beyond mere physical attraction. He had proved himself to be concerned and responsible. Lily felt herself turning to him more and more for support. The realization left her shaken. For the first time in years, she felt her resolve to stay commitment-free slipping away.

  She clambered to her feet. “I have to go back to work.”

  He stood to join her. “At least you made it through an entire meal before deciding to run away this time, Lily,” he said, his voice low and taunting.

  The remark cut deep. She crossed her arms, curbed her temper and waited as he paid the bill. The short drive to the bakery was quiet, the car rife with tension.

  Eric pulled his car into a parking spot. Lily scrambled out. Waves of suffocating heat rose up from the pavement to meet her, taking her breath away. She clutched the car door for support.

  Eric came around, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Look, we both said things in anger. Why don’t we just forget it and start over?”

  She shrugged, forcing him to drop his hand. “Under the circumstances, I think it’d be better if we didn’t see each other for a while, Eric.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I have a baby to consider. All this tension between us can’t be good for my pregnancy.”

  Looking stunned, he stepped away.

  Heat, having more to do with guilt than the weather, flushed her body. She felt terrible. She was using her pregnancy to hide from her inability to deal with her own feelings. But she couldn’t bring her-self to admit the truth to Eric—that she was beginning to care too much about him.

  “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  She swallowed hard. “It’s the way it has to be.”

  He nodded, his face drained of all emotion. She yearned to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight, tell him not to believe anything she’d said. She fought the urge.

  Without another word, he turned away.

  Slowly Lily walked to the bakery. Regret and the heat made her steps sluggish. Her hurry to leave Eric’s side was now forgotten. She licked her lips, tasting the salty flavor of her own tears.

  She was halfway across the courtyard, when she heard the high-pitched squeal of tires. Then, seconds later, the sickening rasp of metal crunching against metal. She froze, glued to the spot by sheer panic.

  Eric.

  * * *

  Eric stood to one side of his Porsche and stared, too numb to speak. The back end of his car looked like an accordion, folded in and squeezed tight.

  However, the canary-yellow Lincoln Towne Car that had rammed into his car didn’t have a scratch. He watched as an older woman, wearing a flowered dress, a straw sun hat and tan orthopedic shoes, pulled herself out of the driver seat.

  “Oh, my,” she said, examining the damage. “Looks as though we had a little bump.”

  “Little bump? Lady, you just backed into my car going thirty miles an hour.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t see it. That thing’s so little, I thought the space was empty.”

  A crowd was beginning to gather around them. He gazed at her in concern. “Are you okay? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

  “Pish-posh, hurt? Not in my car.” The woman patted the unblemished fender of her Lincoln. She narrowed her eyes at what was left of his Porsche. “Good thing your car was just a bitty thing. My insurance company might not have liked it if I’d hit something big.”

  His mother had taught him to be polite to his elders, no matter what the circumstances, but he was on his way to forgetting his lesson. “Ma’am, I don’t think you understand—”

  “Eric.”

  The breathless, haunting quality of the voice that said his name sent a chill down his spine. Eric turned. Lily stood on the sidewalk, appearing pale and scared.

  “You’re okay?” she asked, her eyes devouring him from head to toe.

  “I’m fine,” he said. He took a step toward her.

  “I heard the crash. I thought you might have...” She gave a long shudder, then threw herself into his arms.

  Sweet relief flooded through him. Moments ago his heart felt as though it had been ripped in two. He’d thought he’d lost Lily for good. But now she was back. He didn’t care about the reason. “Lily, I’m okay.” He felt the tremors shaking her body. He held her close, rocking her gently. “I’m okay.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if anything had happened to you.”

  “Nothing happened.” He heard the tears choking her voic
e. For the moment, he forgot about his car. He forgot the people watching them and concentrated on Lily.

  “I told you I was bad luck.” Pushing herself from his arms, she looked at his car. Her face grew even paler. “You could have been killed.”

  He frowned, puzzled. “You think this was your fault?”

  “Of course it was my fault. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this parking lot.”

  “Lily, if it wasn’t for you, I’d have been in that car, not standing here on this sidewalk.”

  Slowly she shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You just told me I couldn’t see you again. I was so angry, I didn’t trust myself to drive. I was waiting for my temper to cool down, when...” He motioned to the older woman who was watching them curiously. “...she backed into my car.”

  Lily didn’t seem convinced. “Eric, I don’t think—”

  “Don’t you get it, Lily?” He chuckled, scooping her into a crushing embrace. “Your curse didn’t almost kill me. It saved my life.”

  “Eric, I think you’ve been out in the sun too long.” She shimmied out of his embrace and pressed a palm to his forehead. Her hand felt cool and reassuring against his feverish skin. “What about your car?”

  His car. The only cloud in an otherwise perfect sunny day. “It can be fixed. If not, I needed a new car anyway,” he said, grinning like a fool. “Something not so fast and expensive.”

  “Does this mean I won’t have to report this little accident?” the older woman interrupted, looking hopeful.

  “Ma’am, I may be acting a little strange, but I’m not crazy.” He dug into his back pocket for his wallet. “We’ve got some serious talking to do. Let’s start with insurance cards.”

  “Thank goodness.” Lily sighed, taking a step away. “You’re finally back to normal.”

  His jubilant spirit waned. “You can’t leave now. Where are you going?”

  “Work, where else?”

  “But what about the curse...about us?”

  “There is no us, Eric,” she said, without so much as a blink. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “What?”

  “Believe me, Eric. I’m doing this for your own good.” She motioned toward his car. “Next time, you may not be so lucky.”