My heart feels like it’s going to come out of my chest. “They told me that I would never have kids, that my body was going into menopause when I was nineteen.” I look at Gabe. “They said I would never be able to have children. I have no eggs.”
“Well, I can happily say they are wrong,” Dr. Walker says.
“I can’t believe this,” I whisper, my eyes never leaving the screen.
“Just so you know, I wasn’t going away. I was giving you today, then I was coming for you.” He comes close to kiss my lips softly. “We’re having a baby.” And I lose it and sob while he holds me.
“I think I’ll give you two a minute,” his father says. Grabbing his son on his shoulder, he says, “Congratulations, son.”
He grabs my hand, kissing it. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.”
“Can you check again?” I ask him. “Just to make sure.”
“Anything,” he says, grabbing the machine and turning it on. The sound of the heartbeat fills the room again. “Let us see what we have here.” The baby flips over from back to front, and I actually feel flutters. “I wonder how far along you are?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t gotten my period in at least six years.” Looking at the monitor, he presses a couple of buttons.
He closes down the machine and turns on the light. “How are you feeling?” he asks, coming over with a towel to wipe off my stomach. He then leans down and kisses the baby. “I love you,” he says, and I run my hand through his hair.
“I’m going to be a mother,” I say, smiling so big my cheeks hurt as the emotions overcome me. “I’m going to have a baby.” I sob, holding my mouth as joy fills me. “A mother. I’m going to be a mother.”
“Yeah, baby.” He kisses me. “The best mother. Now, let’s get you home.” I nod, getting up. “Are you dizzy? Do you want me to get a wheelchair?”
“No. Hell no, I just need your hand.” I reach out for his hand, and we walk out, holding hands.
I look at the nurses’ station, seeing that they called Hailey, who stands with tears in her eyes, mixed with fear while Walker holds her shoulders.
I smile at her when she starts to walk to us but stops when Gabe yells, “We’re having a baby.” He raises our hands as I shake my head while everyone looks shocked.
“Maybe we should have started with we’re dating and then ease in.” I smile but stop when Hailey gets to me.
Her hands go to my face as she wipes tears away. “You’re having a baby?” she cries as I nod my head. “A baby.” She takes me in her arms, and I sob again, holding her. “A miracle,” she says between sobs, and Walker comes to her side.
The room has cleared out, and it’s just the four of us. “I came as soon as I could.” I hear Mrs. Dr. Walker walk into the back room, her husband coming out of his office. “Oh my god, Crystal, are you okay? They told me you fainted?” She walks to me. “Why is she crying?” She looks around at her husband who smiles big.
“We’re having a baby,” Gabe says next to me, pulling me to him. My arms go around his waist, and I look up at him smiling. “A baby.”
She gasps, her hands going to her mouth. “I knew it.” She turns to look at her husband. “I told you.”
“What?” I ask shocked
“Oh, honey, it was so apparent, and not even all from you, but from him.” She points at her son. “It was in his eyes. He would follow you when you weren’t looking, would find you in a crowd of people.” She smiles. “I’m going to be a grandmother.” She puts her hands on her chest. “It’s a girl. I feel it.”
“Everyone needs to calm down and give her space,” Gabe says. “We need to get her into bed, so she can rest.”
“Yes,” his mother says, agreeing. “Someone get a wheelchair.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper to myself, but the smile never leaves my face. Especially when I call Nanny that night and tell her the big news, oh and that I’m staying right where I am.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gabe
“Do you want me to carry you inside?” I ask her when we pull up to my house.
“No.” She turns, looking at me with a smile, the same smile that hasn’t left her face since she saw our baby. We walk into the house with our hands together, her stomach growling. “I’m hungry.”
“Yes,” I say, turning her to face me. “I missed you,” I say, holding her face in my hands. “So much,” I whisper when I lean down and kiss her gently.
We don’t move from the door when the bell rings. Pulling open the door, we see Brody and Darla with food in their hands. “We came as soon as they called.” I look at them with confused eyes.
“Oh my god,” Darla says, coming inside, “I’m so, so happy for you guys.” She hugs first me and then Crystal.
“No,” I say loudly, “you can’t stay. She needs to get off her feet and rest.”
“Gabe,” Crystal says, grabbing my arm and pulling me close, “they brought food, and I’m hungry.” I look at her.
“Twenty minutes,” I say while Darla and Brody walk to the kitchen, but then the door opens again. This time, it’s Hailey, Walker, and Mila. “What is this? My woman needs to get off her feet and rest.”
Hailey laughs. “She may be your ‘woman,’” she says, making air quotes with her fingers, “but she was my cousin first.” She walks to Crystal, hugging her as they both cry in each other’s arms.
“This isn’t keeping her calm,” I tell them when Walker pushes me by the shoulder, walking to the kitchen. “Enough,” I say to them as they tear apart. “Her blood pressure must be skyrocketing right now. It’s not good.”
“Oh, dear,” Hailey says, leaving us to walk into the kitchen where I hear everyone laughing and celebrating.
“You need to calm down just a bit.” Crystal comes to me. “They are just happy for us.”
“It’s …” I say, almost stomping my feet. “I haven’t been with you in two days.”
She leans up, kissing my jaw. “You’ll have all the alone time with me later. Besides, we have to have make-up sex.”
“We aren’t having sex until the doctor clears you.” I put my hands on my hips, and I swear I hear my cock moan.
“You are a doctor.” She turns, walking away and looking at me over her shoulder. “So you can clear me.”
As she sways her hips, I look up at the ceiling and start counting to ten, so my cock could compose itself. When I walk into the kitchen, she is sitting on a stool, eating a big plate of lasagna that they brought. I stand here with Brody on one side and Walker on the other while I look over at Crystal as she eats, her eyes glowing with happiness.
When everyone finally leaves, which is about one hour later than my timeframe, I carry her upstairs, her head on my shoulder. “We need to call a doctor and make an appointment,” she says, kissing my neck.
“Already done,” I tell her. “He’s actually coming to the practice tomorrow morning at nine.”
“How?” She raises her head and looks at me. “When?”
“The minute I saw that baby on the screen, I told my father and he pulled some strings. Dr. Sprung is coming in for us.”
“As in the fertility god doctor?”
“Yup,” I say, placing her on the bed. “He and Dad go way back. He owes dad a favor, so he called it in.”
She sits up, propping herself against the pillows. “He’s impossible to get into.”
I smile. “Well, tomorrow morning we have an appointment with him.” I lean over and kiss her.
“I didn’t lie to you,” she whispers, her hand coming out to touch my lower lip with her thumb. “I would never trap you like that.”
“Trap me?” My eyebrows squeeze together. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She looks down and then looks up again. “We’d just met, and I get it. People might think I did this on purpose. I really don’t care.” She moves her hand down to her stomach. “You didn’t ask for this, so if you don’t want it, I understand.”
“What?” I whisper, placing my hand on her stomach. “When you walked away from me and slammed the door, I was coming after you, but Hailey, she told me what I didn’t want to see. That you needed time, that we both needed time to get our thoughts together.” She blinks, and tears fall over her lids. “I went to Walker’s and sat on his couch the whole night, and the only conclusion I came to was I couldn’t live without you.” I smile at her, and my thumb catches one tear. “So I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what anyone says. We are having a baby.” I put my hand on her stomach.
“Yeah, we are.” She nods her head and smiles, her hand going to mine. “We are having a baby.”
I spend the night listening to her breathing, my hand cradling her stomach.
We walk into the office the next day holding hands. “Good morning, everyone,” I say to the nurses at the station when I walk to my office, and she goes to her locker. “Dr. Walker.” I hear Mia say, “Dr. Sprung is waiting in your office.”
“Thank you, Mia. Can you send Crystal in when she comes out?” I tell her, going to my office and opening the door. Dr. Sprung sits on the couch, looking at his phone typing away.
“Dr. Sprung,” I say, going to him with my hand outstretched, “I’m Gabriel Walker.”
He gets up, shaking my hand. “Gabe, nice to meet you.” The door opens, and Crystal comes in. “This must be the mother.”
“Dr. Sprung, this is my fiancée, Crystal.” Her head snaps to me. “Later,” I whisper as she reaches out to shake his hand.
“Thank you so much for coming on such short notice,” she tells him.
“Well, why don’t we get started, shall we?” He points at the door, and we go into the exam room. “If you will undress from the waist down, we’ll get started in just a bit,” he says, going outside to give us some privacy.
“Fiancée?” she hisses. “Really?”
“Can we possibly do this tonight, and not before we see our baby?”
She points at me. “It’s no, I won’t marry you,” she says, her scrubs falling to the floor as she grabs a white sheet and places it on her lap. The knock on the door stops her from almost yelling at me.
“Okay.” He comes in with a paper in front of him. “Why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“At nineteen, my period stopped. I went three months without, so I went to my OB/GYN. I thought the stress of nursing school and working full time had just knocked my system off a bit.”
She looks down at her hands and then up again. I walk to her side, sitting next to her, and hold her hand. “Well, he did a couple of routine tests. He called me back in to tell me that I had no eggs. My body was nineteen, but my reproductive system wasn’t.” I bring her hand to my mouth. “Every year, I would go in for routine tests and always ask if anything had changed. They didn’t.”
“So your last menstrual cycle was when?” he asks while he writes notes on his paper.
“Six years ago, maybe seven,” she says, and he goes to place his paper down. Grabbing gloves, he says, “Okay, lie back. I’m going to do an internal exam, and then we’ll get an ultrasound to see what’s going on.”
She lies down, putting her feet in the stirrups that Dr. Sprung pulled up from the sides of the table. He examines her. “Everything is where it should be.” He takes off his gloves, rolling to the light switch and flipping it off. “Let’s see what we have,” he says, squeezing the blue gel on her stomach, and he places the wand on her. The sound of the galloping fills the room again as both of us look at the screen. “Strong heartbeat,” he says, moving around her stomach. “Active little one,” he says. “I’m trying to get the length, and it’s almost impossible.” He laughs. “I see a stubborn little one. A very stubborn one.” He clicks a couple of things. “Okay, so from what I can see, you’re about fourteen weeks along. So you are over the twelve-week scary mark. Do you guys want to know what you’re having?”
“You can tell?” she asks, looking at me. “Do we want to know?”
“It’s up to you, doll face.” I smile at her.
“I don’t want to know because it doesn’t matter as long as he or she is healthy.” She looks at Dr. Sprung.
“So far, everything looks like it’s in place, ten fingers and ten toes.” He smiles. “But now comes the bad news of sorts.”
My heart stops. “What?” Crystal whispers.
“Well, considering what you told me, I would have to say that this is technically a high-risk pregnancy. So”—he wipes off her stomach—“she should be off her feet for at least the next month, just in case, and I want to see her weekly to make sure everything is growing okay.” He smiles. “Then we will go from there.”
“So I’m having a baby?” she cries. “Like, it’s not a dream?”
“Not a dream, Crystal. You’re having a baby.” He smiles. “I’ll be in your office,” he says to us as he walks out.
“Holy shit, I’m going to be a mother.” She puts her hand over her face as she cries out tears of happiness.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Crystal
Walking out of the room after Dr. Sprung left us, Gabe says, “You can’t work today, so you should go home and rest.”
“I can do paperwork,” I tell him, approaching the nurses’ station.
“Oh, good. Dr. Walker, Ava just called in sick,” Mia says.
“See, I can do the board while Mia helps you.”
“The doctor said …” I put my hand on his lips, shushing him.
“I swear, if at any time I feel tired or anything, I will stop. I can even do it on the computer, so I can sit down.”
I look at him, and fuck is he ever hot. He hasn’t shaved this morning, so his beard has grown out a touch, the white dress shirt is open at the neck, showing me a little of the ink he has there. His dark blue slacks hugging him. “You’d better stop that,” he says, lifting his hand to fix his collar.
“You’re hot,” I tell him. “Have I ever mentioned how hot you are?” I smile and then walk to his office to finish my appointment.
Sitting in the chair next to Dr. Sprung, he goes over my dos and don’ts. “Okay, here is a list that I made. No exercise at all, not to lift anything over five pounds, no sex, no baths/hot tubs, etc. No swimming, no sleeping on your stomach. Also, no sushi.”
“When you say no sex …” I ask him as he smiles. “What does that mean?”
“It means no penetration and no oral either. For her.” He smiles at Gabe. “Basically, just lie around and take it easy.”
“Can she work?” Gabe asks with his hands over his chest.
“Not on my feet, sitting at the desk.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s a no. I also want you taking a prenatal vitamin.”
“Get ready. I’m going to drive you home,” Gabe says to me while Dr. Sprung stands. “So we will come see you in one week.”
He smiles at us. “I look forward to it.”
“Thank you so much, Dr. Sprung.” I smile while I shake his hand.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Gabe says to everyone while we walk out. “Where do you want to go?”
“Well, home,” I say, getting in the truck.
“Are you going to pack up your stuff and move in?” He looks at me as he drives out of the parking lot.
“Why would I move in with you?” I say. “I don’t even like you most of the time.”
“Well, half of me is inside you,” he says with a huge grin on his face, “so technically, you have to like me.”
I roll my eyes. “Drop me off at my house, and we will see if I see you before I have to.” He pulls up to the house, and I open the truck door, stepping out when his phone starts ringing.
“Hello,” he says while I walk ahead of him to the door. “What do you mean my house is on fire?” I turn around to watch him. “I’m on my way.”
“My house is on fire,” he says, jogging back to the truck. I get in as soon as he does. “What are you doing?”
“I’
m coming with you. If I stay here, I will worry, and if I worry, it’s stressful, which is not what I need.”
“You find loopholes with everything, don’t you?” He smiles at me.
“I have no idea what you mean.” I shrug my shoulders as we make it to his house. Two firetrucks are working on it, and it looks almost as if it’s his whole house. We get out of the truck in shock as the orange flames are coming out of the windows upstairs. “Oh my god,” I say, walking toward the barricade.
“Hey,” Gabe says to the cop blocking our entrance. “What is going on?”
“No clue, got a call from a neighbor,” he says. “Fire department got here as soon as they could.”
We watch in horror as his house burns; the fire department finally gets it under control, but it’s safe to say that nothing survived. The fire chief comes to us while we sit in the truck, waiting.
“Dr. Walker.” He comes over, taking off his helmet. “We have the fire under control. Luckily, no one was hurt, but we have to say we suspect arson.”
My eyes become as big as saucers as I listen to him tell us about how the fire started. “Nothing could be saved.”
“Do you think the person slashing your tires is also the one who set your house on fire?” I ask him when a detective approaches us.
“Dr. Walker,” he says, coming to us, “I’m sorry to do this to you now, but we have someone in custody.”
“Who?” Gabe says, pushing off the truck. “Who the fuck is doing this?”
“Ava Mitchell.”
“What?” I say shocked. “It’s impossible; she works with us.”
The cop looks at Gabe and then down at the ground. “Oh my god, were you having sex with her?” I ask him, and he gasps.
“Are you insane?” he says. “I’ve never fucking touched her.”
“Mr. Walker is correct, but it seems that Ms. Mitchell is in love with you.” He points at Gabe. “According to her, you secretly love her, but then you got your mistress pregnant.”
“She’s lying,” Gabe says. “She has worked for me for three years. I was engaged to someone else just seven months ago.” He runs his hands through his hair. “I never, ever gave her any reason to think I wanted anything from her, ever.”
Unexpected Love Story Page 17