Countdown To Baby (Merlyn County Midwives #2)

by Gina Wilkins

  Hit suddenly by an eerie feeling of being watched, she glanced over her shoulder. Detective Collins lurked behind her at the very end of the hallway, arms crossed over his solid chest, one shoulder propped against the wall.

  His gray eyes locked with hers, and his expression made her wonder if he suspected everyone at the clinic of being a drug pusher. Was he following her? Or watching Mari’s office? She had no doubt he had seen the exchange between Mari and the orderly.

  Probably because she was tired and grumpy, she took a step toward him with the intention of asking exactly what he thought was going on at the clinic. Before she had taken a second step, he turned and disappeared around the corner.

  She was tempted to chase him down and ask her questions, anyway. Some remnant of common sense made her stop, take a deep breath and remind herself that belligerent confrontation was probably not the wisest way to deal with an overly suspicious officer of the law.

  She turned back, instead, toward Mari’s office. She would let her intuition tell her if Mari was acting in any way different than usual—though she still didn’t believe there was even the tiniest bit of merit in Bryce Collins’s accusations.

  Mari was buried in paperwork. She looked up with a weary smile when she heard Cecilia in the doorway. “I haven’t forgotten about you, Cecilia. It has just been an incredibly hectic day.”

  “For all of us,” Cecilia agreed. “Our consultation can wait until tomorrow morning. I’ll have some test results back by then. I’m quite concerned about this patient. She’s determined to have a midwifery delivery, but I tend to think we should be considering an early cesarean section. I’d appreciate your opinion.”

  “I’ll clear some time just before lunch, if that’s convenient for you. We’ll look over the file and the test results, and then we’ll schedule a time when I can examine her for myself.”

  “Yes, that will be fine. Um, Mari—”

  Before Cecilia could mention her strange encounter with Detective Collins in the hallway, the phone almost hidden beneath the papers on Mari’s desk buzzed loudly.

  Mari sighed deeply. “Hold on.” She picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

  A moment later she sat straight up in her chair, her expression shocked. “He did what? Is he all right? Okay, I’ll be right there.”

  Slamming the phone back into the cradle, Mari jumped to her feet. “Cecilia, I’m sorry, but I have to go. Can you keep things running around here? I’m supposed to be in the conference room in ten minutes, but it looks like I’m going to be delayed.”

  “Of course. I’ll spread the word that you’ve been called away.”

  “Thank you.” Mari was already hurrying toward the doorway. “I won’t forget about our consultation tomorrow, but I really have to go now. My brother has been injured in a motorcycle accident.”

  Cecilia felt her heart leap straight into her throat. Holding on to the doorway to steady herself, she lifted a hand to her suddenly tight throat. “Is he going to be all right?” she called after her rapidly departing supervisor.

  Mari replied without looking back. “Yes, I think so. I just need to go see him.”

  Mari disappeared around the same corner Detective Collins had vanished around earlier. Cecilia was left standing in the hallway, her heart pounding so hard against her chest that she could hardly breathe.

  She had no right to hurry after Mari to Geoff’s side. He needed his family now, not his temporary…what? Fling? Lover? Neither term seemed to fit.

  Putting both hands to her temples, she tried to collect herself. She had a baby to deliver. She had to put her emotions aside. And more importantly, she had to resist the impulse to abandon her responsibilities and rush to Geoff, even if it almost killed her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Geoff climbed out of his car very carefully Thursday evening. The walk from the car to Cecilia’s front door seemed a bit longer than usual as his aching muscles protested every step.

  Confident that he looked fine, scrapes and bruises hidden for now beneath a blue shirt and khaki slacks, he held himself straight and rang the doorbell. Thanks to his helmet, there were no injuries to his head or face, but the truth was, he’d been damned lucky today.

  Cecilia opened the door. Something in her expression made the smile he had donned for her benefit fade away.

  “I, uh, guess you heard,” he said when she only stood there, staring mutely up at him.

  “I heard.” She moved aside so he could enter.

  He might have reached out to her then to give her his usual kiss of greeting, but her body language was perfectly clear: “Stay back.”

  She closed the door behind him, her movements very deliberate. “I take it you aren’t seriously injured?”

  He supposed there was concern in the question. She had spoken so mechanically that it was hard to tell. “A few scrapes. There was no reason for me to even go to the emergency room, but the cops insisted.”

  She nodded. Her arms were crossed in front of her now, and her dark eyes were so shuttered that he saw no expression in them at all. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  He raised his left hand to the back of his neck, then immediately regretted the habitual gesture. He lowered the arm very carefully back to his side, feeling his scraped elbow throb in rhythm with his heartbeats.

  Perhaps she was angry with him for some reason. There was only one way to find out for sure. “What’s wrong, Cecilia? Are you annoyed because I didn’t call you? Because I knew you were busy, and my cell phone was smashed in the wreck, and I wasn’t really hurt, anyway….”

  Deciding he sounded like a babbling idiot, he shut up.

  Cecilia seemed to rouse from her reverie then. Blinking a few times, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I worked late this evening, delivering a baby who decided during the latter stage of labor to take his sweet time coming out. I haven’t been home long enough to start dinner. How about if we order pizza again? Or if you want to head on home and soak in a hot bath, I’ll understand.”

  Because she sounded suspiciously hopeful when she made that suggestion, he asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

  Her look of surprise in response to the blunt question was patently false. “No, of course not. I just thought you’d—”

  “I don’t need a hot bath,” he said, deciding to pretend as though everything was completely normal until she relaxed enough to tell him what was going on. “Pizza sounds fine. In fact, I’ll order. What kind do you want? Veggie?”

  “Sure. Okay. Veggie.”

  She was definitely not acting like herself, he thought as he placed the order. Should he pressure her to tell him what was wrong or give her time to volunteer the explanation?

  He decided the latter was probably the best plan. He never liked being nagged to talk when something was bugging him. So he really should give Cecilia some space.

  But, being the impatient sort that he was, he barely made it back across the room before he asked, “So, did you have a bad day at work?”

  “Not bad, particularly. Hectic.”

  “You must be tired.” Could that be the explanation? Simple exhaustion. If so, he had just the remedy. A night of lazy pampering would do them both good.

  “Yes, a bit.”

  He lowered himself gingerly onto the couch, then patted the cushion on his right side. “Then let’s just kick back and relax and you can tell me all about it.”

  She made no move to sit down. “Actually, I think I would like some coffee. Do you want something? Juice, maybe?”

  He stifled a sigh, telling himself again to be patient and let her take her time. “I’m okay for now. Thanks.”

  She was gone for quite a while. She must be harvesting the coffee beans, he decided wryly. She was certainly brewing it so long it should be strong enough to walk back into the living room by itself.

  She finally reappeared, carrying a steaming mug cradled between both hands. She seemed to be taking care not to meet his eyes. He waited until she
had taken a seat—notably not beside him on the couch, but in one of the chairs. And her body language was no more open or encouraging now than it had been when he had first arrived. “You’re going to have to tell me what’s wrong eventually, you know.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, Geoff. I told you, it’s been a long day. There was a rush on our services. A strung-out drug addict made a scene in the waiting room. Detective Collins made an absolute pest of himself, even coming out and accusing Mari of knowing something about black-market drug trafficking. It was all I could do to keep from kicking him out of the clinic myself then, even though it certainly wasn’t my place to do so.”

  “It couldn’t have helped your day when you heard I had stupidly wrecked my bike,” he said, trying to imagine how he would have felt if something similar had happened to her. He didn’t even want to think about that.

  She scowled down into the coffee. “No. That didn’t help at all.”

  Suddenly realizing exactly what she had said before he’d brought up the accident, he straightened sharply on the couch, muttered a curse when his whole left side throbbed in reaction, then said, “What was that about Bryce accusing Mari of drug trafficking?”

  “I said he practically accused her. He didn’t come right out and say those words, but he said he doesn’t believe she’s telling him everything she knows. He even implied that her ambition to raise money for the medical research center could make her receptive to drug money.”

  “I’ll pound his face in,” Geoff said between clenched teeth as a wave of fury rushed through him.

  She answered a bit sarcastically, “Oh, that will help. You and Mari can request adjoining jail cells.”

  He made an effort to get his rarely seen temper under control. “I’ll call our lawyer tomorrow and see what I can do about keeping Collins away from Mari.”

  “Maybe you had better ask Mari what she wants you to do first. She might not appreciate you rushing to her rescue without telling her. And she probably wouldn’t be at all pleased that I’ve been reporting to you about what I accidentally overheard Detective Collins say to her in the privacy of her office.”

  “All right, I’ll talk to her. I’ll tell her I’ve heard he’s been on her case and ask her how she wants me to handle it. I can’t believe that guy would still be nursing such a grudge against her that he would let it interfere with his professional objectivity. There’s no way he can honestly believe she would get involved in that kind of sleaze.”

  “Of course not. No one who knows Mari would believe such a thing.”

  “How did she take it? Tell me she slugged him.”

  Cecilia shook her head. “Of course she didn’t slug him. She managed to contain her temper—and her dignity—very well.”

  “She should’ve slugged him,” he muttered.

  “I never realized you had such a violent side to you.”

  “Only when someone messes with someone I care about.” And it occurred to him suddenly that he would be just as belligerent toward anyone who was making trouble for Cecilia.

  Because he wasn’t sure she would want to hear that right now, he said only, “Collins has really gone over the line. He couldn’t have a scrap of evidence that Mari is involved in anything suspicious.”

  Cecilia started to say something, but stopped when the doorbell rang. Geoff wondered what it was she’d started to tell him. Something she knew about the investigation? Some reason, no matter how unlikely, why Collins may have set his sights on Mari. Making a mental note to ask her later, he watched as she set her coffee cup on the table beside her chair. “That will be the pizza. I’ll get it.”

  He held up a hand to keep her in her seat while he rose, exerting all his strength to keep her from seeing how much the movement pained him. “I ordered. I’ll get it.”

  She looked as though she was going to argue, but she must have known it would do no good. Settling back into her seat, she subsided into the same moody silence as before, to Geoff’s exasperation.

  Cecilia was struggling to act naturally with Geoff this evening, but she didn’t try to delude herself that she was being successful at it. The truth was, she didn’t quite know what she was feeling. Numbness seemed to be the closest description.

  She looked down at the half-eaten slice of pizza on her plate, doubtful that she could swallow another bite. She wasn’t usually the type to overreact so dramatically to a trying day, but this day had been more than ordinarily stressful.

  “Tell me the truth, Cecilia. Are you angry with me?”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes when she answered. “No, of course I’m not angry.”

  It wasn’t quite a lie, she assured herself. She wasn’t angry with him…exactly. More perturbed with him for risking his life and scaring her so badly, which was so unreasonable of her that she didn’t know how to explain it to him.

  “Then what’s wrong? Did something bad happen with one of your deliveries?”

  “No. I’ve already told you how hectic my day was. Nothing specifically upsetting, just a series of complications.”

  And that, she thought, was the biggest lie she had told him yet. Of course there had been a specific incident that had upset her today. Hearing Mari say that Geoff had been involved in a motorcycle accident had shaken Cecilia all the way to the core.

  She had managed to control her emotions while she’d completed her workday, even smiling and speaking cheerfully during the prolonged but uneventful delivery of the Claussen baby boy. And then, after tapping the hospital grapevine to discover that Geoff had already been released from the emergency room, she had come home and pretty much fallen apart.

  Just remembering that period of secret anxiety between watching Mari rush away and hearing that Geoff’s injuries had only been minor ones made Cecilia’s chest start to ache again. Finding that she simply couldn’t sit still any longer, she pushed her chair back abruptly and sprang to her feet. “I need some more lemonade. Can I get you anything while I’m up?”

  She waited barely long enough for him to decline the offer before she rushed into the kitchen. Maybe if she had just another few minutes to collect herself…

  Geoff didn’t give her those minutes. He followed her into the kitchen, then stood blocking the door, his arms crossed, his expression grimly determined.

  “I’ve tried to be patient,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “I thought you would eventually get around to telling me what’s bothering you this evening. But it isn’t working. You’re not giving me any clues. What’s going on, Cecilia?”

  “I told you, I’m just—”

  “Tired,” he finished in unison with her. “But that doesn’t cut it. It’s more than that.”

  She reached for a paper towel and wiped at an imaginary spot on the countertop, just to give her unsteady hands something to do. “I don’t—”

  “Cecilia.” He had moved to stand very close behind her. “If it isn’t your work that’s upsetting you, it must be me. And the only thing I’ve done today is get involved in a minor motorcycle accident.”

  Saying nothing, she crumpled the paper towel in her hand.

  “Are you annoyed that I didn’t call you? Or have someone else call you? I explained why I didn’t. And besides, when I mentioned that someone should let you know what happened, Mari told me you were with her when the emergency room nurse called her—without my knowledge, I might add. Mari told me she had let you know it wasn’t a serious accident.”

  “Yes, she said she thought you would be fine.”

  “So you weren’t worried about me.”

  “Not worried?” Feeling something snap inside her, she threw the paper towel on the counter and whirled to face him. “Not worried? Are you joking?”

  He looked surprised by her vehemence. “You mean, you were worried? Even though Mari told you—”

  “Mari told me—as she left her office at a run—that her brother had been in a motorcycle accident and while she thought he would be okay, she was obviously frantic to fi
nd out for herself. That was the last I heard until a few hours later when I finally managed to find out that you had been treated and released.”

  Now he looked defensive. “I told you I thought you’d been kept informed.”

  “Right. You told me.”

  “Look, I didn’t realize you would be so concerned. And while I appreciate that you were worried about me, I—”

  She glared at him, wondering if he could really be so obtuse. “I just knew that motorcycle was an accident waiting to happen.”

  That made his eyes narrow. “Now you sound like my father and my sister. Both of them spent a couple of hours yelling at me this afternoon about the bike. Telling me how reckless and irresponsible it is for me to even own the thing, much less take it for an occasional ride.”

  She lifted her chin. “Maybe I agree with them.”

  He scowled. “Great.”

  Though she tried to hold them back, the words spilled from her, anyway. “Well, you do have responsibilities—to your family, who love you and depend on you—and to Bingham Enterprises, where you serve a very important role.”

  “And to you, of course,” he added. “Were you afraid I’d broken my neck before I fulfilled my bargain to you?”

  That made her jaw drop. “That is not what I was concerned about!”

  He lifted his left hand to the back of his neck, grimaced, then dropped the arm to his side again. She had already noticed that he had been favoring his left side all evening. Heaven only knew what sort of scrapes and bruises he was hiding beneath his long-sleeved blue shirt.

  When he spoke, his tone wasn’t as cutting, but it was still aggrieved. “I really didn’t expect you to lecture me about obligations and responsibilities. I thought you, at least, understood me better than that.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I realize I have no right to lecture you about anything.”