Husband: Some Assembly Required

by Marie Ferrarella

  He stopped and looked down into her face. “I also make a terrific grandfather. I even know all the verses to ‘Rock-a-Bye-Baby.’”

  She raised her brows in mock surprise. “There’s more than one?”

  McGuire rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, you younger people, always in a hurry. There are three.”

  His eyes twinkled, and had he had a beard, Shawna would have said that he could easily have substituted for Santa Claus. Maybe he had, at least in her mother’s case.

  Congratulations, Mother. You “done good.” Finally.

  McGuire’s eyes shifted toward her stomach before lifting to her face. “Don’t forget our little talk, all right?”

  She nodded as she walked out with him. She wouldn’t forget, but for the time being she had no intention of saying anything to Murphy. Not unless she had to. She refused to have him think that she was using the baby as a way of getting what she wanted.

  Maybe she didn’t even want it anymore, she told herself.

  The hell she didn’t.

  Caro shifted in her seat as McGuire and Shawna walked out. She nodded goodbye toward the man and looked at Shawna, her manner uncharacteristically solicitous. “Ready for your first patient?”

  Shawna forced a smile to her lips, though the last thing she felt like doing was smiling. “Ready and waiting.”

  Caro nodded and picked up the file closest to her. She pushed the chair away with the back of her legs. “I’ll get you some tea in a minute,” she promised.

  Shawna stared at her.

  “Always worked for me when I had a queasy feeling.” Caro winked as she passed. “Mrs. Fuentes, the doctor will see you now.”

  As she retreated to the back and the office for a moment, Shawna was vaguely aware of a heavyset woman rising in reply. How had Caro figured out that she was pregnant? There was definitely no mistaking the knowing look in the woman’s eyes.

  There was a chipped mirror hanging within her open locker and Shawna glanced at it.

  That’s how, she thought. All Caro had to do was look at her. Her complexion was no longer translucent. It appeared almost pasty, but maybe that was just the light. The light, however, didn’t give her those dark circles under her eyes. Maybe that had been Caro’s clue.

  Pretty soon no one would need any clues. The evidence would be right out front for everyone to see.

  God, what a mess, she thought in a moment of despondence.

  The next moment she banished it. She’d handle this, just as she had everything else. The one thing she knew for certain was that this baby would never lack for love.

  Shawna had absolutely no idea when or how she was going to face Murphy with this. She didn’t need or want his financial support. She didn’t want anything from him that he had to be forced to give.

  She didn’t want him there because he had to be, she wanted him there because he wanted to be.

  What she wanted was his heart. Willingly tendered, out of love, not out of a sense of responsibility or duty. Nothing else mattered but that, and that had been denied.

  She sighed as she splayed a protective hand over the baby that was no larger than a pinprick within her. Well, if her mother had gone through this thirty years ago, she could certainly go through it now. If nothing else, she was far more resilient than her mother. And far more logical.

  Some logic, she thought disparagingly.

  A font of empathy suddenly surged in her heart, one that had never been tapped before.

  “I understand, Mother,” she whispered softly. “I think I finally understand how you felt.”

  Taking the file that Caro had left for her right outside the door, Shawna squared her shoulders, fixed a bright smile on her face and opened the door.

  “Hello, Mrs. Fuentes, what seems to be the trouble?”

  * * *

  “Where is she, Jeanne?”

  Jeanne looked up from her computer and smothered a gasp. The face of the man who stood in front of her was a mask of barely controlled fury. For a moment, stunned, she didn’t recognize him. When she did, her mind blanked out his question. All she could think of was that she had never seen anyone so angry before.

  Murphy had just gotten off the telephone with Shawna’s mother. He’d taken the call in his office politely enough, thinking that the woman was attempting to mend the rift between her daughter and him like some budding matchmaker.

  He hadn’t been prepared for the bombshell she had dropped on him with no foreshadowing. He also hadn’t been prepared for the sheer wave of grief that he’d experienced because the news had come to him from someone other than Shawna.

  Hadn’t he meant anything to her? Had it all been just in his mind? She’d not only turned her back on him, pushing him out of her life, but now she was going to cut him out of his child’s, as well.

  He’d driven like a man possessed to get here.

  “Is she in her office?” he pressed when Jeanne made no answer. There was no one sitting in the waiting room, and it was just before noon. He assumed that she was in her office, going over reports. Hiding from the world.

  Hiding from him.

  Jeanne felt as if she’d been sealed to her chair. Murphy’s eyes were intense. “No, she’s in one of the examining rooms.” Somehow, she managed to gain her feet. “I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  “You do that.” The words were so low, so dangerous, they sent Jeanne hurrying from her desk. “You tell her I’m here. I’ll be in her office.”

  Reining in his anger, his hurt, Murphy walked to the end of the hall.

  It had rained earlier today. Now the sun was splashing light on everything, embracing its warmth. It broke through the window in rainbows.

  He felt only darkness.

  How could she? How could she try to keep this from him? Anguish rattled the steel bars of his resolve as he picked up the multicolored cube she kept on her desk. The colors were all arranged in a pattern that had to be matched in order for the puzzle to be solved. He twisted it, impotent anger flowing through his fingertips. Murphy had no interest in occupying his mind, he only wanted something to do with his hands. His mind wasn’t up to functioning analytically.

  The cube broke apart in his hands.

  Disgusted, he dropped the pieces on the desk. They bounced once, then fell onto the floor just as someone entered the office behind him.

  He swung around, knowing who he would see before he did so.

  Shawna’s throat was dry. She moved as if her knees were welded together. She’d hurried through the remainder of the exam when Jeanne had told her that Murphy was here. She owed Mr. Dembrowsky a thorough exam and asked him to reschedule. All she wanted to do was run from the office as fast as possible.

  From him.

  To him.

  God, but she was confused, and it was all his fault.

  She saw the pieces lying on the floor. “You broke my cube.”

  He stepped away from it, and from her, afraid of what he was capable of doing. “I’ll buy you another.”

  She had no idea where her courage came from. She’d felt drained only a moment ago.

  “I didn’t know you had an appointment today.” Shawna fisted her hands inside her pockets, struggling to keep her voice level.

  She had raised her chin defensively, and he had the overwhelming urge to clip her one. “I didn’t know I needed one to see the mother of my baby.”

  It felt as if someone had siphoned off her air. “Who told you?” Even as she asked, she knew. Damn Simon for sharing this with her mother. When she’d left the apartment this morning her mother had begged her to call Murphy. Obviously, she hadn’t waited for her to do it.

  It’s my baby, Mother. I’m carrying it. I’ll tell Murphy when I damn well please.

  A sense of betrayal choked Murphy as he looked at her. Even now she was being defiant. Damn her for ever stirring him up this way. “Your mother. At least she had the decency to call me and tell me.”

  She bristled at the accusation.
“Decency?”

  “Decency,” he snapped. It was indecent to hide this from him, this child who was a part of him. “She called me half an hour ago. She thought I should know.” He pinned Shawna with an accusing look. “She said she didn’t want you making the same mistakes that she did by running away.”

  The words passed through her heart like a knife. So that was it. Her mother had run away from the father of her child. From her father. Maybe he had never even known that Sally was pregnant. “I’m not making a mistake. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  Murphy threw up his hands, still careful to maintain his distance from her. He’d never felt fury like this before. He’d never felt any of the things that he’d felt since she’d come into his life. And then left it.

  “Well, that makes one of us, because I haven’t got a clue in hell what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.”

  Belatedly she realized that the door was still open. She closed it behind her. “Lower your voice.”

  He wasn’t about to take orders from a woman who’d treated him with no more concern than she would a rodent. Less. “I’ll shout if I want to.”

  She matched him tone for tone, her eyes blazing. “Not at me, you won’t.”

  “Who am I supposed to shout at?” he demanded, crossing to her. He gripped her by the shoulders, clenching his teeth together to refrain from shaking her. “It wouldn’t be the same shouting at Jeanne. She’s not the one who walked over my heart with spiked heels.”

  His retort stunned her into momentary silence. She looked up at him and thought she saw something flicker in his eyes amid the fury. Pain? Why? He’d been the one who had hurt her. All he was displaying now was wounded macho pride. “Getting it backward, aren’t you?”

  What was she talking about? He saw her wince and released her, knowing he’d squeezed too hard. “I don’t think so.” He moved around, trying to find a way to vent his feelings. “I asked you to move in with me and you acted as if I had the plague.” He turned to look at her. His eyes were accusing. She’d led him on. “I thought you were above game playing.”

  She had no idea why she suddenly felt like crying. Damn those hormones for kicking in at the wrong time. “So did I, until the stakes got too high.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he shouted.

  She shouted right back at him. “I fell in love with you.”

  “And I fell in love with you.” Her words sank in and he lowered his voice. What had he missed? “So what’s the problem?”

  Half her unborn child’s genes were coming from an oaf. “The problem was what to do about it.”

  He still didn’t understand. “You said no strings. I was giving you a relationship with no strings. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

  “No.” She blinked, cursing tears that wouldn’t evaporate, but shimmered on her lashes. “I lied.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. He had to be hearing things. “What?”

  “I lied, all right?” Embarrassed, angry, she turned away. “I wanted strings. I wanted packaging, bubble wrappers, tape. Everything. I wanted to be wrapped up so tight with you that neither one of us could ever get free.” She glared at him. “Or want to get free.”

  He reached for her, but she pushed him back. This wasn’t going to be solved with a kiss, or by allowing herself to slide back into the passion she so desperately craved. She couldn’t just think of herself anymore.

  “And I knew when you asked me to move in with you that you wanted to stay free. I couldn’t do that.” She searched her heart and knew that she’d lied again. “Well, maybe I could,” she amended, “but I didn’t have only myself to think of anymore. I had a baby.”

  Suddenly as restless as he, she began to roam around the office like a trapped animal searching for an escape route. Only there wasn’t any, not for her. She’d never escape the love she felt for him. But he didn’t have to know that.

  “A baby who wasn’t going to grow up the way I did, aimless, rootless, belonging to no one, while her mother looked all over the country for someone to love her.”

  Murphy shook his head. She was rambling. “You’re not making any sense, you know.”

  She let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t have to make sense, I’m pregnant. I made sense for thirty years and look where it’s gotten me.”

  It was beginning to gel. He reached for her again. “You’re still babbling.”

  This time she pushed him away with less energy. “It’s my office.” She sniffed. “I can babble if I want to.”

  The light that materialized at the end of the tunnel was a bright one. “Let me get this straight. If I had proposed to you, you would have said yes?” To think of the hell he’d gone through for nothing.

  “Yes.” She said it as if she expected to be challenged.

  He grinned. His anger vanished like a puddle of water in the desert. “Then I really don’t think we have much of a problem. The baby can have a complete set of parents.”

  She was still leery of his reasons. “I don’t want you to marry me because of the baby.”

  When he took her into his arms, the struggle she offered was only minimal. “All right, I’ll marry you despite the baby. How’s that?”

  She started to laugh as she shook her head, tears gathering again in her eyes. But this time they were tears of joy. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, for once, I am.” It felt like heaven to hold her in his arms. He indulged himself and kissed her before continuing. “I’ve barely been able to function since we stopped seeing each other. I need you, Shawna—I have since the very beginning.” He smiled into her face. “You’re the only one who can pull all my pieces together and make me feel whole.”

  He framed her face and kissed her again. “I was going to accept you on any terms you wanted, just to have you in my life. Marriage’ll do just fine.”

  He released her, knowing that to hold her like this would only create yearnings within him that he would be unable to do anything about in her office. “Tell you what, I’ll come by after work tonight and we’ll celebrate. I’ll take you to my place and cook dinner for you.” And after dinner they would really celebrate.

  “You cook?” She tried to picture him moving competently around in a kitchen. It didn’t seem to suit him.

  “Better than Kelly,” he assured her. Moving forward, he kicked aside a piece of the cube. Embarrassed now at having broken it, he bent to pick up the pieces. When he straightened, his face was pale, his fingers tightening around the broken cube.

  “Shawna?”

  The strange note in his voice caused a ripple of unease within her. “Yes?”

  “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I can’t see. Out of either eye.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shawna leaned against the locker where she had hastily thrown her jacket and purse earlier and sighed.

  It was over.

  She had just spent the longest two and a half hours of her life and it was finally over. She closed her eyes. Almost against her will, the whole ordeal materialized again.

  The first part had almost streaked by. Trying not to let his words panic her, she had taken Murphy’s hand and guided him into a chair in her office, where she’d examined him.

  The worst had finally happened. And she had to do something quickly before it became permanent.

  He knew she was shining a light into his eyes. He had heard the click. But in the world he’d tumbled into, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  “It’s not going to pass, is it?” Murphy asked her.

  The restraint in his voice amazed her. Setting aside her ophthalmoscope, she gripped his hand in hers.

  “Damn straight it’s going to pass.” In contrast to his, her voice was brimming with emotion. “But only if I make it pass.”

  He smiled then, squeezing her hand and clearly fighting the fear that was attempting to overwhelm him. “Make it so.”

  If he could b
e brave, so could she. “Just what I need. Jean-Luc Picard.”

  She kissed his forehead, her heart wrenching within her breast, then called for Jeanne. The woman was loyally waiting in the reception area, ready to spring into action in case Shawna needed any help.

  “Get me an operating room scheduled, Jeanne,” Shawna called down the hallway. “Now.” There was no questioning the urgency in her voice.

  Shawna crossed back into the office. The sight of Murphy sitting there, staring into nothingness, clawed at her heart. Hurrying to the telephone, she tapped out the number of a colleague. She was going to need an assistant for the surgery and fast.

  She misdialed and swore. It was only the urgency for speed, she told herself, that was making her fingers fumble this way, not fear.

  But fear continued to ride shotgun beside her, anyway.

  Jeanne came into her office just then to tell her that her bid for an operating room would have to wait until later that afternoon. Jeanne slanted a curious look toward Murphy, wondering what was happening.

  “What line are you on?” Shawna demanded, irritated at the stumbling block.

  “Two.”

  She depressed the second button on her telephone and started talking as soon as she heard a response on the other end. Using everything she had at her disposal—bravado, pull, fear—she wormed her way into a slot within the hour. An elective surgery was bumped up to two o’clock. This was an emergency.

  “You’re magnificent when you’re in high gear,” Murphy told her as she urged him up on his feet. His manner belied the apprehension she knew was cloaking him.

  “Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere. If you’d listened to me in the first place,” she retorted, guiding him into the outer hall, “this kind of hurry wouldn’t be necessary.”

  She realized he hated this dark world he was in. He had hoped that the fluid behind his eye would dissipate naturally. But it hadn’t, and now he was suddenly plunged into the center of a sightless region. Shawna knew that Murphy was scared, really scared, and he was fighting not to show it.

  “And if you’d listened to me, I wouldn’t have had to come in here, raving like a maniac.”