The Doctor’s Former Fiancée

by Caro Carson

  Braden took the ring out of the box and, with a bit of clumsiness that Lana wanted to remember forever, placed it on the ring finger of her left hand. “Look closely.”

  “It’s kind of hard to look at anything else.”

  “The outer ring isn’t made up of diamonds. They’re a pale blue in better light.”

  “Texas blue topaz?” Lana threw her arms around his neck and kissed him until he sank onto the sleeping bag, pulling her on top of him.

  “The real thing,” he murmured between kisses, “mined here in Hill Country.” Another kiss. “This is where we met, where we fell in love, where we’ll live.”

  “Where we’ll raise a family.”

  Braden took her face in his hands and kept her poised over him, so that she could look him in the eye and see his concern. “We don’t have to have children, Lana. You don’t have to promise to be okay if you get pregnant. You only have to promise that we’ll talk about every complicated thought in your head.”

  “Earlier tonight, when you were checking the highline, I imagined you teaching a child how to do it. The only thing wrong with that picture was the idea that we’d be single parents, exchanging custody on weekends.”

  “Never.”

  “It could have happened.”

  “It didn’t. From today forward, it will be impossible for us to give up and go our separate ways. It’s that extra circle of diamonds—I’ll do anything to protect what we have.”

  Her breath hitched and she put her head down on his chest, turning her ear so she could hear his heart beat. She waited until the tears that had welled up subsided. Then she propped her chin on her fist, on his chest. “I don’t want to cry anymore, not even happy tears. Let’s do something else. Didn’t you mention something about the contents of a first aid kit?”

  She sat up, straddling his hips, and immediately understood that her underwear and his flannel pants were going to have to go. Soon. She reached over his head to the pile of gear, searching for the first aid kit. Her loose T-shirt dragged over his face.

  “I thought it was too cold in here,” he said. “I’m not supposed to touch you.”

  She found the first aid kit and set it on the ground above the pillow, then sat up again, wiggling a little to position herself directly over his already-firm body. “It’s gotten considerably warmer, don’t you think?”

  She crossed her arms in front of herself, grabbed the edge of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head with a flourish. It caught for a second on the new ring she wore as she dropped it in a heap by their bedroll.

  Braden sucked in a short breath, a hiss between his teeth, a sound of frustration. This time, it was exactly the type of frustration she’d wanted to cause. She gloried in her power when his body went even harder beneath her.

  “We’re supposed to be talking,” Braden had the nerve to remind her.

  “Let’s see what’s in this first aid kit that might be useful right about now,” Lana said, and she stretched herself above him to pop open the white box, letting her bare breasts tease his mouth.

  “How the hell can I talk like this?” With a growl, Braden rolled her onto her back. She shoved the waistband of his flannel pants down while he dumped out the first aid kit, grabbed a packet and tore it open with his teeth. She’d barely gotten her panties off one leg when Braden clasped her bent knee to his hip and sank deeply into her welcoming body.

  Her intake of breath might have sounded like a sharp hiss in the silent Texas night, but it was only the sound of the word yes, and yes again, as Braden arched into her body, proving what a perfect match they were and had always been.

  It felt familiar and new and too good. Too good—she couldn’t last long if he kept moving in just that perfect motion. Excitement built rapidly. Maybe she’d last one more stroke. Two.

  Three strokes, and she fell over the edge of her peak, to land, safe, in the arms of her only love.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lana was late to work on Monday.

  Sunday morning had begun lazily, with lovemaking in the tent. She and Braden had then dressed, rekindled the fire, set the coffeepot on its iron stand to heat and gone back into the tent and undressed again.

  They’d saddled the horses and ridden a short distance before agreeing to dismount and give the horses a few moments of rest. There wasn’t much else to do while the horses nibbled grass, except to conduct an experiment on the level of warmth one could maintain while having sex in the great outdoors in February’s winter weather. They proved that very few clothes actually had to be removed, so staying warm was quite possible.

  They broke camp, trailered the horses, rolled up the sleeping bags and packed the tent. As they drove back to the ranch house, they agreed that only desperate teenagers would resort to having sex on the uncomfortable bench seat of a work truck. There were definite benefits to being established professionals in their thirties, able to afford the most comfortable rooms in the finest hotels. Then they stopped the truck and had sex one more time, anyway.

  Lana had blushed her way through a surprise dinner at Marion’s house. At least, it had been a surprise to her. Braden had expected Quinn and Jamie. Lana had been the last to know she was getting engaged this weekend, apparently.

  Jamie’s wife, Kendry, appeared to be the most quiet and unassuming redhead Lana had ever met, until Lana walked onto the porch and caught Jamie and Kendry in an embrace that was anything but demure. Their son was a gorgeous toddler, happy and confident, and probably not destined to be an only child for long.

  Braden had slept in Lana’s apartment Sunday night. They’d agreed that the cardboard boxes and the mattress on the floor were more than adequate after their camping trip. They could assemble the bed properly on Monday morning, but Monday morning...well, Lana was late to work.

  Myrna spotted the ring immediately, and Lana enjoyed the hugs and the camaraderie of having another woman with whom she could ooh and aah over the admittedly dazzling gems. Once she settled into her desk, Lana tried not to brood as she waited for the computer to power up. Braden was on his way to New York. She was here. But she wore his ring, and she was sure of his love, and she’d see him on Thursday night.

  By Wednesday, Lana missed him so badly, she ached. Only that past Saturday, she’d been sitting by the campfire, thinking that a long-distance marriage could work. She’d been sure she could keep up her workaholic routine between passionate interludes with her fiancé. The reality was, Braden’s absence was painful, and she was finding it hard to work through the pain.

  Then Braden arrived on Thursday night, and Lana was happy once more, until an internal crisis in PLI required Braden to cut their long weekend short. He flew to Chicago this time, not New York.

  Lana showed up to work early on Monday, then wasted her time checking weather reports for Chicago. She hoped he got out before the city was snowed in. He had to return to New York in time to finish his work there so that he’d come back to Texas on Friday.

  She told herself that she could survive until Friday, but she’d forgotten how much joy there could be in physical affection. It had been years since she’d had the right to lean her head on her man’s shoulder whenever she wished—in the grocery store, at the movies, in bed. Now that she’d been so vividly reminded during their shortened weekend, she wasn’t sure she could live without it.

  When Braden called after safely making it into New York, she closed her eyes so that she could imagine his face instead of staring at her apartment walls.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound blue.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  The feeling of déjà vu made her slightly nauseous. They were doing it again. Living far apart, not really talking, even when they were talking. She looked at the ring on her left hand and resolved to do better this time.

  Braden spoke. “I was calling to let you know—”

  “Actually, honey, I am blue.”

  There was a short pause on the other end of the line. “
What’s going on?” His voice was softer. She could feel him with her.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m not seeing enough of you.”

  “That’s not complicated. I feel the same way.”

  “The solution might be simple. I know you can’t be here until Friday, but maybe I could fly up to New York tomorrow. I don’t really have any vacation days accrued yet, but honestly, with this CEO’s administration, no one is keeping track of that kind of thing around here.”

  A slightly longer pause this time. “I was calling to let you know that I’m on my way to San Francisco. It’s a last-minute thing.”

  Her disappointment was deep. “I understand. It’s fine.”

  He laughed, but there was no happiness in the sound. “I know that voice. Don’t pretend it’s fine. Help me un-complicate it.”

  Lana looked at her ring. Braden was right. Clamming up and pretending everything was fine was not going to protect their relationship.

  “First of all,” she said, “I haven’t told you today how much I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “That never gets old. I’ve been thinking of a longer-term solution. I could quit my job and move to New York.”

  Braden whistled softly. “Go ahead and tell me the complicated part.”

  “Even if I quit my job and moved to New York for the rest of the year, there would still be Chicago and San Francisco and all those other days without you. I don’t think I’d make a very good pet, waiting in a New York apartment with nothing to do except wait for my man to visit.”

  Braden laughed again, and this time there was a spark of fun in the sound. “I like the idea of any man trying to turn you into a kept woman. I’m too smart to attempt it. You belong at West Central. There’s something right about the former chief resident returning to chair a department. That’s my family’s hospital. I want the best doctors to work there, and that means you.”

  “I can hardly get anything done, I miss you so much.”

  Men’s voices sounded in the background on Braden’s end of the line.

  “I know the feeling,” he told her, his voice sounding less intimate. “I have to end this call in a minute. The plane’s in line for takeoff.”

  Lana sighed. It looked as though there was no particular solution to this problem, but it had been good to talk honestly about her feelings.

  “When we’re airborne, I’ll get my V.P. on the line,” Braden said into the silence. “I’ll have him look into leasing executive space in Austin. I could relocate now, instead of waiting for an entire facility to be completed. That doesn’t eliminate trips like this one, but there are a whole lot of nights in New York I could spend in Austin instead.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea.” Lana felt like a little kid who’d just gotten a Christmas gift that her parents had told her they couldn’t afford.

  “I’ve got to go,” Braden said. “I’ll see you Friday.”

  * * *

  Friday arrived, but Braden did not.

  From California, he’d been called to PLI India. Urgently. No warning. He’d spent all day Friday flying not to Texas, but to the other side of the globe. Myrna had removed the pink paper hearts from their office door, because February was over.

  Lana spent the weekend calculating transpacific time zones, only calling Braden when she was sure she wouldn’t wake him.

  She didn’t give in to her frustration. They were working on this. It might take a few more months, certainly no more than a year, and then they’d cut down a few of these separations.

  His week in India became two. Myrna started decorating their office door with green paper shamrocks.

  We’re working on it, Lana reminded herself.

  Regardless, the first weeks of their engagement had proven one thing: there was no way they could build a family like this. No matter what ring Lana wore, she’d be that single parent they’d promised each other they’d never be.

  At the very least, then, she could look into some more convenient birth control while they un-complicated their current arrangement. Lana called a doctor at another hospital across town, an acquaintance that she wouldn’t run into as a coworker. Lana became the patient, albeit one who was slipped into the schedule late on Friday as a professional courtesy. Before starting a new form of birth control, her new doctor ran a pregnancy test. It was a common formality, a matter of course.

  Of course.

  The test came back positive.

  * * *

  Lana was late to work on Monday. Morning sickness could do that to a person.

  She’d kept herself together over the weekend. Perhaps she’d felt the panic crawl up her throat a time or two, but she’d reminded herself that history wasn’t repeating itself. Braden would be with her. He’d be moving his offices to Austin soon, doing so without even knowing she was pregnant.

  This pregnancy would be different. Once Braden found out she was expecting, she wouldn’t have to handle everything on her own. She wouldn’t be moving back to her parents’ home—although she thought flying her parents to her after the baby came might be a good idea. Her mother would know what to do with a little baby. Lana certainly didn’t.

  The panic crawled up her throat. She pushed it back down. Again.

  Everything would be fine. She’d have Braden to talk to, Braden to hold her, Braden to remind her that this baby had two parents, and it wasn’t her sole responsibility to make all the correct decisions.

  That was, once he got back from India. Once she had a chance to tell him she was pregnant. Lana didn’t want to break the news when he was halfway around the world. She’d maintained her facade of normalcy all weekend during their phone calls. Now, despite arriving late to work, she was prepared to keep pretending nothing was different.

  Myrna was already on the phones, calling pentagab patients one by one to schedule their next check-in. Lana powered up her computer and opened her daily calendar of events as if nothing had changed.

  As if she weren’t petrified that she might have another miscarriage.

  The fear was irrational. There was no reason to expect that she’d have another early miscarriage. Then again, there was no reason not to expect it.

  If it happened, then it happened, and she would deal with it. Alone. Because despite his promise that she’d never have to handle that particular misery on her own, Braden was now on another continent. India was a twenty-four-hour journey, even by private jet.

  So far, this pregnancy felt just as scary and she felt just as alone as she had the last time. Being engaged to a millionaire working in India wasn’t much different than being engaged to a broke grad student in Boston.

  Lana skipped her morning coffee. She set a timer so that she wouldn’t forget to eat lunch. She had a stilted conversation when Braden called her at eleven. His day was already over. Hers was just beginning.

  She wished something at work would distract her.

  On Tuesday, she got her wish. She arrived at the hospital on time, ready for work in her most businesslike dress, the navy one she’d worn the day she’d taken over the department. Television crews with their vans and tall antennae were stationed outside the lobby doors. Lana guessed that everyone who would normally be in the hospital had decided to linger outside the doors, too, waiting to see if anything would happen.

  Lana stood at the edge of the crowd, but as more people arrived and piled in behind her, she started to feel penned in. She angled her body and sidestepped her way toward the door. She was going to be late to work at this rate. She needed to get to the office.

  She didn’t get far. An officer stopped her and the rest of the crowd from moving farther by unrolling a piece of yellow police tape. Do Not Cross.

  Swell. Lana pulled out her cell phone from her leather bag and dialed Myrna, hoping she’d know what was happening. A major celebrity must have been admitted to the hospital. Perhaps a woman had given birth to octuplets.

 
Lana shook her head at that last thought. She had babies on her brain, for certain.

  Just as she dialed her own office number, Lana saw the reason for the press. The lobby doors slid open, and uniformed police officers walked out, escorting the CEO of West Central. He was in handcuffs. The crowd around her shuffled excitedly, jostling for a better view. The crackers Lana had managed to keep down for breakfast threatened to come back up.

  A patrol car waited only yards away, but the walk was long enough to allow the reporters to shout a barrage of questions.

  “How many millions did you embezzle?”

  “Do you deny the governor’s charges of insurance fraud?”

  “Is it true West Central is on the verge of bankruptcy?”

  One policeman used his hand to make sure the CEO didn’t bump his head as he got into the backseat of the patrol car.

  Lana watched and listened, nauseous, while holding her phone to her ear.

  “Research and Development, Myrna speaking. This call may be recorded. How can I help you?”

  “It’s me, Myrna. I’m outside. Have you heard the news?”

  At the moment, the CEO must have decided to give the press a bigger headline. Perhaps he said something, or made some gesture, but suddenly, cameras were rushing the police car, and the crowd followed suit.

  Lana was knocked to the ground, sending her phone skittering away, then pushed another foot forward on the asphalt. She barely felt the abrasions on her hands and knees, as angry as she was. Others around her had been pushed, as well. She scrambled back to her feet—no easy feat in her dress and pumps.

  “Stand back,” she ordered the crowd at large. It might have been like shouting in the wind, but she was right, so she did it. Two hands up, she repeated her order, stepping slightly to her left so that she was blocking the crowd from walking on another downed woman, a person several decades her senior.

  The initial surge stalled of its own accord, and Lana turned immediately to link an arm with the large woman, who was floundering about ineffectively. “Come on, pull on me. Let’s get you up.”

  No sooner had she gotten the woman on her feet again than the crowd surged for a second time. The woman went down again with a shriek. Their arms linked, she hauled Lana down with her, so that Lana landed on her back on top of her. Instinctively, she turned to roll off the woman, putting her already-raw hand down on the asphalt. It hurt the second time, really hurt, and then someone kicked her in the back, in the kidney.