The Doctor's Pregnancy Bombshell

by Janice Lynn

  “What about Mom?”

  “She’s holding up.” Holding up, but living inside a glasshouse she expected to shatter around her at a moment’s notice.

  “James called to check on you.” Debbie’s gaze bore into her, seeing through the façade Melissa wore.

  Not for one minute did Melissa think she was fooling her friend.

  “He’s convinced he should have canceled out this semester.” Her friend looked at her thoughtfully. “He seems so besotted with you. How are things at home?”

  In some ways home was wonderful. She spent lots of time each evening with James. Occasionally they made house calls together. Occasionally, when he knew the patient, he went alone. But more and more she was routing her patients through the Dekalb emergency room or, if possible, having them wait until the following day before she saw them in the office. Plus, her patients seemed to sense that with her pregnancy she had to cut back and fewer infringed on her evening hours.

  But James held back. Emotionally and physically. He refused to discuss Cailee and when she tried, he’d immediately shut her out.

  Melissa shrugged in response to Debbie’s question. “He’s the perfect father-to-be, making sure I eat right, keep my feet propped up, rubbing my back.” She wished his magic hands were rubbing right now, because Junior was using her spine for a punching bag, her ribs for a soccer ball. Punch. Kick. Kick.

  “I meant between the two of you.”

  “Nothing different.” Wasn’t that what he’d said after telling her about Cailee? That nothing had changed? Melissa stretched her spine, hoping to ease the pressure and her heartache. “He plans to leave after the baby is born.”

  Debbie’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think he’ll really go?”

  Yeah, she thought he would leave. Just last week a realtor had called about a house he’d looked at. In Nashville. Which she refused to think about now. She’d deal with that later, after the baby came. But she worried about how James would handle fatherhood. Would he see Cailee every time he looked at their baby? How could she help him if he refused to talk to her?

  He was right. Nothing had changed. They were still holding back from each other.

  She swallowed back the thoughts that haunted her night after night. Thoughts that ranged from James walking away from her and the baby to him becoming so besotted with their child that he fought for full custody.

  “I should see Jamie now.”

  Debbie nodded, letting Melissa change the subject.

  “Hi, Jamie,” Melissa said, entering the exam room. “How are you feeling today?”

  Debbie had written “Talk” in the chart so Jamie couldn’t have told her why she’d come in.

  Jamie had lost weight. Her eyebrows had fallen out months ago, and although she’d finished her chemo, they hadn’t started growing back yet. As with each time Melissa had seen her, Jamie’s eyes were red and puffy as if she spent most of her time crying.

  “I’m not sure where to start.” Jamie stared at her hands.

  “Are the girls OK?” Melissa prompted, when Jamie visibly struggled to find words.

  “Things aren’t good at home.”

  “Financially?”

  “Money is a problem, but it always has been.” Jamie put her hands under her jeans-clad legs. “After everything you’ve done for me, I don’t know how to say this.”

  Melissa’s heart filled with dread. Something bad was going on.

  “I’m through.”

  Uh-oh. “Through?”

  “I’m tired.” Jamie’s eyes beseeched Melissa to understand. “Too tired. I can’t fight this anymore.”

  “The girls—”

  “Wish I was dead.” Tears streamed down Jamie’s face. “And so do I.”

  “Oh, Jamie. We’ve discussed this in the past. You know they don’t mean it. You’ve come so far.” Jamie had made it through her chemotherapy, through her mastectomy, and was now having her radiation treatments. “You’re beating the cancer, Jamie. Dr Arnold told me so.”

  Jamie’s face pinched at the mention of the surgeon’s name.

  “I lost a long time ago, long before Roger died. Maybe from the moment I married him.” The woman swiped at her tears. “I’ve tried to do what’s right, be there for my girls, but they’d be better off without me.”

  “That isn’t true. Cindy and Amanda need you. So much.”

  “You’re wrong. Cindy is having trouble in school. She’s run away from home twice in the past month. Amanda cries herself to sleep every night, asking for Roger. I’m at my wits’ end.”

  “The school counselor hasn’t helped?”

  Jamie’s gaze dropped. “She says it’s my fault the girls haven’t dealt with Roger’s death.”

  “She said what?” Apparently the only counselor available was doing more harm than good. Melissa would be placing a call to the school counselor to find out what was going on.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Jamie lifted her shoulders. “I just wanted you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  “Jamie.” Melissa made eye contact and gave voice to what she’d feared from the moment Jamie had made her admission, “You’re scaring me. You sound suicidal.”

  Jamie looked down, fiddled with her bitten-to-the-quick fingernails.

  “Are you thinking of killing yourself, Jamie?” Melissa held her breath, waiting for an answer she didn’t want to hear.

  “I want to die.”

  “How?” Please, don’t have a plan.

  “I just want to go to sleep and not wake up.”

  “Do you have a plan, Jamie? A way to make yourself go to sleep and not wake up?”

  She hesitated long enough that warning bells went off in Melissa’s head. “I’ve thought about taking more of my insulin than I should. I’d just go into a coma and not wake up again.”

  She had a plan on how to kill herself.

  “Jamie, I think you’re telling me this because you don’t want to die, but are scared by your feelings.” Melissa took her hand. “I want to help you, but I’m not able to provide the care you need. I’m going to send you to get special help.”

  “No.” Jamie shook her head. “I can’t go anywhere. What would I do with the girls?”

  “What would happen to them if you weren’t here, Jamie? If you died, where would they go? Do you think your sister could handle another two? Even if she tried, it would be difficult.”

  Jamie’s eyes closed.

  “You need help that I’m not qualified to give. I’m going to call your sister, ask her to take the girls for a few days.”

  “She won’t.”

  Something more was going on. “Why not?”

  “She’s not speaking to me.”

  Which might have been the straw that had broken the camel’s back.

  “Did you argue?” she asked gently.

  Jamie nodded.

  “What happened?”

  Jamie shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “If this is what’s made you want to die, you need to talk about it.”

  “It’s not.”

  Melissa didn’t believe her. Jamie had remained so strong through it all, an ideal patient, according to Dr Arnold. Dr Arnold had taken a special interest in Jamie. Even when Melissa and he talked about other patients, Jamie’s name always came into the conversation. Always. And the interest sounded more and more personal rather than professional.

  Jamie had a lot to live for. Dr Arnold was a good man.

  Melissa weighed her options. She could have Jamie committed if she believed she intended to hurt herself. She looked at the blond woman, shoulders slumped, eyes dejected.

  Did she think Jamie would really hurt herself? That was the million-dollar question.

  Jamie was crying out for help and had no one to turn to except her. She wouldn’t risk being wrong.

  “I’m going to call the crisis hotline. A counselor will come to the office to talk with you. I think they’ll advise you to go to t
he hospital for a while.”

  Jamie’s eyes widened in protest.

  “If your sister can’t watch the girls, I’ll look after them.”

  Jamie’s gaze dropped to Melissa’s belly, reminding her that her timing might be off for making such a grand gesture.

  “I’m not due for another week. It’ll be fine.” Somehow it would be. She would see to it.

  Jamie shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Isn’t that the wonderful thing about friends?” Melissa squeezed her hand. “You didn’t have to ask. I offered.”

  Lunchtime came, but talking with the crisis counselor put Melissa behind and she hadn’t finished with her morning patients. Still, she stopped for a yogurt and an apple. She’d made James a promise and would do her best to live up to that promise.

  For the past two weeks he’d refused to let her work full time. She hadn’t wanted to give in, but had, for James. He’d lived up to his end of the bargain. Her practice flourished, and she was honest enough to admit that she would have had to cut back even if James hadn’t forced the issue. His help kept things moving normally, better than normal. He saw patients with her on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, lightening her workload tremendously. And for the past month he’d come home early on Tuesdays and Thursdays, insisting she get some rest.

  Today, she wouldn’t argue. Her back throbbed.

  Fortunately, Jamie’s worried sister agreed to take the girls, but would need them picked up from school. Cindy had to stay for detention each afternoon due to not doing her homework.

  “How’s your day been?” James asked, arriving at the clinic, slipping off his coat and doing the obligatory belly rub.

  Even knowing that he touched the baby rather than her, Melissa’s pulse quickened. When the baby gave a hearty push against his hand, James smiled. Heat filled Melissa at the tenderness in his blue eyes. He would be OK. Together they would deal with his past, with Cailee’s death.

  “OK for the most part.” She started to tell him about Jamie, but Debbie knocked on the office door.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but Ben Brown is in the procedure room. He sliced his hand open while cutting wood. He’s bleeding pretty badly.”

  “I’ll be right there,” James told the nurse, then smiled at Melissa. “I’ll take care of Ben. Go home. You look tired.”

  “It has been a long day,” she admitted, wishing they’d had time to talk about Jamie. In the past they’d rarely talked about patients. These days they shared insights and smiles over the day’s events. They would talk tonight.

  The weather took a turn for the worse and a few snowflakes fell from the gray sky. Melissa left her car running and, bundled up in her oversized coat, waddled into the school.

  When Amanda saw her, heard why Melissa was there, she started crying. “She’s dead, isn’t she? I wished her dead, and now she is. Just like my daddy.”

  Startled by Amanda’s unexpected reaction, Melissa wrapped her arms around the little girl, held her sobbing body, offering words of comfort.

  Obviously thinking similarly to her sister, Cindy crouched on the floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and curled into a ball. Eyes closed, she rocked back and forth.

  Not knowing if she’d be able to get up, Melissa lowered herself to the floor, pulling Amanda and Cindy to her. The three of them embraced, crying together for what seemed like hours. Melissa cried for Jamie, for the girls, for what should have been between her and James.

  Some time later, tears all dried, Amanda eyed Melissa’s dilemma. “We need a bulldozer.”

  “I think you mean a crane.” Melissa smiled.

  The girls each took a hand and between them and the teacher who’d stood by, nervously watching them huddle on the school floor, Melissa managed to get to her feet.

  But not without a new stab of pain across her back. A sharp one that stole her breath. Fortunately, it lasted only seconds, but she didn’t need James to know she’d overdone it.

  The girls looked so forlorn when she told them where she planned to take them that she didn’t have it in her to just drop them off and leave. Instead, she drove to Dekalb, bought meals from a fast-food chain and explained what she could of what Jamie wanted her daughters to know about her depression.

  They listened to Melissa’s explanations with an understanding in their eyes that belied their ages. Then again, they’d lived through hell the past year.

  Although Jamie would still face a lot of issues when she came home, they would be more supportive. Jamie would have the girls and Dr Arnold, who Melissa had contacted. Admitting that he had feelings for Jamie, he planned to drive to Nashville.

  Despite the chilly, snowy weather, Amanda wanted an ice-cream cone. Melissa gave Cindy the money to purchase one and watched the girls go hand in hand to pay for it.

  Her phone rang.

  She glanced at the displayed number and her heart tripped. “Hello, James.”

  “Where are you? I finished early and expected to find you asleep.”

  “I’m in Dekalb.”

  Silence. “Everything OK?”

  “Fine.” Except that her back was killing her and Jamie had been hospitalized for suicidal ideations and she’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to her—him.

  “Debbie told me about Jamie Moss.” Had he read her mind? “I knew you’d be upset. That’s why I hurried home.”

  Home. These past few weeks with him, it had felt like home. But James would leave and home would no longer be home. Home was where the heart was and hers lay with James.

  Her gaze fell on the two young girls watching her curiously. All they’d faced hit her again with full force. Life was so short, so precious.

  In that moment she knew that she could deal with the fallout of James leaving, but not idly or with acceptance. He may think he was going back to Nashville after their baby was born, but she’d pack the baby’s things and her own and follow him. Now that she knew why he kept the world at bay, she’d find a way around those protective walls and heal his heart.

  He’d loved her once and she’d do whatever it took to nurture and restore those feelings.

  “Melissa?” James said, reminding her that he was on the phone.

  “I’ll be home in about an hour.” She hoped he didn’t catch the break in her voice. Why had she gone weepy-eyed? “I’ve got to take the girls to Jamie’s sister.”

  He hesitated, as if he suspected more was going on. Perhaps he thought her emotional state was because of Jamie. Just wait until she told him the truth.

  “Be careful,” he warned. “The roads are dangerously slippery.”

  The roads were treacherous. Snow had turned to sleet and sheets of ice pelted her car. The drive took twice as long as it should have. She feared losing control on the icy road.

  By the time she pulled into her garage, the ache in her back had increased to the point where it was all she could do not to cry out with pain. She leaned forward, resting her head on the steering wheel. Rubbing her hands over her lower back, she tried to figure out how to tell James all the things in her heart.

  Her car door opened and James touched her shoulder. “You OK?”

  She looked up, startled. He must have rushed out the second he’d heard the garage door. What did that mean?

  “Not really,” she admitted, searching his eyes for a clue about his feelings. He cared, but did he love her? Another spasm shot pain down her legs. “My back is killing me.”

  “I knew something was up. You didn’t sound yourself.” His gaze traveled over her in concern. “Any contractions?”

  “My belly’s been tight, but no contractions.”

  “The baby’s movements are normal?”

  “His feet have played contact sport with my ribs all day.” Even now she wanted to take her hands and push downward near her ribs in the hope of repositioning the baby. Not that she could. There wasn’t room. “Help me?”

  He took her hand, easing her out of the vehicle and into th
e house. He held her arm, slowly lowering her into an oversized chair. When she leaned back, he removed her shoes and propped her feet on a footstool. He treated her like she was a helpless child, but between her thoughts and the all too real pain in her back, she didn’t care.

  “Better?” He rubbed the arches of her feet.

  “Much.” Not really, but after a few minutes of relaxation, getting over that horrible drive, the pain would ease. Besides, the tender, concerned look in James’s eyes was enough to make her feel better regardless of her back.

  She wanted to be with him. To sleep in his arms and to wake up to the feel, smell, and sight of him next to her.

  And she had to tell him. Now.

  “I wish I’d married you when I had the chance.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JAMES’S fingers paused from working their magic on her aching feet.

  When the silence stretched, she glanced at where he knelt on the floor. His face masked, he watched her with eyes gone midnight blue.

  His thumbs pressed into the balls of her feet and rotated outwards. Although not painful, his touch changed, became strained, tense.

  “We could remedy that.”

  Her heart thudded to a halt. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “You’d marry me?”

  His grip on her foot tightened almost imperceptibly. “It would solve custody issues.”

  Custody issues. For the breadth of a heartbeat, she’d thought he wanted her. How could she have forgotten the baby? The baby’s health and well-being were his number one priorities.

  She wanted James in her life, but not at the expense of his happiness.

  “What about Nashville?”

  He frowned. “What about it?”

  She leaned forward, meaning to place her hand over his and tell him she’d go anywhere in the world, just so long as she was with him, but her belly got in the way and a sharp pain slashed across her low back. A strangled cry tore from her lips.

  Gripping the armrests with clammy palms, she breathed deeply. The pain would ease. She shut her eyes and concentrated on remaining calm, focusing on her breathing. In. Out.

  Damp heat washed over her body and another stabbing pain hit. Had her body just split in two?