Only now—now that it had happened and Merry was standing before him, awaiting his reaction—he felt a stirring of something that he’d left well alone for a very long time. A feeling that he had kept locked away since he was very young, as soon as he had been capable of making such a decision.
His baby. His.
She had to be three months along. Heading into the second trimester. He looked down at her abdomen, but it was still flat. He watched her cover her abdomen with her hands, almost as if she could protect the baby from his stare.
‘You want to keep it?’
He knew it was a horrible question to ask, but he figured she’d come all this way to tell him, so the likelihood that she did was strong. But he needed to know for sure. Needed her to say the words.
A look flashed in those chocolate eyes of hers. ‘Yes. I do. I am. I need nothing from you, Kristjan. I just thought I’d do the right thing and let you know. And now that I have I can go home again.’
He frowned. Go home again? She had to be kidding? Down the mountain? In this? And they’d sorted nothing out. Nothing at all! What was going to happen in the future? With money. Visitation rights etc.
Why am I thinking about any of that? It’s not like I’m going to be a full-time father. She lives in another country!
And that thought burrowed its way down into his soul like a root. It took hold of the desire he’d once hidden, then spread its tendrils throughout him and headed back up to the surface with tender green shoots, its leaves curling open in the light, revealing itself to him.
I can’t let her go back. Not yet.
‘Not in this weather, you can’t. Have you looked outside? The mountain pass will be treacherous. People have died in less severe weather than this.’
She frowned, glancing out of the window. ‘For how long? Till tomorrow?’
She really knew nothing about the weather patterns in his country. ‘I’d say at least a few days.’
Her face registered her shock at his statement. ‘A few days? But I’m booked on a flight home in two days!’
‘You won’t make it. We’ll phone the airport and rearrange your flight. Looks like you’re going to be here over Christmas.’
‘But...’
He could see the thoughts racing over her face as she looked from him to the window and back again. She really was beautiful. Even when she’d looked wet and bedraggled and freezing cold he’d wanted to take her in his arms and pull her towards him. To feel her soft body against his once more. All those feelings he’d stamped down since she left him in Hawaii had come rushing back.
And now that she was looking lost and hopeless... Well, that just made him want to look after her. Only he couldn’t. Because she was pregnant with his child. Any move he made to restart what they’d finished in Hawaii would only make her think that they were in some sort of relationship—and they were not.
A baby, though...
That was huge. That was commitment on a grand scale. That was opening himself up to a world of possible heartache and pain, and so far, for most of his life, he’d avoided that by staying single and only having to look after himself. It was a rule that he had kept to for all these years and it had served him well.
Now everything would change. If he got involved in this—when he got involved...
‘I’ll arrange lodgings for you,’ he said.
‘There won’t be anything. It’s December. All the rooms in the hotels have been taken by holidaymakers bringing their kids to Wonderland and I got the last room at the B&B, which was only available for two nights. I suppose I could ask them for space on the sofa or the floor after that... They’re expecting me.’
Wonderland was the huge purpose-built village next to Snowy Peak that was a Christmas paradise for kids and their families. It brought in a lot of money and was good for the local economy, employing a lot of the locals who lived around the mountain.
He sighed, making a decision without thinking too hard about it. ‘Then you’ll stay with me.’
‘What? I can’t do that!’
‘I won’t have the mother of my child sleeping on a floor. Not when there’s a perfectly good bed in my home.’
She looked at him uncertainly. She bit her bottom lip again in a way that was most disconcerting and did strange things to him below his belt.
‘A spare bed?’ she asked.
‘You think I’m asking you to sleep with me?’
‘Well...’
‘Relax. I’m more than capable of resisting you. You’ll be perfectly safe.’
He hoped he sounded believable, because he knew how she made him feel, and asking her to stay with him for the next few days was going to be...strange. Especially since he’d never let anyone into his own personal space before. Certainly not someone like her...
‘I guess I should say thank you...’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Am I expected to sit around twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do, though?’
He thought for a moment. ‘We can give you privileges at the hospital. You can work here. You’re a paediatrician, and we need an extra person over the holidays anyway.’
She nodded. ‘All right. I’ll feel better if I’m earning my keep. That way I can pay you for board and lodging and food.’
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘Oh, but I do.’
He stared at her, mulling over the idea of going over to her, pulling her against his chest and kissing her until she stopped talking. He wasn’t used to having people argue with him, and her determination to stand on her own two feet and pay him for staying at his place seemed to arouse his desire for her even more—which felt odd to him, because he never went back. He always moved forward.
But he held back. Considered her. The steady resolve in the eyes staring back at him was almost like a challenge. She was no walkover, was she?
‘Then let’s go see the Chief and get you set up. And then we’ll need to get you out of those clothes.’ He smiled, determined to put her on the back foot.
‘I beg your pardon? These are perfectly acceptable—’
‘And get you into some scrubs.’ He grinned and held the door open for her. ‘After you.’
He watched her as she walked past in her black polo neck and purple skirt, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. It was floral. He couldn’t pick out which flower, but it was very nice...soft and gentle. The aroma warmed his senses, making him want to pick up a tress of her hair and inhale it some more.
Only he didn’t do that.
He couldn’t do that.
Instead, he kept control of his impulses and led her down to the Chief’s office.
* * *
Merry picked up her first chart, gave it a brief scan, and then headed over to the bed. A really small little girl lay dwarfed in it, surrounded by teddy bears.
‘Hello, there. My name is Dr Bell. Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?’ She smiled at the little girl. It said on her chart that she was three years old, but she looked half that.
‘Tinna.’
‘Hello, Tinna!’ She reached out to take hold of the little girl’s fingers and shook her hand. ‘Nice to meet you. Now...’ she looked up at the child’s parents, who had stood up on the other side of the bed on her arrival ‘...can you tell me what’s brought you in here, today?’
The parents looked at each other and frowned. Clearly language was going to be a problem here. They obviously knew some basic English, but not much, and as she knew zero Icelandic they were in trouble.
She turned to look for help and saw Kristjan stroll over from another child’s bedside.
‘Need some assistance?’
Rankled, she pursed her lips. ‘There seems to be a language barrier...’
‘Ah. Okay. I’ll translate for you.’
Which he did.
‘She’s had a seizure,’ he said.
‘Okay. When did that happen?’
‘Just after dinner.’
‘She wasn’t choking on her food, or anything like that?’
The parents shook their heads.
‘And has she had a seizure before?’
All of this information was in the notes, but she wanted to check and make sure. Sometimes parents remembered extra details on a subsequent retelling of events.
‘No.’
‘Okay... And how long did it last?’
‘Not long. Maybe a half minute?’
‘And she has Tay-Sachs?’
Tay-Sachs disease was an inherited condition that mainly affected babies and small children. It had no cure. It would stop the nerves from working, so that young sufferers would lose the ability to use their muscles, reach normal milestones. They would have swallowing difficulties, seizures, and the diseases would eventually be fatal. Not many Tay-Sachs sufferers made it past the age of five.
‘Yes.’
‘All right.’ She put down the chart and sat on the edge of the bed. She smiled at Tinna. ‘Okay, so we need to give you some medication to help stop what’s happened to you today, so that hopefully it doesn’t happen again. Is that all right, Tinna?’
‘She wants to know if it will taste bad.’
She smiled. ‘No, it won’t. How do you feel right now?’
‘Okay.’
She turned to the parents. ‘Have you noticed any stiffness lately? Any speech problems? Swallowing difficulties?’
‘A little.’
‘Okay, so some physiotherapy might help her with that. Obviously we want Tinna to keep moving and be strong for as long as she can.’
‘Is she going to be in hospital for a long time? They have family visiting, and it’s Christmas soon, and they wonder if they’ll be able to take her home?’
‘I understand.’ She turned to the parents once more, speaking low after Kristjan translated. ‘I’d like to keep her in for at least twenty-four hours, just to be on the safe side. We’ll get her on anti-seizure medication, and if she has no more seizures I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to take her home.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
‘You’re welcome.’ She shook their hands, said goodbye to Tinna, and then went over with Kristjan to the doctors’ station. He managed to dwarf everything, due to his size.
He smiled down at her. ‘So, how did you feel your first consult went?’
‘Fine. I feel really sorry for that little girl, though. And her poor parents. Tay-Sachs is awful... How do you cope as a parent, knowing your child won’t live? It just doesn’t seem right.’
She sat down and began inputting her notes, requesting medication for Tinna and asking for her family to be allowed to take her home afterwards. Today had been the child’s first seizure, but it would be the start of many. Next time it might be breathing problems that brought Tinna in, and if she got pneumonia...
Merry tried to get rid of the sad thoughts in her head, but she couldn’t, and she fought back the sudden sting of tears. A disease like Tay-Sachs was inherited. She had no idea of her own medical history! Her baby could get sick. Merry seemed healthy, and so did Kristjan—for now. But what about what the future held? Neither of them could know and that scared her.
‘Are you all right?’
Kristjan’s low voice sounded concerned. She forced a bright smile to her face and shrugged. ‘I’m fine! What makes you think I’m not?’
‘You suddenly stopped typing and you seemed to drift off for a moment.’
‘I was thinking.’
‘About...?’
What? Did he expect her to share every thought in her head? Who did he think he was? Just because she’d slept with him, and was now carrying his baby, did he think he suddenly had the right to know everything about her? Perhaps agreeing to stay with him was a bad idea. What did she know about him, really?
She couldn’t tell him her doubts. How would that sound? Oh, I don’t want to come and stay at yours because you might be an axe murderer.
‘I’m just hungry. It’s been a long day.’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘Of course. I didn’t think. Did you eat on the flight?’
‘No, it was just a couple of hours.’
‘Let me get you something now.’
‘You don’t have to do that!’ she tried to protest.
But he was already up on his feet and looking taller than ever. He was like a wall—a mountain of a man, with a rugged exterior.
‘Of course I do. You don’t know where anything is yet. What do you want? Something savoury or something sweet?’
Well, she was so ravenous she would eat anything! ‘Both!’
He smiled. ‘A woman with a big appetite? I like that.’
Was he still talking about food? She couldn’t tell. Not when he was looking at her like that. As if he could eat her!
She flushed, feeling the heat in her cheeks, and had to look away, resume her typing.
It was only as he was walking away that she stopped to look at him. His bottom was neatly moulded by his trousers, atop his big, thick, muscular thighs. His plait of hair, tied neatly at the bottom with a twist of leather, reached almost halfway down his broad back.
She remembered what it had felt like to be pressed up against that hard body, and that stirred another type of hunger that she’d hoped she’d got a lid on.
She was going to be working and living with Dr Kristjan Gunnarsson for at least a few days. Maybe even a week! Over Christmas!
It wasn’t that she had any family of her own to miss... And Merry figured he was almost her family now. No matter how the future played out, he would always be a part of her life because of their child.
How do I feel about that?
Kristjan was very pretty to look at and lust over, but what else was he? A good doctor, she supposed. He looked after sick kids, and you had to be pretty hard-core to do that. Being a paediatric doctor wasn’t for wimps, so he had to be strong emotionally. And he was crazy good in bed...
She cursed and dismissed those intrusive, naughty, X-rated thoughts once again. She needed to be serious about this. Because she wasn’t going to let him call the shots. This might be their baby, but it was her body, and her life, and no man—no matter how good-looking or how capable he was of giving her a screaming orgasm—was ever going to be in charge of how her life played out.
She’d given a man the ultimate control before.
No, I didn’t give it to him. He took it.
So, there was no way she was going to let Kristjan Gunnarsson take anything away from her.
Ever.
CHAPTER FOUR
KRISTJAN HAD NEVER taken a woman to his home before. It was his space and his alone. The fact that he was now opening it up to Merry, the woman who was carrying his child, made him feel very strange indeed...
He watched her as she stepped inside, taking in the huge stone inglenook fireplace that dominated the room, the decorated Christmas tree that stood in the corner beside it. The floor-to-ceiling windows decorated with tiny white lights and the garlands of pine with frosted berries and silver ribbons.
What could he say? He loved Christmas. As his parents had, so many years ago. And he was determined each festive season to honour their memories by outdoing himself from the year before.
That was why he had so much Christmas decoration about the place. The true reason for going overboard at Christmas was that it allowed him to feel closer to them. To remember the way his mother had used to love decorating the tree with him. The way his father had pretended to be Santa.
And to pretend that he wasn’t lonely he worked every Christmas in the hospital, with all those kids who didn’t get the chance to go home. There was something special
and heart-warming about being there at Christmas.
Merry stood by the mantelpiece, looking around her. ‘You like Christmas?’
‘You don’t?’
‘Not really.’
He thought everyone loved Christmas. ‘Why not?’
She shrugged, but he figured she did know—she just didn’t want to tell him. But then again, why would she? They barely knew one another. He’d invited a stranger to his home. To stay with him for a few days. And she was pregnant with his baby! How crazy was that?
‘Let me give you the tour once I’ve lit the fire.’
He got the fire going, and once it was steadily roaring away he got up to show her around—the kitchen, the bathrooms, the spare bedroom. His bedroom.
She stood in the doorway of his bedroom and stared at the king-sized bed. He smiled at her discomfort. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t have any plans to seduce you.’
Merry looked at him. ‘Good, because I don’t plan on being seduced.’
He walked right up to her, towering over her, and looked down at her beautiful face. ‘Let’s get you a drink.’
It felt good to be standing so close to her again and, despite his words, he couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to kiss her again.
Perhaps she saw the thought in his eyes, because she turned away and headed down the stairs. At the bottom she stood there, fidgeting. ‘You have a lovely home.’
He went down to stand beside her. ‘Thank you.’
‘Even if it does look like Santa threw up in here!’
Kristjan laughed. ‘You’ll get used to it. We Icelanders love Christmas.’
‘I’m beginning to understand that.’
She straightened a little figurine he had displayed on a windowsill. It was one of a herd of reindeer, pulling a sled holding a fat Santa and a ginormous sack of presents.
‘By the time you leave here you will, too.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’
‘No?’
She stared back. ‘No.’
‘My little ice queen... But we will melt your heart, don’t worry.’
‘It’s fine the way it is. You mentioned a drink? Let me make it—what do you want?’
The Icelandic Doc's Baby Surprise Page 3