Teresa Southwick - The Doctor's Secret Baby

He took a sip of coffee and glanced at his watch for the umpteenth time. Eight-fifteen and almost dark outside. She’d picked the place—neutral territory—because she’d refused to give out her address. That implied a lack of trust, which was pretty ironic when you thought about it. She was passing her kid off as his and he couldn’t be trusted?

Still, if there weren’t doubts in his mind, he wouldn’t have set up this meeting.

He looked up and saw Emily walking toward him. After all these months and this stunt she was trying to pull off, how could one look at that face tie him in knots? Her mouth was made to be kissed. Those full lips had turned him on more times than he could count and thoughts of running his hands through her dark, shiny hair had fueled more dreams than he wanted to admit.

She stopped by the table. “Cal.”

“Have a seat.” He indicated the booth bench across from him.

She was wearing a thin-strapped yellow tank and white capris. Her flip-flops matched her shirt and gave him an unobstructed view of her coral-painted toes. Sexiest feet in Vegas, he thought, again feeling stupid for the gut-level turn-on that he couldn’t control. Apparently he hadn’t outgrown his fatal flaw. Attraction to a deceitful woman had cost him big time and here he was again.

“So what did you want to talk about?” she asked. “You made your feelings pretty clear. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing left to say.”

“Maybe you don’t think so, but I wasn’t finished when you walked out the other day.” He forced himself to relax his grip on the coffee mug in front of him. “Would you like something?”

“Just to get this over with.” Her big brown eyes were defensive and still as beautiful as ever.

“Okay, then.” He met her gaze and asked the question that had been gnawing at him since she’d left the E.R. “If she’s my child—”

“Your daughter’s name is Annie.”

Without acknowledging that, he continued, “Why didn’t you tell me I was going to be a father?”

She let out a breath and her gaze wandered out the window, to the congestion of cars on Eastern, waiting to turn left onto the Beltway. It was cool inside, but he knew on the street it was still more than a hundred degrees. This was Vegas and it was July. Hot was a way of life. But hot didn’t do justice to how he felt.

“Do you remember the last time we were together?” she asked, sliding into the place across from him.

“Yeah.” Of course he did. “One minute everything was fine, the next you said we were done. A guy doesn’t tend to forget something like that.”

One corner of her mouth curved up, but not from amusement. “A guy like you doesn’t forget because you’re always the one who ends things. It was different with me and that bothered you.”

The fact she was right didn’t help. He liked women, and they returned the favor. He did end things before anyone got serious. So sue him. But with Em he hadn’t been ready for things to be over.

“It came out of left field.” That’s all he’d admit.

Her eyes looked big and brown. Innocent and hurt. “Were you there for the last conversation we had?”

Maybe. “Refresh my memory.”

“I know how you feel about commitment.”

“We never talked about it,” he protested.

Her expression was heavy on the scorn. “Every woman at Mercy Medical Center and probably the Las Vegas metropolitan area knows you don’t make promises.”

“Being a doctor is a demanding profession.”

“I’m not talking about dinner and a show on Saturday night. Your aversion to responsibility, liability, obligation or dedication on a long-term basis is legendary. You’re as shallow as a cookie sheet.”

“That’s harsh.”

“But true. I knew that when we first went out. I was fine with it. I didn’t want anything permanent, either. It worked as well for me as it did for you. Maybe more.”

“So what was this conversation we had?”

“All I said was—wouldn’t you like to have children someday? You’re a pediatrician, and it’s not a stretch to assume that you might want to have one of your own.”

“Okay.” He vaguely remembered.

“Do you recall your response?”

“Not in detail.”

“I do.” Shadows made her eyes darken even more. “You did five minutes straight on what wasn’t going to happen. And I quote, ‘Nothing could compel me to ever tie myself down in any way. If you want to get on the commitment train, I’ll see you off at the station.’ You told me you never wanted strings. In a fairly firm and deep voice you added, ‘There’s no set of circumstances known to man that could make me change my mind.’”

Ouch. Yeah, he remembered now. The speech should be familiar since he’d given it so many times. “Okay.”

Frowning, she tipped her head, studying him as if he was an alien from another world. “I was trying to gently bring up the fact that I was pregnant. Your stay-single-or-perish soliloquy didn’t exactly make it feel safe to do that.”

“It’s not about comfort. It’s about what was right. Maybe I was a jerk—”

“Maybe?”

He ignored that. “Any time after that you could have called, dropped me a line, left a message on the answering machine. Something to the effect—‘Cal, I’m going to have a baby. Thought you should know. Catch you later.’”

It wouldn’t be the first time a woman tried to manipulate him by lobbing the pregnancy bomb. One that turned out to be a lie, the first of many before it had finally ended.

Emily looked small and tense in the big booth across from him. He couldn’t see her hands, they were in her lap. He remembered that when she was nervous, she twisted her fingers together. Peeking under the table to see if that had changed wasn’t happening.

“In your world—a man’s world—that would be the way. But not in mine. You made it clear how you felt and there was no way I was going to burden my baby with a father who didn’t want her.”

Sounded pretty cold when she said it like that. “You didn’t give me a chance to react with all the facts. If I’d known you were pregnant, we could have talked about it—”

“You talked. I listened and got the message. So shoot me for not wanting to hear any more.”

“Until now,” he reminded her, his gaze sliding to her breasts.

“Yeah.” She shifted her shoulders as if to relieve the tension and keep from shattering. “When I found the lump, it forced me to go to the bad place and think about what would become of Annie without me.” She met his gaze. “Her biological father—commitment-phobe and all—is the lesser of two evils.”

“Careful, flattery like that will turn my head.” The words oozed sarcasm because her low opinion of him rankled.

He was a stand-up guy; he saved lives every day. Some women actually called him a hero. Emily wasn’t one of them. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

“Look, Cal—” She settled her hands on the table, twisting her fingers together in that all-too-familiar way. “What you and I think of each other is irrelevant. Annie’s future and her welfare are the only things that matter.”

“Have you seen the specialist?” he asked, pushing away any reference to a child he still couldn’t believe was his.

“Not yet. My appointment is next week. With my primary care physician. A majority of sites on the Internet that I checked said that’s the place to start. I’m seeing Rebecca Hamilton. She delivered Annie.”

He hated to admit it, but that was the other reason he’d called. In spite of what she’d done—what she was trying to do—the thought of Emily being sick bothered him. But what if she was lying about the lump?

“What is it you want from me, Em?”