Rebecca Winters: The Baby Dilemma

“Please hurry. My husband has been in an accident. Let me off at the entrance to the emergency room,” she said in French to the driver. He nodded, but didn’t accelerate that much through the moderate nighttime traffic. Switzerland was a very dignified, civilized country with few drivers who took dangerous risks.

She couldn’t say the same for Philippe who was French born. According to his family with whom she’d lived for a month near the Bois de Vincennes in Paris, he’d been a daredevil from birth.

Apparently he’d raced cars in his early twenties and drove at speeds that terrified most people. His sister, Claudine, Kellie’s dear friend, had confided that though he may have abandoned that pleasure once he’d discovered his great love for mountain climbing, he could still let it rip once in a while testing out one of the new sports models fresh from the plant. If that’s what he’d done tonight, then it was too high a price to pay.

When she thought she couldn’t stand it any longer, they reached the hospital where she could see several ambulances outside the doors. The sight of them enlarged the pit in her stomach.

“We’re here, madame.”

“Merci, monsieur.” She climbed out of the taxi, handing him several bills of Swiss francs without bothering to count how much she’d given him. Then she raced inside the entrance.

The reception room was packed with friends and family of casualty victims talking quietly. Their anxiety-ridden faces revealed their stress. As she approached the woman at the desk, Kellie happened to see herself in the glass and knew her expression was no different.

“Excuse me. I’m Madame Didier. My husband, Philippe, was brought in tonight. Where can I find him?”

“Through there on the left. He’s been put in cubicle four.”

“Thank you,” Kellie whispered before hurrying through the swinging doors to the E.R. Again she was struck by the amount of activity going on. Medical staff, paramedics, even police came and went from the busy room. It looked as if every cubicle was in use. Behind the curtain of the first one she could hear a woman wailing in pain.

Full of gratitude it wasn’t Philippe in that kind of agony, she ran to number four and parted the curtain to reach her husband. He was awake, thank heaven! She flew to his side where he lay in a hospital gown beneath a pristine white sheet.

“Philippe?”

“Mon amour— I thought you’d never get here.”

His deep voice sounded so shaken, it astounded her. Philippe was the kind of man whose intelligence and strong personality inspired confidence in everyone around him. Not only physically powerful, he exuded an inner male strength and drive that made him seem invincible.

“I came the second they phoned me, darling,” she cried, utterly thrown by his vulnerability. “I’ve been home waiting hours for you to arrive.”

Beneath his beautiful olive skin there was an unnatural pallor, but the devilishly handsome face with those black-brown eyes and black hair she loved was still the same.

“Mon Dieu. You’re so beautiful, it hurts.” In a swift motion he lifted his right arm to draw her head down, but she noticed he didn’t try to use his left one at all. She was so preoccupied about that, she wasn’t prepared for his kiss which was almost savage in its intensity.

Since they’d been married, they’d made love day and night, under every circumstance and condition. But her husband had never embraced her as if it were going to be their last.

“Philippe, sweetheart—” she whispered after he’d unwillingly relinquished her lips. “I can tell your left arm is hurt.”

“My elbow got banged. It’s nothing.”

Her anxious eyes played over him. “What else is wrong with you?”

“A bump on my left kneecap.”

“Oh, darling,” she moaned. “Let me see.”

“There’s no need. From what the doctor told me, neither is broken, just bruised. They’ll take some X rays in a while to be certain. I’m waiting my turn. Before they come for me, there’s something we have to talk about.”

Again she felt this sense of foreboding. After taking a shuddering breath she said, “All right.”

She heard him invoke God’s help before he murmured, “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

With those fateful words, Kellie needed support. She saw a stool by the shelving and moved it next to the bed where she could prop herself. Grasping his right hand which she kissed and held to her cheek she said, “What’s this terrible thing you have to tell me?”

His expression grew bleak before his eyes filled with pleading.

“Sweetheart?” she begged, unable to stand the suspense another second.

He cleared his throat. “When we took our vows, we promised to love each other for better or worse.”

“We do! I do!”

“I never intended for there to be a ‘for worse’ in our marriage,” his voice grated.

“But there is?” She swallowed hard.

“Kellie, I don’t know how to say this.”

“Say what?” she demanded in agony, freeing her hand to run her fingers through his dark wavy hair. “Don’t you know you can tell me anything?”

His eyes looked haunted. “Late this afternoon while I was finishing up some work at the office so I could get home to you, I had a visitor. It was a woman I rescued after an avalanche in Chamonix months before I met you.”

Kellie didn’t need to hear another word to feel as if she’d been dropped from a high building.

“Her name’s Yvette Boiteux.”

It didn’t sound familiar. According to Claudine, until Kellie had come along, her brother had left a trail of broken hearts that stretched from Paris to Neuchâtel.

“She must have had a good reason to visit a married man at the end of his workday.” Kellie couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice.

“All I know is, she’s eight months pregnant and claims it’s my child.”

Kellie bit down so hard on her knuckle, it drew blood.

“Darling—” He gripped her free hand tightly, not knowing his strength. “Please hear me out.”

She averted her eyes. “I’m listening.”

“We only slept together once, and I took precautions. It was a mistake from start to finish. I realize my reputation precedes me, but in reality, there’ve only been a few women. Yvette wasn’t one of them.”

It was hard to breathe. “I believe you.”

By now he was gripping her hand so hard, it hurt. But she invited it to counteract this other pain which had penetrated the core of her being where there could be no earthly relief.

“When she came to my office, she didn’t look well to me. She told me she’d come by bus because she didn’t own a car. At that point I told her I’d drive her home.

“Before I said anything about having a paternity test done, I was praying she would admit that one of her lovers had turned his back on her. Knowing I was good for the money, it would explain the reason why she’d come to me at the midnight hour for financial help.”

Kellie’s eyes closed tightly for a moment. What if the test came up with a match?

“On the way to the apartment where she told me she lived with her mother, a tourist ran into us. He received the citation for driving out of control. Under other circumstances I might have been able to see him coming to avoid a collision.”

She shook her head. “After news like that, I don’t know how you could even function.”

He let out a tortured sound. “As it happens, the impact shoved my car against a parked van. The doctor said Yvette doesn’t have any injuries, but at this stage of her pregnancy, the shock could bri—”

“Monsieur Didier?” an unfamiliar voice broke in on them. “We’re ready to take you to X ray. Madame— If you wouldn’t mind stepping out for a moment, our team will get him transferred to the gurney,” the technician said to Kellie.