That would not be her. When she came for her postpartum checkup she would be alone. And empty. Her baby wouldn’t be hers anymore.
It’s not yours now.
Her chest ached and her throat tightened. An urge to run raced through her, and a choked sound bubbled from her throat. She tried to cover it by faking a cough.
Ryan’s hand covered hers on the armrest. Startled, she lifted her gaze and found understanding in his eyes. Her breath caught. How could he possibly know how much this hurt? She shifted her hand to her lap. She didn’t want to share her misery with him. It left her feeling exposed and vulnerable.
“Nicole?” a pink-scrub-clad woman called from the door to the treatment rooms. Nicole bolted to her feet and raced away from the unwanted connection she felt with him.
Ryan shadowed her steps.
“Who do we have with us today?” the woman asked with a sunny smile.
“Ryan Patrick, the baby’s father,” Ryan said before Nicole could find the words to explain their convoluted relationship.
“You’re going to see your little one today,” Ms. Cheerful said as she waved Nicole onto the scale. “But first…Let’s see how Mommy is doing.”
Mommy. Nicole’s throat closed up. No, she wouldn’t be a mommy.
The nurse noted Nicole’s weight and took her blood pressure. “Any problems? Are you keeping food down okay? Having regular bowel movements?”
Nicole’s cheeks burned. Including Ryan in such a personal conversation seemed…invasive. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Dad and I will wait for you in room four. You head off to the lab.”
Dad.
Nicole’s gaze jerked to Ryan’s. He looked a little shell-shocked. Good. She shouldn’t be the only one suffering here.
She ducked into the lab and let the technician do her thing, wondering all the while what Ryan was telling the nurse. Nicole headed to the exam room as soon as she could.
“First babies are always the most exciting,” the nurse was saying as Nicole entered. “And it’s early, but you might possibly get a peek at the sex today. Do you want to know?”
“No,” Nicole blurted.
“Yes,” Ryan answered simultaneously.
The nurse chuckled. “I’ll warn the doctor we have a difference of opinion.”
Understatement of the year.
As far as Nicole was concerned, the less she knew about the baby the less she’d bond with it before she had to relinquish.
The nurse laid a folded pink paper sheet on the table. “Dr. Lewis will be right in. Strip off the skirt, sweetie, and cover your lower half with this.”
Nicole froze. The nurse left before she could protest. Nicole’s breath burned in her chest and her heart thundered like stampeding horses as she slowly lifted her gaze to Ryan’s. She couldn’t help cringing when she remembered the underwear she’d put on today. The scrap of black lace was practically nonexistent, but the woman at the appointment desk last time had suggested Nicole go tiny or bare for the ultrasound.
Ryan did not need to see her in her underwear.
She gulped then she noticed the curtain tucked out of the way in the corner. A yank sent it sailing along the track on the ceiling, separating her from those intrusive blue eyes. But even though she couldn’t see him, she knew he was there on the other side of the thin floral fabric. Her hands shook so badly she could barely unfasten her skirt. She was beginning to think she’d have to ask for help in manipulating the button at her lower back when it popped free.
With a sigh of relief she checked to be sure the curtain was still in place, stepped out of the garment and draped it over a chair. She snatched up the pink sheet, unfolded it and wrapped it around her lower half. The protective paper sheet covering the vinyl made a god-awful racket as she climbed on the exam table and sat. She double- and then triple-checked to make sure she had everything concealed that could be hidden from Ryan’s prying eyes.
The door to the hall opened. “Well hello,” the doctor’s voice greeted Ryan. “And you are?”
“Ryan Patrick. The baby’s father.”
“I’m Debbie Lewis, Nicole’s OB. Nicole didn’t tell me you’d be joining us today.”
“I’ll be here for every appointment.”
Ryan’s answer made Nicole shudder. She gave her doctor points for taking Ryan’s presence in stride. Debbie knew the basic situation, but she didn’t let on that having Ryan here was anything out of the ordinary.
Debbie peeked around the edge of the curtain. “Hello, Nicole. Are you ready for this?”
No. “Yes.”
Debbie whipped the curtain back to the corner. “Lay back.”
Nicole did as asked, the paper crinkling noisily. But she couldn’t care less about the paper beneath her. She was more concerned with anchoring the slipping pink sheet, and Ryan standing a few feet away and watching her every move.
“Lift your top for me,” Debbie instructed.
Nicole focused on a seam in the wallpaper and hiked her camisole and sweater to her rib cage. She thought she heard Ryan inhale, but she was probably wrong. Cool air brushed her stomach from the air-conditioning gusting through the overhead vent.
The doctor tucked the pink sheet into the lace band of Nicole’s panties then palpated her abdomen. After she took a few measurements and wrote them down she picked up a tube. “First we’ll listen for the heartbeat with the Doppler. Brace yourself. The gel is cold.”
Nicole winced when the chilly goo hit her skin. Determined to pretend Ryan wasn’t there, she focused on the mobile spinning slowly above her. But she knew he was watching, looking at her pale who-has-time-to-tan? belly. She felt completely nak*d and exposed. But strangely, it wasn’t a creepy feeling. An odd awareness crept over her, quickening her pulse, warming her skin and tightening her n**ples. She wanted to cover them, but couldn’t without being obvious.
Excitement about the baby. That’s all it is. You’re about to hear and see the life growing inside you. It has nothing to do with Ryan.
The OB slid the small handheld instrument across Nicole’s stomach just above her bikini line. The speaker emitted what first sounded like white noise then morphed into a rhythmic swishing pattern.
“That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
Nicole couldn’t breathe. Against her will her gaze slid to Ryan’s face. His brilliant blue stare focused on her stomach, and his throat worked as if he’d swallowed. His emotional response multiplied hers. Tears burned her throat and eyes.
Her baby’s heartbeat.
No. Not yours.
Beth’s. And Patrick’s.
And Ryan’s.
She was the only one left out of this equation.
Seven
H is baby.
It took one hundred percent of Ryan’s concentration to force air into his deflated lungs.The doctor pulled the device from Nicole’s smooth ivory skin. He caught a glimpse of a sliver of black lace and brown curls a shade darker than the silky honey-toned hair on her head before the doctor adjusted the paper-thin pink sheet. Ryan clenched his teeth tighter. Nicole’s toes curled, drawing his attention to her toenails which she’d painted a dusky shade of peach. The one-two punch of shock and arousal nearly knocked him off his feet. He sank into the visitor chair.
“The heart rate is approximately one hundred-sixty beats per minute. For a fetus at this stage it’s in the normal range.” The doctor wrote in the chart. Ryan struggled to pull himself together while she tugged a boxy apparatus with a TV screen on it from the corner and played with the knobs.
She squirted more clear gel on Nicole’s belly and Nicole flinched. Goose bumps lifted her flesh. Ryan’s fingers itched to test the texture, to warm her with his hands.
The doc followed the same procedure she’d used with the previous instrument, scrolling it below Nicole’s navel until a ghostly image appeared on the screen.
“Here’s our baby,” she said.
The hairs on the back of Ryan’s neck rose. He’d done this before, seen a baby he’d thought was his via ultrasound. He’d held Jeanette’s hand, shared the excitement with her and soaked up every detail while planning to be the best parent he could possibly be. Only that opportunity and his heart had been ripped away from him.
Ryan tried to pull back, but he couldn’t look away. He tried to maintain an objective attitude and keep his emotions out of the mix. This time he had three people determined to take this kid from him.
The doctor pointed to a lopsided circle that contracted and expanded like a fuzzy strobe light. “That’s the heart.”
His body went numb. His thoughts raced. He’d paddled the Yukon, parachuted from a plane, sailed the Bermuda Triangle and raced his Agusta motorcycle through the hairpin turns of Tail of the Dragon, but none of those feats gave him half the adrenaline rush of seeing that white, chalky form and that little pulsing blob.
The doctor shifted her cursor and clicked on the image. “This is the head. I’m going to take a few measurements. Right now your baby is only a few inches long, but the basic skeletal parts are recognizable. Can you see them?”
He could, but he couldn’t find his voice. A nod was all he could manage. Ryan saw eyes, a nose, a little chin, and his throat closed up. The doctor pointed out the spine, the arms and legs and electronically measured each.
The chalky figure moved its hand and suddenly the picture in front of him became all too real. A little person with knees, elbows, fingers and toes.
His kid. His.
“Does the baby look healthy?” He sounded as if he had laryngitis.
“We can’t see everything with ultrasound, but what I can see looks exactly the way it should.”
The words didn’t alleviate his gut-twisting tension. He told himself this was no different than construction. He was used to seeing sketches and blueprints of buildings yet to be built. Feeling the excitement and anticipation of pulling a project together and watching it develop from the ground up was nothing new. But he experienced that rush tenfold now along with a heart-pounding, lung-crushing shot of fear. In a few months this finished product would be his responsibility. But a child wasn’t something he could make adjustments to if the wiring or plumbing didn’t work out as expected.
A weird feeling crept over him. It was as if this event was happening to someone else or he was sitting in front of a Discovery Channel TV program. Detached, but engrossed. Awed. Mesmerized. This wasn’t just a game of one-upmanship anymore or a case of winning or losing. This was life or death. And that little life was his responsibility. His. He’d do anything to protect it.
In theory, having an heir to insure his father would entrust the family firm to him had been a good plan. The reality of being held accountable for that child’s well-being scared the crap out of him.
He pried his gaze from the shadowy image and looked at Nicole. Equal parts wonder and agony chased across her face, but the tears streaming from her eyes and dampening the pillow under her head as she stared at the screen without blinking hit him like a falling I beam.
He’d completely misread her. He’d believed having this baby for her sister and walking away was going to be easy for her. Wrong. Judging by the pain on her face she might well change her mind and refuse to relinquish.