Читать книгу Baby's First Christmas - Cathy Thacker Gillen - Страница 6

Kate Montgomery’s younger sister, Lindy, charged into the workroom at Gourmet Gifts To Go and slammed her crammed bookbag down between the stacks of Thanksgiving gift baskets and decorative Christmas sleighs still waiting to be filled. “He’s here,” she announced.

Kate looked up from the home-delivery order form emblazoned with the logo of her Chapel Hill, North Carolina, store. Although she and her twenty-six-year-old sister looked alike—they had the same pale blond hair and light green eyes—they remained as different as night and day. Lindy, who couldn’t get enough of school, was currently finishing up her PhD in mathematics. Whereas Kate had had all she could bear of classroom education after just four years of college.

“Who’s here?” Kate asked casually.

Lindy slipped off her UNC windbreaker with the sweatshirt lining. “That guy with the really sexy voice who keeps calling you for an appointment and won’t say why. He’s cu-u-u-te, Kate. You ought to go talk to him. After all,” Lindy said to Kate, a matchmaker’s sparkle in her eyes, “he might not be selling anything.”

That’ll be the day, Kate thought, her lips curving upward wryly as she added tins of smoked salmon and chocolate truffles to a gift basket already filled with goodies. “That’s what you said about the last half-dozen,” Kate reminded her sister patiently as she carefully fit in individual packets of raspberry-flavored cappuccino and fruit snack mix. “And I ended up listening to two life insurance salesmen ready to write policies on my baby in utero, a peddler of encyclopedias ready to educate my child via audiotape, a beachfront property time-share Realtor who wanted me to have a vacation home to take my baby to, a financial analyst who wanted to plan my baby’s college fund for him or her and—last but not least—a person who just knew, because I was pregnant, that I’d be needing to turn in my beloved Saturn sedan for a station wagon ASAP.”

Always quick to help out, Lindy cut off a length of blue satin ribbon and tied it around the handle of the wicker basket Kate was filling. “How do you figure all these guys know you’re pregnant?” she asked, pausing to make sure the bow was tied just so.

“And single? I don’t know.” Kate slid off the stool and straightened, one hand on her aching back. Today was one of those days she just couldn’t seem to get comfortable. She’d been having a lot of them lately. Though never had she felt this sort of aching, insistent pressure in her thighs, too. She smiled at Lindy, who was not only her only sibling but her closest friend. She strode past the Santa cookie tins and golden-mesh gift totes that were sold year-round. “But I guess I do need to go talk to this guy before he interferes with any of my regular customers.”

Lindy cupped a hand around her mouth and used the low singsong voice they’d adapted when both were starry-eyed teenagers, “Be nice now. He really is cute.”

Kate rolled her eyes at the blatant matchmaking. Suddenly, everyone—including her strongest ally—wanted her to get married again, but she knew there was no way that was going to happen. One disastrous marriage was enough. She was ready for motherhood. And nothing else. Meantime, there was this nuisance to be dealt with, afternoon deliveries to be made, a quick dinner with her mother and one final Lamaze class to attend. And all in the five hours before nine o’clock, her self-imposed bedtime these days.

Taking a deep breath, Kate tucked the satiny ends of her pale blond bob behind her ears, smoothed the lines of her black velvet maternity jumper and white satin blouse and breezed into the shop where Dulcie, the store’s assistant manager, and Jeff, another part-time employee and premed student, were busy chatting it up with a well-dressed man in his early thirties. Her glance sweeping past the window display promoting upcoming holidays and events—namely Thanksgiving, semester exams and Christmas— Kate focused on the center of activity.

Darn it all if her younger sister wasn’t right, she thought, amused despite herself as she glided gracefully between the rows of elegant gift baskets and gourmet treats. The persistent man of mystery was cute. Devastatingly so, even in profile. His dark sable brown hair was windblown and shiny clean, his ruggedly handsome face clean-shaven and, she noted as she neared, scented with a deliciously spicy aftershave. Tall and fit, he was dressed in khaki slacks, a pale blue shirt and tie and a navy sport coat that made the most of his broad, imposing shoulders.

“Here Kate is now!” Dulcie said, and beamed at her introduction.

The attractive stranger turned to her, enfolding her hand in the warm, strong palm of his. “I’m Dr. Michael Sloane. I work over at the medical center.”

And, Kate thought, alarmed, he wanted to talk to her in person and wouldn’t say why. As her next thought came with frightening speed, Kate’s hand flew to her swollen tummy and hovered there protectively. “The baby,” she said breathlessly. “Is there—”

“There’s nothing wrong with the baby.” Michael Sloane paused. His sensually chiseled lips thinned and he looked her over from head to toe before his sable brown eyes lasered in on hers with disarming intimacy. “Is there some place we could talk privately?”

If ever there was a person who looked like he’d been tapped to deliver bad news, it was Michael Sloane. Kate swallowed. “This is serious, isn’t it?” she asked softly.

“It’s—” He stopped abruptly. Took her arm firmly but gently. “Before we continue, we need to be somewhere you can sit down.”

AS MICHAEL had half expected, Kate dug in her heels and refused to budge. “Anything you want to sell me, you can sell me right here,” she told him stubbornly.

No doubt about it, Michael Sloane thought as he studied the five-foot-six-inch blond dynamo, the woman was every bit as memorable and feisty as the guys at the lab had said she was. In general, Michael had never really cared for short hair on women, but Kate’s silky pale blond bob suited her perfectly, even at this late stage of her pregnancy. Her face was heart-shaped and pretty, her features delicate, feminine and perfectly proportioned. Her light green eyes were framed with twin sets of thick blond eyelashes and delicate brows, her skin fair, her full lips and delicate cheeks a natural shell pink.

“I told you before, Ms. Montgomery,” he said, aware the bizarre circumstances he found himself in left him no choice but to be darned mysterious over the phone as he’d tried to get an appointment with her. Only to be cut off as soon as she found he wasn’t willing to disclose the very delicate nature of what he wanted to discuss with her over the phone for fear she’d be so upset she’d cut and run. “I’m not selling insurance,” he told her dryly. Although, as he took in her sexy, feminine build, he half wished he was.

“Then what, pray tell, are you selling?” Kate asked, pushing the hair from her heart-shaped face. “Opportunity?”

More like bad news, Michael thought, as he inhaled the intoxicating smell of her tuberose-and-jasmine perfume. Really bad news, at least as far as single mother-to-be Kate Montgomery was likely to think. Still, this was no discussion to be having while she was on her feet in the middle of the shop.

The door opened. A group of customers walked in.

Dulcie and Jeff went to wait on them, and Kate led Michael into the back of the immaculately kept store. On one side of a narrow hallway was a workroom and storage area. On the other were a lounge, office and bathroom. Kate led him into the small but cozy office decorated in shades of pale mossy green and cream.

Hoping fervently she wouldn’t scream, faint or cry uncontrollably when he told her the news, he gestured toward the sofa opposite her desk and suggested mildly, “Perhaps you’d like to sit down.”

Kate shook her head and kept her eyes on his. “I’d prefer to stand,” she said.

And, Michael thought, she’d prefer him to leave—immediately—judging from the expression on her face. “All right,” he said reluctantly, knowing he was going to have to blurt it out. “We’ll do it your way. As I said earlier, my name is Dr. Michael Sloane.” Michael reached into his coat pocket and produced several pieces of identification for her perusal. “I’m an emergency room physician at the medical center in Chapel Hill.”

Kate studied the ID in her hand without comment, then carefully handed it all back.

“I’m here because I have something to tell you about your baby’s biological father.”

Kate paled and backed up until her hips were resting against the edge of her desk. She folded her arms in front of her swollen tummy in a protective gesture. “You couldn’t possibly know anything about that,” she said stiffly, beginning to look all the more perturbed with his uninvited presence.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Michael paused, knowing however he said this, whenever he said this, it was likely to be a tremendous shock. He sat on the sofa opposite her and clasped his hands between his spread knees. “I know everything there is to know about him.”

Kate’s beautiful eyes turned stormy as she circled her desk and carefully lowered herself into the upholstered swivel chair behind it. “Then you also know he’s chosen to be anonymous,” she said tightly, as pink swept into her high, delicately chiseled cheeks.

“I know the person you selected to father your baby felt that way,” Michael corrected.

Kate’s green eyes did not waver from his. “So if you will kindly leave,” Kate continued.

Michael shook his head in mute disagreement. “Not before I tell you what I came here to say.”

Kate’s chest rose and fell beneath her white satin blouse and black velvet jumper. “And that is…”

There was no easy way to say this. Michael swallowed. “I’m your baby’s father.”

LONG, INCREDULOUS SECONDS ticked past. Kate shot to her feet. So did he. “That’s impossible,” Kate said flatly at last as she stormed around her desk to confront him.

His feelings rigidly in check, Michael towered over her. “How do you figure that?” he asked softly, studying her from head to toe.

“Because!” Kate flushed at the way he was looking her over. “You’re not at all what I ordered,” she told him hotly.

No surprise there, Michael thought. He hadn’t ordered this, either. But it had happened. And like it or not, this delectable-looking blond with the fiercely independent nature was bearing his child. “What did you order, then?” he asked curiously, determined to rescue them both from this mess whether she wanted his help or not.

Kate flushed and gave him a self-conscious look that spoke volumes about her comfort zone with men. “Someone of medium height and build—a maximum of five-ten, one hundred and eighty pounds.”

Michael struggled to keep his mind on the conversation rather than the slender and supple—yet very pregnant and feminine—body beneath her black velvet jumper. He had never realized a pregnant woman could turn him on like this. “And I’m six feet two inches tall and two hundred pounds.”

Her lips curved wryly as she folded her arms beneath the soft swell of her breasts and admitted, “Not to mention way too athletic and solidly built.”

His glance roved the incredible softness of her hair and face before returning to the sparkling intelligence of her light green eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one who thinks brains and athletic talent are traits that are mutually exclusive?” he teased.

“You said it, not me,” Kate replied, just as humorously. “Although now that you mention it—” she turned to give him an appraising glance that heated his blood “—you do look like someone who played a lot of ball.”

“Baseball, and you’re right, I did, all through elementary, junior high and high school. I was also on the honor rolls and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.” Neither of which was any big deal to him. Nor, he felt, should it be to her.

“See, that’s another thing.” Kate breezed past him and headed for the workroom, where a dozen or so gift baskets were lined up, waiting to be delivered. She fished a set of keys off a hook, picked up a basket filled with wine and cheese and headed for the exit, her hips sashaying lightly. “I didn’t want anyone who was too smart.”

Admiring her composure in the face of such a potential catastrophe, Michael held the door as she slipped past him.

“I didn’t want my child to be called a nerd by the other kids. Furthermore,” Kate confided petulantly as she slid the key in the lock and opened the back of the full-size powder blue Gourmet Gifts To Go delivery van, “I wanted the father I selected to have blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes.” She slid the basket onto the carpeted floor of the van, then straightened, leaned against the door and looked at him. “Not sable brown hair and eyes to match.”

Unable to help himself, Michael laughed. “This is the first time those traits have ever been held against me!”

“I’m not holding them against you!” Kate pivoted on her heel and headed into the building at a clip. “I’m just using them to point out the fact that the lab couldn’t possibly have mixed up your sperm with the sperm of the man I selected.” She lifted two more baskets-to-go into her arms and watched as Michael pitched in and did the same. “You’re just too far off from what I wanted,” she explained logically.

Michael helped put all four of the baskets in the van. He slid them all the way forward behind the captain-style driver and passenger seats. Straightening, he turned to her. He’d known this would be as hard for her—if not more difficult—than it had been for him. But it had happened, and like it or not, they had to deal with it.

“Except for the social security numbers,” he told her softly, looking at her and wishing like hell there were some way to fix all this without hurting her or the baby or him. “There, the father you selected and I were only one digit off, Kate. The last two numbers of my number were five, three. His were five, four.” Seeing she was about to stave off the truth and protest again, he touched a finger to her lips, reveling in the satiny softness as he effectively and quickly silenced what she was about to say.

“And yes,” he continued as another thrill shot through him, “they did indeed mix up the vials, because his sperm is still in the deep freeze, perfectly intact, not a drop missing.” Aware his finger and her lips were both heating, he dropped his finger from her lips. His frown deepening, he finished, “Mine, on the other hand, is all gone, and the experiment I agreed to participate in has not yet been done.”

Kate suddenly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Her heart pounding, she leaned against the open door of the van. She looked as shaken as he’d felt when he’d first done the detective work and confirmed for himself what had happened. “Is that how you found out there’d been a mistake?” she asked, aghast. “The lab called you?”

Michael nodded grimly. “They asked me to come down and donate some sperm for the experiment on ways to improve genetic testing. I said I already had, months ago. They said I hadn’t. Obviously something had happened, so an investigation was done.”

Kate gulped. Finally, it was beginning to sink in. “If this is a joke, Dr. Sloane,” she said, swaying slightly, “it is definitely not funny.”

Michael put out a hand to steady her. He guided her to a sitting position in the back of the van. “Believe me, I didn’t think it was funny when I found out about it, either,” he said grimly as he knelt in front of her. In fact, it still seemed like a nightmare from which he’d never wake up. But it had happened, and had to be faced.

Michael took her hand in his and clasped it firmly. “Look, I figured you wouldn’t want to just take my word for all this.”

“You’re right about that much,” Kate said hotly. She pushed his hand away and leaped to her feet.

“So I brought proof,” Michael said.

Ten phone calls later, Kate finally appeared satisfied he was telling her the truth. Once again, they squared off in her private office.

“The question is,” Michael said, as he stared into her flushed face, “now that we know what happened, what are we going to do about this?”

THOUGH IT HAD been a shock, Kate had had time to think about it, and she knew what she had to do. Play her cards to the hilt. “Why should we do anything?” she asked with a great deal more serenity than she felt. “We could sue the clinic, but what would that bring us, except more unhappiness. We’re just going to have to deal with the situation as it exists.”

Michael blinked, stunned by her casual assertion. “I beg your pardon?”

Kate palmed her chest. “You didn’t plan for this baby. On the other hand, I did.” In her opinion, that gave her vastly superior rights.

Michael’s eyes darkened as he closed the distance between them. “Be that as it may, this is still my child, too,” he stated.

“I know that.” Kate smiled. Feeling as though she had a tiger by the tail, she planted both hands on her hips. “But you don’t have to feel beholden to either of us.”

“I want to be involved,” Michael insisted.

“You feel that way now…” she said.

“I’ll feel that way forever,” Michael corrected, as his expressive brows lowered like thunderclouds over his eyes.

Kate shrugged, aware the aching pressure in her thighs, which had been there all day, was increasing—maybe because of the amount of time she’d spent on her feet, pacing back and forth, as she talked to Michael about their situation. “We’ll see,” she replied cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

Kate stomped closer, not stopping until she and Michael were toe to toe. She angled her head at him, wishing he weren’t so tall, so fit or so unerringly handsome and masculine. “It means once the novelty wears off, you could lose interest in this baby and in me,” she said mildly.

He flashed her a crocodile grin. “I don’t think so.”

His soft voice sent another whisper of sensual awareness spiraling through her. Feeling as though she couldn’t breathe, Kate drew a deep—albeit shaky—breath and continued to study him like a problem she had no choice but to solve immediately. In the meantime, she still had her afternoon deliveries to do, a scheduled dinner with her mother and one last Lamaze class to attend.

“Look,” she said finally, “if you still feel the same way in a couple of weeks, we’ll sit down and talk.” She was being vague, hoping against hope that time would take care of everything.

“And work something out?” Michael pressed.

Kate didn’t want to do anything like that, but she knew—out of fairness—that she had to consider his position, too. “I’ll try to do what’s right for all of us, as soon as I figure out what that is,” she promised sincerely. “Meanwhile, if you’ll excuse me, I have seventeen deliveries to make.”

Michael caught her wrist in his hand and held her in place.

“I still want to help you,” he insisted.

The skin of his palm felt like hot silk around her wrist. “Everyone does,” she replied.

His grip gentled. “What do you mean?”

Kate shrugged. “Since I became pregnant, all sorts of people have seen fit to counsel me on the wisdom of my decision to be a single parent and raise this child alone. People who wouldn’t dream of telling me what brand of mustard to buy have no qualms at all about telling me I need a husband in a hurry.”

Michael smiled in understanding, his hold on her becoming more intimate before he reluctantly released her altogether. “But you don’t see it that way,” he guessed softly.

Kate sighed and—a hand to her aching back—leaned against the edge of her desk. In a continuing effort to get comfortable, she crossed her ankles in front of her and clasped the edge of the desk on either side of her. “It’d be nice if every child in this world could have a mother and a father who loved each other desperately, a ton of siblings and live in a house with a white picket fence. But that doesn’t always happen.”

Michael pushed the edges of his sport coat back and braced his hands on his waist. “Still, whenever possible,” he repeated, his kind brown eyes locking with hers, “I think a baby should have a mommy and a daddy.”

Kate, who’d done an awful lot of thinking about this very subject before becoming pregnant, stubbornly refused to concede the same. She angled her chin at him, determined to let him know, along with everyone else, that she could handle this. “I think every child needs lots of love, security and a sense of family. My child—” not our child “—will have all that and more,” she stated.

“What about my child?” Michael asked, his expression determined.

Kate looked away evasively, and her lips tightened mutinously. “When you plan for a child, then you can also plan the environment in which you will bring him or her up.”

Michael did a double take. “Surely you’re not intending to cut me out of our baby’s life entirely?”

Kate’s shoulders stiffened as she—once again—found herself in the unenviable position of having to defend herself. “I’m sure there will come a time, when our child is much older, that some explanation will be in order,” she asserted.

Michael placed a palm on the desk on either side of her and towered over her, “And until then?”

Kate planted a hand on his chest and pushed him away. Standing, she breezed past him haughtily. “Until then I suggest you think about it as much as you would’ve had your genes merely been guinea pigs in a genetics experiment.”

He caught hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I’m afraid that’s not going to work,” he said tightly, staking his claim on their baby—and, by default, her.

“It will work,” Kate insisted, inhaling the spicy, masculine scent of aftershave clinging to his freshly shaven jaw. “As long as you want it to work.” Wanting it to work was key. She headed for the front of the shop, where she informed Dulcie, Jeff and Lindy she was leaving to do her deliveries.

Michael watched her gather the turquoise duffel packed with her Lamaze stuff, the keys to the van, her cell phone, clipboard of addresses, area street maps and purse. He followed her out the back door to the van.

“I know this child exists,” he said, as Kate—who wished she could do something about the unprecedented aching in her thighs, which seemed to get worse with every passing second—unlocked the driver’s door and tossed in her gear.

“I’m going to want to know he or she is okay,” Michael continued stubbornly as the two of them continued to be buffeted by the brisk November air.

Feeling about as graceful as a whale on roller skates, Kate levered herself up and into the driver’s seat and fit the key in the ignition. “Then I’ll send you progress reports, okay?”

Michael stood between her and the door, preventing her from closing it. “No. It’s not okay.” His voice lowered a notch as his eyes held hers in a manner that let her know he wasn’t about to be dissuaded. “I’m going to need—I’m going to want—a hell of a lot more than that.”

Kate drew an exasperated breath as she reached behind her and drew her seat belt across her chest. “Look, just because I’m carrying your child—by accident, I might add—does not mean you need to be involved in my life, too.”

Michael regarded her grimly. “If we’re going to have a child together—even by accident—we need to get to know each other. The only way for us to do that is for us to spend time together.”

She considered that notion for a moment, finding it oddly—engagingly attractive, then discarded it.

Rolling her eyes, she claimed facetiously, “Next you’ll be proposing marriage—”

Michael shook his head. “Not at this stage.”

Kate breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven for small miracles,” she said dryly, as Michael leaned into the cab of the van.

“Although, now that you bring it up, maybe it’s not such a bad idea,” he replied, unwilling, it seemed, to throw out any possibility whatsoever that would bring him closer to the child she was about to bear, “should we eventually find we can get along.”

He was an attractive man. There was even, it seemed, a purely physical chemistry between them, as evidenced by the way she tingled whenever, wherever, he touched her, but the rest was just plain nuts. She studied his face. “You’re serious,” she whispered, able to feel for the first time how much he wanted this child in his life, in his heart.

“Very.”

Silence fell between them, more awkward than before.

The situation was amazing. Incredible. Unprecedented. And so very complicated. Kate had no idea what to do. She only knew she felt simultaneously threatened and oddly comforted, cossetted, by his presence.

Michael swore softly and ran a hand through his wind-tossed hair. “Look, I don’t want to make your life any harder, but this is my child—the only child I may ever have—and I want to be a part of his or her life, too. A big part.” Noting she was beginning to shiver in the increasingly cool afternoon air, he circled the front of the van and climbed into the passenger’s seat. He swiveled to face her, all the love he felt for their unborn child in his eyes. “If you were in my place, you’d feel the same way.”

True, Kate thought, as they stared at each other in contemplative silence. Suddenly she knew—as much as she might want him to—he wasn’t going to back off. If she didn’t want to end up in court, fighting for custody of her child before he or she was even born, she was going to have to cooperate with Michael Sloane. Or at least put up the pretense of doing so until he realized this was more commitment than he really wanted over the long haul. “What exactly are you suggesting?” she asked calmly as she shut the driver door and switched on the ignition.

“Only what’s fair,” Michael said as she turned on the heater. “That starting now, you let me be a part of our child’s life in every way. Including the birth.”

Kate’s knees turned to jelly as she thought about the implied intimacy of that. “You want to be in the delivery room?” she asked in a low, trembling voice as she splayed a hand across her chest.

“I am a doctor.”

But not my doctor, Kate thought. And the thought of being disrobed in front of him, for any reason, made her heart beat all the harder. Ignoring the tingles of awareness ghosting over her skin, she frowned and glanced at her watch. “I’m going to have to think about this.”

Michael looked as though he had expected that. “It’ll have to be fast,” he warned. “If the guys at the lab were correct about the date of your artificial insemination, you’ve only got a day or so.”

As if she needed reminding about that! Kate shrugged. “The baby could be late.”

“Or early.”

Swallowing around the sudden dryness in her throat, Kate glanced at her watch again. “I really do need to go.”

Michael frowned at the list of addresses on the clipboard and the rows of gift baskets in the back of the van. “You’re going to make all these deliveries yourself?”

Kate nodded. “I always do the late afternoon deliveries. Dulcie does the ones first thing in the morning. Jeff takes care of the ones at noon.” She paused. “I like this part of the business, too. It’s fun, seeing the expression of delight on the customers’ faces when they receive a gift from my shop. And I enjoy the change of pace after being in the shop all day.”

“Let me help you. You drive. I’ll carry the baskets up to the door. It’ll go twice as fast that way. Then maybe the two of us can go to dinner and finish resolving all this.”

Kate had to admit she could use the help. Because of her talk with him, she was running a good hour behind schedule for deliveries. “It’s going to take me several hours,” she warned. “And I have to go out in the country to do the rural deliveries.”

“Then you really shouldn’t be out there alone. Not this close to delivering. What if something happened?”

“Then I’d call for help on my cell phone,” she told him calmly, knowing first babies were generally notoriously slow in arriving. And she had yet to suffer her first real contraction. Nevertheless, he had a point. She didn’t want to put her baby in danger. And she had been feeling a little achy and tired all day. Maybe it was best if she accepted his help and let him tag along with her. It would give her a chance to show him she could handle work and a baby and subtly persuade him he didn’t want to be a father as much as he thought he did. If she were successful, it would be well worth the additional time she spent with him.

While she drove, Kate told him about the preparations she had made for the baby, going into detail about the nursery she had prepared, the type of crib and changing table and rocking chair she’d selected and the extensive layette of baby clothes. Michael was interested and impressed. Nevertheless, by the time they had gotten halfway through the list of deliveries, Kate felt oddly trembly and exhausted. When he offered to do some of the driving, too, she agreed with barely a murmur of dissent.

“You feeling okay?” Michael asked as he got behind the wheel and steered the delivery van onto the lonely country road.

“Sure,” Kate fibbed with a lot more assurance than she felt, then abruptly doubled over with a sharp cry of pain.

“What is it?” Michael asked, alarmed.

Kate clutched her tummy all the harder. “Guess.”