Читать книгу An Abundance of Babies - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 9

Stupid to feel nervous like this.

Sebastian upbraided himself as he walked down the corridor to Stephanie’s room. He’d entered hundreds of hospital rooms. None, not even his first one as a medical student, had ever made his palms feel as if they were damp.

Unconsciously drawing in a deep breath, Sebastian pushed the door open and peered in. Despite the summons, he was hoping that she was asleep. That way, he could say he had stopped by as asked, but would be off the hook.

She was awake.

The hook sank in a little deeper.

“Hi.” As he said it, the single-word greeting sounded particularly lame and hollow to him, given their history and what they’d just gone through together.

She didn’t think he’d come, even though she’d asked Sheila to page him for her. She thought that he’d just leave the hospital. Now that he was here, she wasn’t sure what to say, or even why she was putting herself through this.

Too late now for second thoughts, she told herself.

Stephanie pressed the remote attached to her bed and the upper portion began to rise, allowing her to look straight at him instead of up.

“Hi.”

He nodded over his shoulder toward the corridor beyond the closed door. “Met your doctor. She said you wanted to see me.”

The irony of the words struck her. More than you’d ever know, Sebastian. More than you’d ever even begin to guess.

Silence played through the room, drawing itself out, encompassing both of them.

There were hundreds of questions crowding her head, and a hundred more accusations and recriminations beyond that. But she knew the futility of re-hashing things. Nothing would be settled by bringing up the past and nothing would be resolved. What was done was done. He’d made his choice seven years ago, left her after her father had made it apparent to him, her father had told her, that she and the family money were not a package deal. Her father went to great lengths to make sure she was painfully aware of that. That Sebastian had left her because she would no longer be in his will.

Maybe that was why there was such a schism between her and her father now.

Sebastian was waiting for her to say something. Manners were important in the world she came from. Outward badges of breeding that hid a myriad of blemishes, she thought cynically.

Stephanie said the most logical thing that came to mind.

“I didn’t get a chance to say thank you for what you did.”

Sebastian shoved his hands into his front pockets. His degree, the long, hard years spent earning it as well as the respect of his peers in the medical profession, all fell mysteriously away. For a second, he was just Sebastian Caine again, a seventeen-year-old senior from the wrong side of the tracks, way out of his league by trying to strike up a conversation with the daughter of one of the most well-known lawyers in the state. Never mind that she was his friend’s sister. His mouth had turned to cotton just looking at her.

A little like now, he thought.

All he’d had then to see him through was his bravado. That, and an attraction so strong, he couldn’t even breathe when he was in the same vicinity as Stephanie.

Sebastian dug deeper now, telling himself he was a fool for the momentary jolt of insecurity. He’d come a very long way since then. He’d made something of his life, not wasted it away in the pursuit of some meaningless job the way her father had predicted.

In an odd sort of way, he supposed he had her father to thank for all that, for becoming the doctor he was now. It was the image of Carlton Yarbourough’s smirking face that had goaded him into meeting challenge after challenge long after he had ceased to willingly go out tilting at windmills. It had been his determination to show the snide bastard up that had made him endure the spirit-draining schedule of holding down two jobs and attending medical school, all on next to no sleep.

Funny how things turned out sometimes. The man who had clearly hated him had become one of the reasons he had attained his goals.

The westerly oriented room embraced the sunlight that spilled into it. Sebastian took another step into the room. Another step closer to her.

“I’m a doctor. If I stumble across a woman giving birth, it’s my job to stop and help her. It’s clearly spelled out in the Hippocratic oath,” he added.

She couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips. “Same eloquent way of saying things, I see.”

He shrugged carelessly, looking away. The woman had just given birth and wasn’t supposed to look enticing in any manner, shape or form. So why did she? “Yeah, well, can’t expect much from a guy dragged up on the wrong side of the tracks, now can you?”

She looked at him, trying to still the numbing pain his cold tone had suddenly generated within her. He’d always been a brooding soul, but not like this. When had he become so bitter?

“I always did,” she told him quietly. And she had. Expected great things of him. Which was why having him abandon her without a word of explanation had been so devastating to her.

He laughed shortly. She lied well, he thought. In the end, if they had stayed together, it would have been just like her father said, her soul squashed by a life of deprivation. “Well, that would have placed you in the minority.”

She was trying very hard not to let her emotions into this. “I don’t think so.”

Sebastian looked at her and felt that old feeling wash over him. The one that reduced him in stature and strength. He wasn’t going to stay and get pulled in by those huge blue eyes of hers. Wasn’t going to stand here, looking at her mouth form words and wishing he could silence it with his own.

He’d only be making himself crazy.

Slowly, he began backing away toward the door. “Look, I’ve got to be going.” He thought of the initial errand that had caused their paths to cross. “There’re videotapes dissolving in my front seat.” His hand was on the door. “Glad you’re okay.”

He left before she had a chance to say she was sorry to see that she couldn’t say the same for him.

When had he returned to Bedford? How long had he been walking the streets, driving the roads, without letting her know he was here?

Loneliness blanketed her.

Suddenly feeling very, very tired, Stephanie closed her eyes and sank back into her pillow as she slowly lowered the bed down again.

“Did they move the video place to Seattle?” Geraldine Caine’s teasing voice reached Sebastian just as he let himself into the house.

Pocketing his key, he turned toward the family room and watched her approaching. Something sad and angry twisted inside of him as he saw her leaning so heavily on the cane that never seemed to leave her side now. He couldn’t help remembering the way this bright, vibrant woman had initially encouraged his love of track and field sports by jogging alongside him when he was just a boy.

Now all that seemed left of that woman was her wide smile and that brilliant sparkle in her eyes. Except that right now she looked worried. That was his fault, he thought with a prick of guilt. He knew she was trying not to show just how concerned she must have grown. Being a good mother in her book meant sublimating her own needs, her own fears and putting his life first. It was the way she had always operated. He’d always come first. She’d never said a word when he left home seven years ago. Only that she would always be there for him if he should need her. She was one in a million. Which was why he’d returned when she’d needed him.

“Sorry,” he said, tucking the two videos he’d brought in under his arm, “I should have called.”

Geraldine had long since come to the conclusion that mothers only stopped worrying once they were dead.

“You’re a thirty-year-old man, Sebastian. There’s no need to keep your mother apprised of your every move.” And then she smiled, creating a small space between the thumb and forefinger she held up. “Maybe a little phone call,” she allowed.

She led the way to the kitchen, knowing he had to want a cup of coffee. He’d developed a fondness for the brew at the age of eleven, when he used to come to the restaurant after school and do his homework, waiting for her to get off work. Over the years, his affinity for the drink had only intensified.

Unable to contain her growing curiosity any longer, she turned from the coffeemaker on the counter and asked, “So, what was it that kept you from promptly returning from the video store? An old friend you ran into? A wave of nostalgia that took you past the university?” Filling the two cups that stood waiting on their saucers, she waited for Sebastian to jump in.

He sat down on the stool beside the counter and pulled the cup and saucer over to him. “The former.”

“Oh?” Geraldine laced her own coffee liberally with a creamer, wondering if she was as bad at sounding innocent as she thought. “Who?” Sebastian raised his eyes to hers and then she knew. Knew without his having to say a word. Geraldine felt her mother’s heart constrict just a little within her breast. “How is she?”

Sebastian took a long, silent sip, then laughed softly, shaking his head in disbelief. Not that she hadn’t managed to do this “magic trick” of hers before. “You know, you really should have never let that mind-reading talent of yours go to waste.”

Eyes the same color as his crinkled as she smiled at him, this serious boy who had grown into such a serious man. “Only works on you, I’m afraid. Not much of a calling for mothers to make revelations about their children on the open market.”

He thought of the tabloid headline he’d seen recently at the supermarket: Country Star’s Mama Sings the Blues About Her Son. “Unless you’re the mother of a celebrity,” he told her.

Geraldine set down her cup again. “Oh, but I am.” She tucked one arm around his and gave him a quick hug. “I’m the mother of an up-and-coming doctor who gave up his budding practice to rush to the side of his ailing, pain-in-the-butt mother.”

Leaning over, he kissed the top of her head. Affection laced through him. “You were never a pain in the butt.” And then he grinned down at her. “It was more like a pain in the neck.”

Relieved that he could still joke after seeing Stephanie, Geraldine feigned a serious expression. “Show a little respect, you hear?”

He drained the coffee cup, then helped himself to another serving. “You started it, remember?”

She watched him set the coffeepot back on the burner. He was agitated. He always drank a lot of coffee when he was agitated, which only made him more so. It was a vicious cycle.

“I’m your mother, I can start anything I want.” She sobered, dropping the bantering tone. Treading lightly on the sensitive ground, she approached it again. “So, you didn’t answer me. How was she?”

Just as damn beautiful as ever. More. I wish I’d never seen her.

“About to give birth,” he replied offhandedly. Though it was hard to maintain his vague tone when he added, “As a matter of fact, I delivered her twins.”

Geraldine sank down on the stool, bracing herself against the counter. Her cane clattered to the floor. “She’s pregnant?”

Sebastian bent down and retrieved the cane, leaning it against the underside of the counter beside his mother. She nodded her silent thanks.

“Not anymore. Two healthy babies, a girl and a boy, thanks to yours truly. Delivered in the video rental parking lot.” He added the coda as if he were delivering Shakespearean lines.

Geraldine frowned, having a difficult time assimilating all this. “Right out in the lot?”

It might have come to that. Stephanie had seemed ready to pop. “In a van, actually. Some woman lent it to us when it didn’t look as if the ambulance would make it in time. I didn’t get her name,” he added, realizing only now as he said it. “She probably regretted her random act of kindness the minute she got a load of the inside of her van.”

Geraldine shook her head. He’d delivered a baby in the time she’d been watching the clock and twisting her medal almost off its link. “I let you out of my sight for what starts out to be just a few minutes and you run off, playing Dr. Kildare.”

He looked at his mother blankly. “Dr. who?”

She waved a hand at him, picking up her cup again. “Never mind, before your time.” Taking a long sip, she allowed herself a second to speculate on the situation. “I wonder how her father took all this.”

Stephanie’s father was the last person he’d concerned himself with. “I couldn’t care less.” Curiosity arose suddenly, out of nowhere, getting the better of him. “Why should he take this badly? Didn’t he approve of her husband?”