Читать книгу Daddy By Accident - Paula Riggs Detmer - Страница 8

One

Stacy Patterson gripped the edge of her seat belt and watched the houses whiz by at sixty mph. “Len, please, you have to slow down!” she shouted desperately over the roar of the souped-up engine. “This is a school zone.”

Behind the wheel of the lethal black Trans Am, her ex-husband seemed oblivious to all but the inner voices raging at him. Beneath the bill of the dark blue SWAT team cap he was no longer entitled to wear, his once-handsome face was grotesquely contorted. The mask of madness, one of his psychiatrists had termed it.

“I told you I’d find you, bitch, and I’m not letting you leave me again!” he shouted before baring his teeth in a manic smile. As if to emphasize his sick triumph, he deliberately accelerated, rocketing the sports coupe around a curve so fast the tires screeched. Flung hard against the belt, Stacy felt the rear of the Trans Am fishtailing violently and screamed a warning.

Len sliced off an obscenity and jerked the wheel. For an instant she thought he had regained control, only to catch sight of a towering pine tree looming directly ahead. Too terrified to scream. she curled forward against the belt’s restraint in a desperate attempt to protect the fragile life in her belly.

The impact threw her violently forward against the dash before the belt drew her back. Like a hot poker, pain stabbed through her head. Her last thought before the blackness closed in was of the child she carried.

High on the scaffolding that encircled the three-story Victorian remodel’s elaborate turret, Boyd MacAuley was methodically installing a new stained-glass window when he heard the earsplitting din of a violent collision. He knew even before he turned toward the sound that another unsuspecting driver had missed the notorious Astoria Street corkscrew turn and smashed headlong into the already scarred Douglas fir across the street.

With the sound of crunching metal still reverberating in his ears, he vaulted onto the ladder and headed down fast, leaping the last four feet to the ground just as the door to the small cottage next door slammed open.

“Call 911!” he shouted to the skinny nine-year-old girl who emerged. Without a word, Heidi Lanier made an abrupt about-face and disappeared inside.

As he sprinted across the grass toward the automobile, Boyd took quick stock of the situation. The vintage Trans Am that had collided with the massive fir was far too dated a model to have air bags. And if the occupants weren’t wearing their belts... Hoping for the best, he prepared himself for the worst.

The car had hit head-on, and the front end had jammed into the massive trunk with such force it had compressed the hood like a flimsy soda can. On impact, the driver had obviously gone through the windshield and lay sprawled facedown amidst shattered glass on the slanted hood. Bigger than most men, the driver appeared to be in his mid-thirties and, from the angle of the neck, not destined to get any older.

Even before Boyd skidded to a stop next to the wreck, he was tugging off one grimy leather work glove. Gasping for air, yet forcing himself to remain calm, he touched two fingers to the man’s carotid artery and prayed to feel even a faint pulse. Just as he’d suspected, the driver was dead or so close to it he doubted that even a fully equipped trauma team could save him.

Cursing the man’s folly at not wearing his seat belt, Boyd peered through the shattered windshield at the female passenger who was slumped forward against the seat belt, masses of curly brown hair obscuring her facial features.

A small woman with slender shoulders, she was dressed in a sloppy man’s shirt and shorts, and from what he could see, she appeared to be in her late twenties. There was a smear of blood on her head and blood on the dash, and she wasn’t moving.

Damn, he thought as he hurried around the rear of the car and reached for the door handle on the passenger side. The shiny chrome was blistering hot against his palm, and the door refused to budge, no matter how hard he jerked. Either the blasted thing was locked or the car’s frame had been sprung in the collision. He was about to make a dash for his truck and the pry bar in the rear tool compartment when he saw the woman in the passenger’s seat stirring.

“Ma‘am? Can you hear me?” he shouted through the glass. “Ma’am?”

Was someone calling her? Stacy turned her head and struggled to see through a haze of throbbing pain. It seemed an effort to blink, more of an effort to breathe. Ahead of her was a wall of greenery from the tree they’d hit.

Fighting off waves of sickness, she slowly swiveled her head back toward the driver’s seat, then wished she hadn’t. From a distance she heard buzzing in her head and felt her skin grow clammy. She’d fainted once during the early days of her pregnancy and recognized the warning signs.

“Ma’am? Listen to me.”

The voice seemed to come from very far away. Stacy blinked, turned back toward the window. For a moment she’d forgotten the man on the other side of the glass. With great effort she managed to bring the man’s form into sharper focus.

She saw his belt buckle first, cinching a low-slung carpenter’s belt over worn and dirty jeans. Above stretched a corded male torso the color of old bronze, which glistened under a tine sheen of sweat. His chest was massive, its obvious strength scarcely softened by a triangle of damp blond chest hair. His brawny arms were corded from the effort he was making to tug open the car door. Numbly she realized that he was trying to help her.

“Please help my ex-husband!” she cried.

He glanced past her, his face tightening for an instant before he returned his gaze to her face. She saw the truth in his eyes and felt a sob rising from her chest, part rage, part grief.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Her voice was hollow, a mere whisper.

From the questioning look that flashed in his eyes, she realized he couldn’t hear her through the glass. “Ma’am, can you unlock the door?”

Stacy blinked, tried to focus on her rescuer’s face through the streaked window glass. Though his features were partially shadowed by the brim of a straw cowboy hat, she made out the bold slash of tawny brows over deep-set eyes the color of tempered steel and a not-quite straight nose. His mouth was wide and compressed into a hard line.

“Ma’am? The door?”

Summoning what remained of her wits, she forced herself to focus. “It’s...not locked,” she said through cold lips.

“Jammed,” the man grated. At least that’s what she managed to make out. The thudding in her head was making it difficult to concentrate. After staring down at her for a second, he straightened and pulled something from his belt. A hammer, she realized after a moment of fierce concentration.

“I’m going to have to break the glass. I need you to cover your face,” he yelled.

Break the glass? That made sense, she thought and managed a nod before burying her face in hands that felt icy. She heard a crack, felt pebbles of safety glass showering her side, and cried out. A few seconds later, she lifted her head and saw him butting the remainder of the cracked glass from the window frame with huge, gloved hands. Then, with what looked like tremendous effort, he gripped the doorframe, braced his left foot on the side panel and pulled. Metal ground against metal in an earsplitting screech but refused to yield.

“Damn,” he muttered, easing his grip long enough to wipe the sweat from his eyes with the back of one thick wrist Teeth bared, tendons straining under bronzed skin, he tried again. Just when she was sure he would injure himself, the door yielded. An instant later she felt a blast of hot air hit her with the force of a freshly stoked furnace. She winced, blinked in the harsh glare, then tried to figure out what she was supposed to do next.

As though sensing her disorientation, her rescuer slowly squatted on his haunches, one tanned hand braced on the doorframe while he eased the seat belt from its latch with the other. He had removed his gloves, she noticed, and tucked them under his belt. He had large, rough hands, nicked here and there, and the wide, corded forearms of a working man.

She licked her lips and tried to formulate the words to thank him, only to have her train of thought interrupted by another voice close at hand. “Is she all right?”

Another face appeared in her field of vision. A young girl, waif thin, hovering at the stranger’s side. She looked to be nine or ten at the most—and terrified. Stacy tried to reassure her but found she had no strength.

“She’s going to be fine,” the man answered before asking curtly, “Is the ambulance on the way?”

“Yes, the lady at 911 said five minutes—”

“Which means at least ten because of the sewer work on Fifteenth,” he bit off impatiently.

“And she said to be sure and not move any of the passengers.”

“Right.” He leaned forward, his large body shielding Stacy from the searing sunshine. It hurt to draw the scorching air into her lungs, and yet she’d never felt so chilled. The shivers started inside, like a flood of icy water through her veins. When her teeth started to chatter, he uttered an oath before commanding, “Heidi, run and get a blanket from your house.”

“Be right back,” the girl told him before taking off running.

“I.. shouldn’t be...c-cold,” Stacy breathed between shudders.

“Won’t be long and you’ll be tucked into a nice warm ambulance.” He swept off his hat and dropped it to the ground outside the car. His hair was thick and blond and damp where wisps of lazy curls had been plastered to his forehead by the hatband.

“An h-hour ago I was w-wishing for w-winter.”

His grin flashed, but his dark gray eyes remained probing as he pulled a folded handkerchief from his back pocket and gently blotted her temple. When the folded hnen came away drenched in blood, she stared in bewilderment.

“Are you feeling any pain in your neck or your back?”

“No,” she mumbled, then winced as another savage pain stabbed her temple. He swept his gaze lower, past her swollen breasts to the bulge beneath her oversize paint-spattered shirt.

“Damn, you’re pregnant!” His tone was so harsh she blinked.

“Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?”

His expression told her he didn’t appreciate her joy. “How far along are you?”

She tried to smile the way she always did when she thought of the tiny little body that seemed to get bigger every day. “Just past seven months.”

His jaw tightened, flexing muscle and sinew, and a look she could only describe as tortured traversed the hard planes.

“Who’s your obstetrician?”

“I don’t have one yet,” she admitted, glancing away from his suddenly narrowed gaze. “I’ve only been in town a few weeks.” After Len’s depressingly frank doctors had begged her to leave, for her own safety.

“When was the last time you had an ultrasound?” he demanded an instant before the girl he’d called Heidi came running up with a multihued knitted afghan clutched to her thin chest. Stacy tried to smile her thanks, but her lips felt wooden.

“Oh God, there’s a man...is he dead?” the girl cried in a frightened tone. Stacy saw the child’s eyes glazing over and realized she’d just noticed Len’s motionless body.

Her rescuer stood and turned, putting his wide chest between the child and her view of the hood. “Heidi, I need you to stay calm, for this lady’s sake.” he ordered in a gentle yet no-nonsense tone.

“I’ll t-try.” The girl sounded dazed, and Stacy’s heart went out to her.

“I’m sorry,” Stacy said softly.

“She can handle it, can’t you, toots?” The big man wrapped the girl in his arms for a hard hug before holding her at arm’s length. “Now, go call 911 again, and then stay in the house in case the operator calls back. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Stacy watched the girl run across the street, her long blond hair flying. “Is she your daughter?” Her voice sounded strangely distant, as though she were speaking through layers of cotton.

“No, she’s just a kid who comes home to an empty house. She’s gotten into the habit of hanging around the job while I’m working.” His face tightened for an instant before he bent forward to tuck the soft wool around Stacy’s shivering body.

She saw then that his golden hair was lashed with strands of silver and smelled like sawdust, and his big bare shoulders were covered with a mixture of golden freckles and a fine layer of grit.

“Warmer now?”

Stacy tried to nod, but even that slight movement sent pain lancing through her skull. “Th-thanks,” she said when the pain eased slightly.

“You say you just moved to town?”

“After my divorce was final.” She started to turn her head toward the driver’s side, but he placed a hand against her cheek, stopping her. “Len never accepted the d-divorce. His doctors thought it would be better to make a clean break.”

She saw the questions in his eyes. And sympathy.

“Doctors?”

“He’d been in and out of...of a mental hospital in Washington for the past two years. I thought he was back in until he came to my apartment with a g-gun. Made me g-go with him.”

Her rescuer bit off an expletive even as he darted a quick look at the driver’s seat and floor. She saw the nine millimeter at the same time as he did, wedged between the clutch and brake, and shuddered. A siren wailed in the distance, growing louder quickly.

“About time,” the man muttered, glaring toward the sound for a moment before turning his dark gray eyes on her face again. “It won’t be long now. You’ll be in good hands.”

“You’re very k-kind, Mr. uh...” She stopped, searching for a name, then realized he hadn’t given her one.

“Boyd MacAuley.”

“I’m..Stacy Patterson.” She slipped a hand free of the blanket and held it out. His big hand closed over hers, his rough fingers wonderfully warm and reassuring. Woozy now, she let her eyes close. She would rest now, for just a moment, she told herself. Until the dizziness eased up.

“Hang on tight, Mrs. Patterson,” she heard him say, and for the first time in months she felt safe.

Portland General Hospital was solid and square and resembled a brick fortress. Located in the downtown rabbit warren sandwiched between the Willamette River and the majestic Columbia, it had felt like home to Boyd the instant he’d first walked through the front door as a scared intern eight years ago. Now, however, it was just a place he didn’t want to be.

As soon as the paramedic driving the ambulance had backed into the reserved space directly in front of the emergency room door, Boyd stepped from the back of the rig and squared his shoulders. Though Mrs. Patterson had fainted shortly before help had arrived and was still unconscious, her vitals were steady and she seemed in no great danger. Once she was safely in the hands of the trauma staff, his responsibility was ended.

Ten minutes tops, he told himself as he followed the two EMTs pushing the stretcher through the automatic sliding doors. Long enough for him to relate to the triage nurse all he’d learned before she’d passed out. Long enough to make sure she was getting the best Portland General had to offer.

Inside, there was an atmosphere of controlled urgency. Nurses in scrubs and doctors with surgical masks dangling under their chins moved swiftly yet with a sense of purpose that Boyd had once shared. Little had changed at PortGen in three years, he realized as he drew a deep breath of hospital air. It smelled the same, part dust and old wax, part disinfectant, and an unwanted rush of memories crashed over him.

He went cold inside and the floor seemed to shift. Fisting his hands at his sides, he drew in great gulps of air, fighting against the sharp claws of fury. Slowly the chill receded, bit by bit, until he could breathe normally again.

Around him, the controlled urgency took form and shape. And sound.

“Cubicle four, gentlemen,” the admitting clerk barked as the paramedics slowed. Boyd didn’t recognize the woman, but he knew the type—a drill sergeant with a clipboard and absolutely no sense of humor. More than once during his years as an intern and resident in this place, he’d tangled with this one’s clone. The best he’d managed during all that time was a draw.

“Are you a relative, sir?” the clerk asked while strafing his naked chest with a disapproving gaze.

“No, just a witness.” He saw the militant glint in her eyes and was about to brush past her when he heard a familiar voice calling his name. Turning toward the sound, he felt a jolt of relief. Prudence Randolph was the best nurse he’d encountered in the five years he’d spent practicing medicine. She was also his neighbor and his friend.

“So that really is the reclusive Boyd MacAuley under that gorgeous tan?” Prudy was an irrepressible tease and a charming flirt, but only with men she considered safe. She’d been divorced for years and claimed to have sworn off marriage forever.

“Sawdust is more like it,” he replied, suddenly conscious of his sweat-stained jeans and grimy skin No doubt he smelled like the mangy dog he resembled.

Prudy flicked him a curious grin, even as she was focusing her intelligent brown eyes on the patient. “Is she a friend of yours?”

“Never saw her before. Said her name’s Stacy Patterson. We weren’t able to find a purse or any identification.”

“Auto accident?”

He raked a hand through his hair and nodded. “Trans Am hit a tree on Astoria. She was in the passenger’s seat. From what I can tell she banged her head on impact.” He drew a hard breath. “She’s pregnant. Just over seven months. No attending OB.”

Prudy’s eyes clouded. “Vitals?” she asked the uniformed paramedic on the other side of the stretcher.

While the EMT recounted the numbers, Boyd searched the young woman’s face for signs of returning consciousness. The gash on her forehead was oozing blood into the bandage applied by the paramedics, and her skin was purpling around the wound.

Small boned and too thin, she reminded him of a priceless porcelain doll his grandmother had kept on her dresser. Her skin had the same translucent quality as the fragile china, and her lashes were long and thick. Lost in the oblivion of sleep, she seemed very young and vulnerable—and terribly alone. It hurt to look at her, and yet he couldn’t make himself walk away.

“Call Dr. Hoy,” Prudy told the clerk briskly. “And get a lab tech up here stat. We’ll need blood work done.” The clerk flicked Boyd a curious glance before she turned to leave. He could almost predict the questions she would ask Prudy later.

“What about the driver?” Prudy asked as she held back the curtain to number four.

Boyd hesitated, the image of death still vivid in his mind. “The poor guy went through the windshield. Looked like a broken neck.”

Prudy sighed. “Her husband?”

“Ex, I think she said.”

“Is he the baby’s father?”

Boyd raked back the still-damp hair that had flopped onto his forehead. “She was pretty woozy and a little sparse on the details, but yeah, that seems a good bet.”

Prudy frowned. “Ex or not, it’s still going to be rough on her when she wakes up, especially if she loses the baby, too.”

Yeah, it’s always hardest on the one who’s “lucky” enough to survive, Boyd thought as he watched Prudy and the two paramedics transfer Stacy to the narrow bed. There was a slash of yellow paint on one high cheekbone and yellow splatters on the bright pink basketball sneaker peeking out from the gray ambulance blanket tucked around her small form.

“Oops, sorry.” Jenkins, the senior medic shot Boyd an apologetic glance, and Boyd realized that he was in the way. He’d forgotten for the moment that he was a carpenter now, a blue-collar guy with callused hands more suited to holding a hammer than a scalpel. Though his profession had changed, his knowledge of medicine hadn’t, however. He waited until the paramedics left, then cleared his throat. “Who’s the OB on call?”

“Jarrod.” Prudy looked up from the blood pressure cuff she was affixing to the patient’s too-thin arm and smiled. “We’ll take good care of her, Boyd. The best. She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, sure she will.” A sudden lump pressed his throat and he had to swallow twice before he could make it dissolve. He’d heard that before. He’d even believed it. He knew better now. “Guess I’ll head on back then.”

Taking another step backward toward the curtain had him nearly colliding with an entering tech who sidestepped gingerly. “Sorry,” Boyd muttered, and earned himself a pained look.

“Sir, you’ll have to wait outside until after the doctor examines your wife,” the tech instructed impatiently.

“She’s not...” He stopped, realizing that the tech wasn’t listening. Frowning, he turned to go, only to be halted by the sound of Mrs. Patterson’s soft voice.

“No, wait. I don’t...want him to go.” Across the cubicle, Mrs. Patterson was now awake and watching him with bruised eyes. When he locked his gaze on hers, she tried to smile. “I haven’t thanked you.”

He cleared his throat. “No need. Mostly I just kept you company until the bus showed up.”

Stacy wet her lips and struggled to focus her mind on her rescuer’s words instead of the all-encompassing pain in her head. “Bus?”

“Sorry, I mean the ambulance.” His mouth quirked. It wasn’t quite a smile but held a certain promise she found endearing.

“I don’t...but of course, there would have to be...an ambulance. How silly of me...not to remember.”

The effort to speak set her head to spinning, and she hauled in air in an effort to clear her brain. Concentrate on his eyes, she told herself as his face wavered in and out of focus. Gray eyes in a deeply tanned face. Quicksilver eyes, framed by thick, blunt lashes the color of bronze. There was something haunting about those eyes. Something sad. Memories he didn’t want, perhaps, or lingering shadows of a terrible suffering. For an instant, she thought she was looking into the eyes of her tormented husband.

“Boyd?” she murmured, and heard his deep voice answering. The words were indistinct, yet she felt a sense of comfort.

Another face swam into her field of vision. A face with feminine features and a kind smile. A face topped by a halo of shining copper. A nurse, she finally decided.

“Is there anyone you want us to call for you, Mrs. Patterson ? Family? Friends?”

Stacy concentrated for a moment. “Some...someone should call my ex-in-laws in Seattle. Leonard Patterson, Sr., on Stanton Street.” Old and frail now, the Pattersons had never forgiven her for signing the papers to commit their only son.

Someone repeated the information, then asked if there was anyone else. A member of her own family perhaps? The baby’s father?

“Len...”

“Len was the baby’s father?” the voice repeated with a soothing calm.

“Yes.” Len had longed to become a father, but that was before a hopped-up kid bent on robbery had split his skull with a baseball bat. After that, he’d become a mean, angry man given to bouts of violence that had finally worn out her love and her loyalty.

“Anyone else? A neighbor, maybe? Or a co-worker?”

Stacy cleared her throat again of a sudden thickness and searched for the name that hovered just beyond her consciousness. A face wavered, round and patrician, with a frizz of curly white hair swooping over the apple cheeks. “Adeline... Marsh.”

“Is she a friend?”

“Principal at Lewis and Clark Elementary. I’ve been substituting. Morning kindergarten.” Stacy licked her lips, aware suddenly that somehow, her hand was in Boyd’s again. Had she reached for him? Or had he reached for her? Either way, she was grateful for the human contact and curled her fingers tighter around his.

“I’m...sorry about taking you away from your work,” she murmured, her voice oddly thin.

“It’ll still be there when I get back.” He bent lower, and his bare shoulders blocked out the overhead light.

“Will your boss be angry?”

“No boss. I work alone.”

She heard a low drone of whispered conversation and turned her head toward the sound. The resulting pain in her temple caused her to inhale sharply.

“Easy, honey.” he soothed, his voice low and scratchy.

Slowly she adjusted the angle of her head until she could see his eyes, now dark and intense and probing. Deep lines fanned the outer corners, suggesting a man who knew how to laugh, yet the strongly molded face had the look of a man more accustomed to discipline and control and restraint.

“Miz Patterson?” a third voice inquired softly. “I need to draw blood for the lab now.”

It wasn’t really a question, saving Stacy the trouble of replying. Boyd stepped back to allow room for a roly-poly woman in a blue smock. Stacy watched anxiously as the woman readied a syringe and hoped she wouldn’t disgrace herself by fainting. Just in case, she looked away before the needle entered her arm. She felt a prick, then pressure. The overhead light was beginning to sear her eyes, and her head was spinning again. She felt her lashes drooping and quickly forced her eyes wider. It was important to stay awake and alert. In control.

“Boyd?” Mindless of her aching head, she looked around anxiously.

“Right here, Stacy.” He took her hand again, and the cold that had begun to seep into her again abated. The self-confidence she’d built up over the past year was crumbling fast, leaving her feeling lost and scared and lonely.

Some independent woman you are, she thought, disgusted with her pitiful lack of fortitude. Here she was, an expectant mother who wanted desperately to be held in the arms of a man she’d just met.

She started to thank him again, only to find herself seized by a spasm of pain in the small of her back. She stopped breathing, her heart tripping. The pain spread, rippling toward her belly, nearly squeezing her in two.

“No!” she cried in sharp agony. “It’s too soon!”

“Get Dr. Jarrod, stat,” she heard the nurse order sharply. “Tell him the patient may be going into premature labor.”

Stacy clung to the strong hand wrapping hers, terror racing with the adrenalins in her veins.

“Try to relax, Stacy. Take deep breaths.” Boyd’s voice was steady and call, everything she wasn’t.

“Tell them to save the baby,” she pleaded. “Make them promise. If there’s a choice, my baby has to live.”

“Look, babies are surprisingly resilient, especially in utero,” he said in that curiously raspy voice.

“But what if she isn’t? What if—”

“Hey, none of that, okay?” Lifting a hand from hers, he brushed back a lock of her hair, his touch as gentle as a lover’s caress. “You’re going to be fine. Both of you.”

Stacy tightened her grip on his hand. “Is that a p-promise, or a guess?”

His hesitation was slight but noticeable. Because he didn’t want to lie? she wondered.

“Definitely a promise,” he declared an instant before the curtains parted to admit a tall, lanky man who, in spite of the blue scrubs, reminded her more of a working cowboy than a doctor.

“MacAuley?” he exclaimed on a double take. “What the hell?”

“Later,” Boyd said, stepping back. He’d done all he could do for the dark-haired angel with the beautiful eyes. Now it was up to the professionals. And luck. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to believe in either one.