Читать книгу Expecting His Baby - Sandra Field - Страница 6

THERE was a woman in the bed.

An astonishingly beautiful woman.

Judd Harwood stood still, gazing at the sleeping figure under the white hospital bedspread. He must have the wrong room. It was a man he was looking for, not a woman. Yet instead of leaving and asking someone for better directions, Judd stayed exactly where he was, his slate-gray eyes focused on the bed’s occupant. Her right shoulder and upper arm were swathed in an ice pack. Her face was very pale; the livid bruise marring the sweet curve of her jawline stood out in sharp contrast to the creamy skin. Had she been in a car accident, or fallen on the ice encrusting the city streets? Or had it been something worse? Surely she hadn’t been assaulted.

His fists curled at his sides in impotent anger. Could it have been her husband? Her lover? He’d flatten the bastard if he ever got his hands on him. Flatten him and ask questions afterward. And how was that for a crazy reaction? A woman he’d never even met, knew nothing about.

He wasn’t into protecting strange women. He had better things to do with his time.

His jaw a hard line, Judd continued his scrutiny. The woman’s brows were delicate as wings, her cheekbones softly hollowed; he found himself longing to stroke the silken slope from the corner of her eye to the corner of her mouth. An infinitely kissable mouth, he thought, his own mouth dry. Her eyes were closed; he found himself intensely curious to know what color they were. Gray as storm clouds? The rich brown of wet earth? Her hair was red, although that word in no way did justice to a tumble of curls vivid as flame.

Flame…

Blanking from his mind a surge of nightmare images, Judd gave himself a shake. He didn’t have the time for this; he needed to find the fireman who’d saved Emmy. Thank him as best he could and then go back to his daughter’s bedside. Emmy was sedated, the doctor had assured him of that, and wouldn’t wake for hours. But Judd wasn’t taking any chances.

So why was he still standing here?

Scowling, purposely not looking for the woman’s name on the chart at the foot of the bed, Judd strode out of the room. A nurse was hurrying toward him, her flowered uniform a splash of color in the bare corridor. He said, “Excuse me—I’m looking for the fireman who was admitted earlier this evening…he rescued my daughter and I need to thank him. But I don’t even know his name.”

The nurse gave him an harassed smile. “Actually it was a woman,” she said. “I don’t believe—”

“A woman?” Judd repeated blankly.

“That’s right.” Her smile was a shade less friendly. “They do have women on the fire and rescue squads, you know. Room 214. Although I don’t believe she’s recovered consciousness yet.”

Room 214 was the room he’d already been in. The room with the woman lying so still on the bed. Trying to regain some semblance of his normal self-control, Judd said abruptly, “I shouldn’t have made the assumption it was a man. Thanks for your help.”

“If you need to talk to her, tomorrow would be better. She won’t be released before midmorning.”

“Okay—thanks again.”

The nurse disappeared into a room across the hall. Slowly Judd walked back into Room 214. The woman was lying exactly as she had been a few moments ago, the smooth line of the sheet rising and falling gently with her breathing. He walked closer to the bed, staring at her as though he could imprint every aspect of her appearance in his mind, teased by a strange sense that she resembled someone he knew. But who? He couldn’t put a finger on it, and he prided himself on his memory. Surely he’d never seen her before; he could scarcely have forgotten her. The purity of her bone structure. The gentle jut of her wrist bones. Her long, capable fingers, curled defencelessly on the woven coverlet.

Ringless fingers. Did that mean she didn’t have a husband?

Her fingernails were dirty. Well, of course they were. She was a firefighter, wasn’t she?

This was the woman who’d saved his daughter’s life; Judd didn’t even have to close his eyes to remember the horrific scene that had greeted him when the cab from Montreal’s Dorval airport had dropped him off in the driveway of his house.

Clutching his briefcase, Judd saw three fire trucks parked on the lawn, their red lights flashing into the darkness. Yellow-jacketed firefighters shouted back and forth, barking orders into two-way radios. Water hissed from coiled gray hoses. Great billows of black smoke, rising from the roof, were licked by flames that appeared and disappeared with the wicked unpredictability of vipers. For a moment Judd was stunned, his feet rooted to the ground, his heart thudding in heavy strokes that overrode all the other sounds. He’d known fear before. Of course he had. Some of the situations he persisted in subjecting himself to saw to that. But he’d never known anything as devastating as the terror that clamped itself to every nerve and muscle in his body when he pictured Emmy trapped in that heat, in the choking smoke and vicious destruction of fire.

A tall metal ladder was angled against the wall of the house, reaching toward the windows of the family wing. The wing where Emmy slept…

Judd ran forward, yelling her name. Four policemen jumped him, grabbing his arms as they fought to restrain him. A fifth went flying when Judd flung him aside. And then Judd saw a small bundled figure thrust through the window into the waiting arms of the firefighter on the ladder. He gave a hoarse shout, and as the fireman passed the bundle to another man waiting further down the ladder, the policemen finally released him.

He ran across the frozen, snow-patched lawn faster than he’d ever run in his life. As the fireman transferred Emmy to his arms, the panic in her eyes cut him like a knife, the small weight of her catching at his heartstrings.

Holding her with fierce protectiveness, he climbed into the back of the waiting ambulance. But as he did so, Judd threw a quick glance over his shoulder, in time to catch part of the roof collapsing in a shower of sparks that under any other circumstances might have been eerily beautiful. A blackened beam struck the firefighter who’d shoved Emmy through the window. The helmeted figure staggered and almost fell, and in dreadful fascination Judd watched the fireman at the top of the ladder seize a yellow sleeve, hauling the other firefighter’s body over the charred sill by sheer, brute force. A cheer went up from the watchers on the ground. Then Judd turned away, shielding Emmy from the leaping flames and surreal, flickering lights…

Judd came back to the present with a jolt, licking his lips. Emmy had been pronounced out of danger from the smoke she’d inhaled. Because of her sedative-induced sleep, he’d taken this opportunity to find the firefighter to whom he owed a debt of gratitude that could never be repaid.

The woman on the bed.

She couldn’t be much over five-seven or five-eight. Her features lacked the perfection of Angeline’s: her nose slightly crooked, her mouth a touch too generous. Angeline was his ex-wife, mother of Emmy. An internationally known model, who wouldn’t have been caught dead with dirty fingernails.

He didn’t want to think about Angeline, her poise and stunning looks, her seductive body and cool, midnight-blue eyes. Not now. He’d divorced her four years ago, and had seen almost nothing of her since then.

The woman on the bed stirred a little, muttering something under her breath. Her lashes flickered. But then her breath sighed in her chest and she settled again. Somehow, in the midst of a maelstrom of smoke and flame and the night’s darkness, this woman had found Emmy and carried her to the ladder, into the waiting arms of the other firefighter. To safety.

Judd walked to the foot of the bed, frowning slightly as he started reading the neatly typed words on the chart. Then the woman’s name leaped out at him. Lise Charbonneau. Age twenty-eight.

His frown deepened, his eyes intent in a way some of his business associates would have recognized. Angeline still went by her own name, which was also Charbonneau. And Angeline’s young cousin had been called Lise. He’d met her at the wedding, all those years ago.

It couldn’t be the same person. That would be stretching coincidence too far.

But Lise at the age of thirteen or so had had flaming, unruly red hair, and cheekbones that even then gave promise of an elegance to come. She’d also had braces on her teeth and the gawkiness of a foal new to the field, and no social graces whatsoever. Her eyes, though, had been as green as spring grass, almond-shaped eyes that were already beautiful.

He searched his memory. Hadn’t she been living with Angeline and Marthe, Angeline’s mother, because her own parents had died tragically? And hadn’t they died in a house fire?

Was that why Lise Charbonneau had become a firefighter?

Angeline’s cousin responsible for saving Angeline’s daughter…what a strange and unbelievable irony. Speaking of which, he’d better try to reach Angeline. He himself was always fodder for journalists; he didn’t want Angeline hearing about Emmy’s escape on the late-night television news.

But then the woman in the bed shifted again, moaning slightly under her breath. He stiffened to attention, going over to stand by the bed, watching her struggle toward consciousness. And to pain by the look of it, he thought grimly, reaching for the buzzer that was pinned to the pillow by her head, and with an effort restraining himself from taking a strand of her vivid hair between his fingers. Hair that could warm a man’s heart. He said gently, “It’s okay, I’m calling the nurse.”

Her eyes flickered open, closed again, then opened more widely, focusing on him with difficulty. They were a clear, brilliant green, exquisitely shaped. Tension rippling along his nerves, Judd waited for her to speak.

The man’s outline was blurred, throbbing in tandem with the throbbing in her shoulder. Lise blinked, trying to clear her vision of a haze of pain and sedatives, and this time he was more distinct. More distinct and instantly recognizable.

Judd. Judd Harwood. Standing beside her bed, gazing at her with an intensity that made her heart lurch in her breast. He’d come for her, she thought dizzily. Finally. Her knight in shining armor, her gallant prince… How many times, as a teenager, had she fantasized just such an awakening? His big body, so broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, his square jaw and fierce vitality: she’d known them—so she’d thought—as well as she’d known her own body. Known them and longed for them. Hopelessly. Because all those years ago Judd had been in love with Angeline.

But now it was as though all her adolescent dreams had coalesced, and she’d woken to find the first man she’d ever fallen for watching her in a way that curled heat through every limb. She’d been madly and inarticulately in love with him back then, no matter that he was married to her cousin. How could she not have loved him? To a lonely and impressionable teenager, his looks and personality had had the impact of an ax blade, splintering her innocence. Since then, of course, she’d been hugely disillusioned, all her trite little daydreams shattered on the hard rocks of adult reality.

Judd Harwood. Unfaithful husband of her beloved cousin Angeline. The man who had refused Angeline custody of her own daughter, who’d been too busy amassing his fortune to be anything other than an absentee husband and father. The jet-setter with a woman in every major city in the world.

But what, she wondered frantically, fighting to overcome the fuzziness of her thoughts, was he doing standing by her bed? And where was she anyway? Because this was no dream. The dull, thudding pain in her shoulder and the sharp needles of agony behind her eyes were all too real. So was he, of course. His thick black hair now had threads of gray over the ears, she noticed in confusion. But his eyes were still that chameleon shade between blue and gray, and his jawline was as arrogant as ever.

“Where—” she croaked.

“I’ve called the nurse,” he said in the deep baritone that she now realized she’d never forgotten. “Just lie still, she’ll be here in a minute.”

“But what are you—”

The door swung open and on soft rubber heels a nurse came in the room. She went straight to the bed, smiling at Lise. “So you’re awake—good. And not feeling so great by the look of you. I’ll give you another shot, that’ll help the pain in your shoulder.” With calm efficiency, she checked Lise’s pulse and temperature, asked a few questions and gave her the requisite painkiller. “It’ll take a few moments to take effect,” she said briskly, and glanced up at Judd. “Perhaps you could stay until she’s asleep again?”

“Certainly,” Judd said.

With a last smile at Lise, the nurse left the room. Judd said evenly, “You’re the Lise I met years ago, aren’t you? Angeline’s cousin? Do you remember me? Judd Harwood.”

Oh, yes, she remembered him. Lise said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

She’d planned for this to come out crisply and decisively, edged with all the contempt she harbored for him. But her tongue felt like a sponge in her mouth, and her words were scarcely audible even to herself. In huge frustration, she tried again, struggling to marshal her thoughts in a brain stuffed with cotton wool. “I have nothing to say to you,” she whispered, then let exhaustion flatten her to the pillow.

“Lise…” Judd bent closer, so close she could see the cleanly sculpted curve of his mouth and the small dent in his chin. A wave of panic washed over her. She turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut. “Go away,” she mumbled.

He said tightly, “I’ll come back tomorrow morning. But I want you to know how grateful—oh hell, what kind of a word is that? You saved my daughter’s life, Lise, at the risk of your own. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

Her eyes flew open. She gaped up at him, trying to take in what he was saying, remembering the nightmare search from room to room, the dash up the attic stairs and the child huddled at bay in the corner. “You mean the fire was at your house?” she gasped. He nodded. In growing agitation she said, “All I heard was that the owner was away and there was a baby-sitter and a little girl. No names.”

“My daughter. Emmy.”

“Angeline’s daughter—she’s Angeline’s just as much as yours!”

“Angeline left when Emmy was three,” Judd said in a hard voice.

“You refused her custody.”

“She didn’t want it.”

“That’s not what she told me.”

“Look,” Judd said flatly, “this is no time for an autopsy on my divorce. You saved Emmy’s life. You showed enormous courage.” Briefly he rested his hand over hers. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to say.”

His fingers were warm, with a latent strength that seemed to race through Lise’s body as flame could race along an exposed wire. “Do you really think I need your gratitude?” she cried, hating his nearness, despising herself for being so achingly aware of it. She was damned if she was going to respond to him like the lovesick adolescent she’d been; she was twenty-eight years old, she’d been around. And he was nothing to her. Nothing. She tried to pull her hand away from his, felt agony lance from her elbow to her shoulder, and gave an inarticulate yelp of pain.

Judd said tautly, “For God’s sake, lie still. You’re acting as though you hate me.”

With faint surprise that he could be so obtuse, she said, “Why wouldn’t I hate you?”

To her infinite relief, he straightened, his hand falling to his side. An emotion she couldn’t possibly have defined flickered across his face. In a neutral voice he said, “You grew up with Angeline.”

“I adored her,” Lise announced defiantly. “She was everything I always wanted to be, and she was kind to me at a time when I badly needed it.” Kind in a rather distant, amused fashion, and kind only when it didn’t inconvenience Angeline; as an adult, Lise had come to see these distinctions. Nevertheless, during a period in her life when she’d been horribly lonely, her cousin had taken the trouble to teach her how to dance, and given her advice on her complexion and how to talk to boys. Had paid attention to her. Which was more than Marthe, Angeline’s mother, had done.

“Adoration isn’t the most clear-eyed of emotions,” Judd said.

“What would you know about emotions?”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“Figure it out, Judd,” Lise said wearily. The drugs were starting to take effect, the throbbing in her shoulder lessening; her eyes felt heavy, her body full of lassitude, and all she wanted was for him to go away. Then the door swung smoothly on its hinges again, and with a flood of relief she saw Dave’s familiar face.

Dave McDowell was her co-worker, almost always on the same shifts as she. She liked him enormously for his calmness under pressure, and for his rock-solid dependability. He was still wearing the navy-blue coveralls that went under their outer gear; he looked worn-out. She said warmly, “Dave…good thing you were on that ladder.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You were really pushing it, Lise.”

“The little girl wasn’t in her room. For some reason she’d slept in the attic. So it took me a while to find her.”

Judd made a small sound in his throat. Emmy slept in the attic when she was lonely, she’d told him that once. And he’d been away for four days. So if she’d died in the fire because she couldn’t be found, the blame could have been laid squarely on his own shoulders.

Unable to face his own thoughts, Judd turned to Dave. “My name’s Judd Harwood—it’s my daughter Lise rescued. If you were the man on the ladder—then I owe you a debt of thanks, too.”

“Dave McDowell,” Dave said with a friendly grin that lit up his brown eyes. “We make a good team, Lise and I. Except she doesn’t always go by the manual.”

“Rules are made to be bent,” Lise muttered.

“One of these days, you’ll bend them too often,” Dave said with a touch of grimness.

“Dave, I weigh less than the guys and I can go places they can’t. And I got her out, didn’t I?”

“You scare the tar out of me sometimes, that’s all.”

Lise said a very pithy word under her breath. Dave raised his eyebrows and produced a rather battered bouquet of flowers from behind his back. “Picked these up on the way over. Although you’ll be going home tomorrow, they say.”

“Come and get me?” Lise asked.

“Sure will.”

“Good,” she said contentedly.

“Might even clean up your apartment for you.”

Lise said with considerable dignity, “A messy room is the sign of a creative mind.”

“It’s the sign of someone who’d rather read mystery novels than do housework.”

“Makes total sense to me.” Lise grinned.

Judd shifted his position. The easy camaraderie between the two of them made him obscurely angry in a way he couldn’t analyse. So Dave was familiar with Lise’s apartment. Was he her lover as well as her cohort at work? And what if he was? Why should that matter to him, Judd? Other than being the woman who’d saved Emmy’s life, Lise Charbonneau was nothing to him.

Yet she was beautiful in a way Angeline could never be. A beauty that was much more than skin deep, that was rooted not only in courage but in emotion. He said brusquely, “I’ll be staying in the hospital overnight with my daughter. I’ll drop by in the morning, Lise, to see how you are.”

“Please don’t,” she said sharply. “You’ve thanked me. There’s nothing more to say.”

As Dave raised his brows again, Judd said implacably, “Then I’ll be in touch with you later on. McDowell, thanks again—your team did a great job.”

“No sweat, man.”

Judd marched out of the room and down the corridor toward the elevator. He wasn’t used to being given the brush-off. Hey, who was he kidding? He was never given the brush-off. Women seemed to find his looks, coupled with his money, a potent combination, so much so that he was the one used to handing out brush-offs. Politely. Diplomatically. But the message was almost always the same. Hands off.

Lise Charbonneau hated his guts. No doubt about that. Dammit, she’d been scarcely conscious and she’d found the energy to let him know she thought he was the lowest of the low. And all because of Angeline. Who in the end had dumped him as unceremoniously as if he’d been a pair of boots she was tired of wearing. Trouble is, at the time that had hurt. Hurt rather more than he was prepared to admit. During the eleven years it had lasted, he’d done his level best to hold his marriage together, and to preserve the intensity of emotion that had poleaxed him when he’d first met Angeline. But he’d failed on both counts. Hence his propensity for brush-offs whenever a woman showed any signs of getting too close, or having any ambitions toward matrimony.

Been there. Done that.

He’d have to phone Angeline first thing in the morning: assuming that she was home in the elegant chateau on the Loire that was the principal residence of her second husband, Henri. Who was, incidentally, no longer richer than Judd. Judd, however, couldn’t lay claim to a string of counts and dukes in his ancestry. Far from it. If he rarely thought about Angeline, he even more rarely recalled his upbringing on the sordid tenements of Manhattan’s lower east side.

The elevator seemed to take forever to arrive, but finally he was pushing open the door to Emmy’s room. The little girl was lying peacefully asleep, just as he’d left her. She had her mother’s dark blue eyes and heart-shaped face; but her long, straight hair was as black as his, and she’d inherited both his quickness of mind and ability to keep her own counsel. He’d loved her from the moment she’d been born. But only rarely did he know exactly what she was thinking.

As he reached over and smoothed her hair back from her face, she didn’t even stir. He’d wanted to make the same gesture with Lise, although from very different motives. Motives nowhere near as pure as the love of a father for his daughter.

He hadn’t seen the last of Lise. He knew that in his bones. Although if she were involved with Dave, he’d be one heck of a lot smarter to keep his distance. If he hadn’t liked the first brush-off, why would he like the second any better? And he’d never tried forcing himself between a woman and her lover. Never had to, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Put Lise Charbonneau out of your mind, he told himself, and focus on getting some sleep. Tomorrow he had to look after Emmy, insurance agents, the police and contractors for repairs. He didn’t need the distraction of a flame-haired woman who thought he was the scum of the earth. Scowling, Judd lay down on the cot that the nurses had provided and stared up at the ceiling. But it was a long time before he fell asleep, because two images kept circling in his brain.

Emmy sleeping in the attic because she was lonely.

And the dirt under Lise’s fingernails. Dirt from a fire in which she’d risked her life for Emmy’s sake.