string of questions rattled in his head.
Surely he wouldn’t be expected to help out financially—it was all a mistake, and not his mistake.
But this was his child. If she needed financial help, how could he deny it?
His child?
What was he thinking?
But when she appeared again, he found himself staring, riveted by the bulging belly.
That was his baby in there.
The baby he’d decided he wasn’t ever going to have for a whole fleet of excellent reasons.
This woman was having his baby.
His gut churned, then she glanced his way, flashed a smile at him and other bits of him reacted as well.
From a smile?
He smiled back although it was probably such a poor effort she might not have recognised it. But here he was, the man who, not so many hours ago, had made the final, definite ‘no children in my future’ decision, getting twinges of attraction—well, more than twinges—towards a woman carrying his child.
She’d been doing okay until he’d smiled. Admittedly, she’d sneaked a glance at him every time she’d walked into the waiting room, but apart from registering that he was a very attractive man—and her body registering the same thing in a most inappropriate manner for someone eight-and-a half-months pregnant—she really hadn’t been taking that much notice.
The smile changed everything.
The smile made her think of things she’d long given up considering.
Like sex?
It had to be her hormones, all out of sync now she was getting so close to giving birth. The man was a total stranger—someone she’d never see again in her life. And so what if he was talking to Sam Wainwright, a hyperactive six-year-old, and actually calming him down …
But the smile had lightened the tension she’d read earlier on his face, and revealed strong white teeth, framed by those well-shaped lips—
Get out of here! Get your mind back on the job. Do not go out the door again—get Meryl to send the next patient in.
Disobeying the orders from the sensible part of her brain, Joey pushed herself to her feet and went to the door.
‘Your turn, Sam,’ she said, pretending to a professionalism she was far from feeling, her eyes drawn to the man who now was pulling coins from behind Sam’s ear.
‘Can Max come in with me and Mum?’ Sam asked, smiling up at the man, who, fortunately for Joey as she’d been struck dumb, smiled at the boy and explained it wasn’t his turn yet.
Of course his voice would be just that tad husky, just the kind of male voice that had always got her in.
Joey closed her eyes and prayed for sanity.
A little bit of sanity—surely not too much to ask for!
It came, in reaction to Sam seizing one of her legs and hugging hard, protesting that he didn’t want her to go away, even for a little while.
Sensing he was genuinely upset—and assuming she’d fall over if she tried to walk—Joey eased Sam off her leg and squatted, uncomfortably, so she could look into his freckled face.
‘But I have to go to hospital to have the baby, then stay home to look after it for a bit,’ she reminded him. ‘We talked about it, and you know Dr Austin, who’ll be seeing you while I’m away.’
She ran her hand over his hair, and in a moment of complete insanity added, ‘Maybe once I have the baby, you can come and visit me in hospital and meet it.’
She was about to struggle back to an upright position when a firm hand with long, strong fingers grasped her elbow and helped her up, the husky voice murmuring, ‘And think what havoc he could wreak in a maternity ward,’ in her ear, as he made sure she was balanced before releasing her arm.
But she wasn’t thinking of Sam, or the chaos he could cause. She was trying very hard to work out why the touch of a stranger had made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and a shiver travel down her spine.
The kind of shiver she hadn’t felt for seven years …
The kind of shiver David’s touch had given her …
Somehow she managed to get Sam and his long-suffering mother through the door and close it behind them, but the feel of the man’s fingers on her arm lingered, and something very like excitement skittered along her nerves.
He should leave right now, Max told himself. He’d seen the woman. Pete could contact her about the mistake. Even from the small interactions with her patients that he’d witnessed, he could tell she was competent and caring.
That was really all he needed to know. The baby was nothing to do with him.
So why were his eyes drawn to her belly whenever she entered the room?
Why did he feel the gut-wrench thing—the ‘that’s my baby in there’ reaction—whenever he looked at her?
Because she was attractive?
Because he was drawn to her in some in explicable way?
Because he was having an almost primeval reaction to the news that this was his baby?
All those reasons were dumb. He could go now, forget this had ever happened, and if Pete told her—when Pete told her—about the mix-up, he needn’t mention who the father was.
As for the woman—well, she was attractive, there was no denying that, but she wouldn’t want him interfering. A woman with a child deserved stability and certainty in her life. She was a widow. She was beautiful, desirable, ripe to meet someone who could make her happy again. And if he was on the scene …
He was way ahead of himself. Thinking, stupidly, of relationships? He didn’t need to go there. A man who’d already let down two women he’d loved, and who’d loved him, couldn’t be trusted not to hurt a third. And to hurt a woman with a child was unthinkable.
THE WAITING ROOM was suddenly empty.
He still had time to leave, but when the door opened, and the tired, very pregnant but still beautiful woman walked out, he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stare at her.
‘Joanne McMillan,’ she said, holding out her hand,
Suddenly aware of his own manners—bad ones that he’d stayed sitting—he surged to his feet and stepped towards her, tripping on a toy he hadn’t noticed on the floor, and all but crash-tackling the woman to the floor.
Great start!
She
