said calmly. “You were brought in on Sunday. It’s Thursday. Your Mr. Reed has stayed by your side since he arrived Tuesday. Half the nurses in the hospital are pea green with envy, I can tell you.”
Four days?
She’d been thinking maybe four hours.
Distress gnawed at her.
The doctor was still sitting, and the overhead light glinted off his glasses as he waved Alex in when the nurse opened the door once more. “As I was telling Nikki, the spotting has stopped. There’s been no evidence of any more contractions.”
“More?” Her voice rose at that.
Just what had been going on while she was unconscious?
The nurse patted her arm. “Try not to get excited, hon. Your blood pressure was through the roof when the ambulance brought you in. It’s only begun to stabilize in the last twelve hours.”
News that was not helping Nikki become any calmer. “The baby’s been moving,” she said nervously. Alex had told her she and the baby were fine. “So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing that bed rest won’t cure, I believe,” the doctor assured her. He adjusted his glasses, making them glint again. “Frankly, at this point, the baby is healthier than you are.”
“Then I can go home?”
“I’d prefer to keep you here in the hospital. I want you off your feet for the next three weeks.” He glanced at her chart again. “You’ll be in your third trimester then.”
Nikki’s stomach dived down to her toes. Her new job came equipped with medical insurance coverage—which she would desperately need by the time her delivery date arrived—but not until she’d actually been working there for sixty days. Working being the operative word.
If she was here in this Montana hospital for weeks, she couldn’t very well report for her first day at Belvedere Salvage & Wrecking on Monday, now could she?
“But that won’t do,” she said faintly.
“I’m afraid it’s going to have to do,” Dr. Carmichael said, unperturbed. He patted her foot through the blanket. “Don’t worry. The food here will grow on you.”
The knot in her throat had become a vise, and it seemed to be forcing every bit of liquid inside her up behind her eyes.
The doctor wasn’t entirely oblivious to her upset. “It won’t be so bad. After the first week, we’ll reevaluate. And Dad can stay with you as long as he wants, same as he’s been doing.”
Nikki eyed Alex. His long form wavered. The doctor figured he was telling her things that would make her feel better.
But Alex wasn’t the expectant father. How could he be when there had never been anything remotely personal between them?
But he wasn’t disputing the doctor’s assumption, either. “I can’t afford to stay three weeks in the hospital.” She pushed out the words, trying to pretend that he wasn’t standing there listening. “I have to get home. I have to work.”
The doctor looked at her over the rims of his glasses. “I can’t force you to stay, of course. But I promise you that you’ll be endangering your pregnancy if you do not have complete bed rest.”
Endangering.
The word rocketed around inside her like some bizarre pinball machine running amok, setting off small explosions wherever the ball hit.
“She could get the bed rest elsewhere, though.” Alex finally spoke up. “Correct?”
The doctor didn’t look particularly happy about it, but he nodded. “If she can promise me that she’ll remain in bed. And I mean lying in bed. Knees elevated. She can sit up for a few minutes at a time, but that’s it.”
“I’ll go to my mother’s,” Nikki said thickly. Her family would welcome her with open arms, without question. And she’d feel like she was failing them by not being able to stand on her own two feet the way she always had.
“Your mother lives here in Lucius?”
“No. Wyoming.”
Before she’d finished speaking, the doctor was shaking his head. “No travel. Not even an hour.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue, Nikki.” Alex’s voice was smooth. “We’ll do whatever is necessary to protect the baby.”
“We?” Her hands clutched the blanket, bunching it frantically. The monitor beside her began bleating like an angry lamb, and spewed out a stream of narrow paper.
“Ms. Day.” The nurse gently nudged her back against the pillows. “Please. Don’t excite yourself.”
Nikki waved her hand at the doctor. “You just sentence me to bed rest for the better part of a month and I’m not supposed to get excited?” A sharp pain tore through her midsection and she exhaled loudly, drawing up her knees, doubling over.
The nurse and Dr. Carmichael were suddenly all business. Blood pressure cuffs. Syringes.
Nikki didn’t much notice what they did, since panic was rocketing through her, keeping company with the grappling hook that was twisting her insides into a knot.
The baby had been a complete accident.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it.
Oh God oh God oh God.
Alex slid his hand into hers.
She stared blindly at him. The pain was excruciating. “Nikki…” His voice was soft. Insistent.
She blinked. Focused. The panic retreated a hair. She was hardly aware of the death grip her fingers had on his. “It hurts,” she gasped.
His intense gaze was steady. Calm.
Familiar.
“I know. Relax.” His voice was almost hypnotic. “Everything is going to be fine.”
She was twenty-seven years old. A modern, competent, independent woman. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that everything would be fine.
She was the one who usually made certain that things were fine.
Only none of that amounted to a hill of beans right now. She was glad he was there. Glad. Pathetically glad.
THE TYCOON’S MARRIAGE BID
Her tears slipped out, streaming down her cheeks. She’d never once cried in front of her boss.
No. He wasn’t her boss any longer.
He was just Alex.
A man she still couldn’t manage to get out of her head.
“Breathe,” he told
