an emergency phone number.
* * *
“Well, this is it,” Ellie said. It had become her habit to talk to her baby. While she was only just past eighteen weeks along, and babies in the womb didn’t start hearing until around twenty-three weeks, she liked the connection. Felt that, on some level, it would help her baby’s development. So she talked.
“Not what I expected. For some reason, I’d guessed your daddy to be...better established.” Of course, they’d never really talked about such things. They’d talked about other things, especially that first night—medicine, college days, the convention—but never about their own realities. That had been part of keeping it from becoming too personal. Of course, that hadn’t worked out, had it?
Ellie glanced down at her belly as she stepped out of her car. It wasn’t exactly flat now, but loose-fitting cargo pants and an oversized white, gauzy shirt still concealed the obvious. Not for much longer, though, as her naked profile was that of a woman with a bulging belly. But right now her baggy clothes kept her condition a secret from her co-workers—she didn’t want to answer all the questions—and from Matt as well, until she found the right moment to tell him.
What she didn’t want was for him to open the door to her and see her belly right off. Why shock him like that? It wouldn’t be right.
Also, she wanted to reassure herself he was someone she wanted to raise the baby because Reno hadn’t been about real life, whereas this baby definitely was. So Ellie wanted to know, see more, before she let Matt know what had happened. She’d thought about how to handle the inevitable the whole way here, and hadn’t come up with a real solution yet. Time would tell, she supposed as she entered the building, only to discover a completely empty waiting room. No patients, no receptionist. Just chairs and a desk.
“Well, it’s clean,” she whispered, as she wandered down the short hall leading to the exam room, looking for signs of life. “Anybody here?” she finally called out.
Ellie listened, heard noises coming from the room marked “EXAM” and moved a little closer. “Hello?” she called out again.
This time there was an answer. “There is, and I’ll be with you in about five minutes. Please, take a seat in the waiting room.”
She recognized the voice, of course. Nice, smooth. Very sexy. A voice worthy of goose-bumps that were, coincidentally, already running up her arms. “Thank you,” she called back. It was closer to ten minutes, though, before a young woman, who wore khaki shorts and worn hiking boots, wandered down the hall and out the front door, sporting an elastic brace on her left arm. And it was another couple of minutes before Matt appeared in the waiting room, with a little boy at his side.
“Ellie?” he said, frowning at first then slowly giving a broad smile. “I—I didn’t expect to see you here.” He took quick steps in her direction, then stopped before the predictable embrace “How have you been?”
She stopped as well, suddenly feeling uncertain about what she was doing here. “I’ve been fine, Matt. I was vacationing nearby, and thought I would stop by to see you. If you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Absolutely not. I...um... I’m glad to see you,” he said, obviously surprised and a little off kilter.
This was so awkward. She felt it. He felt it. But she was here and now she had to go through with her plan. Well, maybe not this very moment. But in a while. “I’m glad to see you, too. I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to look you up, but I took a chance and...” Ellie took two more steps in Matt’s direction, but too quickly as her head started spinning, spinning as the hallway slowly descended into darkness. Her last words before she toppled into his arms were, “My baby...”
NOTHING SEEMED ABNORMAL. Ellie’s blood pressure was a little high, but not outside normal. Her pulse was fine. So were her reflexes and her heartbeat. She’d come to before he’d had a chance to do anything more than a cursory exam and had stopped him.
Right now, she was sitting up, sipping water. Fully alert. Offering no explanation for anything. And he didn’t buy that she was here vacationing. She wasn’t the type to vacation. Maybe travel for work but not for pleasure. Especially to a place like this. So, did she want to take what they’d started to the next level, even though they’d agreed to keep it casual?
The thought of that caused Matt’s heart to skip a beat, even though he wasn’t a next-level kind of guy. The idea of it did intrigue him, though, because he’d had that thought a time or two, then dismissed it as impractical. It couldn’t work. They lived in different worlds. But it had been a nice thought for those few moments.
“You mentioned something about a baby, so I checked your car and...” He shrugged. “No baby.”
“I call my car my baby,” Ellie said, not looking at him.
He didn’t buy that either. But he wasn’t going to pressure her into telling him what she wanted because Ellie was direct. She’d do it in her own good time. “Well, your car’s fine.”
She didn’t respond. Just nodded and kept on sipping.
“So, you said you’re vacationing here?”
Ellie nodded again.
“In Forgeburn, where the population is in negative numbers?” This was getting more and more interesting, and he couldn’t wait until she told him the truth. Which she would because Ellie wasn’t a very good liar. It was showing on her face and in her fidgety hands. Normally, she was straightforward. At least, she had been in Reno. Yet this side of Ellie—it didn’t fit what he knew of her. Which really wasn’t much, come to think of it.
“You said the scenery here was beautiful, so I decided to check it out for myself.”
“During the off-season when the resorts aren’t operating at full capacity? Funny, I would have taken you for someone who’d want all the amenities.”
“Is the little boy yours? Because he looks exactly like you,” she said, obviously trying to avoid what she’d come here to say—or do. “I don’t remember you saying anything about having a child. Or a wife. Do you have a wife, too?”
Was she really here to see him again? The thought crossed his mind but didn’t stay there. Because Ellie had vehemently denied wanting a relationship. Which he’d been glad about. So why now, when he was on leave, had she turned up? And how did she even know he was on leave? Or where he’d be? “I’ve never married. And Lucas... He’s my nephew, and I’m temporarily his legal guardian.”
“Nephew?”
“My sister died, which left her son in my care, temporarily.”
“Why not permanently?”
“I’m in the army. Single. Get transferred a lot because I’m a surgeon who likes to see action, as in battlefield. It’s not a great combination for raising a kid as a single dad.”
“You haven’t retired?” Ellie asked, looking puzzled.
“No. I’m going back as soon as I fix the situation with Lucas. Hopefully, that’ll be inside two months.
