The Texan's Baby Bombshell

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “It’s still very good of you to agree to come in person.” The doctor was smiling knowingly at him. “Particularly so soon after your procedure. If I’d been your physician, I would have advised against traveling so soon.”

  In fact the doctor in charge of the harvesting procedure had. Adam didn’t figure he needed to confirm Dr. Granger’s words, though.

  She’d reached over her desk to slide a file across the obviously fake wood surface. Fresh Pine Rehabilitation had been caring for Laurel for two months now—ever since she’d been released from the hospital. But the facility was by no means a luxury establishment.

  If Nelson and Sylvia had had anything to do with it, their daughter would be in a much more elite setting and much closer to their home than all the way across the country. He’d met them once. Nearly a decade ago when they’d come to Buffalo for Laurel’s college graduation.

  To say they had been unimpressed by him was an understatement. They figured their only child deserved a lot more than an out-of-work auto engineer’s son who’d been working his way through college waiting tables and tending bar at a blue-collar joint.

  Someone like Eric Johnson. Who owned and operated his own nationwide trucking company and who had financial resources to spare. Who turned out to be a lot more honorable than Adam feared he, himself, could have been if their situations were reversed.

  “It’s also very generous of you to pay for her continuing care.” Dr. Granger’s voice dragged his attention back to the here and now.

  “You haven’t told her about that.”

  “Of course not.” She opened the file to a typewritten form. “This is the financial responsibility form I mentioned when we talked last. You’ll want to read it over and check the box there at the bottom. You’re not the only benefactor who chooses to remain anonymous.”

  Benefactor. It wasn’t a term he’d ever earned before. He didn’t feel much like one now, either, considering the rest of the things he could have told Dr. Granger and hadn’t.

  “Regardless of the financial arrangements, I wouldn’t be able to discuss her case with you if she hadn’t granted her permission. I managed to keep her here for two extra weeks even though she no longer qualifies for free care, but I was at a point where that choice was being taken out of my hands. Since we’re a nonprofit, the requirements are regrettably strict for patients with no other means. That news story of yours seemed heaven-sent.”

  She’d said all of this when they’d spoken on the phone. And still nothing felt heaven-sent to him.

  Since the day of the transplant, he’d been circling a drain to hell.

  “As I mentioned, Laurel’s physical injuries are healed, though she’s still regaining her strength. The frequency of her panic attacks has lessened. I know we’ve become a haven for her, which is good for a time, but not for her long-term well-being. I would like to have seen her showing more interest in life outside our walls by now.” She hesitated for a moment. “I didn’t tell you earlier, but now that you’re here—”

  He braced himself, not liking the way she was fiddling with the file. “Tell me what?”

  The doctor sighed, concern clear on her face. “After Laurel’s accident, her trauma surgeons realized that she’d recently given birth.” She didn’t seem to notice the flinch he couldn’t quite hide. “As recently as a week or two before her accident.” She shook her head. “After she was brought out of the coma and her amnesia became apparent, a decision was made not to tell her. This all occurred before she joined us here at Fresh Pine. I believe we’ve established enough trust by now that she would have told me if she’d regained that memory. There could be a correlation between the resolution of her pregnancy and the panic attacks. Postpartum disorders can be so tricky to diagnose, even under more usual circumstances.” She sighed again.

  Adam stared down at his hands. There was no reason for her to connect Laurel’s baby with the one who’d needed a bone marrow transplant. Laurel had been languishing in a coma when Linus was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. She’d have no way of knowing about it at all. And certainly no way of knowing the truth about that baby’s real father.

  “She had the baby.” His jaw felt so rigid it was hard to get out the words. “But she gave him up.”

  Dr. Granger looked confused. “I must have misunderstood when you told me you knew Laurel in college. I thought you meant you hadn’t been in touch since then.”

  “We’ve...kept up.” The statement was almost laughable.

  “Does she have a boyfriend, then? A husband, maybe?”

  “No.”

  She blinked a little at his abrupt answer. “I see. Well, I appreciate you telling me about her giving up the baby. Knowing will be helpful as we go forward in her therapy. I hope one day she’ll fully understand what a good friend she has in—”

  She broke off when he plucked a pen out of the plastic holder and began writing in his credit card number on the form. As he scrawled his signature at the bottom, he didn’t dwell on how seriously Fresh Pine’s fees would eat into his savings. Savings that he’d been building for the last decade, thinking that one day he’d make something of himself.

  Looking slightly uncomfortable, as if she might have divined his thoughts, the director rose. “Why don’t we go see her?”

  His neck was so tight it was a wonder he could nod. He stood as well, and followed her out of the office.

  “I should have asked already,” she said over her shoulder. “Do you know how the transplant went?”

  The question jarred more than she would ever know. “The procedure went well.”

  “Engraftment takes time, I know. Meanwhile, everyone is on tenterhooks waiting for complications to set in. Everything was done in Houston, wasn’t it?” She didn’t wait to see his nod. “Excellent facilities. They’ll do everything they can to ensure a successful outcome. Did you meet the father? Some recipients and their families never meet their donors. I always think it’s nice when they can.”

  He made a sound that she probably took as agreement.

  There hadn’t been anything nice about meeting Eric Johnson. Not from the moment Adam realized Eric was the man Laurel had planned to marry. Or the moment when Eric realized that Adam had been the “someone else” for Laurel.

  He’d gone into that surgical suite believing Laurel was dead. And despite the next shock he’d gotten after he’d come out of the surgical suite—a shock that still had him reeling—for three of the longest days of his life, he’d grieved. Grieved her.

  And then Dr. Granger had called.

  And instead of Eric, it was Adam who was here now.

  While Eric stayed with Linus. Even though he’d already figured out he wasn’t the baby’s biological father. He just hadn’t known—until the day of the transplant—who was.

  Dr. Granger stopped in the doorway of a spacious room outfitted with mismatched furniture. No matter how well he’d steeled his heart, when he caught sight of Laurel sitting off by herself next to a window, his efforts turned out to be useless.

  Dr. Granger had texted him a picture of Laurel when she’d called him in that “do you know this woman” kind of way. She’d had no way of knowing how she’d turned his world on end. How he’d already had his world turned on end by then. But seeing Laurel now, alive and in the flesh—

  His heart hammered hard in his chest.

  The only difference between now and how he’d felt the first time he’d ever seen her—sitting under a tree on campus with a sketchpad on her raised knees—was that now there was a dull ache in his lower back from the marrow harvest and his splitting head felt like it wanted to pop off his neck.

  “Laurel.”

  He wasn’t even aware that he’d whispered her name until Dr. Granger patted his arm in that motherly way again. “She’s expecting you. Just go cautiously. She knows you’re familiar to her but she doesn’t know w
hy.”

  It was a needless reminder. Dr. Granger had been very clear about Laurel’s condition before he’d decided to come to Seattle in person. Five months ago, she’d been in a serious car accident. She’d been kept in a medically induced coma for nearly three months during her recovery. And when she’d emerged, though her broken bones had healed, she’d had no memory of the accident, or the events that had come before, or even her own name.

  “You’re sure this is a good idea?”

  Dr. Granger gave him an encouraging smile. “Your presence may trigger more memories. Then again, it might not. That’s the thing about retrograde amnesia. We just don’t have all the answers.”

  He grimaced. “Great.”

  “I know it’s a strange situation.”

  But she didn’t know just exactly how strange.

  “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  Adam was pretty sure the only thing he needed was his head examined.

  Laurel Hudson had already broken his heart twice in one lifetime. He was fully expecting a third. But how could he have refused to come? When it came to her, it was what he’d always done.

  Eric Johnson’s picture had been on that same news story that Laurel had seen. But it wasn’t Eric’s face that had gotten a response from her.

  It had been Adam’s.

  Lecturing himself not to read too much into that had become an hourly task. It didn’t take a genius—which he wasn’t—to know that the other man was doing the same damn thing.

  He entered the room, passing a sulky-looking teenager tapping away at a computer and a couple he figured were her parents who were staring at the blaring television. He stepped around a table where an old couple worked on a puzzle, and crossed the room toward Laurel. The sun was setting, casting glittering light over her hair. It was straight and a rich, shining, variegated brown. Like the colors of an aged oak barrel.

  He’d told her that once. Her aquamarine eyes had widened. Then filled with sparkling laughter. She’d leaned across the table in the student union where they were supposed to be studying for exams—hers in art history, his in industrial engineering—and kissed him.

  He’d been falling for her from the very first. But that kiss had sealed the deal for him.

  Now that glossy oak-barrel hair slid over her shoulder as Laurel’s head turned and she looked his way.

  His step faltered.

  Her eyes were the same stunning shade of blue they’d always been. Her perfectly heart-shaped face was pale and delicate-looking even with the pink scar on her forehead between her eyebrows.

  Eyebrows that pulled together as their eyes met.

  Remember me.

  Remember us.

  The words—unwanted and unexpected—pulsed through him, drowning out the splitting headache and the aching back and the impatience, the relief and the pain.

  Then she blinked those incredible eyes of hers and he realized there was a flush on her cheeks and she was chewing at the corner of her lips. In contrast to her delicate features, her lips were just as full and pouty as they’d always been.

  Kissing them had been an adventure in and of itself.

  He shoved the pointless memory out of his head and then had to shove his hands in the pockets of his jeans because they were actually shaking.

  “Hi.” Puny first word to say to the woman who’d made a wreck out of him.

  Still seated, she looked up at him. “Hi.” She sounded breathless. “It’s...it’s Adam, right?”

  The pain sitting in the pit of his stomach then had nothing to do with anything except her. He yanked his right hand from his pocket and held it out. “Adam Fortune.”

  She looked uncertain, then slowly settled her hand into his.

  Unlike Dr. Granger’s firm, brief clasp, Laurel’s touch felt chilled and tentative. And it lingered. “I’m Lisa.”

  God help him. He was not strong enough for this.

  He dragged an unoccupied chair away from the puzzle table, flipped it around near Laurel and sat, straddling it. He folded his arms atop the chairback and tried to smile. He had no way of knowing if it looked as forced as it felt. “How are you feeling?”

  She wore a thin sweater buttoned up to her neck, and the shoulder she shrugged looked pointed beneath the pink knit. “Aside from being the resident amnesiac?”

  He waited and she shrugged again, her full, pouty lips compressing. “Physically, they tell me I’m fine. Mostly.” She waved her fingers slightly. “Except for the fact that I still don’t even recognize my own name.” Her blue eyes fastened on his. “Seeing you on the news last week—” She broke off and snatched up a black pencil from where it had been sitting on the window ledge. She rolled it between her obviously anxious fingers. “It felt almost like seeing a ghost. Why do I know you?”

  He’d prepared himself for this, too, thanks to the clinic director. Didn’t make answering any easier. “We were friends—” his fingers dug into his forearms where they were folded on the chair back “—a long time ago. At UB.”

  Her lips had softened again. “New York,” she murmured softly. “Buffalo.”

  His pulse jerked around. He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  “How long ago?”

  Since they’d met? Or since she’d broken his heart the first time around? He went for the former. “Ten years.”

  “Hmm.” She shook her head slightly and her gaze was suddenly far, far away. “All that mud. Oozefest.”

  He started slightly. Oozefest was the giant volleyball tournament held every spring at the University of Buffalo. In the mud. Students played in it. Alumni played. And last May, so had Laurel. On a team made up of old friends. Adam and some of his buddies had made up another team.

  He hadn’t heard from her in more than a year. He’d had no idea that she was even in the country, much less in Buffalo, until he’d found himself with only a volleyball net and a pit of mud up to his calves between them. And after the game had come dinner. Then drinks.

  Then her hotel room...

  “I was washing mud from places nobody should ever have mud.” She was suddenly back in the present, her gaze delving into his. “Did we—Sorry. This is embarrassing. Did we date?”

  His fingers dug again. “A few times.” Understatement of the decade.

  She moistened her lips. Right above the buttoned-up neck of her sweater, the hollow of her long, slender throat worked. “Was it...serious?”

  It had been for him. At the time, he’d thought it had been for her, too. For two years, they’d been together. But in the end, she’d chosen to keep her parents happy. Which meant not being serious about him.

  “Not really,” he lied. He barely waited a beat and shrugged. Casually. Dismissively. “We were college kids. We had different goals. Took different paths.” All of which was true. All of which he’d thought he’d come to terms with in the years that followed. Years when there could be months and months that passed without a word from her. Months and months when he’d dated other women, when he told himself Laurel was in the past.

  Then he’d get a call from her from wherever she was in Europe at the time, or a message that she wanted to talk. Needed advice. Needed to vent her frustration over a boss or a job or her parents, and he’d feel himself getting sucked in all over again and it would take months and months again before he could put her out of his mind.

  And then he’d run into her last year at Oozefest. In person. And he’d faced the fact that no amount of time would ever be enough to get Laurel Hudson out from under his skin.

  He looked down at her lap. “You’re sketching.”

  She brushed a fingertip over the pencil lines covering the white page of the thick sketchpad. “Initially, it was Dr. Granger’s idea. Then I—” Her gaze flicked toward him then skipped away again. “I realized it was something I’d always done. I’m not ver
y good at it, though.”

  He disagreed. He’d always disagreed, telling her that she was an artist at heart, regardless of her parents’ opinion otherwise. “The first time we met, you were sketching.”

  She looked disbelieving. “Was I?”

  He dragged his finger in a cross over his chest then held up his palm. “Honest.”

  Her lips smiled slightly. But it was the smile that lit her eyes that made him ache inside. Laurel’s eyes had always been dead giveaways. She couldn’t lie to save her soul. Everything she’d felt—good or bad, happy or sad—had always showed in her blue, blue eyes.

  And he could see the truth now in those eyes that she really did not remember him.

  He’d had no reason to doubt it, but there was no denying it. Not when it was right there, smack in front of his face. Same way the truth had been smack in front of him last May when she’d disappeared after their night together. Sneaking out while he’d slept.

  She’d left a note. Telling him it never should have happened. That it had been a mistake.

  He hadn’t understood just how big a mistake until he’d gone to Texas a month later, ostensibly to attend the wedding of his half uncle.

  The wedding had just been an excuse for Adam. He hadn’t cared in the least about Gerald Robinson’s wedding. He was an uncle Adam hadn’t even known existed. But Texas was where Laurel had settled. And a detour from Paseo to Houston was worth it if he finally managed to convince Laurel they belonged together.

  What she convinced him of, however, was that they did not. Because this time, when someone else had proposed marriage to her, she’d accepted.

  “I think I studied art.” Laurel’s voice was so painfully cautious it managed to penetrate his grim memories.

  “Art history.” His answer was so abrupt she looked startled.

  He’d have to work on that.

  He cleared his throat again and gestured at her sketchbook. “Always thought it was your art that’d end up in history.”

  She nibbled her lip, looking disbelieving. He could have told her she’d worked at art museums around the world. That most recently, she’d been a curator in Houston. That she’d spent an unforgettable night in Adam’s arms despite her way too tardy admission that she’d been involved with someone else.