Knocked Up By The Doc Box Set (A Secret Baby Romance)

by Claire Adams

  Unfortunately, he looked grim. “There's not much that we can do at this stage, Eric,” he said quietly. “Even with chemo, the chances are slim to none that she'll survive for much longer.”

  I winced. “Could we surgically remove the tumors?” I asked, even though I knew that wasn't a viable option at this stage.

  Sure enough, Halsey sighed. “We could try to remove them,” he said. “There's a chance that could make things worse for her body because it would have to fight off possible infection as well as the cancer. But even if we were successful in removing them, I'm afraid the cancer is in her blood at this point. Nothing is stopping it from coming back or spreading. It would only be a matter of time before we have to face the high likelihood of death again.”

  I sighed. “I know,” I admitted. “I just hoped there was something else that we could do.”

  Halsey gave me a strange look. “This isn't the first patient that you've lost,” he said slowly. “Why are you so fixated on this one?”

  I grimaced. “I lost my wife to cancer a couple of years ago,” I admitted. “And Jeannie is the mother of my…of a good friend of mine.” I stopped just short of calling Olivia my girlfriend. We might have agreed that we were going to keep dating, albeit in secret, but I still remembered her insistence on not labeling this, on not putting undue stress on the relationship.

  “I'm sorry to hear that,” Halsey said sincerely, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. He paused. “Where is her daughter?” she asked. “Her mother's been asking.”

  “Olivia runs a daycare,” I told him. “She's got kids at the moment so she couldn't get away. That's why she sent me here with her mom.”

  I knew that I needed to call Olivia, but I could only imagine how that conversation would go. Plus, I knew that she would have no choice but to bring Emma, but I didn't want Emma exposed to hospitals and death. She had been too young to remember everything that had happened when Emily had died, and I wanted to keep it that way. Keep her innocence, in a sense.

  But we didn't have a choice; it wasn't like she could go back with Nana for the day.

  Fortunately, Olivia made the decision before I even had a chance to call her. She burst through the doors of the hospital looking distressed but bravely staving off her tears. Emma came with her, clinging to the woman's hand, looking around in fascination.

  “Hey,” I said, moving to intercept them.

  Olivia gave me a brave smile and looked down at Emma. “Harlan went back home for the afternoon. Sorry to bring Emma here, but I had to see Mom.”

  “I know,” I soothed. “Come here, let's see if Emma can stay with one of the nurses while you and I go in to see her.”

  The nurse was more than happy to watch Emma, and Emma was more than happy to stay with her, once she was promised coloring pages, a sucker, and (if she was really good) a balloon. I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that she'd chosen today of all days to cooperate.

  “What's happening with Mom?” Olivia asked as we hurried away from the nurse's station. “She's all right, isn't she?”

  I took a deep breath and pulled her into an empty room, closing the door behind us. “She's awake and aware, but she's not doing good,” I told Olivia. “The cancer has spread, and she's having a difficult time breathing. At this point, there's nothing else that we can do except make her comfortable.” I scowled, knowing that I shouldn't take my anger out on her, but I was frustrated. “You know, if the two of you hadn't ignored my warnings, we could have at least extended her life for a little while, if not managed to save her.”

  Olivia stared at me, her mouth falling open. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “She's dying, Olivia. And soon. It didn't have to be this way. If you'd cared enough, you would have convinced her to take care of this when it first became an issue. And don't try to tell me you didn't know that it was this severe; you moved to Tamlin because you knew exactly how severe it was.”

  Olivia was silent for a long moment, tears welling in her eyes. “You ass,” she finally whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Olivia

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing from Eric. My mother lay dying in a hospital bed, and he was blaming me for it? As though I hadn't done everything that I could.

  “Maybe if you had done your job and convinced her that she needed treatment, we wouldn't be here!” I found myself shouting. “Rather than have me try to talk to her, with my utter lack of medical experience, maybe you should have found some way to convince her. I'm sure you have experience with stubborn patients. But you didn't even try!”

  “As a doctor, I ultimately have to leave it up to the patient,” Eric snarled. “Which is what I did. I laid out all the facts, I told her how serious this was, and I even reminded her that it wasn't just herself that she'd be hurting if she didn't get the treatment. What else was I supposed to say to her? I don't know her the way that you do; you should have been able to find a way to reason with her.”

  It was like a slap in the face; basically, what he was implying was that Mom didn't care enough about me to want to prolong her life. I knew that wasn't the case. I remembered what Mom had said about chemo ruining a person's quality of life. She just wanted to make sure that if she was alive, she was able to do everything that she wanted to do, rather than just hanging around as an empty husk, unable to work or garden or do any of the other things that she loved.

  The fact that Eric would dare imply otherwise made me even more upset.

  “Well, I can't force someone to receive treatment either, even if she is my mother,” I snapped. “I did my best to convince her, but, as you said, ultimately it was her decision.”

  “You gave up too easily,” Eric said. “How many times did you even talk to her? You didn't want to have the conversation; you were perfectly happy just pretending that the cancer didn't exist, just like she was.”

  “I tried, over and over again to talk with her. She didn’t want to deal with it.” I asked. “Again, I don't have any sort of medical background. I never had all the details on what was wrong with her, all the facts. I didn't know how far along we were or what might happen to her if she didn't get chemo, not in anything more than an abstract sense. What was I supposed to do?”

  “You don't have to have a medical background to know that cancer often leads to death,” Eric said exasperatedly, rolling his eyes at me.

  I was silent for a long moment, tears still streaming down my face. I wiped at them, but more just took their place. I didn't understand why we were fighting about this. I could understand if there was still that unresolved tension between us, but I had thought that we had solved that. I thought we were okay. I would have expected him to comfort me. That was why he had been the first person I'd called after Mom complained to me: not because Eric was her doctor but because Eric was my friend. Or so I had thought.

  I didn't know where this mean and angry-spirited man had come from. I had never seen Eric like this before.

  But it's not like I know him well, I realized. We'd been on a couple dates; that was all. If he'd just wanted to sleep with me, it would have been in his best interest to be nice on those dates. Look where it had got him. But maybe this was what he was really like.

  I didn't want to believe it, but a part of me was increasingly sure that the kind, charming Eric that I'd previously thought I'd known had been just a façade. I swallowed hard and shook my head.

  “I did the best I could,” I repeated, for my own benefit as well as his. “Apparently that wasn't good enough.”

  Eric didn't say anything.

  “Where is she?” I asked. “I can see her, can't I?”

  “She's down this hall, room 118,” Eric told me. “She's been asking for you.”

  “And there's nothing that we can do at this point?” I asked, hating the desperate note that crept into my voice. But this is where we were at at the moment. I was desperate to figure out some way to miraculously save her, even though apparently all hope was gone.
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br />   “The chemo can't help at this point; the cancer has advanced too much,” Eric said dully. “We could try to remove the tumors from her lungs, but it would be a risky operation and a risky recovery, and at this point, the cancer is already in her blood. There's nothing we can do.”

  I folded in on myself, wishing stupidly that he had lied to me, that he had told me that there was something that we might be able to do. I had never felt so helpless in my life.

  And I knew that part of the reason I was so angry with him, part of why I was so desperate to pass the blame onto him, was because I was guilty. He was right. I should have tried harder. I hadn't pushed like I knew that I should have.

  But did he have to be so mean about it?

  “I'm going to get Emma out of here,” Eric said. “I don't want her around the hospital. I'll try to find someone else to watch her this week if you want to stay here with your mom rather than running the daycare.”

  “How long does she have?” I asked, even though I hated saying the words.

  Eric was silent for a long moment. “Not long,” he finally said. “Could be weeks. Could be days.”

  I dissolved into tears, but Eric didn't move to comfort me. Instead, he stared impassively at me for a long moment and then strode briskly from the room, leaving me there by myself.

  By myself, with…

  I put my hand over my stomach, remembering my unborn child. Our unborn child. Even if Mom managed to hang on for a few more months, she wasn't going to be around to meet her grandchild. I remembered how much she had always wanted to have grandchildren, and I felt an irrational surge of anger.

  Why hadn't she gotten the chemotherapy when she knew that was the only thing that could slow down her cancer? Wasn't it the responsibility of a mother to do everything in her power to ensure that her child was happy? I didn't want to watch her die, not like this, and definitely not now.

  And there was this argument with Eric. I felt suddenly uncertain about the child. I still hadn't told him about it, and I had to wonder what his reaction would be. Would he try to blame me for that as well? Would he be just as angry and upset and unreasonable?

  I swallowed hard. I knew that I had to tell him sooner rather than later, but I had to wonder if he would even talk to me again, after this argument.

  I leaned against the hospital bed for support, my knees feeling weak and my blood roaring in my ears. Suddenly, everything in my life seemed to be going wrong. It had been ever since I'd moved to Tamlin, and I had to wonder what I had done to piss off the universe in such a big way. A dying mother, an unsuccessful daycare, an unhappy non-relationship, and an unexpected pregnancy: could it get any worse than that?

  I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. I had to see Mom. I had to tell her I was sorry and apologize for not insisting that she get the treatment that she needed. I had to tell her about the baby, but I wasn't sure if I could. Maybe it would only stress her out, knowing that she wouldn't be here for the birth, knowing that I was about to become a single mother, just like she had been.

  I took a few more deep breaths, but I couldn't seem to quit crying. Finally, I sunk to the floor, realizing I had no choice but to let it all out.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Eric

  By Tuesday morning, I still hadn't found an alternate sitter for Emma like I had promised Olivia that I would do. I took Emma out to breakfast that morning, trying to figure out what to do. As we went by the daycare, I saw that it was, in fact, open for the day, and Harlan was just arriving. But I also knew that I wasn't ready to see Olivia, even if she did keep the daycare open.

  I shook my head and looked at Emma in the rearview mirror. “How do you feel about coming to work with Daddy today, pumpkin?” I asked her. I didn't have many appointments scheduled for the day, and they were all in-office appointments, so this would work out. It wasn't a permanent solution by any means: the next day, I knew I had nearly twice as many appointments, and most of them were house calls. But that would give me at least one more day to figure out what to do. Maybe I would be able to find an alternate daycare or a nanny.

  I felt some trepidation about bringing Emma into the office for the full day, but I was armed with plenty of coloring books and the promise of ice cream that evening if she was well-behaved. Emma seemed happy to go along with that plan. She definitely seemed to be behaving better recently, which I chalked up to the time she'd spent with Olivia at the daycare. I didn't know what kind of magic the woman had worked, or if it was maybe that Emma was just growing up and getting more mature, but it was a godsend.

  Olivia.

  I sighed. I hadn't been able to get our argument out of my head, and even though I felt justified in saying everything that I'd said, I also knew that hadn't been the most tactful time or place for it. And I hated knowing that I had upset her that badly when she was already so worried about her mother.

  Still, it was true: if she had tried harder, I doubted we would be in this position now. I wasn't ready to lose someone else to cancer. I was already dealing with Helen's memory loss; there was only so much that I could take.

  And to be honest, I still felt guilty about the whole thing. Olivia's words had hit home in too many ways. I probably should have tried harder, rather than trying to rely on Olivia to convince her mother. But every time I had to think about Jeannie's situation, I was stuck thinking about Emily's situation and all the similarities. Still, I felt like I had dropped the ball as Jeannie's primary physician.

  Nor could I blame Olivia for calling me out on that, not when I knew she was already upset at the time, not when I laid into her like I did. Of course, she would lash out at me in response. Of course, she was upset with me. I felt like an ass.

  I didn't know where to go from there. I wouldn't be able to avoid Olivia forever; we were bound to run into one another around town or at the hospital. And there was still the matter of daycare if I couldn't find an alternative solution for Emma. But for today, I tried to put her out of my mind.

  Tried being the operative word.

  Emma hummed along as she colored in a picture of a giraffe, using blue and green crayons for some reason. Not that I was going to interrupt her creativity. I smiled over at her, glad that she, at least, still seemed happy. She didn't have to worry about adult things yet; she still retained her innocence. I wanted that for as long as I could have it.

  The door swung open, and I frowned up at the person entering. I didn't have any appointments scheduled for now, and I had been hoping to make a dent in the massive stack of paperwork that had been piling up. I felt like I'd been distracted for weeks, unable to focus as well as I should because of all my thoughts about Olivia.

  Again, it wouldn't be fair to blame her for that.

  I sighed when I saw who had entered. “Georgia.”

  “Hello, Dr. Jones,” she said in that falsely pleasant voice of hers. As she walked toward my desk, she swayed her hips more than necessary, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I didn't have the patience to deal with her on a good day, and this was far from being a good day. But here in my office, I needed to try to be professional. Especially since that day, I had Emma with me.

  I glanced over at the girl, wishing there was some way I could drag Georgia into another room and leave Emma unsupervised so that she wouldn't have to hear the conversation that I was sure would happen. But even if I had another place to talk to Georgia, I didn't want to think of what she would do, if we were alone in a room together.

  I shuddered just thinking about it.

  “You don't have an appointment,” I told Georgia. “But if you'd like to schedule one for later in the week, I'll see if I can fit it in.”

  “I'm going to be out of town for most of the week, and I need a full physical before I set off,” Georgia said, her smile all teeth. She looked around exaggeratedly. “But since you don't seem busy right now, you probably have time, don't you?”

  I closed my eyes and counted to 10. “Georgia, it doe
sn't work that way,” I said through gritted teeth. “You need to make an appointment, just like any other patient in this town. Even when I don't have appointments, I have other tasks to do. This mountain of paperwork, for one thing.”

  “But Dr. Jones, what if it was an emergency?” Georgia asked, widening her eyes. “Why, I heard that yesterday you ran out at the end of one of your appointments because someone was very sick.”

  There were so many things I loved about living in a small town, but the gossip was definitely not one of them. “I think if it were an emergency, you'd probably be a little more distressed,” I said, trying to keep my tone mild.

  “If there's nothing wrong with me, then surely a physical shouldn't take too long,” Georgia hounded.

  I rolled my eyes that time. “Fine,” I snapped. “I can only do a partial physical, though, because as you can see, Emma's here today, and I can't leave her unattended.” I knew what she was up to, but I had to play my cards right. The last thing I needed to do was deal with a crazed woman screaming lies in hopes of bending me over. I could play her games and still come out unscathed.

  “Fine,” Georgia said, helping herself to one of the paper robes and going into the back room to change. I half-expected her to strip down right there in front of both of us.

  When she came back out, she hopped up on the examination table in the front room, and I went through the basic checks: vision, reflexes, heart rate. As suspected, there was nothing wrong with her.

  “You know, Doctor,” she said, leaning in close as I listened to her heart. “If you wanted to carry out the rest of the examination, I'm free tonight.”

  I sputtered. “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “Well, this is just so formal,” Georgia said, her eyes glinting. “I figured maybe you'd be more comfortable if you examined me at your leisure, over a bottle of wine.”

  I knew that she had been building to something like this for a long time, but it still took me by surprise. Even if I could spare a moment to think about her proposal, I knew that I wouldn't want to go over there. Forget everything with Olivia and Jeannie. There was also everything with Helen. Plus, I would have to find someone who could watch Emma for the night. And the whole town would be buzzing, because Georgia wasn't going to keep it silent.