The Heart Doctor and the Baby

by Lynne Marshall

  With piqued interest, she forged her way over to the counter.

  He took a few steps toward her, closing the wide gap between them. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She glanced at her stomach, beneath the blue plaid pin-tuck tunic top. “Shouldn’t I be asking that question?”

  “A guy doesn’t have the right to come here? How sexist, Dr. Munroe.”

  She laughed. “Fine, you’re right. What’d you buy me?”

  He pulled in his chin. “You’re awfully presumptuous, aren’t you?”

  “Okay, play dumb. I’ll find out eventually. In fact…” She approached the counter, noticed his Saturday-morning didn’t-bother-to-shave stubble and felt that tingle buzz all over again. She faced the salesclerk. “May I ask what this gentleman purchased?”

  The clerk’s eyes widened as her gaze darted toward Jon. He placed his index finger over his lips, and the woman nodded. She gave René a sympathetic smile. “I think since he paid for it, I have to keep my lips sealed. Sorry.”

  René tossed Jon a glance loaded with attitude. “Okay, I get it. So since you’re here, want to help me pick out a crib?”

  An hour later, after Jon had proved what fantastic taste he had, she made her purchase and arranged for home delivery the next week. He’d found a well-made yet not overbearing crib that matched the natural woodwork in her Craftsman home. The fact he’d thought about it surprised her, and she’d thanked him profusely for helping her make the decision.

  “I’m good at painting, too, in case you’re wondering,” he said. “Looks like you’ve got a week to whip that room into shape before the furniture arrives.”

  “Are you offering?”

  “We could negotiate, but only if you’ll feed me.”

  Could they manage to be in a room, alone together, and not make lust-filled fools out of themselves again? She wasn’t sure it was worth the risk.

  He must have read her mind when he dipped his head and lowered his voice. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

  From where she stood, she could take his statement two different ways, and the first to pop into her mind made her cheeks heat up.

  “I’m sure you will,” she said, smoothing her hand over her hair. She stared at her feet until the warmth receded, then headed for the exit with Jon hot on her heels.

  Just before she’d made it out the door, over in the corner, she spotted a bassinet. A perfect bassinet. White wicker complete with hood. She stopped abruptly, and Jon ran into her.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, his chest pushed against her back, hands on her shoulders. “Didn’t see your brake lights.”

  She glanced behind; his chin was eye level. He may not have shaved but he’d definitely showered, and she was close enough to smell his faint cologne, a heady spice scent with a touch of lime. The tingles cascaded from head to shoulders to arms, making her grateful she’d worn long sleeves and he couldn’t see her goose bumps. He’d also managed to erase her mind.

  “Is this what you were looking at?” He approached the bassinet, a quizzical lift of his brows.

  “Yes,” she said, finding her voice again. “Isn’t it perfect?”

  He locked into her gaze. “Perfect,” he repeated, though she had the distinct impression he wasn’t commenting about the bed. Needing to change the direction of her mind, she focused on the bassinet.

  “Oh, my gosh, look. It converts into a rocker.” She laughed. “Does everything here have a double function?”

  He smiled and mindlessly set the bassinet to rocking.

  “I can just imagine the baby in it,” she said, slowly lifting her eyes to his. The subtle expression in his velvet brown stare made her hold her breath.

  “The baby will arrive before you know it,” he said.

  A contract worth of unspoken words traveled between them. As long as he was in her life, she’d be reminded of his connection to the child. A signature on paper couldn’t rub out the truth—they’d made a baby together. This child would be theirs, though she’d vowed to never include Jon in the upbringing. She’d wanted it that way and he’d demanded it, as he’d be gone in another year.

  Yet she longed for his input, like today, when he’d helped her choose the furniture. It had taken what had previously seemed overwhelming, and made it easy, and fun. And under Jon’s tutelage, she was sure to enjoy painting her first room. Too bad he’d consented to not have anything to do with this baby, because if today was any indication, they’d be great together.

  She’d crave his wisdom on so many topics over the next several years, yet she’d have to walk the fine line of colleague, coworker and friend. She’d always second-guess her decisions and wonder if Jon would handle things differently, if he’d approve of hers. He didn’t want any more children. He’d made it clear—he was happy with his daughters and, at forty-two, he looked forward to a different kind of freedom when they went away to college. He had plans to study medicine in China. He’d laid it all out for her the night she’d asked him to be the sperm donor. How clear could it be?

  Yes, yes, yes, she’d said, brushing each point away. She’d been so focused on what she’d wanted that she’d overlooked the bigger picture, the one where she and the baby stood in the center, looking on the outside at Jon. The gap that felt empty without him.

  The last thing he needed was to start all over again; she knew it as sure as the baby in her womb. And she’d asked enough of him already. She took one more glance into his deep, distancing eyes, and forced her gaze away.

  “Yes, my baby will be here before I know it.”

  Okay, she’d finally read him loud and clear. The bassinet was for her baby. Her. Baby.

  Jon walked his patient to the small lab located across from René’s office, as an excuse to drop off the paint chips. She’d talked about yellow, or peach, or powder blue—something light and airy—the morning they’d chosen the baby furniture. He’d stopped her before she could name any more colors.

  Last night he’d dropped by the paint store and found some samples he thought she’d like, and wanted to show them to her this morning. There was Gretchen, fussing with flowers and candles in René’s office.

  “She’s with a patient,” she said, in answer to his quizzical, narrowed stare.

  “I’ll come back later, then,” he said.

  He almost asked, Don’t you have a job? but realized this was her job, but surely she must have other clients, too. About to pocket the samples, they apparently had caught her attention.

  She approached and reached out her hand. “Are those for René?”

  So they were on a first-name basis now. He nodded, annoyed that it bothered him what Gretchen called René.

  “May I see them? Color in a nursery is very important. Hmm. That’s a no. Oh, this? I don’t think so. Maybe this one. I’ll run them by René later. We’re planning to paint the room this week.”

  Had René changed their plans? They hadn’t set up a firm date, but he’d thought tomorrow night would be good. He hoped, once she’d seen the paint chips, and made her choice, he could pick up the paint on his way home from work tonight and get started on the job ASAP.

  Under the circumstances, he couldn’t very well tell Gretchen his first choice was the pale yellow. Or that it reminded him of Lacy’s nursery, and how it had always felt so happy in that room. Yellow was universal for boys or girls, and he wanted to think that the baby would have a bright and cheerful room to grow in. Gretchen was the last person he’d want to know any of that. As far as he was concerned, it was none of her business.

  When he got back to his office, confused over the change of plans—plans René had apparently forgotten to share with him—and annoyed as hell that he felt like a blighted boyfriend, he picked up the intercom and dialed her number.

  “Hello?”

  It was Gretchen. So he hung up.

  Twenty weeks’ gestation, early July

  How many patients would Jon have to tell today they were walking time bombs? First came th
e forty-year-old guy with an extra hundred pounds on his frame and a lousy family cardiac history, then the sixty-year-old woman who thought she’d had a pinched nerve for weeks until his office EKG showed she’d already suffered a small myocardial infarction, not to mention the thirty-four-year-old woman with a lipid profile so out of whack she was well on her way to becoming human margarine.

  What really got to him—the icing on the morning’s pitiful patient cake—was telling a twenty-year-old college student that his heart had deteriorated to the point of him needing to be put on a heart transplant list. Days like this came far and few between, but when they did, they zapped him. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically.

  He used to gravitate upstairs to Jason’s office to shoot the breeze when work got to him, or he’d spend his lunch hour running off the stress, or having a beer with Phil after work, but today, since he hadn’t seen much of her lately, and because he missed her, Jon decided to pay René a visit.

  He peeked around the waiting room corner to see if Viking guard Gretchen was anywhere nearby. She was nowhere in sight, so he hightailed it over to René’s office.

  For a woman who’d previously kept an open-door policy, too often lately he’d found René’s door closed. Today was no exception.

  “She got her amniocentesis results today,” René’s nurse, Amy, said, her brows pinched with worry. “She’s been in there ever since.”

  An adrenaline alarm shot through Jon’s center. Was the news bad? There was a one to four hundred chance of birth defects with a thirty-six-year-old mother. He knew the stats, but had tried to ignore them for René’s sake. Had he made a blunder beyond forgiveness?

  A whirlwind of doubts and fears took him by surprise, and he knocked on the door with an unsteady hand. “It’s Jon.”

  “Come in,” she said, her voice sounding muffled.

  Jon opened the door and found René crying.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “COME in.” René squinted out the latest batch of tears, then quickly dabbed beneath her eyes with the tissue before Jon entered her office. She avoided his gaze, first having to push away the stupid fantasy that had confused and set her off crying. Jon confessed his deep and abiding love for her, then begged her to marry him. She said yes. A pregnant lady could daydream, couldn’t she?

  She couldn’t fool him; the pained twist of his brows and rush toward her desk proved it.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked, hand on her shoulder, squatting beside her chair. Sure, if daydreams could come true.

  She turned toward him, admiring the empathy spilling from his dark eyes. “I’m fine, just emotional as all get-out these days. Everything sets me off.”

  “The baby’s fine?”

  She nodded and smiled. “The amnio is normal, and with all the new movement I’m feeling I’m thinking up a nickname. What do you think about Tumblelina?”

  “Is it a girl?” he said, an excited hitch to his voice.

  “I opted not to find out. Maybe I’ll just go with Tumbler for now.”

  “Okay. The baby’s fine, but you don’t seem fine,” he said, gazing deeper into her eyes. “What else is going on?”

  She sighed. “I fired Gretchen this morning.”

  Jon blinked, lowered his brows and tilted his head. “So these are tears of joy?” he said with a smirk.

  She lightly cuffed his shoulder. “She wasn’t that bad.”

  “Trust me, she was,” he said, standing, then sitting on the edge of her desk.

  That got another laugh out of her, and she’d forgotten how good it felt, until it occurred to her that the last time she’d laughed had been with Jon. “She was overenthusiastic, maybe a little nearsighted on the boundary thing and, bottom line, I just couldn’t see myself going through something as special as childbirth with her.”

  “So it’s a good thing. You should be smiling, not crying.” There went his hand on her shoulder again, long fingers lightly massaging away her concerns.

  She fought the urge to lean into his touch. “I was supposed to start the classes on labor training in two weeks. I skipped the first several since I know all that stuff, now I’ll be conspicuously starting the class late, and without a coach. It’s going to be weird. That’s all.”

  Jon hopped to standing, paced around the room. He stopped, hands on hips, and stared at his top-of-the-line running shoes, then clicked his tongue three times, a habit she related to his style of thinking. He turned his head and gave a measured gaze, then tapped his chest and shrugged. “Here’s your coach.”

  “Jon. I can’t let you do that.” Was it indecision she saw in his eyes?

  “I’ve gone through it twice, and I’m a damn good coach. If you don’t believe me, ask Cherie, if she’ll talk to you about me.”

  With Jon on her side, insisting he could replace her doula, her downtrodden mood shifted to something more lighthearted. Though the gesture was beyond sweet, she couldn’t let him go through with it. “Jon, the last thing you want to do is get involved in my birthing classes.”

  “You’re telling me what I think? Trust me, René, you have no idea what I think.”

  “But…”

  “I think I just volunteered to be your answer. Let’s have dinner after work tonight and talk more about it.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got another patient waiting. I’ll pick you up on the way out later.”

  Before she could protest, and admittedly it came slow because she couldn’t think of one reason to, he had his hand on the doorknob. “Let’s eat at that Mediterranean alfresco on Cabrillo,” he said as he slipped outside.

  She glanced back at the amniocentesis results and smiled. The baby was healthy, she’d gotten rid of her nagging doula, and Jon had just insisted he wouldn’t let her go through the birth alone. It wasn’t exactly like her fantasy, but it had come a lot closer than she’d dared to hope.

  Jon closed the door and fought the pang of sadness. René had looked so pitiful. He’d never seen her like that before. Pitiful shouldn’t be in the dictionary that described René. Independent. Yes. Competent. Of course. Vulnerable? Never! Perfect. Definitely. That always came to mind when thoughts of the lovely Dr. Munroe breezed through him. It tore at him to see her so unguarded, made him need to do something about it. He couldn’t bear to leave her alone in that condition.

  A cold wave hit when he reached his office and started to realize the ramifications his volunteering would have. Not only had he volunteered, he’d insisted to be her birth coach. Was he out of his mind? Not really. Turns out René’s happiness meant more than any fallout he’d have to deal with, like caring for her when he knew damn well he had no business getting close. He had nothing to offer her long term; maybe this interim gesture would make the inevitable loss less painful.

  He shook his head, feeling another secret pact coming on, and barely able to handle the first, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for another.

  He shuffled through the top drawer of his desk. Where was that journal when he needed it?

  Three hours later, at seven o’clock, pleasantly full and definitely tired, René invited Jon in for a quickie peek at the baby furniture.

  They’d had effortless and enjoyable conversation all through their Greek-with-an-American-twist dinner. He’d reassured her about his birth-coaching abilities, and altered her attitude about jumping in late with a group of people who’d already bonded. Now she anticipated a great experience with Jon at her side, and it felt good.

  She offered him peppermint tea and oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies for dessert back at her house, and he’d said yes before she could finish the sentence.

  They had tea, dessert and more casual conversation carefully centered on MidCoast Medical Clinic. After one final agreement about his being her Bradley birth coach—another secret they agreed to keep from everyone they worked with—he followed her down the hall.

  Because she wasn’t completely sold on the color choice, tiny butterflies flitted through her stomach at the thought of sharing the
baby’s room with Jon. Would it pass his approval? To overcompensate, she swung open the door with great flair and switched on the light. “Ta-dah!”

  Dead silence, uncomfortably long.

  “Purple?” Jon said, an incredulous look on his face as they stood in the nursery.

  “Heather. It’s called heather, and Gretchen said it’s a soothing color for babies.” The remnants of her confidence dissolved.

  “Maybe girl babies. What if it’s a boy?”

  “She assured me it’s a unisex color.”

  “Not. So not.” He must have spent the weekend with Lacy, and one of her favorite teen phrases had rubbed off on him, because he never said things like that. He shook his head and took a ministroll around the room. “You didn’t mention purple when you ran down your list of colors to me.”

  René kept her smile to herself. Okay, so maybe his reaction wasn’t so much about hating the color as it was about being disappointed she’d ignored his suggestions and painted the room with her ex-doula?

  “What about bright?” he said. “Simple? Not overpowering? Yellow. Like we talked about.”

  She’d been on the fence about the final results of Gretchen’s shade brainchild. Now that Jon had pointed out the dreadful mistake, she couldn’t deny it another second. Suddenly overcome with anxiety about choosing the wrong color and messing up her baby before his or her life began, she ran her hands through her hair. “I hate it. I hate the room this color.”

  Jon’s expression changed from disappointment to concern. “Come here.” He pulled her into his arms. “On the bright side, the furniture looks great! And you don’t have to leave the walls this way. I’ll repaint them for you.”

  Why did it feel so inviting and comfortable in his arms? She could stay here for hours and hours breathing in his clean, musky scent, enjoying the solid wall of his chest, if he’d let her. “You will?”

  He nodded. “Of course it’ll take a coat or two of primer first, which will increase my original price from one to two home-cooked meals.”

  Without giving it a thought, she kissed his cheek. “You’re on. Thank you. Oh, thank you.”