The Accidental Daddy

by Meredith Webber

  And so she rattled on, soothing, comforting, the stranger in Joey’s room forgotten.

  For the moment, at least.

  Joey led the visitors into the unit and introduced them to Harry.

  ‘He’s getting supplemental oxygen and they’re monitoring his lungs and heart and blood oxygen levels, and they have to feed him through drips and drain his little stomach. Hence the wires and tubes all around him.’

  ‘Oh, Joey,’ Grace breathed. ‘He’s beautiful! Can I touch him?’

  ‘Very gently,’ her mother said, before turning to Joey and repeating the compliment.

  ‘He is beautiful. He hasn’t got that crumpled, scrunched-up new-baby look at all.’

  Joey studied her son, seeing him through her visitors’ eyes, seeing, for the first time, the beauty they were seeing. Dark eyelashes rested on pearly-pink cheeks, his little nose had shape and character, while his lips were pinker than his cheeks, beautifully shaped like—oh, nonsense, as if she could see similarities in lips!

  But the image of Max’s lips remained in her head until Lissa drew her attention to the shape of Harry’s head.

  ‘You can see he’ll have brains—a beautifully shaped head,’ she was saying, while Grace squealed with delight as Harry clutched at the little finger she’d sneaked into his hand.

  ‘He’s holding me, he likes me,’ she said, and to her further delight, Harry opened his eyes to see just what was disturbing his sleep.

  Huge blue eyes moved to take in his surroundings, and Grace’s excitement could barely be contained.

  ‘So what’s involved with this operation?’ Lissa asked quietly, and Joey explained, taking her time, aware visiting hours would be over soon, which lessened the chances of her friends running into Max.

  Lissa had just moved on to questions about Joey’s labour when the chimes went.

  ‘Just as soon not think about that now,’ Joey told her, ushering them out and accompanying them to the front entrance. ‘I’ll tell you all about it some other time, preferably without small children present.’

  Lissa accepted that with a smile and a kiss on Joey’s cheek.

  ‘As long as you’re through it and okay,’ she said. ‘You are okay?’

  ‘More or less,’ Joey answered, skirting the truth but knowing Lissa would assume the ‘less’ part was just concern over Harry’s op.

  Which it, partly, mostly, was.

  So, she thought when she’d seen her visitors out and was walking slowly back to the elevators to take her up to her room. For all your anger at Max suggesting deceit, you haven’t exactly come out with the truth yourself.

  But surely this was different.

  ‘You want a coffee and something to eat? Sandwiches, salad, something light for lunch? Not coffee or tea. I had a vague memory of the coffee ban reaching past the birth so checked it out.’

  Max had appeared from nowhere and was guiding her towards the café in the foyer of the building.

  ‘Were you lurking here to catch me and tell me things about coffee?’

  He smiled and her mind went blank again.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I mean, yes, I was lurking to catch you, but so we could have lunch together, not to tell you things you probably already know about coffee. Do you drink coffee anyway? Normally, I mean?’

  He shook his head and smiled again.

  ‘I don’t know anything about you.’

  The statement was so plaintive Joey smiled back at him.

  ‘Not much to know about me but, yes, I do drink coffee—gallons of it when I’m working—so it’s been total deprivation.

  ‘Which has to continue for the next few months,’ Max said, obviously pleased with himself for finding out whatever he’d found out. ‘Apparently only about one percent of the caffeine we consume goes into the blood, so once the baby is about three months old a few cups of coffee a day won’t hurt. But newborns find it harder to process caffeine—it takes far longer to get out of their bodies. So while you’re expressing milk for the milk bank and while Harry’s little, you’ll have to continue to suffer.’

  It was a stupid conversation, but he was looking so pleased with himself she had to pretend she didn’t know about the caffeine and thank him for telling her.

  ‘So, I’d better stick with chai a few months more,’ she said, then felt a tremor run through her as he put an arm around her waist to guide her into the café.

  This was impossible—silly conversations and the slightest of touches, and she was going gaga.

  ‘I’ve had Masala chai all over India but here people seem to drink it differently. Do I ask for something special?’ Max asked, pulling out a chair at a corner table and somehow getting her to sit on it.

  ‘Chai latte they usually call it because they add milk and serve it in a glass like a coffee latte. But no food—my lunch is probably waiting in my room right now.’

  ‘So, one chai latte,’ he said, and she looked up and caught the slightest of smiles on his face. A barely-there smile, yet it made her heart skip a beat and her stomach lurch.

  He’s just being kind to you, she reminded her misbehaving internal organs. If there’s one thing you know about Max Winthrop, it’s that he’s a kind man.

  Kind to everyone, most likely—children, dogs, old ladies, street people...

  She studied his back as he waited in line at the counter, shifted upwards to have a good look at his head—well, shaped like Harry’s.

  A kind, intelligent man.

  But a restless man, an adventurous man who put himself in harm’s way.

  ‘So, what did she think?’ he asked, when he returned to the table with her chai latte and what looked like a short black espresso for himself.

  ‘Who think about what?’ Joey asked, stirring half a teaspoon of sugar into her drink before looking up at him.

  Max stared at her in disbelief. Did she really not know what he was getting at?

  ‘Who, your friend, and the what, of course, is about Harry. What did she think?’

  Joey smiled at him.

  ‘She thought he was beautiful.’

  ‘And that’s all?’ Max was having a hard time keeping his voice at a suitable level for private conversation in a café. ‘What about me? What about Harry not being David’s baby?’

  The pink lips that invariably attracted his attention in Joey’s face—they’d felt so soft, tasted so sweet!—made a round O of surprise.

  ‘We didn’t talk about that,’ she finally said, her voice small rather than muted.

  ‘You mean you didn’t tell her?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  She sounded as puzzled as she looked. He took a very deep breath and then another before he spoke again.

  ‘So I’ve been pacing the foyer for the past hour, wondering what’s happening, wondering how this first test is going of telling one of your friends the truth—the truth you believe is important—and you didn’t tell her?’

  ‘It wasn’t the right time.’ Joey spoke defensively, but her flushed cheeks gave away her embarrassment.

  ‘And me? Did you not have to explain my presence in your room?’

  The colour in her cheeks deepened, but puzzlement had given way to anger in her eyes.

  ‘What was I supposed to tell her? Yes, I thought I would be able to explain about you fathering Harry, but you’ve been so good to me—so kind—sticking with me through my labour, being there for me when I heard about Harry’s problem, promising to be there for the op. So I couldn’t bear for her to think badly of you, and if I told her you’d be opting out of fatherhood, which you’d just said you could do, then she would think badly of you.’

  She faltered to a halt then added, in a very small voice, ‘Or I thought she might, and I wouldn’t like that.’

 
Her anger had faded and she was so obviously stressed Max couldn’t help but cover her small hand, where it rested on the table, with his much larger one.

  He ran her slightly muddled reply through his head and came to the bit that had bothered him.

  ‘You’re worried about people thinking badly of me?’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘No—well, yes. Kind of.’

  She moved her hand to clutch at her head. ‘Honestly, my brain’s just gone haywire! I do hope it’s something to do with the hormones and that it will eventually get back on track.’

  He had to smile.

  ‘I don’t suppose it could be due to the shocks you’ve had the last few days. It’s not exactly been a normal, peaceful weekend.’

  ‘No, that’s just an excuse,’ she muttered, ‘although you’re not helping. Oh, I didn’t mean that—of course you’re helping. But not knowing what’s ahead for us, for Harry, that’s not helping.’

  He was about to tell her he understood when she spoke again, looking directly at his face—into his eyes.

  ‘And I know you’re in just as bad a place right now. I mean, you’ve had just as much of a shock as I have, and I can understand your not knowing which way you want to go as far as Harry’s future is concerned, so I’m not blaming you for all my muddled thinking, but it isn’t making it easier.’

  He shook his head. Torturous as it was, he could understand her decision, but for how long could she hold out not telling her friends, and all so they wouldn’t think badly of him?

  They are not people you know, the nagging common sense voice in his head reminded him, so it doesn’t matter what they think of you.

  But what if he stayed involved and they did become friends?

  He swallowed a swear word.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ he said aloud. ‘So let’s go back to what we’d decided when—yesterday? Take it a bit at a time. Get through today and the operation tomorrow, and hope a way ahead might become clearer with time.’

  ‘Hmph! That’s lovely positive-thinking stuff, but where does it get us?’ she grumbled.

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’ he retorted, his own mind so tied in knots it was hard to hide his exasperation.

  To his surprise, Joey smiled.

  ‘Well, I did turn off my mobile to avoid a call from David’s parents if they happened to be somewhere they could phone from, and perhaps we could get the staff to post a “No Visitors” sign on my door.’

  He had to smile back, although the first part of her answer bothered him.

  ‘Won’t they worry if they can’t get you, David’s parents?’

  ‘I’ve emailed,’ Joey replied, and he saw the colour rise in her cheeks again so he wasn’t surprised when she added, ‘I told them Harry had come early and had a little problem that an operation would fix and I’d be in touch once he was safely through it.’

  Ha! A victory to him in the ‘tell or not tell’ debate, but Max felt no pleasure. The colour in Joey’s cheeks told him how embarrassed she must feel at not telling them the whole truth.

  Not to mention turning off her mobile.

  ‘You’re not gloating,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Of course I’m not. I’m not totally insensitive and I realise just how hard it’s going to be for you to tell them.’

  He didn’t add, if you tell them, mainly because he’d been thinking more about it and discovered just how tricky a situation it could be.

  Joey picked up her now cool drink and sipped at it. Of course he wasn’t insensitive—in fact, apart from David, he was probably the most sensitive man she’d ever met.

  Or was she confusing kindness with sensitivity? Had the matter-of-fact way he’d passed her her underwear back when she’d been getting dressed for the hospital been nothing more than kindness?

  She didn’t think so.

  ‘It’s like a maze, isn’t it?’ she said.

  And to her surprise, he not only smiled, but said, ‘That’s definitely a great metaphor for what’s going on in my mind. I think I’ve got it sorted and go down one path and something comes up that proves a dead end, so I go another way and, wham, same thing. I wonder if there are problems humans have to face that logical thinking just can’t sort out?’

  ‘But if we don’t use logic, what can we use?’

  He looked at her and smiled again.

  ‘Emotion? Isn’t there such a thing as emotional thinking?’

  ‘Not in my headspace,’ she told him, although some part of her brain was willing her to agree. ‘I gave up on emotion as a guiding force in my life years ago.’

  ‘But now you’ve got Harry,’ Max protested.

  ‘And I’ll love him with my head—intelligent love. That has to be possible!’

  She watched Max’s face, almost daring him to argue with her, but all he said was, ‘Do you think so?’

  Well, she had up until yesterday, but she was pretty sure the wavering in her convictions was hormonal, not sensible.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, stalwartly denying the questioning bit of her brain.

  ‘So what’s the difference?’

  Lord, the man was stubborn! But how to explain without admitting just how many bits of her heart she’d lost to love when first David and then her entire family had been taken from her?

  ‘There’s no obvious difference,’ she said. ‘How could there be? Harry will know I love him—he’ll always know that.’

  ‘But he’ll be loved from your head and not your heart?’

  Damn the man for homing in on that. He was sensitive.

  ‘So?’ she demanded, giving up on the chai and setting the glass down too hard so it sloshed onto the table. Grabbing napkins to mop it up enabled her to avoid looking at Max, so she wouldn’t see what was probably disapproval on his face.

  Max was pretty sure the confused, distracted woman opposite him—the one fussing with damp napkins and making things worse—wasn’t anything like the normal Joey McMillan. Not that he wasn’t confused and distracted himself.

  The confusion, given how recently he’d heard the news of his fatherhood and the dramas that had followed, was normal, but the distraction had blue eyes, and soft lips, and blushed like a sixteen-year-old on a first date. Or did girls have their first date much earlier these days?

  Was he ever glad Harry wasn’t a girl!

  See, confusion!

  But to get back to the distraction, it was the physical attraction he was feeling towards the mother of his child that was the big problem. He was reasonably sure it was totally one-sided, and it felt almost indecent to be feeling the way he did about her when she’d had a huge shock, a slightly preemie baby, and one with a problem at that.

  No woman could be more vulnerable than Joey was right now, so there was no way he could take advantage of that vulnerability and do anything about the attraction. In fact, he had to avoid revealing any evidence of it.

  Yet if ever a woman needed a comforting hug, a touch of a hand on her shoulder, or a quick cheer-up kind of kiss, it was Joey.

  ‘I’ll get you another drink,’ he said, and moved away from the table without waiting for her reply.

  The really bothersome thing with all this was that he had no idea how to work out a plan for the future.

  For his future as far as Harry was concerned, especially given the fact that a relationship of any kind with Harry would naturally include some kind of relationship with Joey.

  For someone who’d always relied on logical thinking to map his path ahead, this was a whole new world because if there was one thing he had realised, it was that logical thinking didn’t work when emotion was involved.

  When his heart was involved?

  Was this what Joey had been talking about, loving with the head and not the heart?


  Well, he could understand, given the terrible losses she’d suffered, why she hoped she might be able to manage that, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t.

  He carried the fresh chai latte back to the table, which had been cleared of debris.

  Cleared of the woman causing his confusion as well.

  He looked around, aware he was frowning, although more worried than annoyed.

  ‘She said to tell you she was going back to her room,’ a passing waitress said, then she grinned and added, ‘I hope you drink chai.’

  Max dumped the coffee on the table and left the café.

  She’d left the message—did it mean she wanted him to follow her?

  Or that she’d had enough of him for the day?

  He stood in the foyer and muttered some choice swear words in his head, directed at himself, not at Joey.

  How could a man used to making split-second decisions in some of the most dire emergency situations be unable to decide whether to go to her room or not?

  She was a woman, and he was good with women. Or, these days at least, he was good at decision-making about them—able to choose which ones with whom he could have a mutually enjoyable relationship with no animosity or angst when it ended or he departed to a distant part of the world. He liked women, as friends as well as lovers, and had always thought they quite liked him.

  But this woman!

  He didn’t have a clue.

  Except that he wanted her.

  It was highly inappropriate.

  Yet he was already heading for the elevator, and it was only when he reached the maternity floor that he forced himself to go and sit with Harry, rather than further confuse his mind and body by heading for Joey’s room.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SHE MUST HAVE changed her mind about the room, because she was sitting in the big chair, Harry in her arms, leads and wires and tubes carefully arranged around her. He stood in the entrance for a moment, looking at her, thinking that even with the paraphernalia of the hospital, it was still a beautiful mother and child cameo.