Good, so she had his full attention. “Haven’t you ever gotten sick, or are people as perfect as you immune to everything?” She realized she was borderline hysterical, but she didn’t care one whit. “Haven’t you...haven’t you ever thrown your underwear on a chair? Isn’t there ever dust on your dresser?” This tirade was taking enormous energy, and she could feel herself trembling and getting dizzy. “You’ve got a daughter. Can’t you see how worried Tessa is, how she needs your reassurance?”
She paused for breath, panting and weak. “So help me, most first year interns have a better bedside manner than you have, Luke Gilbert. Can’t you come down off your high horse and get human for once in your life?”
Luke stared at Morgan, and the only indication that her words had had any effect was a tightening of his jaw and a quick flash of emotion that came and went in his eyes.
He was silent He set several vials on the bedside table, and with unshakable dignity, picked up his bag and moved toward the door.
Tessa was frozen in place beside the bed. Morgan realized that the girl had never seen her lose her temper to that extent. Morgan sank back on her pillows, shuddering as if her body were about to break apart.
“Oh, phooey.” Tears formed in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. She’d said what she felt all right, but she had a horrible niggling feeling that Luke had come out the victor, just by maintaining his cool.
Chapter Four
Luke made his way down the stairwell, his mind registering the worn but colorful carpet, the stained-glass window on the landing, the lovely old desk that stood beside the front door. A shiny tin can held a casual bouquet of dying roses, pink and gold petals mounded in a soft heap at its base.
Major came limping from the recesses of the house, tail wagging and tongue lolling. Luke automatically bent to rub a hand over his silky head, noting that there was something wrong with the dog’s hind legs. He limped noticeably.
“Stay, fellow,” he ordered in a soft tone, and Major obediently dropped to his belly on the floor as Luke let himself out and closed the door quietly behind him.
His heart was hammering and his throat felt dry. He ran a finger around his collar. It was choking him. He climbed into his car and started it. He sped away from the curb, squealed around a comer and made his way down the long hill to Southwest Marine Drive.
He punched a button and the radio blared to life, but even the frantic patter of a local deejay couldn’t muffle the echo of Morgan’s voice.
You’ve got a daughter...a daughter...a daughter.... Can’t you see how she needs your reassurance... reassurance... reassurance...
He drove with automatic expertise, but the road and traffic were superseded in his mind by the image of a wild, red-haired woman, curls standing up like Medusa’s snakes, freckles on her straight nose orange against the extreme pallor of her silken skin. And her eyes. Those huge, expressive chocolate brown eyes were filled with contempt as she verbalized all the wretched things he knew to be true about himself.
She was right, about him. There wasn’t dust on his dresser; he did hang his clothing up the moment he removed it; he’d always paid meticulous attention to his grooming. Part of that was due to the years he’d spent in an English public school, but he supposed a shrink would say he imposed rigid control over his environment because it was so absolutely out of control.
She’d said his bedside manner was atrocious. He knew he didn’t project warmth or friendliness the way Morgan did. He couldn’t possibly allow his emotions free rein, permitting whatever he was feeling to show on his face or in his voice, because a single crack in the iron facade he’d so carefully erected would bring the entire structure down in ruins.
One simply couldn’t commit murder. Men didn’t cry. And he couldn’t reassure his daughter, or Morgan’s, either, because he didn’t know what words to use. He’d decided long ago that he was illiterate when it came to love, and certainly the events of his life had proven that to be true.
That girl, Tessa. He saw her as if her picture were glued to the windshield, her protruding belly like a small, hard balloon attached to her skinny frame, holding Morgan’s hand in both her own, her wide eyes mirroring concern behind their mascaraed lashes.
Damnation. He smashed his fist down on the steering wheel. Sophie’s stubborn, impassive face was also as clear as a photograph in his mind’s eye, her wide-set gray eyes avoiding any contact with his, her rosy mouth downturned, her body held stiff and tight should he reach out and put a hand on her shoulder or arm. Lately, each time he’d tried, she’d jerked herself away.
At last he was home. He wheeled into his circular driveway. The gardener had raked the leaves and taken them away. The house was pristine and perfect. Luke had bought it new, directly from the contractor who’d built it, Adam Hendricks, and Adam and Luke had become friends as they worked out the details of the purchase. Adam and his pretty wife, Peggy, had welcomed Luke and his daughter into the bosom of their large, noisy family.
And then Adam’s son, Jason, had made Sophie pregnant.
He inserted his key in the door.
“Evening, Dr. Gilbert.” His housekeeper was waiting in the hall, and he remembered now that she’d wanted to have dinner early tonight
“Hello, Eileen. Sorry I’m late, I had a house call to make, but I should have phoned. My apologies.” Luke removed his shoes and set them side by side in the hall closet sliding his feet into the moccasins he kept there. Eileen was fussy about the floors.
He glanced around at the gleaming surfaces of his home, the carefully polished silver tea service on the low coffee table, the carpets without a trace of lint, the careful arrangements of silk flowers set here and there. Eileen was a terrific housekeeper, no doubt about it. He’d had several housekeepers after Deborah died, none of them good. He’d hired Eileen when he moved from Victoria, and she’d lasted.
It was unfortunate that she and Sophie didn’t get along better, but Sophie hadn’t gotten along with the other women, either.
He thought of the dust balls he’d noticed chasing along the hallway of Morgan’s house, the cat in her bed, the clothing in a heap on the bedroom floor. Eileen would never tolerate that sort of thing.
And the dog, Major. Strange how he’d forgotten how much Sophie had always wanted a dog. They’d never had one. His wife, Deborah, had been allergic to them.
“Is Sophie home?”
“Yes, she’s in her room. She didn’t go to school and she wouldn’t come down for lunch.” The housekeeper’s mouth tightened infinitesimally, and then a martyred smile came and went on her handsome features. “We’ve both been listening to her music all afternoon, Doctor, and I have to say that infernal racket wears on me. Dinner’s been ready for hours, I hope it’s not ruined.”
She made a point of looking at the man’s wristwatch she wore. “I’ll just put it on the table for you and then I’ll be off, if you don’t mind.” Eileen was taking computer science at night school at a local college, and Luke wished to God she’d just go to her class without this fussing. It wasn’t as if Sophie was a baby or he was helpless.
He thought of Tessa making soup. It would be good for Sophie to learn how to make soup.
“Go on, Eileen. You’re late already.” He forced a facsimile of a smile. “I think I can manage to get the food from the oven to the table.”
“Well, doctor, if you’re sure.” Eileen hurried out, and he felt a guilty sense of relief. She was a gem, no doubt about it, but she wasn’t relaxing to be around, and tonight he needed to relax.
His chest and stomach felt constricted. He tried for a deep breath and found he couldn’t manage one. It stuck somewhere between his chest and stomach. He should start jogging again. A biweekly game of handball kept him fit, but it wasn’t enough to really relieve stress. The problem was time, of course, and he spent a great deal of time working.
He needed a drink. He headed for the antique liquor cabinet and poured a healthy dose of Scotch, swallowing a gener
ous mouthful, but it didn’t taste as good as he’d expected. Carrying the glass, he climbed the stairs to the second floor, frowning at the muffled rock beat that came from behind Sophie’s closed door.
“Sophie, you feeling okay? You’re not ill, are you?”
No answer. He paused a moment, undecided, and then hurried along the hall to his own bedroom. He needed to get into comfortable clothing, drink the Scotch, fortify himself before he confronted his daughter. What would Morgan have to say about that, a man who had to drink to face his own daughter?
Twenty minutes later, he and Sophie sat across from each other at the dining table.
“More potatoes?” Luke extended the bowl and frowned when she shook her head. “You’ve hardly eaten a thing. Eileen said you skipped lunch.”
Breakfast, too, undoubtedly. He’d left early, so he hadn’t heard her being sick this morning, but he knew the usual routine. It was what had alerted him to her condition. Instead of trying to conceal her sickness, she’d flaunted it until, at six-thirty one morning, he’d finally asked what was wrong with her.
She’d told him, her beautiful gray eyes filled with rebellion, her pretty mouth twisted into a sneer that made him catch his breath in pain and shock.
“What d’ you think’s wrong, Daddy? I’m pregnant. I sort of thought you’d guess.”
The initial rage, the awesome pain and despair he’d felt that morning, three short weeks ago, flared again before he tamped them down.
“Starving yourself won’t solve anything, Sophie,” he said now. “You’ll damage your health, and it’ll just make things harder than they already are.” He forked up a mouthful of stew and dutifully chewed and swallowed, but the truth was, he didn’t have much appetite himself. He pushed his plate away and looked helplessly across at his daughter. He could hear Morgan’s voice in his head, like the voice of his conscience.
Get human for once in your life.... Can’t you see she needs your reassurance...reassurance...
“We should talk about—” he swallowed and forced the words out of his mouth “—about your pregnancy, Sophie. Your baby. There are issues that need to be decided.”
The words swirled in a sick mélange in his head, words like abortion, private adoption, counseling. Words he’d used so often, so confidently and calmly in his practice that now had the capacity to make his stomach clench and cold sweat trickle down his forehead.
But Sophie wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t look at him. Her hair, hanging dank and loose around her shoulders, fell forward to cover most of her face.
“Sophie, please, dear. Ignoring this isn’t going to make it go away.”
“May I please be excused?”
The childish request reminded Luke of how young she was, both in years and maturity, and how terribly ill equipped to face pregnancy and childbirth, much less motherhood.
Motherhood. Look at the mess I’ve made of being a father, and 1 was twenty-five before she was even born.
‘‘Sophie, have you given any thought to abortion?”
“Abortion?” She looked at him as if he’d suggested incest.
“I’ve thought this over, and I’m convinced abortion is the best solution. Honey, you’re so young, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“No.” She gave him a look that made him wince. “The answer is no, and that’s final. How can you even think of such a thing, Daddy? It’s my baby, and Jason’s. I’d never get rid of it.” She gave him a venomous glare, and then he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. She swiped at her runny nose with the back of her hand, and his heart contracted with pity and love. His little girl, she was his baby girl.
“Honey, please, don’t cry.” He reached across to her, but she jerked away, as usual.
“Haven’t you done enough harm already, Daddy? You’ve driv-driven J-Jason away as if my getting preg-pregnant was all his fault.” She gulped and struggled to control her voice. “Well, for your information, it wasn’t his fault. I wanted it more than he did. I asked him, I begged him.”
She spat it all out, graphic things he didn’t want to know, and Luke gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles white. He couldn’t listen to this. It sickened him, thinking of Sophie with that hormone-ridden idiot.
“You had no business threatening Jason that way. You had no right telling him to stay away from me.” She was shouting now, out of control. “I need him, he’s my only friend. I hate you for making him go away. I hate you, Daddy!”
“Sophie, that’s enough,” Luke thundered, his patience at an end. “Jason’s very fortunate I didn’t do more than just yell at him.” Damn it, now he’d lost his temper all over again. The very thought of Jason Hendricks having sex with his daughter brought on a killing rage, a fury so overwhelming it terrified him.
Never in all his forty years had he truly believed himself capable of murder. But the confrontation with Jason had taught him that he had depths of rage he’d never tapped. And the fact that Jason was the oldest son of Luke’s former best friend seemed both diabolical and cruel. The loss of Adam Hendricks’s friendship had left another gaping hole in the rotted fabric his life had become.
Sophie was now sobbing in earnest, bent over the table, hands over her face, hair trailing in the untouched stew on her dinner plate.
“I...want...my...mummy. I want my mummy,” she keened. “If Mom were alive, things would never have turned out this way.”
Luke got to his feet. His knees felt weak, his insides churned, and the almost overwhelming need to roar out the truth to his daughter made nausea rise in his throat.
He couldn’t, wouldn’t tell Sophie that she was partially right. If Deborah were alive, things would indeed be different.
Sophie had no idea that on the day of the car crash that had taken Deborah’s life, her mother had been on her way to meet another man, a man with whom she’d been having an affair for sometime. Luke had learned the facts only after her death. He, like Sophie, had had no idea that Deborah was leading a double life. She’d been a model housekeeper, gourmet cook, had seemed to be a devoted if less than passionate wife, and all the while she’d been carrying on a torrid affair with someone else.
Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and utter defeat were beginning to seem like old acquaintances to him. They rolled over him now, as ferocious and inescapable as a tidal wave.
“Your mother’s dead, Sophie. You’re going to have to accept that fact and learn to get along with me.”
Sophie’s chair crashed backward and toppled to the floor as she ran out of the dining room. He heard her footsteps and her harsh sobs as she flew up the stairs.
The image of a wild-eyed redheaded woman flashed into his mind.
Come down off your high horse and get human for once in your life.
Oh, Morgan. If only you realized just how terribly human I really am, and how inadequate.
After Luke’s visit, Morgan still didn’t feel any better. She swallowed the medication he’d left and vomited it up again, wondering between trips to the bathroom what she’d done to deserve such misery. Now she felt guilty for exploding the way she had.
Exhausted, she fell asleep at eight, and sometime during the night the symptoms left as suddenly as they’d appeared. By the next morning she was finally feeling more like herself. She got up and bathed and shampooed her hair and even managed to eat the bowl of tinned peaches and slice of toast Tessa brought her before she left for school.
“You had a phone call last night from Alex Ross. You were dead to the world and I didn’t want to wake you, so I told her you had the flu and that you’d call her back when you felt better,” Tessa told her.
When the girl had hurried off to school, Morgan reached for the bedside phone. Alex was one of her oldest and best friends, and Morgan felt an overwhelming need to talk to her. They’d interned together at St. Joe’s and remained close even though Alex and her husband had moved to Korbin Lake, a small town in B.C.’s interior where Cameron ran the local RCMP detachment an
d Alex had a family practice.
Morgan glanced at the clock as she dialed the familiar number. It was eight-thirty, still early. Alex might not have left for the clinic yet.
Morgan waited through five rings before Alex’s harried voice came on the line. In the background was the sound of a child’s high-pitched chatter, the banging of dishes and the insistent yowling of a cat.
“Alex, hi. It’s me. Have I caught you at a bad time? It sounds as if all hell’s breaking loose there. Is that my godson making all that racket?”
“Yup, that’s Jonathan all right He’s helping me put the pots and pans away. It always sounds like this around here these days. Hang on while I give Jonnie a cracker and put the cat outside so I can hear you better.” There was a short pause, and when she came back on the line, Alex said, “My gosh, Morgan, I was worried when Tessa told me you were sick. Is it flu? You’re not pregnant or anything exciting like that?”
“Flu, just flu. I’ll leave the baby making to you.” Morgan cleared her throat. “I’m better this morning, but I’ve missed several days’ work.”
“Whew, must be some powerful virus to knock you out of commission. I can’t remember you ever missing a day at St. Joe’s. I wish I were there to bring you flowers or soup or something. And who’s delivering your babies for you?”
Morgan felt a surge of annoyance just thinking about it. “Oh, this insufferable Englishman Jenkins hired behind my back. Yesterday he delivered twins I’ve been excited about for months, and he sectioned without even giving the momma a chance to do it vaginally. You know how I feel about intervention when it’s not strictly necessary.”
It felt good to unload her feelings to Alex. “He’s been around St. Joe’s for a couple years. Maybe you met him when you were in Emerg—Luke Gilbert?”
“Gilbert, Gilbert. Oh yeah. Had all the nurses swooning?”
“That’s him.”
“Wow, he’s a hunk! I only met him a couple of times, but I thought he was quite nice. Sexy as hell, but he sure wasn’t on the make that I could see. He never used his position and good looks to score the way a lot of docs would do.” Even Morgan had to admit that Luke wasn’t a womanizer, but she wasn’t about to let that alter her feelings about him.
The Baby Doctor Page 4
