Their Unexpected Family

by Judy Duarte

  She shook it off, blaming her hormones and the loneliness that seemed to haunt her at times, ever since her brother’s accident.

  It had been two years, although time had eased the pain and dulled the shock, as Father Tomas had told her it would. But time hadn’t done a darn thing to ease the loneliness or to change the fact she didn’t have a family anymore.

  She brushed a hand along the contour of her tummy, caressed the knot that sprung up on the left side. A little foot? A knee? A fist?

  As she stood, the muscles of her back gripped hard, causing her to bend and grab the table for support.

  “What’s the matter?” Mark jumped to his feet.

  “I’m not sure.”

  For a woman with bad feet, Mrs. Tasker was by her side in an instant. “Are you in labor?”

  Juliet froze as the possibility momentarily hovered over her like the calm before the storm. “No, I don’t think so.” At least, she hoped not. It was still too early.

  As the ache in her back continued, she closed her eyes. Dios, por favor. Don’t let it happen now. It’s too soon.

  “Are you having a contraction?” Mrs. Tasker asked, glancing at her wristwatch, as though she meant to start timing the pains.

  “It’s just a backache,” Juliet said, willing it to be true.

  The older woman crossed her arms in an all-knowing fashion. “That’s how my labor started with Jimmy. All in my back.”

  Juliet lifted her gaze, looked at Mark, expecting him to blurt out a gripe, a complaint, an I-told-you-so. But the only sign of his response was a tense jaw, a pale face.

  “No need for us to take any chances,” Mrs. Tasker said. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “Don’t bother.” Mark reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet, withdrew a twenty-dollar bill and dropped it on the table. “I’ll take her to the hospital.”

  Juliet began to object, to tell him to finish his dessert. But he slipped an arm around her and led her to the front door.

  Mark followed White Water Drive to Thunder Canyon General, then veered toward the separate emergency entrance. He stopped under the covered portico, close to the automatic glass doors, and threw the car into park. “Wait here.”

  Leaving Juliet in the idling car, he dashed inside past a security guard, his heart pounding as though he had a personal stake in this—and he sure as hell didn’t.

  But Mark knew firsthand how things could go wrong during labor. And he wasn’t going to leave Juliet, who didn’t have anyone to depend on, to fend for herself. Neither was he going to let her ignore any symptoms that might be serious.

  He spotted a nurse behind the reception desk. “I need help. Now. I’ve got a woman in my car who may be in premature labor.”

  The nurse grabbed a wheelchair and followed him outside. But rather than take Juliet right to a room, she stopped at the reception desk.

  “Can’t this wait?” Mark asked, growing more agitated by the second. He wanted to hand over Juliet to a qualified professional, then get the heck out of here.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse responded. “This will only take a minute.”

  She was wrong. But while the customary paperwork was filled out, Mark managed to not pitch a fit about the amount of time it took.

  Finally, Juliet was given a temporary bed in the E.R. Her only privacy was a blue-and-white striped curtain that didn’t reach the floor.

  Before long, she’d had her temperature and blood pressure taken—all within normal range.

  Mark really ought to loosen up. Normal was a good thing, right?

  “Did you notify your physician that you were coming in?” the nurse asked Juliet.

  “I didn’t have time to think about it.” Juliet glanced at Mark and blew out a sigh. “Can you tell Dr. Emerson that I’m here?”

  The nurse, a matronly blonde, placed a hand on Juliet’s shoulder. “Dr. Emerson had a heart attack last night and is in ICU.”

  Juliet gasped.

  “But don’t you worry,” the nurse said. “We have a top-notch resident obstetrician who will take good care of you.”

  “Dr. Hart?” Juliet asked.

  The nurse smiled. “That’s right.”

  “I saw her on Sunday afternoon. I’d had a fainting spell. And you’re right. I felt very comfortable with her.”

  “Good,” the nurse said. “I’ll give Dr. Hart a call and see whether she’d like us to examine you down here or send you to maternity on the second floor.”

  Juliet uttered an okay. She might be comfortable with the resident obstetrician, but Mark could see the worry in her eyes. The anxiety in her face.

  “In the meantime,” the nurse said, pointing to a chair beside the bed. “Why don’t you have a seat, Dad?”

  Dad? She had that all wrong. But before Mark could explain, Juliet did it for him. “This is my friend, Mark Anderson. He’s not the baby’s father.”

  The nurse smiled. “It’s nice for a woman to have someone she trusts be her birth coach.”

  Birth coach? Whoa. Not Mark. He’d just brought Juliet here to make sure she saw a doctor, that she was someplace safe. Maybe he could stick around and hold her hand for a while. But if things got hairy, if she was really in labor, he’d wait in the cafeteria until she gave birth. Heck, he might even hang around long enough to look at the baby behind a glass window and tell her the kid was cute—even though he’d seen a couple of newborns and thought they looked more like aliens than humans.

  Then, after that, he’d be on his way.

  When the nurse stepped out, Mark took a seat, but he couldn’t seem to relax. What was taking so long? He glanced at his watch. The minute hands seemed to be moving slower than usual.

  A while later—he didn’t know how long—another nurse arrived. A friendly, thirty-something woman with short, dark-hair and wearing a pink smock dotted with teddy bears. “Ms. Rivera? I’m Beth Ann. Dr. Hart has asked me to take you to maternity.”

  The nurse fiddled with the bed, making it mobile, then began to push Juliet out of the E.R. and into the hall. She slowed her steps just long enough to glance at Mark. “You can follow us.”

  He opened his mouth to object, to say he’d be having coffee in the cafeteria, but for some reason, he fell into step behind the rolling bed.

  They took an elevator to the second floor, then the nurse wheeled Juliet toward the maternity ward, where she paused before the ominous double doors.

  Mark’s steps slowed, too. But not because he was tagging along behind them.

  What the hell was he doing? Juliet was in good hands. Competent hands. He didn’t need to go in there. They didn’t need him. Besides, he’d done his duty. His good deed for the day.

  But when Juliet turned her head and looked at him, those misty, mahogany eyes locking on his, he saw the fear, the nervousness. The need.

  He offered her a wimpy smile, and when she turned her head away, he ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t have any business going in there with her. He wasn’t the baby’s father. Or her husband.

  But Juliet didn’t have a mother or a sister. She was new in town. And he doubted she’d made any friends, not with her schedule. Hell, none of her co-workers had jumped in to help.

  Right now, she only had him.

  The nurse pressed at the button that automatically swung open the doors, then pushed Juliet through.

  Mark followed behind, like a clueless steer on its way to a slaughterhouse.

  They plodded along the hall, his Italian loafers clicking on the spanking clean floor, the nurse’s rubber soles making a dull squeak with each step. They passed several open doorways Mark was afraid to peek into and continued along a glass-enclosed room that held incubators for the tiniest and sickest of patients. All of the little beds were empty, thank God.

  Would Juliet’s baby be placed in one of them?

  The possibility jolted his heart, jump-starting his pulse.

  Oh, for cripes sake. Mark wasn’t a worrier. Not by nature. It was just th
e pregnancy, the vulnerability of both woman and child.

  And his own fears brought back to life.

  He swore under his breath. Juliet was just having a backache, right? From working too hard and carrying the extra weight of a baby. She hadn’t been especially worried until Martha Tasker popped up like a jack-in-the-box, with the tale of her own labor, stirring things up. Making something out of nothing.

  Mark followed the bed into a room that looked more like a bedroom than a private hospital room. Pale green curtains graced the window that looked out into a frozen courtyard that was probably colorful and vibrant during the summer.

  Decorated in pink, green and a touch of lavender, the color scheme and homey touch of the room probably helped ease the nerves of laboring expectant mothers. But it didn’t do a damn thing to ease Mark’s anxiety, not when he spotted medical gaskets and gizmos that reminded him of where they were, what they faced.

  “Here’s a gown,” Beth Ann said. “As soon as you slip it on, I’ll examine you.”

  An examination? Oh, cripes. Not an internal exam.

  The nurse asked Juliet, “Would you like him to stay in here?”

  Oh, hell no. Not on a bet. Mark cleared his throat, then started backing toward the door. “Why don’t I step out of the room for a little while. You can come and get me when it’s all over.”

  When it was all over. Not just the exam.

  The nurse nodded as she reached for a box of rubber gloves.

  Mark couldn’t get out of the birthing room fast enough. If he ever had a kid of his own, he wouldn’t be hanging around and watching that kind of a procedure. No way.

  He ran a finger under the collar of his shirt, then scanned the hospital corridor, where a floral wallpaper border softened the sterile white walls.

  If there’d been anyone else who could be here for Juliet, he’d be out of here faster than a sopping-wet dog could shake its fur.

  But she didn’t have anyone.

  And that’s why he stayed.

  Moments later, the nurse poked her head out the door. “You can come in now.”

  He nodded, then stepped inside. But before he reached Juliet’s bed, an attractive woman dressed in medical garb approached and introduced herself as Dr. Hart.

  “I think she’s in the early stages of labor,” the nurse told the obstetrician. “And she’s about two centimeters dilated.”

  Dr. Hart nodded, then approached Juliet. “I’d feel better about delivering your baby a couple weeks from now. So I’d like to give you something to stop labor and another medication that will help the baby’s lungs develop quicker, in case your labor doesn’t respond to treatment.”

  When the doctor and nurse left them alone, Juliet shot Mark a wobbly grin. “You don’t have to stick around. I’ll be okay.”

  Hey, there was his out. His excuse to leave. But he couldn’t take it, couldn’t walk away knowing she was all alone. “What if you need a ride home?”

  “I can take a cab.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Then he sat back in his chair, unsure of what the night would bring.

  And hoping to hell he could step up to the plate.

  This time.

  Chapter Three

  Juliet stretched out in the hospital bed, wishing she could go back to sleep. The medication Dr. Hart had given her last night seemed to have worked. The backache had eased completely within the first hour of her arrival.

  But that didn’t mean she’d rested well. And neither had Mark, who’d stayed by her side the entire night.

  More than once she’d told him he could go back to the inn, but he’d refused. And she had to admit, she was glad he hadn’t left her alone.

  She suspected hanging out with a pregnant woman at the hospital hadn’t been easy for him. A couple of times, he’d gotten a squeamish I’d-rather-be-any-where-but-here look on his face. But he’d persevered like a real trooper.

  Now he dozed on a pale green recliner near the window, hands folded over the flat plain of his stomach, eyes closed, dark hair spiked and mussed. He lay there for a while, unaware of her interest. And then he stirred.

  She watched him arch his back, twist, extend his arms, then cover a yawn with his fist. When his eyes opened, he caught her gaze. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”

  “Tired, but the backache is gone.”

  “That’s good news.” He gripped the armrests, manipulating the chair to an upright position, and stood like a knight in rumpled armor.

  And that’s how she thought of him. Real hero material—in the rough.

  With a wrinkled cotton dress shirt and tousled hair, the cynical reporter might not make another woman sit up and take notice this morning. But another woman hadn’t appreciated him pinch-hitting for the men she no longer had in her life.

  Her brother Manny had been a macho guy, tough and gruff on the outside. But he’d also been a softy in the middle—at least, when it came to his little sister. And Mark appeared to be cut from the same bolt of cloth—a comparison made without any effort on her part.

  There were men, as Juliet had learned the hard way, who wouldn’t stand by a pregnant woman.

  Her baby’s father was one of them.

  For a moment, as Juliet watched a sturdy, broad-shouldered Mark walk toward the window, she pretended that she had someone in her corner. Someone who cared enough to stick by her.

  And, at least for the past twelve hours, that had been true. Mark had been there for her when she needed a friend. And that was something she’d remember long after he’d taken another assignment and left Thunder Canyon.

  She watched as he drew the floral curtains aside, allowing her to peer into the dawn-lit hospital courtyard. She wondered what the grounds looked like in the summer, when the patches of snow had all melted and the rose garden bloomed.

  The door to the birthing room cracked open, and they both turned as Dr. Hart entered. The slender woman with light brown, shoulder-length hair approached the bed. As in the past, she exuded professionalism and concern. Yet last night Juliet had noticed something different about her. A happy glow that lingered this morning.

  “Good morning,” the doctor said. “Did you have a restful night?”

  “I didn’t sleep too well,” Juliet admitted, “but I’m feeling all right. No apparent labor.”

  “Let’s make sure there hasn’t been any silent dilation going on,” the doctor said, as she headed for the sink.

  As before, Mark left the room to give her privacy.

  After washing her hands, Dr. Hart donned a pair of gloves and nodded toward the closed door. “That’s some friend you have.”

  “It looks that way.” Juliet closed her eyes during the exam, whispering a prayer that all was well. That she hadn’t dilated any more, that her baby was safe in her womb for the time being.

  “Good,” Dr. Hart said, removing the gloves and tossing them in the trash. “Nothing’s changed since last night.”

  Juliet blew out the breath she’d been holding, as Dr. Hart opened the door to call Mark back into the room.

  “I think we’re home free,” the obstetrician told him. “This time.”

  “Thank goodness.” Mark blew out a little whistle and slid Juliet a smile, providing a sense of camaraderie. Teamwork. Something she hadn’t experienced since her brother’s accident.

  The doctor made a note in the chart, then glanced at Juliet. “If you promise to stay off your feet, I’ll let you go home.”

  “That’s great.” Juliet knew she’d feel better in the privacy of her own little apartment, close to her photographs and memories. “Thank you.”

  “But I’m talking extreme bed rest,” the doctor stressed.

  Mark cleared his throat. “Juliet doesn’t have anyone to look after her, so maybe she ought to stay here.”

  For several weeks? Was he crazy? “That’s ridiculous, Mark. I’ll rest better and be happier at home.”

  Dr. Hart glanced up from the chart. “I’m not sure how your insu
rance carrier will feel about you staying here for more than a day or so. Do you have someone who can stay with you?”

  “No, I live alone. But I promise to take it easy.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Mark made his way to Juliet’s bedside. He’d seen the way she’d been “taking it easy” at The Hitching Post. “Doctor, you can’t trust her not to get up and do the dishes or scrub floors or clean out closets or something like that.”

  “Then maybe we’d better keep you here.” Dr. Hart, attractive even in green hospital scrubs, leaned her hip against the bed and crossed her arms.

  Disappointment swept over Juliet’s face, and Mark felt like a real spoilsport. But she didn’t have anyone to look after her. He doubted Mrs. Tasker, who liked to park her butt by the cash register, would volunteer to help.

  Juliet looked at him and frowned, tossing a guilt trip on him.

  Mark supposed he could check on her. After all he was staying across the street.

  “I can look after her.” The comment popped out before Mark could think about the ramifications. And when Juliet and the doctor faced him, he realized backpedaling would be next to impossible now. He was committed. And he’d taken a stand. But that didn’t mean his gut wasn’t twisting.

  Juliet shot him a wide-eyed stare. “You can’t be serious about staying with me.”

  “Why not?” The question couldn’t have surprised her any more than it had him. Hell, Mark had not only volunteered to babysit a woman who was on the verge of going into labor, but now he was trying to convince her—and maybe even himself—that it was a good idea.

  “You can’t waste your time taking care of me.” Juliet pressed the control button that raised her up in bed. “You’ve got work to do.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have anything pressing to do.”

  “That’s not true,” she countered. “You’ve got a news article to write.”

  “The story, as I’ve told you before, is a joke. And the article can practically write itself.”

  “So, what’s the verdict,” Dr. Hart asked. “Do I sign these release papers or not?”

  Mark crossed his arms. “Sign them.”