Cowboy Baby Daddy

by Claire Adams

  Olivia's face fell. “Eric, I know that we never talked about what happened at the hospital, but I thought—”

  I interrupted her with a bitter laugh. “It's not the hospital that I'm upset about; you know that.” I didn't know how she could continue to be so dense. She apparently really didn't realize that I knew about her and Buck.

  Olivia paused. “I don't know what you're talking about, but I don't know why you would refuse to treat me,” she said, sounding pained. “I'll pay for my appointments; I'm not asking you to treat me as a friend. But don't you want to make sure that your baby has the best prenatal care possible?”

  “My baby?” I asked incredulously. “Nice try!” I narrowed my eyes at her. “I know the baby isn't mine, and I can't believe that you would try to pass it off as mine. But then again, we all know you're a liar.”

  “What are you talking about?” Olivia asked, and I almost believed that she was truly confused.

  “We were careful,” I snapped. “I used a condom every time, and I know you're on birth control; I wrote your prescription for it last month, or do you not remember that?”

  “But accidents happen, don't they?” Olivia asked desperately. “You're a doctor; you know birth control isn't 100% effective. Maybe there was a leak, or something else happened. I haven't slept with anyone else. Unless you're accusing me of being the next Mary, it has to be yours.”

  “Oh, come off it,” I snarled. “I know that you slept with Buck the night you went to that wedding. I don't know why you feel the need to lie about it, but I know it's true. Now, I recommend that you talk to Dr. Lazaro about prenatal care, and please don't try to involve me in your personal life again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Olivia

  I felt like I might burst into tears at any second. I had finally gotten up the guts to tell Eric about the pregnancy, and now, I was regretting having done so. From the sound of things, he wanted no part in this baby's life.

  It was enough to have me considering giving the baby up for adoption. I wasn't sure that I could be the mother that I needed to be, knowing that the baby had been born out of such an unhappy relationship. But I knew I couldn't do that. Things were so uncertain with Mom at the moment, and the only bright spot that I had at the moment was the knowledge that I was finally going to be giving her a grandchild. She had already gone shopping for some itsy bitsy shoes for the baby, as well as a couple of stuffed animals and other clothing items.

  I didn't know what I'd expected, coming into Eric's office, but it definitely hadn't been this.

  “Eric, I never slept with Buck,” I insisted. “I'm telling you, you're the only man that I slept with.”

  “Take your lies somewhere else,” Eric said angrily. “I've had about enough of them! I heard Buck at the gas station. He was talking to Gary, the cashier, telling him all about how he fucked you. I think the details were that first you rode him, and then he pounded into you from behind? Does that sound accurate?”

  I felt faint. I couldn't believe that Buck had said something like that. From what I knew of the man, even if we had slept together, he wasn't the type to go blabbing the details all over town. But the truth was, we hadn't slept together, so that made it even more puzzling. I didn't know what he was trying to gain by lying about it.

  I swallowed hard. “Eric,” I pleaded, taking a step closer, reaching out toward him.

  But Eric stepped back, his eyes hard and his arms folded across his chest. “Don't,” he said warningly. “I don't know what you think you're gaining by lying to me, but I'm not falling for it. He had all the details, Olivia, right down to that butterfly tattoo on your lower back. How else would he have known about that, if he didn't see you naked?”

  “People see my tattoo all the time when my shirt rides up,” I said, shaking my head. “Eric, I swear to you, I didn't sleep with him. Please.”

  “Get out of my office,” Eric said coldly.

  “You're not going to tell anyone about the baby, are you?” I asked desperately. I didn't want to keep it a secret from the whole town, but I also didn't need Eric telling everyone that I was pregnant with Buck's kid. I could only imagine how confusing things would be if that were to happen.

  Eric's face twisted into a nasty expression, but then he nodded curtly at me. “Just like any other patient, what we've discussed is confidential,” he said, emphasizing the fact that I was 'just like any other patient.' The words were like a stab to the heart, but at least I didn't have to worry about him telling anyone.

  I stumbled out of his office, wishing that there was something that I could do to fix this. But I didn't even have anyone I could talk to about this. Telling Mom was certainly out of the question, and Eric was the only person that I had become friends with there in Tamlin. There were my friends back in Chicago, too, but I hadn't talked to any of them since I had moved away. We were all at such different places in our lives that it was difficult finding any common ground.

  What I wanted was to confront Buck and ask why he'd been lying about me, but I couldn't do that. For all I knew, he hadn't actually lied about me at all. It was just something that Eric had made up. That seemed plausible.

  Maybe Eric just really didn't want to be a father again.

  The thought was sobering. He had told me right at the start that I was the first person that he had slept with since his wife. His signals toward me had been so hot and cold: he'd been so interested, and then we'd slept together, and he'd avoided me. Repeat.

  I had to realize that sleeping with me must raise complicated feelings in him. And knowing that I was pregnant must make everything even more complicated. Maybe he felt like being happy to find out that I was pregnant meant that he was dishonoring his former wife. Or maybe he was concerned about how it would affect Emma.

  None of that could excuse his behavior, but at least it helped me understand it a little.

  But then again, given the way that he'd yelled at me at the hospital, getting frustrated with me for not convincing my mother to undergo chemotherapy, I had to wonder if it was about honoring his former wife's memory. It seemed like he was perpetually upset with me, even beyond the decisions that affected our relationship.

  I swallowed hard, shaking my head. I didn't know what he was thinking, and he refused to tell me.

  I turned the key, starting my car and preparing to drive off to somewhere, anywhere, to try to get him out of my head. But as I was backing out of the parking lot, I noticed Georgia Witherspoon pulling into a parking space.

  Of course.

  Maybe his refusal to believe that the child was his had nothing to do with Buck at all; that was just an excuse. Maybe he had finally decided to move on to Georgia, just like she'd been trying to get him to do for years. The woman was hot. I had to give her that. And she was persistent. I remembered the day she had run into us at the general store.The was that she had practically thrown herself at the doctor.

  I had a sick feeling in my stomach, but it was nothing like morning sickness. No, I had a feeling that the real reason that Eric didn't care about this baby and refused to believe that it was his was because he had turned his gaze toward someone else. And after all, wasn't that the point of our relationship? We were just casual. I was just his rebound, preparing him for a real relationship after his wife's death.

  I swallowed down bile and drove out of the parking lot, speeding down the road. I needed to put as much distance as I could between Eric and myself. Between Eric and Georgia and myself.

  My tears started falling, and I had no choice but to pull over on the side of the highway, sobbing helplessly. It seemed like ever since I had heard mom's cancer diagnosis, everything in my life had been turning to shit. Every time I thought that I'd found a bright spot, that crumbled before my eyes as well.

  Now, it seemed like I was losing my mom, as well as the man that I'd thought I could count on to stand by my side. Eric and I may have had our differences, but I had known him to be a good guy. I'd thought that if I t
old him about the pregnancy, we would be able to put aside everything that had come between us, that we would somehow make it work.

  But instead, he had called me a liar and refused to even talk to me as a medical professional.

  For the first time since finding out that I was pregnant, I began to have regrets. Maybe I should never have slept with Eric in the first place. I had hardly known the man. If I had known that things were going to turn out like this, I never would have gone out with him.

  But he'd been so sweet and so charming that it was difficult to reconcile this side of him with the man that I'd had sex with. That man I had come to love, despite hardly knowing him. This man, though, I couldn't even face.

  I put my hand over my still-flat stomach. As upset as I was, I didn't want any harm to come to the baby. It wasn't its fault that Eric and I couldn't make things work between us. I'd just have to try extra hard to show it, love, to make up for the lack of a father.

  With that thought in mind, I grabbed the piece of paper that Eric had given me, which I'd tossed in the cup holder. Then, I called to set up an appointment with Dr. Lazaro.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Eric

  The evening after Olivia came into my office, announcing that she was pregnant, I still didn't know what to think. I felt like I was still processing everything. She had seemed so sincere when she informed me about the pregnancy, and so sure that the baby was mine. In fact, she seemed shocked that I would even consider that the baby might be someone else's. It was all just so confusing.

  I kept thinking about the thing with Buck. I didn't really believe that he would have lied about sleeping with her, and not with so much detail. But it also didn't seem like Olivia to lie to me, especially not so repeatedly. And I knew that I had to trust her; we might not have said that we were in a relationship, but we almost had been.

  I shook my head, trying to put those thoughts out of my head while I bathed Emma. She was playing with a rubber ducky, making splashing sounds as she zoomed him around the water, and I had to smile.

  Would it be so bad, having another child? Even if the kid wasn't biologically mine, it would be nice to see Emma with a younger brother or younger sister.

  I shook that thought from my head, though. I couldn't do that to Emma, not when Olivia and I were clearly not meant for one another. It seemed like we couldn't interact without fighting. You would think that everything with her mother and the fact that Olivia herself was now pregnant would bring the two of us closer together, but instead, it seemed to have only pushed us further apart.

  “Daddy, what's wrong?” Emma asked, and I shook myself, looking down at her.

  I forced a smile on my face. “Nothing's wrong, Boo,” I told her.

  She gave me a look like she didn't believe me, and I had to laugh. “Only 3 and already so wise,” I commented teasingly.

  “Daddy, I'm almost 4,” she retorted, rolling her eyes.

  “I'm just thinking that it seems like you're having a lot of fun with Miss Tasha at daycare,” I lied. “Maybe Daddy's a little jealous. You don't want to run away and live with her forever, do you?”

  Emma giggled. “Daddy, no!” she cried. “I had more fun with Miss Livia.”

  I felt a pang in my heart. I still felt bad for yanking her out of one daycare and putting her into another one, especially so soon after yanking her away from Helen and forcing her to go to daycare. I knew that she was happy in the new daycare, but I still worried about her.

  I was worried about Helen too. She was staying in an assisted living facility now, and Emma and I had been over to visit her a couple of times. She was having a difficult time remembering who we were, and although I had managed to convince Emma for the time being that we were just playing an elaborate game, I knew it was only a matter of time before visiting Helen started to be too upsetting for the young girl.

  And for me. I couldn't deny that watching the two of them interact like this was just too painful. Helen had flashes where I could tell she realized who Emma was, but they were rare. Her cognition seemed to be dissolving rapidly, and her bad days were already outnumbering her good ones.

  I forced those thoughts out of my head, helping Emma out of her bath and into a pair of light summer pajamas. Then, I brought her into her room so that I could tuck her into bed.

  The thing was, everything was complicated enough lately without having to worry about Olivia's unexpected pregnancy on top of that. Everything with Jeannie left me feeling drained, and even though it didn't hurt quite as much to think of Emily's death, that in itself made me feel guilty. Plus, even if thinking of her death didn't hurt as much, I still was forced to think about it every time that I consulted with Jeannie and every time that Dr. Halsey contacted me to hear if there was any change in our plan.

  I couldn't seem to get Jeannie to agree to the treatment, even after I'd had an altogether too frank conversation with the woman about what I'd had to go through, watching Emily waste away to cancer because it had been too late for treatment. I'd hoped that she'd take my words to heart and realize the pain that she must be causing her daughter, but Jeannie was staunch in her refusal to seek treatment.

  There was nothing more I could do for her.

  And there was nothing more that I could do for Helen, either. With the two of them, and now with Olivia's pregnancy on top of that, I just felt helpless. Almost as helpless as I'd felt when I'd found out the extent of Emily's cancer. It was too much for one man to deal with. I wasn't sure what I'd done to make the universe so angry with me again, to cause another horrible streak of bad luck.

  I was terrified that something would happen to Emma.

  “Daddy, you're squishing me,” the girl piped up, and I realized that I'd wrapped her in a too-tight hug. I released her hastily, lying her down on the bed and pulling the covers up around her.

  I kissed her forehead. “I love you, sweetie,” I told her. No matter how many times I said it, it wasn't enough.

  Emma rolled her eyes again. “Daddy, you're supposed to read me a bedtime story first,” she reminded me.

  I couldn't help but smile at that, although I knew the expression didn't quite reach my eyes. “Silly me,” I said. “How could I forget? Which story do you want tonight?”

  “The one about Princess P!” Emma cried, her eyes lighting up.

  I felt another pang in my heart: the story of Princess Pernilla was one that Helen had given the girl. Emily had always loved reading the story of the plucky characters, putting on different voices for each of them. It was a total coincidence that Emma had requested that story that night. As much as I wanted to urge her to pick a different story, I just shook my head and grabbed the story off the shelf, bringing it over so that I could sit down on the edge of the bed. I had to make sure she could see the pictures.

  We were halfway through the story when my phone started ringing in the bathroom, buzzing against the porcelain sink where I'd left it. I could hear it going through the wall. The ringtone turned deliberately loud in case of emergency. It seemed like emergencies were always on my mind these days.

  I debated ignoring it because I couldn't be on call at all hours of the day. If it were really an emergency, the hospital would take care of things. But Emma's eyelids had already dropped closed, and although she wasn't fast asleep yet, I knew she was asleep enough that she wouldn't notice if I didn't finish the story. I shook my head, knowing that if I didn't answer it, guilt would eat away at me.

  I stood up carefully and smoothed back her hair, kissing her forehead again. She stirred a little, but just as I'd suspected, she didn't protest having storytime cut short; she was too asleep for that.

  My phone had quit ringing by the time I made it into the bathroom, but when I saw it was the hospital, I quickly called them back.

  “Hi, Dr. Jones,” said a tired-sounding orderly. It must be a busy night. “I was calling to inform you that we have one of your patients, a Mrs. Jeannie Sable, in the emergency room.”

  I felt
my blood run cold as I remembered the last time that Jeannie had gone into the emergency room. With no treatments performed in the weeks since then, I had a feeling I knew what things looked like for her now. “How is she?” I forced myself to ask.

  The orderly was quiet for a long moment.

  “I'm a doctor,” I snapped, frustration getting the better of me. “I know what her prognosis is, and I know things don't look good.”

  “Right,” the woman said, sounding startled at my outburst. “Dr. Halsey says it's not likely that she'll last the night.”

  I closed my eyes briefly, knowing how upset Olivia must be. And Olivia, I had to ask about her. I had to assume that she was the one who had brought her mother in in the first place because if Jeannie had her way, she would probably die in peace at her home.

  I swallowed hard, knowing the next question that I had to ask. “Is anyone else there with her?”

  “Yes,” the orderly admitted. “Olivia Sable, her daughter is here. She's quite distraught, too.”

  “I'll be right over,” I told the woman before hanging up the phone.

  I immediately dialed the sitter that I'd been using since Helen's condition had deteriorated. “Jenna?” I asked. “I was wondering if you could come over and watch Emma, possibly for the whole night,” I told her. “It's kind of an emergency. She's already gone to bed, so you wouldn't have to do much. I'll pay you double your normal rate since it's short notice and overnight.”

  “I'll be right there, Mr. Jones,” Jenna said, not bothering to ask any questions. I had to appreciate that, at least.

  Sure enough, the young college woman was there in 10 minutes flat, and I ran out the door, hopping in my car and driving toward the hospital. I hated the thought of Emma waking up in the house and wondering where I was, finding only Jenna there with her. But there was no way I was taking her over to the hospital with me, not when she had just gone down to bed, not when she wouldn't understand what was happening, and especially not if Olivia was distraught over her mother's condition.