She nodded. “Sorry I asked. I didn’t know it was such a touchy subject.”
“Let’s rewind five minutes, okay? Can we go back to the part of the day where you’re smiling and I’m not a complete moron?”
Or a liar.
Chapter 7
Charlie picked up on the first ring. “Sis, is everything okay down in the lone star state?”
Mandy smiled at her dorky sister’s non-humor. “Yep. Think you might come down for a visit? Grandma misses you a ton.”
“Maybe. Will has a conference in Houston in a couple months. I thought I could fly down with him and then hop a bus over to Abilene to see you guys. What’s it like there by the way?”
“In Texas?”
Charlie laughed, and somehow the miles between them melted away. “Well, I was more interested in how you’re doing living with a bunch of geezers, but sure. How is it in Texas?”
Mandy shrugged even though her sister couldn’t see the gesture from the other end of the line. “Fine. What’s going on back home? Have you set a date for the wedding yet?”
“Will and I are fine. No date yet, but you know who does have a date—as in court date?” She dropped her voice to a whisper as if to share some scandalous secret, then shouted, “Josh!”
The world stopped spinning for a second. “What?”
“Josh! You know…”
“Umm, yes, I know the identity of my baby daddy, thanks. But why? Why is he in trouble?” Baby daddy—the term felt vile on her tongue. She’d need to think of a better way to refer to Josh in the future, or perhaps she could just stop talking about him altogether. Yes, that would be much better. No more talk, no more thoughts, no more drama. Except that Charlie kept going forward with the latest bit of back-home gossip.
“I ran into his sister a few days back. She told me that he was driving without a license.”
It always involved a car with Josh—getting him into trouble, getting her pregnant… What was next? Grand theft auto, real-life edition? “What happened to his license?” she asked.
“He got a DUI. Make that DUIssss. He earned himself a whole string of them after you left.” That last bit was surprising. Josh had always enjoyed a good beer or two or three, but he’d never dared get behind the wheel after drinking, not the Josh she knew. Did that mean…?
“Do you think he misses me?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Charlie scoffed. “Who cares? The guy’s a loser. You sure dodged a bullet with that one.”
Mandy’s stomach churned with a mix of warm and icy emotions toward her once beau. “Can we maybe talk about something else?” As much as she was glad she and Josh were no longer an on-again, off-again item, she still felt bad talking like this about the father of her child. Okay, so the guy was clearly a deadbeat and wouldn’t have made a good dad anyway, but… Who else did she have?
Luke, she realized at once. Luke had been nothing but honest, sweet, and supportive right from the moment she’d met him… earlier that week. Gosh, it felt like so much longer than that.
“Mandy? What’s wrong? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“What would you think if I decided to stay in Texas after the baby was born?”
Charlie’s voice became high pitched like it did whenever she was nervous. “What? Why wouldn’t you come back home?”
“Because maybe this place is beginning to feel even more like home than Anchorage ever was.” Mandy switched the phone over to speaker and then placed both hands on her belly, forming the shape of a heart around her baby.
“You like being back with Grandma,” Charlie pointed out.
“That, and—” She bit her lip to keep from saying more.
“Oh my gosh! Is there a guy?”
Mandy couldn’t believe that it had only taken two words for her sister to figure out what she was thinking. They’d always been able to read each other, but this was just ridiculous. “No…”
“Don’t lie to me, little sis. Tell me about him.”
Mandy sighed. If she didn’t come clean with Charlie, her sister would just call up their grandmother to get the latest dish. She might as well tell Charlie herself. “His name is Luke. Doctor Luke.”
“Oh, a doctor! I do declare!” Charlie drew out each syllable to a comical length.
“Stop making fun of me. It’s just a crush, and you know they don’t talk like that in Texas or in the twenty-first century for that matter, right?”
“Whatever. Have you guys you know yet?”
“Oh my gosh! I’m not even going to justify that with a response.”
“You have! Haven’t you?”
“Charlie, seriously! Don’t you think I’ve kind of already learned that lesson? I’m hanging up now. Bye.
“Wait! Does he—”
Click.
Mandy sat stock still, breathing in and out slowly as she thought back to her sister’s reaction. Was she really so obvious about her attraction to Luke? She needed to toughen up. The clock was ticking. She had less than six months—closer to five now actually—to give her all to this one last attempt at actually grasping her dream. And as hard as it was to admit… If hanging around with Luke meant that she’d spend all her free time pining for him or, worse, flirting with him, then she needed to put an end to their friendship right then and there.
Luckily, he’d be over in just a little bit to help her in the kitchen.
Luke had agreed to help Mandy incorporate the feedback from all her cards into developing a new sampler for her bakery test subjects. They’d spent practically every day the past week in each other’s company, which for him meant that he slept, worked, spent time with Mandy, then repeated the glorious cycle all over again.
She’d become a welcome distraction from the haunting memories of his former life—his former mistakes—in New York. And the fact that she thought they couldn’t be together was just ridiculous. They already were together—every single day. Why not change the label a little so their flirting could also be followed by kissing, cuddling… and whatever else?
“Ooh, I think we’ve got it with this one!” Mandy squealed and rushed toward him, holding out a wooden spoon with a glob of cookie dough on it. He bit back the urge to warn her about the dangers of salmonella and took a taste.
“Mmmm. You’re right, but let’s not eat any more until it’s gone through the oven, okay?”
She placed a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “You’ve got it, doctor. I’ll just pop these in right now, and then—oh!” She took a step back and placed her hand on her belly.
Fear clenched Luke’s entire body. “Are you okay?” he asked softly, putting a hand on her shoulder.
She yanked his hand away and brought it down to her stomach. The sudden motion of it startled the heck out of him.
“It’s the baby! He’s kicking!”
Sure enough, a series of little kicks fluttered beneath his palm. Mandy looked up at him with big, glistening eyes that seemed to dance with happiness. It felt like a moment a couple would share, one they would always think back to as among the best in their life.
“Is this the first time?” he asked, unable to control the gigantic smile that worked its way from one cheek to the other.
She nodded vigorously. “It is! It is! Oh my gosh, this is so cool! It feels like tiny bubbles. Pop, pop, pop!”
They both stood still with their hands over her belly as the baby continued to kick and jab from inside. When finally the baby settled back down, Mandy saddled Luke with a huge hug.
“Thank you for sharing this with me.” She pulled away, and they exchanged not-a-care-in-the-world grins. “I can’t even imagine how… I mean, we…”
Mandy stumbled over what she wanted to say next, but he had a feeling it was the same thing he himself wanted to express. They’d just shared a moment so perfect, so intimate, so right.
He reached his hand up—the same one that had just seconds ago been on her tummy—and used it to brush away a stray curl
from her face. He let his hand linger, massage the bright apple of her cheek.
She offered a shy smile, an invitation. This was it.
Luke leaned in toward her beautiful lips, and, just as he was about to press his mouth to her, Mandy’s knees buckled, and he had to act fast to keep her from crashing into the floor.
Chapter 8
One minute Mandy had been about to throw caution to the wind and finally allow herself to give in to her strong attraction toward Luke, and the very next she found herself lying in an all-white room with an IV poking out of her arm. When she opened her eyes at last, she found Luke pacing the length of her bed.
“Mandy? Mandy? Are you awake?” He rushed to her side and took her hand. “Oh, thank God. You had me so scared!”
“Luke, what… where… Did I…?” Words did not come easy, which only added to her frustration and confusion. How did they get from her kitchen to this place?
Before Luke could answer her unformed questions, a peppy nurse breezed into the room. “Oh, good. She’s up!”
Mandy struggled to push herself into a sitting position.
“Oh, no you don’t!” the nurse cried, then pressed a button on the side of Mandy’s bed to tilt her up into a semi-seated position. “Better?” she asked.
Mandy nodded and took a slow, dry gulp while the nurse began fussing over her IV bag.
“You gave Dad here quite the scare,” the nurse confided, then fixed an extra-large smile on Luke. “But don’t worry, Mama is going to be just fine. She’ll just need a little extra TLC is all. Think you can handle that, Dad?”
Luke ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “I’m not… I mean, we aren’t…” Finally he gave Mandy a loving smile and said, “Yeah, of course, I can do that.”
“Good, good.” She turned back to Mandy. “Now you just hang tight, dear. This will all be over soon enough, and you’ll have a beautiful babe to hold in those there arms. You both take care now. Buh-bye.”
And with that, the nurse left just as quickly as she’d entered. Mandy still had little idea what was going on, but luckily Luke seemed more than willing to fill in the blanks for her.
“You fainted,” he explained. “I brought you straight here. The doctor hasn’t been by yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s eclampsia and possibly placenta previa. They’re…” His voice broke, but he soldiered on with the explanation all the same. “They’re going to put you on bed rest, and you’ll need regular visits with your OB. They’ll probably deliver you early, likely by Cesarean, but—”
Mandy’s head began to swim. “Luke, wait. I don’t understand half of what you’re saying.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s too much all at once when you’re just waking up. Of course. I’m sorry.” He hung his head as if he’d just taken a blow, a gesture which made Mandy feel incredibly guilty.
“I don’t understand all these medical words, and you’re right, my brain hasn’t fully woken up yet. You said the doctor hasn’t been by yet, so how is that you know so much about what’s going on with me? You’re a doctor for old people, not babies.”
“Actually…” Luke frowned and pulled a chair up to the side of her bed. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
This was it. He finally had to admit his past to Mandy. He only hoped that she wouldn’t hate him too much once she knew the truth. After all, he already hated himself enough for the both of them.
Then again, he deserved it, didn’t he? Because had he really thought he could go around playing God and somehow manage to escape punishment?
Yes, doctors lost patients sometimes. It was par for the course. People died, life went on. As callous as that sounded, it was something he’d learned to accept early on in his career, so that he could continue to work to save those who could still be saved.
But he could never recover from having ended the life of someone who could have lived if not for his intervention. A baby. His own niece.
He took a deep breath and tried hard not to let any tears spill. Mandy had been through enough already. She didn’t need him to fall apart right there at her bedside when she was already weakened from her fainting spell. Of course, he didn’t want to spook her either when it came to all the many things that could go wrong both during and after pregnancy.
Up until this point, he hadn’t needed to admit to what he’d done aloud yet. The hospital’s legal team had settled everything back in New York, but now he had to find the right words to admit his wrongs to the one person whose opinion he valued.
But if she hated him after all was said and done, well… At least there wouldn’t be any more wondering about what would happen when the chips finally fell.
She watched him now as he braced himself for the train wreck of a conversation that lay ahead. When he took too long to say anything more, she nudged him with a sweet smile and far kinder words than he deserved. “Luke, what’s going on? Now you have me worried.”
He sighed and squeezed her hand.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. You deserve the truth. Really, I should have told you sooner, but… But I didn’t want to lose you. I know we’re just friends, Mandy, but you have been such an amazing bright spot in my otherwise dark life, and I didn’t want to risk… to risk seeing that special light in your eyes dim when you learned what a terrible person I really am. I was being jealous. I just wanted to pr—”
She squirmed in the bed and leaned forward to look him straight in the eye. “Luke, stop this right now, and tell me.”
“Mandy, I...” He took a deep breath, then whispered, “I killed a baby.”
She let go of his hand in an instant recoil. But while her body showed disgust, her face remained a mask of confusion. He needed to say more, needed to tell her how.
“I made a mistake, Mandy. One I wish every single day that I could take back. I loved that baby so much.” He folded his hands into a prayer position and brought them up to his mouth, tapping his lips in a series of short bursts. Took a deep breath, continued. “My sister had tried for years. She’d struggled through infertility, miscarriages, every obstacle you can imagine, but then finally she was able to conceive a baby, carry her to term, but that baby was sick, weak… Mandy, I tried to cure her, but instead I killed her. I never should have recommended that surgery. I knew it was risky, that it hadn’t been tested enough yet, but I just wanted to make things easier on my sister, on my niece. I wanted to make her perfect, not realizing she already had been in my sister’s eyes. I took away her chance at motherhood. I took away the baby’s chance at life.”
He gasped to keep from sobbing and turned his face toward the window. He didn’t want to see how the way she looked at him would change now that she knew the awful truth.
“But you wanted to make her better, right?” Her voice came out weak and shaky, but without judgement.
He risked a look back at her and found nothing but concern and kindness in her eyes. “More than anything. I knew I was in over my head, that it would be better handled by a neonatal specialist, knew that it was an ethical breach to assume care of a family member. But when my brother-in-law pushed for my help, I just couldn’t bring myself to say no. I spent hours agonizing over the decision, but ultimately felt like the surgery could do more good than harm. I read the papers, the reports, the data. I made the most informed decision that I could, but it was still wrong.”
“Luke, you’re not a killer. You’re a hero.”
He laughed sarcastically, but Mandy grabbed his hand again and forced him to look her in the eye.
“I’m serious. It sounds like you did everything you could to help that baby. You were brave, and you took a chance. And, yes, it didn’t pay off, but you tried. How would you feel if the surgery had saved the baby, improved her life and your sister’s?”
He took another slow, shaky breath. Before the surgery, he’d only been able to visualize a positive outcome, but since he hadn’t thought once about anything beyond breaking the ne
ws of the baby’s death to his distraught sister. If things had turned out differently, though… “I would have felt amazing—great,” he admitted. “But that’s not what happened.”
“Luke, accidents happen. It’s terrible. It sucks. It’s awful that a baby died, but you can’t keep blaming yourself.”
“But how can I not?” He laughed again. Maybe out of nervousness. Maybe because he couldn’t believe that Mandy had already forgiven him his most terrible sin. If she could forgive him, did that mean he’d one day be able to forgive himself too? He could only hope… and try… and keep on doing everything he could to learn from his mistake and honor the life that had been lost.
As if reading his mind, Mandy answered. “I think that’s something you have to work out with yourself, with God, and maybe with your sister too. But I don’t blame you for what happened, and I could never hate you.”
“You are an angel,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
Chapter 9
Mandy had said she didn’t blame Luke for what had happened, but would she still feel the same way tomorrow or the next day? Once she’d regained her strength and had time to think about the ramifications of that one horrible decision would she, too, think of him as a killer?
He almost couldn’t believe his luck—was it really starting to turn? While he didn’t want to push it, he also didn’t want to presume to understand what she was thinking, what she needed. The best he could do was to learn from his mistakes and to try to correct them going forward. The last time he’d pushed his decision upon someone else, a baby ended up dead. Whether or not he understood Mandy’s decision to want to remain in his life, he needed to respect it.
The Alaska Sunrise Romances: A 9-Book Sweet Romance Collection Page 32
