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“Maddy, you’re a strong woman,” Doc said gently but with audible conviction. “You’ve handled much worse than this and survived. You’ve made yourself into a real role model for the young folks in this sorry old town. You even married a man who didn’t value you near enough because your folks liked him.”
At the mention of the baby’s father, her gaze dropped. The eldest of eight children, Wiley Roy Foster had been adamant in his desire never to be a father. Since four specialists had told Maddy she would almost surely never conceive again, theirs seemed an ideal match. And they had been happy in the beginning. Gradually, however, the hopeful early years settled into a mundane routine. Wiley Roy wasn’t so much a bad husband as a complacent one. Nothing she tried could shake him from his rut, while little by little, she found herself feeling lonelier and lonelier.
When she’d told him she was pregnant, Wiley Roy had stunned her by issuing an ultimatum. Perhaps he’d provided the sperm, he’d said but he was in no way a father. She had to choose between him and the child. He’d moved out of their split-level Spanish colonial home on the day she refused to terminate this pregnancy. His rejection had hurt, but the pain was already fading. The hurt Luke had caused never had.
Sensing the tangle of emotions, Doc reached over to take the hand she’d clamped like a talon around the arm of the chair. “Madelyn, I’ve checked this man out thoroughly. He has some of the most impressive credentials I’ve ever seen and an impeccable reputation, both professionally and personally. Everything I’ve learned tells me he’s no longer that callous hell-bent-for-leather rascal who sloped out on you when you needed him most.”
“What if you’re wrong?” she asked, studying the familiar face carefully.
“Read his curriculum vitae, and then if you’re not convinced, we’ll move on down to the next name on the list.”
Still she hesitated, dropping her gaze to hide her eyes from Doc’s too-perceptive gaze, her stomach in knots and her heart beating so fast she had trouble catching her breath.
“Maddy, I know I didn’t take as good care of you as I should have the first time, but believe me, I wouldn’t recommend this if I didn’t think it was exactly what you needed right now.” Very gently Doc’s hand squeezed hers, drawing her gaze back to those kindly eyes. “Think of the precious little one who’s counting on you to protect him or her, Maddy. Think of your baby.”
It hurt to talk. Hell, it hurt to breathe. Since Luke was pretty much forced to do both, he set his jaw and pushed himself past the pain. It was a skill he’d developed a lot of years back and had saved his sorry ass more than once.
“You gonna give me your opinion or are you just gonna stand there, wasting time neither of us can spare?” he grumbled at the big blond man leaning with arms crossed against the sink in one of the emergency-room cubicles, watching him through narrowed eyes.
Boyd MacAuley was one of the best neurosurgeons in the country. He was also a good friend. Luke’s best friend, if he had to choose. Although it was only a little past nine in the morning, Boyd had the look of a man in need of eight solid hours of deep sleep. It was a feeling Luke knew all too well. In the past thirty-six hours he’d only managed a couple of catnaps between deliveries.
“You know my opinion, hoss.” Boyd’s voice was edged with an impatience to match Luke’s own. “I’ve given it to you at least once a month for the past two years. You need to have those disks repaired. As it is, I’m amazed you’re still on your feet.”
“I don’t have time for more surgery.”
“Make time.”
Luke sucked in his breath and sat up. He was used to the sharp stab of pain in his lower back every time he moved. It had been the sudden weakness in his right leg that had nearly sent him crashing to the floor in the operating room. Fortunately he’d already performed the emergency C-section on Phyllis Greaves and was fixing to apply the staples to the incision when his left leg had buckled on him.
As luck would have it, the first-year resident assisting him had once been a linebacker for Oregon State, which meant that he’d been strong enough to catch Luke’s one hundred and ninety pounds without keeling over himself. Otherwise Luke was pretty sure he’d be nursing a few major bruises, as well as a battered ego.
Now, an hour later, the numbness was gone, replaced by a throbbing that felt exactly like a red-hot poker had been jabbed through his calf muscle. He knew the cause of course—scar tissue surrounding the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae impinging on the sciatic nerve. Mostly he could ignore it, but when he was tired, like now, he tended to limp badly. Today was the first time his leg had actually gone numb, however.
“If I do let you cut, how long before I can go back to work?” he asked when it was safe to breathe again.
“Two, three weeks, then six, eight more of restricted activity. In a brace of course.”
“Bull. I’ve done my research. I figure three months before I can handle even routine deliveries. Longer for the high-risk moms.”
Boyd let out an exasperated sigh. “So you scale back for a while. I know a half-dozen third-year ob/gyn residents who would kill to work under the great Luke Jarrod.”
“Shove a sock in it, MacAuley.”
Luke swung his legs over the edge of the table, then waited out the renewed surge of pain. An accident his last year on the circuit had blown out his back. High-risk surgery had gotten him back on his feet. The brace he hated had kept him going through his last two years in med school. Years of back-strengthening exercises and therapy had gradually allowed him to shuck the brace.
After the accident his mentor at Stanford, Dr. Danton Stone, had done his best to tout him off obstetrics, telling him repeatedly about the toll a specialty like that would exact on his ruined spine. Dan was right, Luke thought with a pang of resignation. So, unfortunately, was Boyd. Much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t keep up his present pace much longer without surgery.
“All right,” he conceded with a sigh. “Give me a few months to scale back my patient load.”
Boyd shook his head. “A week, two tops.”
“Not a chance. I have a dozen ladies ready to go any minute now, almost all of them having potential for major complications.”
“You have a potential for major complications—like permanent paralysis if those wonky disks cut into your spinal cord.”
“Unlikely.”
Boyd snorted. “Lord save me from stubborn jackasses.”
“Stubborn, hell. I agreed to let you cut into me, didn’t I?”
“Fine. Let’s nail down a date.”
Ninety minutes and counting after Madelyn had walked into the ugly redbrick medical building, she was perched on the padded paper-covered table with the dreaded stirrups, waiting for Luke.
She had a lot of experience at that, she realized, fighting the sudden urge to laugh hysterically. Agonizing months of waking up every morning expecting her shy lanky bronc buster with the amazing blue eyes and irresistible smile to walk up the crumbling front steps of the shabby old house on Alamo Street, a wedding ring in the pocket of his Wrangler’s. Just like a movie she’d seen once—except that her hero hadn’t come in time.
Half out of her mind with grief, she’d sent him away, then regretted it with every atom in her body. If he loves you, he’ll be back, her pastor had told her over and over. But he hadn’t come back, and her life had gone on. Obviously his had, too. Very nicely, it seemed, she decided, glancing around for the umpteenth time.
Though the examination room was small, the signed lithograph of a lone rider silhouetted against a dying sun was by a famous Southwestern artist. The diplomas and certificates that marched next to the print were even more impressive. A bachelor’s in biology from Arizona State, a medical degree from Stanford. A chief residency at Portland General. A clutch of fellowships and honors. Not bad for a high-school dropout with lousy grammar who’d sworn up one side and down the other he’d never set foot in a classroom again.
A knock on the door had her pulse skittering. But it was Esther, the rotund nurse with smiling eyes, who entered. “Doctor just phoned from the hospital and he’s on his way,” she offered as she wrapped the familiar black blood pressure cuff around Madelyn’s arm. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
The sky was a solid gunmetal gray and the air smelled like rain as Luke limped across the grassy median separating Port Gen from the medical building.
In spite of the three cups of coffee he’d gulped down with the breakfast he’d grabbed in the cafeteria, he was still a little queasy from the meds he’d reluctantly taken to soothe the inflamed tissues in his spine. Though he’d showered and shaved, he still felt grimy and battered, pretty much how he’d felt after a day on the rodeo circuit.
Dorie Presley, his iconoclastic frizzy-haired receptionist, looked up as he slipped through the back door to his ground-floor office suite, her Celtic blue eyes sharply assessing. A transplanted Californian who had grown up in a San Francisco mansion, she was married to a surgical resident who adored her enough to overlook her haphazard housekeeping and lousy cooking.
Luke couldn’t care less about her lack of domestic skills. All that mattered was her ability to keep him organized and halfway on schedule, a skill he’d never mastered. She also made the best coffee he’d ever tasted, which meant a lot to a man who lived on caffeine.
“You look terrible, L.J.”
“Thanks, I needed that,” he muttered as he shrugged into the starched white coat he’d learned to wear because some patients had trouble trusting a doc who wore frayed jeans, scuffed cowboy boots and plain old cotton work shirts.
“This should help,” she said, handing a mug of the extra-strong boiling-hot French roast she’d started brewing the instant he’d called to say he was on his way.
“Darlin,’ you’re a pearl beyond price.”
He took a greedy sip, far too aware that he really should cut back. The chronic burning in his gut wasn’t exactly an ulcer, but it had the potential.
“How’s Mrs. Greaves?” Dorie asked, looping his stethoscope around his neck.
“Awake and thrilled with her twin daughters.”
“Congratulations, boss!” she said, grinning. “You beat the odds again.”
Luke allowed himself a private moment of deep satisfaction. Phyllis Greaves had lost four babies before coming to him. The Greaveses were nice people who would make wonderful parents. “Thanks, but most of the credit goes to Phyllis.” The determined lady had spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and never once complained. He admired her grit.
“Your messages are on your desk in order of priority. Nothing urgent, but Dr. Horvath at Rogue River definitely needs a return call before five.”
“Remind me, okay?”
Dorie’s grin flashed. “I live to serve, oh exalted healer.”
Luke snorted. “Do we have a full house or did some of my ladies get tired of waiting?” he asked over the muted ringing of the phone.
“Definitely stacked full, so don’t dawdle,” she said before snagging the phone.
While she dealt with the call, he slugged down the rest of his coffee, then patted his pockets, looking for his reading glasses before he remembered he’d left them in his locker at the hospital.
While dealing with a question for the patient on the other end, Dorie fished his spare pair from her bottom drawer and handed them over. He grunted his thanks before tucking them safely into his breast pocket, along with a pen he filched from the jar on her desk, and heading down the hall toward the examining rooms.
All four doors were closed, with patient charts lined up neatly in the Plexiglas slots on the wall. He stopped at number one. The folder was yellow and tagged in blue and red. A new patient, high risk, the only kind he had time to treat these days.
Moving his shoulders to relieve the tension that had started the instant he’d walked through the back door, he plucked the chart from its plastic slot and flipped it open.
The name was printed on the tab in Dorie’s neat boarding-school script. Madelyn Smith Foster.
His breath dammed up in his throat. My God, Maddy? Here? The last time he’d seen her he’d been standing on her porch with his hat in his hand, begging her to forgive him.
While he’d been having a high old time in Canada, flirting with more pretty girls than there were fleas on a dog, she’d been twisting and turning through two days of torturous labor, only to hemorrhage and nearly die before the frantic GP had taken the baby by cesarean. Her parents had waited less than twenty-four hours before offering her an ultimatum—give the tiny but perfectly formed baby girl up for adoption or take the kid and leave.
It hadn’t been much of a choice for a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl with no job skills and no money, so she’d signed the papers that had taken her baby away forever. It hadn’t been easy for her, however. Anything but. Her eyes had still been puffy and glazed with grief two weeks later when she’d opened the screen door to his nervous knock.
Forcing himself to breathe again, he scanned the patient-info sheet. Thirty-nine years old. Employed as a guidance counselor at Whiskey Bend High School. Divorced. His mind stuttered over that fact before moving on to the medical history—the usual childhood illnesses, an appendectomy at the age of seven. On the night they’d made love she’d been embarrassed to let him see the scar—
“Luke, are you all right?”
His head shot up and for an instant he felt disoriented. “What?”
“Don’t take this wrong,” Dorie murmured, looking both concerned and amused. “But you look exactly like a man who’s taken one where it hurts the most.”
He managed an off hand grin. “It’s my office. I can look anyway I want, sugar.”
Unimpressed gray eyes, sharp as lasers, zoomed in on his face. Heat crept up his neck as he dropped his gaze to the chart. “This…this patient, what do you know about her?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low.
“Just that she’s a referral from a GP I never heard of, has excellent insurance through a group policy for Texas-state employees, arrived early for her appointment, seems a bit aloof, but pleasant—and definitely anxious, though she hides it well. On a scale of one to ten, style-wise, I give her a twelve.”
“What the hell is ‘style-wise’?” Luke muttered. He was always edgy when he was caught off-guard.
“You know. Style. Presence.” She lifted an eyebrow and he frowned. “The way a woman dresses and wears her hair and carries herself.”
“Mrs. Foster is a twelve?”
“Absolutely.” Dorie grinned, clearing enjoying herself. “If I had to guess, I’d say she bought the suit she’s wearing from Neiman Marcus, probably not on sale. Same with her shoes. Lizard pumps, probably Italian. And hair to die for. Thick, sun-streaked and blond, which has to be natural or the best dye job I’ve ever seen.”
Luke felt a little dizzy. The Maddy he’d known had worn jeans or short cotton skirts and flirty shirts that showed off her ripe breasts to perfection. Her hair had definitely been glorious, however. Long and silky and the exact color of honey shot through with sunlight.
“You’re sure she’s here as a patient?” he pressed, more confused than ever.
Dorie offered him a curious look. “Since she filled out the new-patient forms, I think that would be a safe assumption, yes.”
“Damn.” He raked his hand through hair still damp from his shower. The rare nervous gesture from a man who prided himself on his control had Dorie narrowing her gaze.
“Luke, is there a problem?”
“Hell if I know.”
Dorie regarded him strangely for a beat, then broke into a knowing grin. “Aha, an old girlfriend. And from the panicked look on your face, I’d say the flame is still flickering inside that lean mean bod of yours.”
Luke bit off a crude reply. “Don’t you have insurance forms to fill out?”
“Yes, sir.” Dorie snapped him a mock salute before disappearing into the reception area.
Luke braced one hand against the wall and dropped his head. His heart hammered his chest as he fought to regulate the breathing that threatened to tear through his throat like a feral howl.
He’d struggled for years to drive his darlin’ Maddy Sue out of his head. Years and years of going weak in the knees whenever he heard bubbling laughter or caught a glimpse of thick blond hair shining in the sunshine. Of feeling his gut knot and twist whenever he saw a woman holding a baby.
He should have figured God wouldn’t let him slide forever, he thought as he pushed himself away from the wall, squared his shoulders. He’d sell his soul for a drink right now, he thought as he took another ragged breath, then opened the door.
Chapter 2
The white coat with his name embroidered in red above the pocket said he was an MD. The calendar said he was six weeks away from his forty-first birthday. Two steps into the room and he was an eighteen-year-old rodeo bum, with a crushing pressure in his chest and shock waves in his gut from a hard-knuckled punch in the solar plexus.
It was exactly the same as it’d been that blistering-hot day in Texas, he realized with a kind of stunned dismay. One minute his life had been under his control, the next he was reeling.
Maddy had been as pretty as a picture at seventeen. Now she was stunningly beautiful. A sophisticated lady exuding poise and a quiet confidence, even perched on the end of his examining room table with her spine as straight as a die and her chin pridefully high.
The big hair that had mesmerized him was gone, but the glorious color was that same shade of honey shot with sunshine. Once it had spilled to her shoulders in glossy waves, swishing like molten silk with every sassy toss of her head. Now, however, it had been tucked back out of the reach of man’s hands into a chic twist right out of one of Dorie’s glossy magazines. He wanted to ask why she felt she had to keep all that wonderful sunshine hidden away, but he’d lost the right to ask her that kind of question.
“Hello, Maddy,” he said after closing the door behind him. He hadn’t felt this wired since the last time he’d dropped from the top rail of the chute onto the back of a nightmare.
“Doctor.” She inclined her head, queen to subject. Damn, but she was something, he thought, fascinated in spite of the wariness skimming his nerves.
Ordinarily he offered his hand to a new patient, the first fragile thread of trust. Only the certain knowledge that it would cost him more to touch her than he wanted to risk had him trying a smile, instead.
“You look terrific.” His voice came out rusty as hell, but he had a feeling it was the words themselves that had her eyes narrowing between those long fluttery lashes.
He let his gaze drift lower, skimming the curves that filled out the pale yellow jacket in all the right ways to mess with a man’s head. She was also pregnant, he realized with a jolt that twisted all the way through him, leaving him a little breathless. About six months along was his best guess.
He still remembered the jagged despair in her voice when she’d told him that the surgical field had gotten contaminated during her C-section, and the resulting infection had scarred her fallopian tubes, rendering her sterile. The guilt he’d carried had been a bloody hole in his gut ever since.
“So you really are a patient,” he added when she remained silent. “I wondered.”
“I didn’t lie to you when I told you I was sterile,” she said, her drawl softer than he remembered, though flavored now with a hint of tension. “According to Doc Morrow, the odds of my ever conceiving again were too small to even measure.”
“Doc Morrow?”
