Daddy By Choice

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“Yeah.” He shifted his weight to his good leg. The numbness hadn’t returned, but the ache left behind refused to ease. “I, uh, figured we could eat in the dining room downstairs, if that’s all right.”

“Fine.”

She started to turn away, then swung around with a taunting swish of silk to look at him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. “I don’t remember giving you my room number.”

“You didn’t. I got it from the desk clerk.”

“They do that in Oregon? Just give out a room number to anyone who asks?”

“Not in the Mallory they don’t, so don’t be worrying yourself.”

“But you just said they gave it to you.”

“I told the desk clerk I was checking on a patient.”

Skepticism filled her eyes. “And she believed you? Just like that?”

“Actually I delivered a baby here once. On the third floor. A tourist from Japan who’d been too polite to call for help until it was almost too late. I was just leaving the restaurant when the desk clerk got the call and started yelling. Same one’s on duty tonight and she remembered me.”

Her expression cleared. “Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself in my case.”

“Just remember not to worry about calling for help, even if you’re not sure you need it. Us doctor types would rather handle things in a well-equipped hospital than a hotel room. Makes us real nervous when it’s a room-service waiter passing the instruments.”

She choked a laugh. “I’ll make a note.”

Since she hadn’t invited him to sit down, he checked around for something sturdy enough to lean against while he waited.

“How long has it been since you slept?” she asked, studying his face.

He shrugged. “Baby docs learn to sleep in snatches.”

“In that case why don’t you grab a quick nap while I shower?”

Luke glanced at the bed, still made but a little rumpled from her nap. The idea of shutting down for a few minutes was nearly irresistible. “Better not. I’ve been known to crash hard when I’m this tired, and I still have rounds to make tonight.”

“At least sit down and rest. I won’t be long,” she said before disappearing into the bathroom with another maddening swirl of silk against sleek calves. An instant later he heard the rush of water through the pipes in the connecting wall.

Feeling as though he was strangling, Luke managed to lower his aching bones to the mattress, found the remote and turned on the TV. After surfing until he found a Mariners game, he eased to his side, bunched the pillow she used under his head and set his mental alarm for fifteen minutes. Between one breath and another his mind simply shut down.

Through the closed door Madelyn heard the indistinct sounds of a baseball game on TV as she unzipped the small brocade bag containing her jewelry. She had one pearl drop affixed to her lobe and was searching for its companion when she heard the muffled ringing of the phone by the bed.

Muttering a curse, she hurried from the bathroom in her stocking feet. Luke was asleep, sprawled on his belly with his scarred boots hanging over the edge of the bed and his head turned toward the TV. His long arms were wrapped around the pillow, his cheek half-buried in the soft foam. His corners of his mouth were still tense, however. And his black brows were drawn together in a frown, as though something in the fathomless void of sleep was troubling him.

She managed to snatch up the phone on the third ring. He didn’t move. Turning away, she whispered an impatient hello into the receiver.

“Madelyn? Is that you?” Her ex-husband’s voice carried the strident edge of irritation that had become far too familiar.

“Wiley, how’d you get this number?”

“From your mama. She also told me you were consulting a specialist, but then, you always did overreact.”

She glanced over her shoulder, her stomach knotting. Only Doc and her best friend Emily Weldon knew the name of the man she’d come to see. The last thing she needed right now was another scandal. “What do you want, Wiley?”

“Simply to complete the dissolution of a marriage that’s become intolerable for both of us.”

Madelyn closed her eyes and used her free hand to rub at the pinprick of pain in her right temple that invariably exploded into a full-blown headache whenever Wiley started in on her. “Intolerable,” she repeated in a low tone. “Yes, I suppose it is now.”

It hadn’t been so intolerable when he’d come to her every Saturday night for an hour of regimented sex that had left her feeling more and more lonely and unsatisfied, however. Or when she’d nursed him through a battle with lung cancer, holding the basin as he retched after surgery and emptying bedpans because he was too modest to ask the nurse. No, good old Wiley hadn’t found her intolerable then. Shaking with hurt and a healthy dollop of disgust at the loyalty she’d shown a man who so clearly had none for her, she stiffened her spine and took a bracing breath.

“All right, Wiley. I’ll get an attorney. We’ll work out a settlement.”

“No need. Judge Berdette and I have already worked out the details.”

“I’ll just bet you have.”

“The judge was my father’s best friend before Daddy passed on to his heavenly reward, as you well know, and as such has always looked out for the best interests of the Foster family.”

When had the stability she’d valued so much in Wiley Roy turned to a really ugly stuffiness? she wondered.

“Perhaps you’d better explain the details of this settlement.”

“I suppose I must.” His voice was perilously close to a whine. “I’ll deed my share of the house over to you as well as your car and a third of our joint stock portfolio in return for your absolving me of any and all paternal obligations, now or in the future. In addition, you agree not to give the child the surname of Foster. My preference would be that you revert to your maiden name, as well, but that’s your own choice. I would, of course, want those points spelled out in writing, duly witnessed and notarized. In addition, I never want to see the child or have him think of me as his father. You will not put my name on his birth certificate or on the form when you enroll him in school.”

Madelyn’s knees were turning to jelly, and the pulsing in her head took on jagged edges. If she’d been alone, she would have sunk to the mattress and conducted the rest of this slimy discussion from a fetal position. As it was, she hated the thought that Luke might surface at any moment. A quick look over her shoulder reassured her that he was blessedly oblivious.

Turning back and ducking her head, she curved her hand around the mouthpiece. “Wiley, think about that a minute,” she whispered urgently. “I can understand if you’re angry, even though we both know I never lied to you. Take it out on me if you have to, but for God’s sake don’t punish your own flesh and blood.”

“I told you I never wanted a child, Madelyn.”

“But he’s going to grow up in the same town. He’ll hear gossip. Kids can be so terribly cruel, and even if they aren’t, sooner or later he’ll realize you don’t want him.”

“You should have thought of that before refusing to terminate this pregnancy.”

Madelyn realized it was futile to argue. Besides, the pain in her head was truly vicious now. Icy fingers gouging chunks from her skull. It was an effort to form coherent sentences.

“Your terms are acceptable,” she managed to enunciate before removing the phone from her ear. Jagged zigzags of phosphorescent light shot across her field of vision as she attempted to return the phone to the cradle, causing her to miscalculate. The phone fell from her fumbling fingers, hitting the table with a noisy clatter.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she whispered, bracing a shaking hand on the slick tabletop. Her knees were water. Nausea roiled in her belly, and her throat burned. She swallowed against the urgent need to physically purge herself of the ugly feelings inside her. Gagging, she clasped her hand over her mouth.

“Easy, darlin’, I’ve got you.”

Before she’d even known he was awake, Luke had scooped her into his arms, carrying her with long swift strides into the bathroom where she was noisily miserably sick.

Luke pressed two fingers against the carotid artery in Maddy’s neck as she lay on the bed, his gaze on the second hand of his watch. Her pulse had settled nicely since she’d dozed off, and the flow of blood was reassuringly strong. Slowly he withdrew his hand, his gaze focused intently on her face. Though her skin was still pale, her breathing had evened into a normal rhythm.

Silently he brushed the back of his hand against the satiny curve of her cheek, his brow still knitted. Though still too cool, her skin was no longer clammy.

“Luke?” she murmured, nuzzling his hand. Curly golden eyelashes fluttered as she struggled to focus.

“I’m here, Maddy.” He removed the folded washcloth from her forehead, replacing it with one he’d just dipped in ice water and wrung nearly dry.

Even as she sighed in relief, eyes the color of a Mexican sea and glazed with pain blinked up at him. The helpless vulnerability shimmering in the depths squeezed his heart. “My baby?”

“Sleepin’ most likely. Those little critters are real tough.”

Her brow puckered as she stared at him, her eyes huge with fear and pain and her pale mouth trembling. “I’m…so scared of losing him.”

“Go back to sleep and let me take care of both of you.” He smoothed back her hair with a hand that wasn’t at all steady. “Things will look brighter when you wake up.”

“I hate this…needing you.”

“I know.”

“Part of me still hates you.”

“I know that, too.”

“They wouldn’t even let me nurse her, our baby. They said they didn’t want her to bond with someone who wasn’t going to be her mama. I begged and begged…” She blinked. “You would have made them give her to me, wouldn’t you, Luke?”

A hole opened in his gut. “Yes, I would have made them.”

“I still hear her crying sometimes. Crying for her mama.” She sighed, her eyelashes drifting closed. “Did I ever tell you?” she mumbled in a voice barely above a sigh.

“Tell me what, Maddy?” he asked gently.

For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard him. And then her pale lips curved into a soft smile. “Our baby, she looked just like you.”

Luke sat on the edge of the mattress for a long time, silently stroking her hair while his heart seeped blood, his mind filled with an image of Maddy cradling a tiny black-haired baby in her arms. He’d thought nothing could make him hurt worse than that day on her porch when she’d told him he would never see the child he’d fathered so carelessly.

He’d been dead wrong.

Chapter 5

Maddy stirred restlessly, then surfaced from a twilight sleep with a nagging sense of anxiety. The room had grown darker, she realized as she opened her eyes. The TV was on in the room next to hers—she could hear it faintly—and on the street below, a horn blared, the sound muffled by both distance and the old hotel’s thick brick walls. She had no concept of time, just that the worst was over and she’d survived.

Lifting her hand, she touched the cloth on her head. To her surprise it was still cold. Slowly she turned her head, expecting to see Luke sprawled in the chair, his feet propped on the edge of the bed, his eyes heavy lidded and lazy as he watched over her.

She was already rehearsing the words that would send him down to dinner without her when her breath dammed up in her throat. There was a woman sitting where Luke had been, a tiny woman with bright copper curls and an even brighter orange sleeveless shirt who was watching her with big brown eyes. Madelyn guessed her age to be late thirties, early forties. Her contemporary certainly.

Seeing that Madelyn was awake, she smiled and held up a hand. Madelyn noticed that she wore a wedding ring. She’d removed her own on the day Wiley had rejected their child. “Don’t panic, I’m a nurse. Luke had to leave to make rounds, and he asked me to hang out here until he got back.”

Madelyn cleared the sleep from her throat. “I’m Madelyn Foster,” she said before finding a smile of her own.

“Yes, I know. I’m Prudy Randolph. I work with Luke at Portland General. He’s also a good friend.” She unfolded her legs in order to lean forward. “How’s the head?”

“Better, thanks. Sleep almost always does the trick. The hard part is getting to sleep.”

Ms. Randolph offered a look of sympathy. “Think you can manage some water?”

Madelyn was so thirsty she decided to risk unsettling her stomach. “Yes, please.”

“I just got some ice from the machine for the compress,” the woman said as she sprang to her feet and headed for the bathroom.

While the water ran and the pipes rattled, Madelyn carefully moved the compress from her head to the nightstand. After a few testing breaths she sat up. She felt woozy, but much better.

“Luke tells me you’re from Texas,” Ms. Randolph said when she returned, a glass of water in one hand and a bucket filled with what sounded like ice and water.

“Yes, ma’am,” Madelyn replied, taking the glass between both her hands as she added a polite thank-you.

“Please, call me Prudy. I have this overpowering urge to run to the mirror to check for crow’s feet and sagging eyelids whenever anyone calls me ma’am.”