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"And you're the culprit, unless I miss my guess. Are you here to discuss alternatives?" she asked,
suddenly serious.
"I am not!" he said at once. "I want a baby as much as Callie will, when she knows about it."
"When she knows? She doesn't suspect?" she asked, wide-eyed.
He grimaced. "Well, it's like this. Lopez and his thugs-you know about them?" When she nodded, he
sighed. "I was careless and they almost got her a second time in Nassau. She knocked her assailant out
with a shovel, but she was really shaken up afterward. I gave her a sedative." His high cheekbones
colored and he averted his eyes.
"She got amorous and I was already upset and on the edge, and I'd abstained for so damned long.
And...well..."
"Then what?" she asked, reading between the lines with avid curiosity.
He shifted in the chair, still avoiding eye contact. "She doesn't remember anything. She thinks it was
an erotic dream."
Her intake of breath was audible. "In all my years of medicine..." she began.
"I haven't had that many, but it's news to me, too. The thing is, I'm sure she's pregnant, but she'll have a
heart attack if you tell her she is. I have to break it to her. But first I have to find a way to convince her
to marry me,"
he added. "So that she won't spend the rest of our lives together believing that the baby forced me into
marriage.
It's not like that," he said. He rubbed at a spot on his slacks so that he wouldn't have to meet Lou's
intent stare.
"She's everything. Everything in the world."
Lou smiled. He wasn't saying the words, but she was hearing them. He loved Callie. So it was like that.
The mercenary was caught in his own trap. And, amazingly, he didn't want to get out of it. He wanted
the baby!
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"I want you to do a blood test and see if she really is pregnant. But if she is, I want you to make some
excuse about the results being inconclusive, and you can give her a prescription for some vitamins
and ask her to come back in two weeks."
"She'll worry that it's something fatal," Lou advised. "People do."
"Tell her you think it's stress, from her recent ordeal," he persisted. "Please," he added, finding the
word hard to say even now. "I just need a little time."
"Just call me Dr. Cupid Coltrain," she murmured. "I guess I'll get drummed out of the AMA, but how
can I say no?"
"You're in the business of saving lives," he reminded her. "This will save three of them."
"I hear you're moving back here," she said.
"I am. I'm going to raise thoroughbreds," he added, smiling. "And act as a consultant for Eb Scott
when he needs some expertise. That way, I'll not only settle down, I'll have enough of a taste of the old
life to satisfy me if things get dull. I might even finish my residency and hit you and Coltrain up for a
job."
"Anytime," she said, grinning. "I haven't had a day off in two years. I'd like to take my son to the zoo
and not have to leave in the middle of the lions on an emergency call."
He chuckled. "Okay. That's a dare."
She stood up when he did and shook hands again. "You're not what I expected, Mr. Steele," she said
after a minute. "I had some half-baked idea that you'd never give up your line of work, that you'd want
Callie to do something about the baby."
"I do. I want her to have it," he said with a smile. "And a few more besides, if we're lucky. Callie and I
were only children. I'd like several, assorted."
"So would we, but one's all we can handle at the moment. Of course, if you finish your residency and
stand for your medical license, that could change," she added, tongue-in-cheek.
He grinned. "I guess it's contagious."
She nodded. "Very. Now get out of here. I won't tell Callie I've ever seen you in my life."
"Thanks. I really mean it."
"Anything for a future colleague," she returned with a grin of her own.
Callie worried all morning about the doctor's appointment, but she relaxed when she was in Lou's
office and they'd drawn blood and Lou had checked her over.
"It sounds to me like the aftereffects of a very traumatic experience," Lou said with a straight face.
"I'm prescribing a multiple vitamin and I want you to come back and see me in two weeks."
"Will the tests take that long?" Callie asked.
"They might." Lou sighed. "You're mostly tired, Callie. You should go to bed early and eat healthy.
Get some sun, too. And try not to worry. It's nothing serious, I'm positive of that."
Callie smiled her relief. "Thanks, Dr. Coltrain!" she said. "Thanks, so much!"
"I hear your stepbrother's moving back to town," Lou said as she walked Callie to the door of the
cubicle. "I guess you'll be seeing a lot of him now."
Callie flushed. "It looks that way." Her eyes lit up. "He's so different. I never could have imagined
Micah settling for small-town life."
"Men are surprising people," Lou said. "You never know what they're capable of."
"I suppose so. Well, I'll see you in two weeks."
"Count on it," Lou said, patting her on the shoulder. "Lots of rest. And take those vitamins," she added,
handing over the prescription.
Callie felt as if she were walking on air. No health problems, just the aftereffects of the kidnapping.
That was good news indeed. And when Micah phoned and asked her to come out to the ranch with him
and see the house, she was over the moon.
He picked her up after work at her apartment house. "I took Dad out there this morning," he told her
with a grin.
"He's going to move in with me at the weekend." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]