Daddy By Accident. Paula Riggs Detmer

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СКАЧАТЬ repeated the information, then asked if there was anyone else. A member of her own family perhaps? The baby’s father?

      “Len...”

      “Len was the baby’s father?” the voice repeated with a soothing calm.

      “Yes.” Len had longed to become a father, but that was before a hopped-up kid bent on robbery had split his skull with a baseball bat. After that, he’d become a mean, angry man given to bouts of violence that had finally worn out her love and her loyalty.

      “Anyone else? A neighbor, maybe? Or a co-worker?”

      Stacy cleared her throat again of a sudden thickness and searched for the name that hovered just beyond her consciousness. A face wavered, round and patrician, with a frizz of curly white hair swooping over the apple cheeks. “Adeline... Marsh.”

      “Is she a friend?”

      “Principal at Lewis and Clark Elementary. I’ve been substituting. Morning kindergarten.” Stacy licked her lips, aware suddenly that somehow, her hand was in Boyd’s again. Had she reached for him? Or had he reached for her? Either way, she was grateful for the human contact and curled her fingers tighter around his.

      “I’m...sorry about taking you away from your work,” she murmured, her voice oddly thin.

      “It’ll still be there when I get back.” He bent lower, and his bare shoulders blocked out the overhead light.

      “Will your boss be angry?”

      “No boss. I work alone.”

      She heard a low drone of whispered conversation and turned her head toward the sound. The resulting pain in her temple caused her to inhale sharply.

      “Easy, honey.” he soothed, his voice low and scratchy.

      Slowly she adjusted the angle of her head until she could see his eyes, now dark and intense and probing. Deep lines fanned the outer corners, suggesting a man who knew how to laugh, yet the strongly molded face had the look of a man more accustomed to discipline and control and restraint.

      “Miz Patterson?” a third voice inquired softly. “I need to draw blood for the lab now.”

      It wasn’t really a question, saving Stacy the trouble of replying. Boyd stepped back to allow room for a roly-poly woman in a blue smock. Stacy watched anxiously as the woman readied a syringe and hoped she wouldn’t disgrace herself by fainting. Just in case, she looked away before the needle entered her arm. She felt a prick, then pressure. The overhead light was beginning to sear her eyes, and her head was spinning again. She felt her lashes drooping and quickly forced her eyes wider. It was important to stay awake and alert. In control.

      “Boyd?” Mindless of her aching head, she looked around anxiously.

      “Right here, Stacy.” He took her hand again, and the cold that had begun to seep into her again abated. The self-confidence she’d built up over the past year was crumbling fast, leaving her feeling lost and scared and lonely.

      Some independent woman you are, she thought, disgusted with her pitiful lack of fortitude. Here she was, an expectant mother who wanted desperately to be held in the arms of a man she’d just met.

      She started to thank him again, only to find herself seized by a spasm of pain in the small of her back. She stopped breathing, her heart tripping. The pain spread, rippling toward her belly, nearly squeezing her in two.

      “No!” she cried in sharp agony. “It’s too soon!”

      “Get Dr. Jarrod, stat,” she heard the nurse order sharply. “Tell him the patient may be going into premature labor.”

      Stacy clung to the strong hand wrapping hers, terror racing with the adrenalins in her veins.

      “Try to relax, Stacy. Take deep breaths.” Boyd’s voice was steady and call, everything she wasn’t.

      “Tell them to save the baby,” she pleaded. “Make them promise. If there’s a choice, my baby has to live.”

      “Look, babies are surprisingly resilient, especially in utero,” he said in that curiously raspy voice.

      “But what if she isn’t? What if—”

      “Hey, none of that, okay?” Lifting a hand from hers, he brushed back a lock of her hair, his touch as gentle as a lover’s caress. “You’re going to be fine. Both of you.”

      Stacy tightened her grip on his hand. “Is that a p-promise, or a guess?”

      His hesitation was slight but noticeable. Because he didn’t want to lie? she wondered.

      “Definitely a promise,” he declared an instant before the curtains parted to admit a tall, lanky man who, in spite of the blue scrubs, reminded her more of a working cowboy than a doctor.

      “MacAuley?” he exclaimed on a double take. “What the hell?”

      “Later,” Boyd said, stepping back. He’d done all he could do for the dark-haired angel with the beautiful eyes. Now it was up to the professionals. And luck. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to believe in either one.

      Two

      Boyd thumbed open his third can of beer, drank deeply, then wandered out of the kitchen onto the back porch. It was nearly seven, and the sun was hovering at the edge of the western horizon, turning the sky to flame, while the conifers that typified the Oregon skyline suggested black teeth eating the sunset inch by inch. Below the ridge that wedged downward at a sharp angle, the Columbia River resembled molten lava as the sun’s rays skimmed the surface.

      Propping a bare foot on the railing, he leaned forward slightly, hoping to catch a breeze, but the air was deathly still. At the house to the left, Linda and Marshall Ladd were barbecuing burgers. At the end of the short street, Portland firefighter, Cliff Balisky, was roughhousing with his two boys, who from the sound of their triumphant shouts were whomping up on the old man.

      Suddenly restless, he chugged down the rest of the beer in his hand and gave some thought to opening another. How long had it been since he’d been drunk enough to pass out? Drunk enough to buy himself a few hours of mindless oblivion? Four, five months maybe? Longer?

      Before Karen and the baby had died, he’d never been much of a drinker, mostly because he didn’t like the reckless edge it put on his personality. Tonight, however, the need for numbness had overridden his customary caution.

      He knew the reason for his black mood. The ambulance ride, the all-too-familiar bustle of the ER. A baby in danger. A wisp of a woman with big green eyes and a tumble of silk-soft hair who’d somehow slipped beneath his guard and touched a part of him he’d thought he’d lost.

      The woman was fine, he assured himself firmly as he headed inside for another beer. Definitely in good hands and no doubt still sleeping peacefully, just as she’d been when he’d left her a couple of hours ago. Still, his conscience would likely give him fits unless he made sure, he decided as he reached for the wall phone by the kitchen window.

      Though the hospital switchboard was known for its efficiency, it took the operator СКАЧАТЬ