“Good,” the nurse said. “I’ll give Dr. Hart a call and see whether she’d like us to examine you down here or send you to maternity on the second floor.”
Juliet uttered an okay. She might be comfortable with the resident obstetrician, but Mark could see the worry in her eyes. The anxiety in her face.
“In the meantime,” the nurse said, pointing to a chair beside the bed. “Why don’t you have a seat, Dad?”
Dad? She had that all wrong. But before Mark could explain, Juliet did it for him. “This is my friend, Mark Anderson. He’s not the baby’s father.”
The nurse smiled. “It’s nice for a woman to have someone she trusts be her birth coach.”
Birth coach? Whoa. Not Mark. He’d just brought Juliet here to make sure she saw a doctor, that she was someplace safe. Maybe he could stick around and hold her hand for a while. But if things got hairy, if she was really in labor, he’d wait in the cafeteria until she gave birth. Heck, he might even hang around long enough to look at the baby behind a glass window and tell her the kid was cute—even though he’d seen a couple of newborns and thought they looked more like aliens than humans.
Then, after that, he’d be on his way.
When the nurse stepped out, Mark took a seat, but he couldn’t seem to relax. What was taking so long? He glanced at his watch. The minute hands seemed to be moving slower than usual.
A while later—he didn’t know how long—another nurse arrived. A friendly, thirty-something woman with short, dark-hair and wearing a pink smock dotted with teddy bears. “Ms. Rivera? I’m Beth Ann. Dr. Hart has asked me to take you to maternity.”
The nurse fiddled with the bed, making it mobile, then began to push Juliet out of the E.R. and into the hall. She slowed her steps just long enough to glance at Mark. “You can follow us.”
He opened his mouth to object, to say he’d be having coffee in the cafeteria, but for some reason, he fell into step behind the rolling bed.
They took an elevator to the second floor, then the nurse wheeled Juliet toward the maternity ward, where she paused before the ominous double doors.
Mark’s steps slowed, too. But not because he was tagging along behind them.
What the hell was he doing? Juliet was in good hands. Competent hands. He didn’t need to go in there. They didn’t need him. Besides, he’d done his duty. His good deed for the day.
But when Juliet turned her head and looked at him, those misty, mahogany eyes locking on his, he saw the fear, the nervousness. The need.
He offered her a wimpy smile, and when she turned her head away, he ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t have any business going in there with her. He wasn’t the baby’s father. Or her husband.
But Juliet didn’t have a mother or a sister. She was new in town. And he doubted she’d made any friends, not with her schedule. Hell, none of her co-workers had jumped in to help.
Right now, she only had him.
The nurse pressed at the button that automatically swung open the doors, then pushed Juliet through.
Mark followed behind, like a clueless steer on its way to a slaughterhouse.
They plodded along the hall, his Italian loafers clicking on the spanking clean floor, the nurse’s rubber soles making a dull squeak with each step. They passed several open doorways Mark was afraid to peek into and continued along a glass-enclosed room that held incubators for the tiniest and sickest of patients. All of the little beds were empty, thank God.
Would Juliet’s baby be placed in one of them?
The possibility jolted his heart, jump-starting his pulse.
Oh, for cripes sake. Mark wasn’t a worrier. Not by nature. It was just the pregnancy, the vulnerability of both woman and child.
And his own fears brought back to life.
He swore under his breath. Juliet was just having a backache, right? From working too hard and carrying the extra weight of a baby. She hadn’t been especially worried until Martha Tasker popped up like a jack-in-the-box, with the tale of her own labor, stirring things up. Making something out of nothing.
Mark followed the bed into a room that looked more like a bedroom than a private hospital room. Pale green curtains graced the window that looked out into a frozen courtyard that was probably colorful and vibrant during the summer.
Decorated in pink, green and a touch of lavender, the color scheme and homey touch of the room probably helped ease the nerves of laboring expectant mothers. But it didn’t do a damn thing to ease Mark’s anxiety, not when he spotted medical gaskets and gizmos that reminded him of where they were, what they faced.
“Here’s a gown,” Beth Ann said. “As soon as you slip it on, I’ll examine you.”
An examination? Oh, cripes. Not an internal exam.
The nurse asked Juliet, “Would you like him to stay in here?”
Oh, hell no. Not on a bet. Mark cleared his throat, then started backing toward the door. “Why don’t I step out of the room for a little while. You can come and get me when it’s all over.”
When it was all over. Not just the exam.
The nurse nodded as she reached for a box of rubber gloves.
Mark couldn’t get out of the birthing room fast enough. If he ever had a kid of his own, he wouldn’t be hanging around and watching that kind of a procedure. No way.
He ran a finger under the collar of his shirt, then scanned the hospital corridor, where a floral wallpaper border softened the sterile white walls.
If there’d been anyone else who could be here for Juliet, he’d be out of here faster than a sopping-wet dog could shake its fur.
But she didn’t have anyone.
And that’s why he stayed.
Moments later, the nurse poked her head out the door. “You can come in now.”
He nodded, then stepped inside. But before he reached Juliet’s bed, an attractive woman dressed in medical garb approached and introduced herself as Dr. Hart.
“I think she’s in the early stages of labor,” the nurse told the obstetrician. “And she’s about two centimeters dilated.”
Dr. Hart nodded, then approached Juliet. “I’d feel better about delivering your baby a couple weeks from now. So I’d like to give you something to stop labor and another medication that will help the baby’s lungs develop quicker, in case your labor doesn’t respond to treatment.”
When the doctor and nurse left them alone, Juliet shot Mark a wobbly grin. “You don’t have to stick around. I’ll be okay.”
Hey, there was his out. His excuse to leave. But he couldn’t take it, couldn’t walk away knowing she was all alone. “What if you need a ride home?”
“I can take a cab.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Then he sat back in his chair, unsure of what the night would bring.
And hoping to hell he could step up to the plate.
This time.
Chapter Three
Juliet stretched out in the hospital bed, wishing she could go back to sleep. The medication Dr. Hart had given her last night seemed to have worked. The backache had eased completely within the first hour of her arrival.
But that didn’t mean she’d rested well. And neither had Mark, who’d stayed by her side the entire night.
More than