Chuck rubbed the back of his neck, frustration in his eyes. “I apologize for not managing the news better.”
“How could you have predicted any of this? No one could.” An understatement.
“You’re being too understanding.” He sank back in the chair by her bed.
“Well, I do have some questions.” Even thinking about the possibilities sent a fresh wave of panic through her, but not knowing was worse. “The child is yours, right?”
“Absolutely yes,” he said without hesitation. “The baby is mine. And no, we don’t have any other children.”
She hadn’t even considered that. But what else didn’t she know? Five years was a long time to make significant memories. Life-changing memories.
“You said we’d struggled with fertility.” She chewed her fingernail. “There’s just so much to learn about what’s happened over the past five years.”
And her brain was on overload, weighing every nugget of information before she trusted the latest revelation. Even well-meaning people had private agendas. And she also knew how easily a person could be misled by someone smooth at lying. Her father had taught her that lesson too painfully.
“Then we won’t press any further today.” He covered her hand with his and held tight. “I would really feel more comfortable if we called the doctors back in and let them check you over or give us more guidance.”
His touch felt...familiar somehow. Strong, yet careful all at once.
She couldn’t deny the wisdom in his words. “I just want to know one more thing for now.”
He grinned—the first time she’d seen him smile, or remembered seeing him smile—and it shone from his eyes, setting her senses buzzing.
He was sheer magnetism personified.
“Like I have the option of arguing with you?”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “Apparently you do know me well. Better than I know myself at the moment, which brings me to my question. What’s my last name? Or rather, what’s your last name? Did I keep my maiden name?”
His smile faded and he clasped her hand, the left one without a wedding ring. “You took my surname. It’s Mikkelson.”
Surprise spread through her. “As in the oil family Mikkelsons?”
“Yes, the same.” He nodded.
There was a wariness to him she couldn’t quite understand. Maybe people befriended him for his money. That would have never crossed her mind. Still, a lot of things made more sense now.
“No wonder I have this private room. Your parents own Mikkelson Oil.” She pressed her fingers to the headache starting again.
“It’s not Mikkelson Oil anymore. My father passed away nearly three years ago. My mother recently married the head of Steele Oil—widower Jack Steele—merging the two companies into Alaska Oil Barons, Inc.”
For what should be big news, he didn’t look all that happy about it.
“I’m sorry about your father.” She squeezed his hand and a shiver of electricity passed between them, like static popping through her.
His thumb stroked along the inside of her wrist over her speeding pulse. “Thank you. He was fond of you.”
“I wish I remembered that.”
“Me too.”
Awareness increased until the static between them was like a meteor shower. Beautiful...but something she feared could leave her scorched.
The door opened again with a call at the same time. “Dr. Gibson here.”
Chuck cleared his throat and stepped back. “He’s your ob-gyn.”
Dr. Gibson entered, wheeling a machine of some sort, with a nurse trailing behind. “I hear the two of you were going to have a discussion.”
Chuck nodded. “I’ve told Shana I’m her husband, and she knows about the baby.”
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Gibson stopped beside her bed.
“Overwhelmed. A little woozy. But mostly just confused.”
“That’s understandable,” he said with a kind bedside manner that must have been reassuring during all the fertility treatments Chuck had mentioned. “The nurse is going to check your blood pressure, and then we’re going to do an ultrasound. We’ll go as slowly as you need us to.”
Shana’s heart skipped a beat. So much was happening so quickly she wanted to tell them all to slow down, to stop altogether. But life didn’t work that way. She had to face the present. “No need to wait. I want to know as much as I can.”
“Ask anything you like, and I’ll do my best to answer,” Dr. Gibson said. “Are you all right with Mr. Mikkelson staying in the room? I understand these are rather unusual circumstances.”
Shana looked at Chuck. He was her husband. Everyone here knew that. And this was his child. As strange as it felt to have him in the room, he had a right to be here. The past day must have been hellish for him with her health scare. “Of course he can stay.”
“Thank you.” Chuck took her hand in his, his touch strong and confident.
Those green eyes of his held her, reminding her again of a changeable rolling sea. She could so easily dive in, immerse herself in him.
Lose herself.
And that made him dangerous.
Her first priority right now was deciphering who she was.
She couldn’t afford to let down her guard around the one man she should be able to trust with her life.
* * *
The next day, as Chuck checked Shana out of the hospital, he was still reeling from seeing that ultrasound.
Snow gathered on the ground. The blacktop parking lot looked more like a field than a place for cars. But he, too, felt like he’d fallen away from the present moment.
He recalled instead a different moment. The first time Shana had announced a pregnancy. The promise and hope of that moment. So different than this one.
He had fantasized about a future with Shana and a kid on the way, but in no realm had his fantasies played out this way. They’d watched ultrasounds together in the past, but they had given up on ever seeing one again.
And now, Chuck was preparing to take his pregnant wife home.
A wife who didn’t remember him.
He stepped out of the hospital and into the crisp morning air, an orderly wheeling Shana beside Chuck. His personal staffer had brought around his Escalade, the exhaust puffing clouds into the cold. The snow was pristine after yesterday’s storm, piles on the side of the roads from snowplows clearing the way.
As the driver opened the passenger door and left the engine running for Chuck to drive, Chuck held out his hand for his wife. His pregnant wife.
The ultrasound had made this so real.
There was a baby in the mix of this insane time in his life—the merger, the long hours, the amnesia, and a second chance with Shana he didn’t want to waste.
Growing up, he’d dreamed of having a perfect marriage like his parents. That wasn’t going to happen. He and Shana had too much water under the bridge, and for too long.
But Chuck had never failed at anything in his life. He didn’t want his marriage to be the first. Which meant he needed to use this time together to win over his wife.
* * *
Shana