“And you still are, at least by omission,” she snapped as she punched the talk button, still wondering what she’d say if it was him. Just a quick, Hi there, Ford. I’m pregnant. Or, Remember how I said I liked dining at Pok-E-Jo’s? Well, it’s all ice cream and pickles now, cowboy. Maybe she should have taken the job in Houston and solved the problem by simply vanishing. “Happy New Year,” she found herself saying, nervously tapping her bare foot on the wood floor. “So far, it’s shaping up to be a doozy. Katie speaking.”
“I hope you don’t have plans tonight, sweetheart.”
Realizing how tightly she was clutching the phone, Katie relaxed. A relieved sigh whooshed from her chest. “Sue? Is that you?”
“Yes, aren’t you lucky,” the nursing coordinator from Maitland Maternity said in a rush. “It’s me. And I’m majorly glad you’re home. You’re not due at work for a couple of weeks—I know that—but I gave as many people as possible the night off since it’s New Year’s Eve, and now we’ve got an emergency. We need another nurse and a surgeon and—”
She fought it, but the name escaped. “Ford?”
“Dr. Carrington’s cohosting a party at Blane Gilcrest’s. You know, that socialite he dates who’s always in the papers? She’s got that mansion on Lakeview? Anyway, I’m looking for Cecil Nelson. He’s on call.”
Katie barely heard. Jealousy had come to her in a quick, unwanted mental flash of Ford dancing with Blane under soft, fuzzy lights. Or whatever. Who knew what wealthy people did on New Year’s?
Katie’s eyes slid to the TV, where, just an hour shy of midnight, the ball was dropping on Times Square, and she calmly reminded herself she had no right to the murderous feelings coursing through her. What happened between her and Ford, while magical for her, was a one-time thing. That was the deal.
Of course there was a small hitch now.
Which meant she’d somehow have to look straight into the dark irresistible eyes that had drunk in her naked body and forget the moment she’d conceived. She felt herself flush as she recalled the coarse hair of Ford’s legs and chest, how she’d soared when his mouth locked over her breasts and how she’d whimpered when his fingers curled possessively between her thighs. Katie exhaled a shudder.
She’d been a fool to think making love with Ford would get him out of her system, or that she could deny her feelings and chalk the night up to an excess of the fancy wine from his friend’s vineyard. If she was honest about it, she’d only had one sip, anyway.
Even if Ford expressed interest now—which he wouldn’t—she couldn’t sleep with him again, not ever. He was high-society Austin, and she was a farm girl. He’d said he wanted sex, not a relationship, and Katie had too much self-respect to let herself be accused of trying to trap a rich man with a pregnancy.
“Can you get over here?” Sue was saying. “I’ll keep looking for Dr. Nelson. But we’ve got a week-old girl in trouble. We thought we could wait until tomorrow to correct a blockage in her esophagus—”
“On my way.” Katie switched off the phone, shoved her feet into cowboy boots and grabbed her keys. She flicked off the TV, then ran for the car, realizing when the sharp January night air chilled her that she’d forgotten a coat. Not that she’d go back. A baby was in trouble.
Later, she’d think about the new life inside her and whether she should have contacted Ford before now. She was a nurse and prided herself on practicality; nevertheless, for two months she’d convinced herself her missed periods were due to the temporary move to Houston. Just female pheromones adjusting to her new coworkers, she’d kept thinking…until she’d administered the pregnancy test that proved she was pregnant and in plain, old-fashioned denial. She simply didn’t understand how it happened. They’d used condoms. “Plural,” she whispered with a sigh.
At first, the knowledge of her pregnancy burned inside her, but she’d only broken down once, confiding in her friend Hope Logan without identifying the father. Hope would be flabbergasted if she knew. But Katie wanted this baby desperately, though she had no illusions of receiving help from Ford. He was thirty-six and a confirmed bachelor by his own admission. Not even the polished social butterflies who flocked around him had caught his interest, so Katie figured she didn’t have a prayer.
“How am I going to tell him?” she muttered, stomping her foot and inadvertently making the car lunge forward. “Well, whatever he says, I’ll take him on.”
Her papa, too. She couldn’t tell him before Ford, but she was worried about how he’d react. Jack Topper was sternly religious, yes, but he was a contractor and old-fashioned Texas farmer, too, which meant he’d either head for the prayer rail at New Flock Baptist or grab the first handy rifle, point it at Ford and try to force him to marry her. Telling Jack it was the twenty-first century and that people no longer solved things with double-barreled blue steel wouldn’t deter him one bit, either.
“Concentrate, Katie,” she whispered as she sped toward Maitland Maternity. “And thank fate for small favors.” At least she’d probably be working with Cecil Nelson tonight, which meant she’d been granted another reprieve, however brief, before she told Ford Carrington she was pregnant with their baby.
SHE’S PREGNANT.
It was an instinctive, gut reaction, entirely unfounded but born of years spent working around pregnant women. That, and remembering the broken condom he hadn’t told Katie about. Only years of medical experience allowed Ford to separate the personal and professional and throw every ounce of his energy into fixing up a newborn. “Pressure?”
“Stable,” Katie said.
“Oxygen? Saline? Drips?”
She read off strings of numbers.
The professional tone left Ford feeling faintly murderous, even though he knew she, too, needed to dissociate from her emotions in order to get this job done; without that skill, people could never accomplish tasks that, anywhere outside an OR, would be considered barbaric. What was barbaric was Blane’s New Year’s party, Ford thought. Beach theme. Drinks with umbrellas. Mascot in diapers. He’d felt as if he was still a frat boy, back in college, and he couldn’t have been more relieved when the hospital called, saying they were still looking for Cecil.
Ford glanced at Katie again. Surely, his initial impression that she was pregnant was unfounded, but in the heartbeat before she’d pulled on her mask, he’d noted the deepening skin color and rounding of her face. Lord, was wishful thinking making him imagine she’d come back from Houston, her belly filling with their child? Always emotionally unattached, his only model the family in which he’d grown up, he’d never considered having a baby. But with a woman like Katie, could things be different?
Her eyes were still evading his, settling everywhere else in the crowded room full of milling nurses and technicians, making his mind run wild. Didn’t seeing him for the first time in three months affect her at all? He’d expected at least a glimmer of awareness, a rekindled spark. Was she embarrassed, since they’d been in his bed the last time they’d spoken?
“Scalpel.”
Their fingertips met. Even through gloves, he felt her quickening pulse, the sudden, sensual tremor of her skin. Fearing she might not feel it, too, he silently cursed her for making him want her so much. He forced himself to look away and continue working, but it was hard to concentrate. He kept seeing the wrecked living room and the faint lip-gloss smudge on a wineglass, both of which had told him the night with her hadn’t been his imagination. Why had she left him nothing? Not even a lipsticked message on a mirror. Or a scribbled note in a sport coat pocket for him to find weeks later.
He focused, needing to connect two blocked ends of a malformed esophagus. Simple but delicate, the operation served as a reminder of how much people took for granted. Things like tasting and swallowing nourishment, or pulling life’s sweetest scents all the way down