Mitch hung up the phone. “She’ll be up in a minute. I would have asked Beth, but I know she’s got a meeting this morning.”
“It’ll be good to see Abby again.”
“I just wish I was free.”
“Don’t worry about it, Maitland. We’ll talk. Real soon.”
He got up and walked around the desk. She could tell he wanted to put his arm around her, but he wasn’t sure if he should. She helped him out by hugging him first. A first-class major squeeze. It was impossible not to close her eyes when she felt his hands on her back. When he pulled her close. When she took a deep breath of his masculine scent.
If things had been different…
MITCH DIDN’T CALL IN his next patient right away. He took a moment, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was important not to go crazy about this. What had happened to them was ancient history. Nothing to get all worked up about.
So why was his stomach churning? Why did he feel this crushing weight of disappointment?
Because he’d loved her, that’s why. He’d been young, yes, and he’d been naive, but the fact was he’d loved her, and he thought she loved him back. Now, once and for all, he knew he’d been mistaken. Darcy hadn’t loved him. If she had, she never would have asked him to be her doctor. Her emotions would have been too vulnerable. Yes, it had been years, but time could never diminish the pain of a first love gone wrong.
What shook him up most, however, was the awful realization that after all this time, even after Angela, he’d obviously still harbored hope that someday Darcy would come back. That she’d be his.
He was a first-class fool.
Darcy had left him without a second thought and gone on to a life he could hardly imagine. Of course she hadn’t thought about the kid who’d helped her with her science project. She was too busy with movie stars and politicians. Traveling all over the world. Smiling for the camera and her adoring public.
It was pure sentiment that had brought her here today. Some warm, fuzzy feeling about their childhood antics.
But what he was feeling was neither warm nor fuzzy. It hurt. It hurt as if she’d left him yesterday. It hurt because a dream had died. A dream he hadn’t even realized he’d had.
He couldn’t help her. He’d give her a referral, and that would be the end of it. Maybe it was a blessing. Maybe knowing the truth would set him free. He hadn’t been serious about a woman since Angela.
He looked at the clock, and that got him up and moving, but it didn’t stop his feverish thoughts. Why, of all the people in the world, did Darcy Taylor want artificial insemination? She could have any man she wanted. The best and the brightest would line up to father her child. But she’d asked about the donors at the clinic.
And why, at the peak of her career, had she quit? Something wasn’t right. It didn’t add up.
He went to examination room four and plucked the chart from the wall pocket. The minute he saw the name of his patient, he focused completely on her. Well, almost completely. Just before he knocked on the door, he closed his eyes and took a calming breath. An earthquake had hit Austin, and the epicenter was right here inside him. The world that had been steady and predictable this morning had been shaken so hard, he couldn’t get a foothold.
Darcy Taylor had come back.
DARCY SIPPED her coffee as she looked around the diner. It was a cheery place, with a regular clientele. She remembered the owner, Shelby Lord, as a spunky little girl with red hair, a friend of Beth and Ellie’s. She had obviously done well for herself with the restaurant. Darcy took another drink of the terrific coffee, then picked up her menu. As she tried to decide between the garden salad and a hot fudge sundae, Abby slipped into the seat across from her.
“The food here is great,” she said, picking up a menu. “Shelby will be surprised to see you.” Abby nodded toward the counter where a pretty blonde was serving a man in a business suit. “That’s Sara. What that poor thing has gone through…” Abby shook her head, then looked at the menu.
“Well?”
The dark-haired doctor, who looked so much like Mitchell only softer and prettier, seemed surprised at her tone. “What?”
“Well, come on. Spill.”
“Oh,” Abby said, glancing toward the counter. “It’s been a three-ring circus around here lately, I swear. I don’t know if you’ve read anything about what’s been happening.”
“I know about the baby left on your back steps. Have you figured out who the father is?”
“Well,” she said, leaning closer and lowering her voice, “that’s a story all its own. After we found the baby, this woman, Tanya Lane, showed up with that nightmare from Tattle Today TV, Chelsea Markum—”
“I’ve met her before. Once she gets wind of a story, she never backs off.”
“I’ll say. Anyway, Tanya claimed the baby was hers and that my brother R.J. was the father.”
“R.J.? Are you kidding? He’s the straightest person I’ve ever met.”
Abby nodded. “So you can imagine how that freaked him out. Especially when Tanya said that he’d deserted her when he found out she was pregnant!”
“This is positively surreal!”
“Oh, there’s more. We lost a lot of patients over that. And I can’t tell you how many regrets we got at first for the twenty-fifth-anniversary party. Which you’re invited to, by the way.”
“When is it?”
“A week and a half.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Tattle Today must have had some real suspicions about Tanya, though, because they put up fifty thousand dollars for an exclusive interview with whoever proved to be the real mother. Of course, busloads of women showed up, each one claiming the baby, and thanks to an article in the tabloids, every one of them swore Jake was the father.”
“My God. Jake. Is he still Mr. Mystery?”
“That’s an understatement. Jake hadn’t been home for five years, so they figured he couldn’t defend himself. But it didn’t do them any good. None of them knew that there was a birthmark on the baby.”
“A birthmark?”
Abby nodded. “Right above his belly button.”
“So Jake was off the hook?”
“Not quite. He came home after Mother called him, with a very pregnant woman in tow.”
“Another mystery baby?”
“Imagine our delight.” Abby sighed.
Darcy was having trouble assimilating all this in one sitting. It must have been a madhouse. “So what happened?”
Abby took a drink of water and signaled the waitress. After she ordered a piece of pie, Darcy ordered the sundae. When they were alone once more, Darcy looked at the menu again, then tried to get the waitress back.
“What’s wrong?” Abby asked.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Do what?”
“Eat a hot fudge sundae.”
“Why not?”
Darcy felt a tug of emotion in her chest and swallowed a little lump in her throat. “I’ve been a slave to food for sixteen years. Every mouthful mattered. Calories were the enemy, and I could never let my guard down.”