Millionaire M.D.

Eleven

Winona had been afraid before, but never like this. Late that afternoon, she’d discovered who Angel’s mother was. At the time, she’d thought that nothing could possibly be more important or traumatic than that-but she’d been wrong.

Right now she was carrying the baby and pacing because she was too terrified to do anything else. She’d been busy, coming home from work, getting some dinner on and the baby down for the night, but everything had been basically fine-until Angel suddenly woke, making petrifying choking sounds.

She was afraid to put the baby down. Afraid to keep carrying her. Afraid anything that she did might be wrong-and yeah, of course, as a cop she’d had first aid. Intensive, extensive first aid, for that matter. But what the spit good was that? There was nothing in any manual about the emotional stakes being so screechy high and unbearable when it was your baby who was suffering and you were terrified of doing the wrong thing and risking hurting her worse.

Winona heard the front door open. “Justin? Back here! Hurry!”

She wanted to brace before seeing him. She knew it would hurt. Winona had no idea what was in that damn man’s head, but two days ago she’d finally added up two and two. For days, he’d been pushing her to marry him. First, making out like a marriage of convenience would enable her to foster Angel. Then, making out like he wanted a real marriage. Then, not just making out-but showing her-that he loved her in every way a man could love a woman.

But when it came down to setting a date, he’d ducked one too many times now.

She’d thought they’d had something. And no, she’d never bought into that marriage of convenience malarkey. Since when in the history of men and women was a marriage ever convenient? The concept was an oxymoron if ever there was one. But then she’d started to see how much Justin cared. How much he’d hidden. How he’d be as a dad, how he was as a lover, how much love poured out of him when the door was finally opened up.

Only the blasted man had made her fall in love with him. Practically forced her into falling hopelessly, helplessly, deeply in love. And then to stall out when it came to setting a date?

Man, it bit. In fact, it hurt so much that she’d prowled the floors for two nights in a row. Right now, though, she had no time for hurt or anger. There was only one thing on her mind-the baby.

She sensed his shadow in the nursery doorway, even before he’d said anything. She heard him yanking off his jacket, hurtling it aside. She didn’t look at him, because she was too sick-scared, soul-scared, to take her eyes off Angel for even a second, but she started talking. Fast. “She’s been half choking like this for almost twenty minutes now. Maybe I should have taken her right to the hospital, but I didn’t understand what was happening-I also didn’t want to take her out in the cold or do anything to make her worse. But I can see-anyone can see-something’s wrong. She’s not breathing right-”

“Keep talking. Just keep telling me everything that’s been happening to her.”

“I put her down for the night about forty-five minutes ago. All day she was fine. Completely fine. And she dropped off to sleep right away, only it was like she swallowed something somehow, because suddenly I heard her coughing. I ran in from the kitchen. It seemed like she was choking. I grabbed her, picked her up, started thumping her back, thinking that I could help her get something up-”

“And did you see anything come up?” Justin’s voice was calm, quiet, fast.

“No. But it had to. Because she wasn’t choking so bad after that. Still, it’s like now. You can see how she’s struggling to breathe. Her coloring is almost blue-”

“Did you call a pediatrician?”

“No, of course not. I called you. I want you.”

“Win, come on, you know I don’t have any specialty with babies-”

“You know trauma medicine like no one else. There’s no one I want but you.”

“Damnation, Winona. You don’t know what you’re asking me.”

That was such a strange thing for him to say that her head shot up. This moment wasn’t about her and him. It was about the baby…but somehow all her hurt disappeared at that instant. She didn’t know why he’d ducked on setting the marriage date, but love wasn’t the problem. She saw the way he looked at her. His dark hair was still gleaming with melted snow, his cheeks rubbed red from the wind, but his eyes were soft and haunted with love, fastened on hers for one long lonesome second-before he returned all his attention to Angel.

He’d already stolen the baby from her arms, already moved over to the crib, where he had a flat surface to lay Angel down. Gentle fingers were firmly, swiftly, pulling off the baby’s clothes, assessing her, studying, murmuring to her.

“What do you mean, I don’t know what I’m asking you?” she asked quietly.

“I can’t risk anything happening to Angel. Not her. I can’t, Winona, dammit. I mean it. I don’t do trauma medicine anymore.”

It was confoundedly bewildering. She heard his words, but they didn’t make any sense. He’d already competently, calmly, taken on Angel.

And the minute he’d walked in the door, Winona had felt herself stop panicking. Well, almost. Her head was still screaming, her knees still shaking, her hands slicker than slides. Because she’d never been the kind of person to panic in a crisis, she wasn’t prepared to deal with herself when the symptoms hit so hard. For Pete’s sake, it was her job to handle people in a crisis and she did it darn well.

But this was about a baby.

Her baby.

And it just wasn’t the same.

Still, once Justin was there-no matter what the blasted man said-everything eased. Not her worry that Angel was in trouble. But if anyone could save a baby, Justin could. If anyone could help Angel, Justin would find a way to do it. If she trusted anyone in the entire universe-and there weren’t many on that list, never had been for Winona-she trusted Justin.

Quieter than a whisper, he said, “Put on the overhead. Bring the black bag over here for me and open it, would you? And then get me a straw from the kitchen. Quick, okay?”

There was no panic in his voice, nothing to make her worry, yet she instinctively understood to put on the spurs. She returned quickly with the items.

“You know what’s wrong, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s the whale.”

“Huh?”

“The stuffed animal. The minute I laid her in the crib-there had to be a reason for the symptoms, obviously? So I looked, and I saw the hint of loose stitches on the whale, the little fuzz of stuffing coming out. I’m guessing the baby put some in her mouth. And I’ll bet that’s where you were patting her-” He motioned to the carpet to her left “-because she spit some out on the carpet there.”

“Oh, my God. Do you think she swallowed some? Is that why she’s having trouble breathing? And could it be poisonous? Could-”

“Win.”

“What?”

“I need you to listen.”

She gulped in a breath. “I’m listening.”

“I can’t make this pretty. There’s still some in her throat. That’s exactly what’s clogging her air passage and why she’s having trouble breathing. It has to come out. Winona?”

“What?”

“I love you. And I promise-I promise, Win-she’ll be okay. But this isn’t going to be any fun to look at, so I just want you to go in the other room and sit down.”

She wasn’t about to go anywhere-although she did take a couple of seconds to grab the whale and hurl it into the trash before coming back to his side. He kept talking, using a low, easy voice to soothe the baby, but she was the one he was communicating to, warning her that he might have to do a tracheotomy, cut the baby’s throat, if he wasn’t able to suck the debris with a straw. One way or another it had to come out, and now, and the baby wasn’t going to like anything about this, but there was nothing else he could do.

It was an odd sensation, under the circumstances, to be more afraid for Justin than for the baby. But she kept watching him, with her eyes-with her heart. And whether it made logical sense or not, she understood that something was at stake for Justin-something more than the baby, something more than he’d known how to tell her.

And he was right. Nothing about the procedures he tried was pretty, but it was only a few minutes later when the baby suddenly choked and gagged and furiously coughed. And then it was done. Justin eased the little one to his shoulder, patting, whispering, soothing, looking at Winona with wet eyes.

“You tell our daughter never to scare me like that again,” he said.

Winona wanted her arms around Angel, but deliberately let Justin keep holding her. She did the running, changing the sheets, throwing out everything that had been in the crib earlier in case the stuffing could have contaminated anything else. By the time the sheets were clean and the light turned off, it was past midnight; Justin had redressed the baby in a warm sleeper, and Angel was hard-core snoozing. He laid her in the crib, but both felt the same reluctance to leave her. They both stood there, watching.

Fifteen minutes later they were both still standing, weaving-tired, still watching the baby, even though Justin had said three times that there was really no longer any reason to worry.

“And she’s sleeping like a log,” Winona agreed. “Come on, this is silly. It’s time for both of us to lie down ourselves and get some sleep.”

“You go. I’ll watch for just a little while longer.”

“No, you.”

“No, you.”

At two in the morning, Winona woke up in the rocking chair next to the baby’s crib…and immediately saw Justin next to her in the second rocking chair she’d carted in earlier. His neck looked as cramped as hers felt, his face as tired and drawn as hers must look.

Her mouth softly tipped into a smile, looking at him. He loved her. And he loved Angel. Whatever had been wrong with him earlier in the week, Winona knew positively what the truth was now.

His eyelashes shot up, as if sensing that she was awake and studying him. Just as swiftly, he jerked to his feet and immediately bent over the baby, assessing Angel’s happy, little breathy snores, before he could relax and plunk back down in the rocker again.

He rubbed a weary hand over his face. “She really is okay, Winona. This is nuts. We both need to get some serious sleep.”

“I know,” she agreed, but she didn’t move any more than he did. In the dark room, she kept seeing shadows and silhouettes, until the thoughts chasing around her mind finally took shape. “With all this trauma going on, I never had a chance to tell you, Justin. There’s no reason that you have to marry me anymore.”

“What?”

“I found out who Angel’s mother is.”

He swallowed, then stood up from the rocking chair and simply took her hand. In the dark, silent living room, he wrapped a throw around her shoulders and then hunkered down next to her on the couch. “Okay. Now tell me the whole story.”

“She was at the Texas Cattleman’s Club ball. One of the guests. Herb Newton’s wife, Alicia. Herb was on sabbatical in the Far East. She was pregnant last year, but then about the time the baby was supposed to be born, she told her neighbors and family that the child was stillborn, that she’d lost it. She had a midwife instead of going to the hospital. The midwife backed up what she said. Herb wasn’t part of the birth process. She told him the same thing, that the baby had died.”

“But I take it that you found out that she lied?”

Winona nodded. “Yes. The midwife took the baby for the first couple of months. The midwife was caught in the middle of the story, wanting to help Alicia, but not knowing what to do. The problem was that Herb was physically abusive. He didn’t stop knocking Alicia around during the pregnancy, which made her afraid that he’d hurt the baby as well. In fact, she was positive he’d hurt the baby. So she asked the midwife to put Angel on my doorstep.”

“God.” His voice communicated a wealth of emotion. The fingertips brushing back her hair communicated even more. Her pulse bucked. With love and hope. But there were still things she needed to say.

“Alicia was just one of the leads I was tracking down. But when I caught up with her this afternoon, it all came out. It’s not going to be simple, Justin, as far as Angel’s future.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s afraid Herb will kill her if he finds out the baby is alive. She doesn’t want the child. At all. It’s going to be all she can do for a long time to get herself a divorce, get out of that relationship and start a life over again. But if Herb finds out the child is alive, she’s also afraid that he’ll demand custody-and because he’s the blood father, she’s afraid that he could both get it and force Alicia to live with him again-either that or risk him hurting the child.”

“What a mess,” Justin said quietly.

“Yeah. And that’s the point-that it can’t be solved legally, at least not for a while. If Alicia gets what she wants, she’s going to give the child up for adoption, specifically to me. Or to us.” She met his eyes. “But the real point is-there’s no reason for you to marry me, just to enable me to foster or adopt Angel. We know the child’s situation now. It’s going to take a while to fight this out in the courts. But no marriage is going to help or hurt my keeping Angel. The real legal problems are between Alicia and her husband.”

“Win, I wasn’t marrying you for Angel’s sake.”

“I didn’t think you were, either. But you sure ducked out when it came down to setting a marriage date-as if you really weren’t that serious. You hurt me, Doc.”

The lines in his face all tensed with anxiety. “That was never what I wanted to happen. Never. And I always wanted to marry you, Win, for years. From the first time I saw you, and you were twelve and kicking every boy in the shins who dared to say ‘hi’ to you. God. You were so stubborn. So mean. So full of courage-”

“Quit complimenting me, you turkey, and tell me why you hurt me.”

“I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to.”

“Justin-that isn’t good enough.”

Silence fell between them, raw and tense. He looked away, then down, then straight into her eyes. “It was about suddenly realizing…that maybe I wasn’t the man you thought I was.”

She laid her hand on top of his, her left hand, so he could see the engagement ring shining softly in the shadows. And then she clipped their fingers together, tight, so he had something to hold on to.

“I lost so many patients in Bosnia. In trauma medicine, you lose patients sometimes. That’s how it is. Always. A fight, a war, against death. Emergency rooms are messy, imperfect places, where sometimes you only have a split second to make a life-or-death decision. It’s impossible. But…Win, I swear that I believed I was good at it.”

She clutched his hand tighter.

“But there was no medicine over there. Sometimes no electricity. No light, no water, no facilities, no drugs. You’d get patients that should have been saved. Men who never had to die. Children in terrible pain. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing.”

If she could have bled for him, she would have. For so long, she’d known there was a reason for that wounded loneliness in his eyes. The emotion that didn’t show. The way he fooled people about the kind of man he was. And she’d known he had secrets, because everyone did. But she didn’t know it’d break her heart to hear his pain.

“I thought I was a stronger man. But I came home from Bosnia and I got the shakes at the idea of seeing another patient die. So I switched medical fields. I see pain, but it’s almost always something I can do something about. And no one’s died on me. I thought the change was a good choice, but on the inside, it’s just been sitting in here-” he thumbed his chest “-that I let myself down. Let others down. I wasn’t the man I wanted to be. The man I thought I once was.”

“Damn you, Doc.” So much for holding hands. She reached for him. “You’re so stupid. And I love you so much.” She framed his face, tight, so that she could smack a kiss on him. A hard, mean, possessive kiss, not a sweet one. Yet somehow so much love poured into that kiss that she felt tears bunching in her eyes like salty thunder clouds. “You’re ten times any ordinary man, you cretin. Did you think you could do everything?”

“No. But…I just didn’t realize how much the whole thing had weighed on my conscience. Until we started talking marriage, and we made love, and every dream I had about you and me was finally coming together. And then it just came to me, that I hadn’t faced it…being a coward.”

“That’s how much you know. Now write it down somewhere so you get it straight. I wouldn’t love a coward. Not like I love you. Heart and soul. Sinker and clinker.”

She could see in his eyes, in the way he kissed her back, that it was going to be all right. But he still seemed to need to get more out. “I just wasn’t sure…if you knew me. You didn’t know I’d had that failure. And I was afraid that maybe I was fooling you. And me. That I couldn’t promise you I was the man you needed me to be.”

“You saved our baby tonight, Doc. Where’s the failure? You were afraid. But you still stepped up. You’re the best doctor I know. But way, way more than that…you’re the best man.” Again she kissed him, but this time softly. Tenderly. Wanting to show him her heart stripped bare. “I love you, Justin.”

“Aw, Win. I love you back. So much. That’s why I had such a hard time getting past this. Because I wanted the right to love you for a lifetime.”

“We’ve been through a trial by fire, haven’t we? But from now on…your fears are my fears. Your worries, my worries.”

“And your love…my love,” he said fiercely, and took her in his arms, offering a kiss flavored with all the love and promises they brought each other.