Daddy By Choice

Heckfire, he was a freaking basket case here, he thought as he eased his aching body into the chair behind his cluttered desk, tossed his glasses on top of the latest Physician’s Drug Reference and slumped back against the cool leather upholstery.

God only knew how much he wanted to help her, he thought, letting his head fall back. Anything he had that she needed, it was hers. If she wanted money, he’d beggar himself. If she needed a place to stay, he’d buy her a frigging mansion. Transportation? No sweat. A call to his friendly BMW dealer and the keys to a new Beemer would be in her hands within the hour.

With a long-drawn-out groan that sounded depressingly like a whimper, he raked both hands through his hair, then balled them into fists on the arms of his chair. Damn, but this was pure misery. As rough as it was on him, however, it had to be about a million times worse for her.

He’d known right off she had a healthy amount of grit. It had been there in the rigid angle of her head when she’d looked at him, and in the straight line of her back as she’d perched there on the edge of the table, a lady from the top of her shiny head to the toes of those city-lady shoes.

Asking for help from a man she’d sworn to hate had cost her. A woman with her spirit and class, ready to humble herself.

Because she loved the child she carried. Loved it as she’d loved their daughter.

Damn, but he admired her. Flat out respected the hell out of her. It was clear as glass she wanted this baby about as much as he figured he wanted her to have it.

Letting his shoulders slump, he dropped his hands and willed himself past the pain. Concentrate on what you know, he reminded himself. Diagnostic tests and procedures first, then a carefully considered, strictly monitored regimen of care. His mind clicked through the familiar routine, weighed pros and cons of radical new theories, considered options, then roughed out a plan.

Preliminary decisions made, the hard angry knot beneath his breastbone loosened. When he figured he had enough control to keep his voice steady, he picked up the phone and punched out Boyd’s private number.

“MacAuley, here, and you have two seconds to state your business before I’m outta here.”

Luke grinned. Poor guy sounded so harried he almost hated to add to his stress level. “Jarrod here, and I can state it in one. Cancel the surgery.”

“The hell you say!” The bellow in his ear had him flinching.

“You heard me.”

“Give me one decent reason.”

He could give the guy a dozen. About how he still woke up in the middle of the night with his heart pounding and Maddy’s small white face shimmering in his head. About how he hated the selfish ass he’d been at eighteen. About how he’d sworn to become a better man. But all those decent reasons came down to one.

“I promised a lady a miracle, and I intend to do my damnedest to give it to her,” he said quietly before hanging up.

Chapter 3

“Is this your first?” Esther asked as she set out instruments.

Madelyn pressed her hand to the gaping front of the paper gown and wondered how a woman was supposed to maintain her poise with her bare feet dangling two feet above the floor. “No, my second. But there are complications, and it’s possible I’ll deliver too early.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Foster. Dr. Jarrod will take good care of you.” The nurse covered the instruments before adding with a grin, “He might look like he just ambled out of a Louis L’Amour novel, and sometimes he can be a little abrupt when he’s worn-out, but he’s the best doctor I’ve ever known—and I’ve known plenty.”

Madelyn returned Esther’s smile with one of her own. In her heightened state of nervous tension, her lips felt numb—and just a little shaky. “Thanks, I—”

A sharp rap on the door had her jerking her head toward the sound. A split second later the door opened and Luke walked in. It was still there, that indefinable something that always made her think of wind racing across a barren mesa. Her lungs seemed suddenly starved for oxygen. Jet lag, she told herself firmly. Combined with stress.

“Ready for me, ladies?” he asked, his gaze sliding past her to his nurse.

“Ready, Doctor,” Esther replied as she snapped on the lamp attached to a long gooseneck.

Suddenly nervous, Madelyn shivered, drawing another quick gaze from those intense blue eyes.

“Cold?”

“More like apprehensive.” She licked dry lips and tried to ignore the ugly stirrups that Esther had just clicked into an upright position.

His expression was surprisingly sympathetic. “Took me a bad fall once and spent a little time hooked up in traction. Darn near made me crazy dangling there with my legs halfway to the ceiling.”

He slipped his hand into the glove Esther held for him. “You ever been in the Pacific Northwest before?” he asked.

“No.” Madelyn’s reply came out thin, and she cleared her throat. “It’s very…uh, lush. It seems like we flew over acres and acres of trees. And then, of course, there are all those rivers. Well, two here in the city, according to the guidebook I read on the plane. The Willamette and the Columbia. It was pretty hazy, so I didn’t really get a good look, though.” She realized she was babbling and clamped her mouth shut.

“Darn cold, too, for someone born and reared in desert country.” He plunged his other hand into the matching glove, then flexed his long fingers. “Took me a couple of years before I stopped feeling like a Popsicle six months out of every year. Esther still knits me sweaters for Christmas. Soft as a baby’s bottom they are. And as pretty as they are soft. Had me three offers to buy the last one right off my back last year.”

Esther did her best not to preen. “You keep on gorging yourself on that junk food and I’m gonna have to buy another skein for this year,” she muttered as she uncovered the instruments.

Tensing, Madelyn fought the urge to scramble down from the table and hightail it all the way back to her hotel. A bubble of laughter caught in her throat as she pictured the unflappable always ladylike Mrs. Madelyn Smith Foster racing through an Oregon drizzle in her paper dress.

“Lie back, please,” Luke said, his tone as impersonal as Doc’s when he was performing a similar exam.

Paper rustled as she swung her legs to the table. His arm supported her as she lay down, his strength as intimidating as it was reassuring. “Comfortable?” he asked, sliding his arm free.

Her skin tingled from the brief pressure of his hard muscles. She put it down to heightened nerves. “Fine, thank you.”

Her tummy made a nice little mound, and she concentrated on studying that sweet bulge. Beneath the gown, she was naked. As naked as the first time they’d made love.

“I can’t do this,” she said, her voice catching. “I thought I could but—”

“Maddy, it’s all right,” he said, his voice soothing. “We can reschedule, give you some time.”

Esther was right, Madelyn thought. Even garbed in the starched white coat, with a stethoscope casually looped around his neck and his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, he was every inch a man of the Old West. Like a working cowboy, he had skin permanently darkened from years of working cattle and mending fences under the hot sun, his temples scored by squint lines and an implacable strength etched into the weathered lines of his face.

When he’d competed, he’d worn a white straw Stetson, pulled low and tight against the whiplash snap of his head when the bronc twisted and whirled and bucked. One of the good guys, she’d thought then. A hero.

“Do you still ride?” she asked before she realized how silly that must sound. But she didn’t care, not when panic was licking at her again.

“Not much anymore, although I still stable a couple of horses on a little place near Hillsboro. Two pretty ladies, both palominos.” He hooked one foot around a stool on wheels and pulled it closer. “A couple of interns from the hospital exercise them for me a couple times a week,” he said as he lowered himself with a surprising stiffness onto the padded black seat. She smelled him then, wind, sky, sun and a hint of soap.

“Molly—she’s the mom—is part Arab and real high-strung. Last time I paid her a visit, she got it into her head I didn’t love her anymore and took a chunk outta my shoulder.” He shook his head, his gaze flicking to the nurse, who looked surprisingly relaxed. “How many stitches did I have?”

“Fourteen, and you hollered bloody murder the whole time.”

“Well, heckfire, woman. You were using a railroad spike, instead of a needle. And jammin’ it in real good, too.”

Esther rolled her eyes before meshing her gaze with Madelyn’s. Humor gleamed in the dark depths, and her expression dripped feminine disdain. “Pathetic the way a grown man turns to jelly the instant he feels the slightest prick of pain, isn’t it?”

Madelyn felt a surge of gratitude toward the empathetic nurse. And Luke, too, she realized. Never in a million years would she have credited him with the kind of sensitivity he’d just displayed. For the first time since she’d locked her rental car and walked through the door of Luke’s office she felt herself relaxing.

“It’s genetically linked,” she replied, falling in with what was obviously a familiar routine. “Like the utter inability to ask directions or find anything remotely smaller than a ’57 Chevy in a bureau drawer.”

Luke snorted, but his eyes held a lazy amusement, and the fine web of lines fanning the corners deepened. “Hey, I’m the boss around here, remember? Which means I get to make the rules. And rule number one is no male bashing allowed.”

“It’s not bashing if it’s the truth,” Esther said, sharing a smug look with Madelyn. “Right, Mrs. Foster?”

Madelyn nodded solemnly. “Absolutely.”

Luke emitted a drawn-out sigh. “I can tell when I’m outnumbered.” He offered Madelyn a crooked smile. “So, you want to get this exam thing over with, or should I have Dorie reschedule you for tomorrow?”

Madelyn blinked. “Do you have office hours on Saturday?”

“Not usually, but we’ve been known to make an exception in special cases.” He glanced Esther’s way. “What time is Walter Junior’s game tomorrow?”

“It’s been changed to Sunday at two.”

He frowned. “Should I have known that?”

“Dorie put it on your calendar,” Esther said with a smile. “Tomorrow I can come in any time before noon.”

Madelyn was enormously touched. Maybe big cities weren’t as impersonal as folks back home claimed. “You’d do that for me?”

Luke’s expression was suddenly dead serious. “Especially for you, Maddy.”

“Because you think you owe me?”

“Because I know I owe you,” he corrected, his voice thick.

Then it was there in her head, the excruciating pain that went on and on, the race to the hospital, screaming his name as the contractions ripped through her. She swallowed hard, turned her face away.

“Esther, can you give us a minute?” he asked quietly.

“Of course.” The nurse offered Madelyn another reassuring smile before she left, closing the door behind her with a soft click that seemed unnaturally loud to Madelyn’s ears.

“This was a mistake,” she said through a constricted throat when they were alone. “It seemed perfectly logical when Doc and I were discussing it, but now…” She drew in a breath before sitting up. “Obviously there are a few unresolved issues from that particular period of my life that escaped my attention.”

He ran his thumb over the thin scar riding the edge of his jaw. A tussle with a barbed-wire fence when he’d been five, he’d told her once when she’d traced it with her fingertip. “Guess I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, most of them deserved, but I can’t ever remember being called an ‘unresolved issue’ before.”

His dry tone charmed her into a shaky laugh. “Sorry, that’s the guidance counselor in me talking.”

He nodded. “Professional jargon. Makes it easier to handle the scary stuff.”

His insightfulness surprised her. “Exactly.”

“If it would help to take a swing at me, go ahead.”

“I don’t want to hit you, Luke,” she said with a large measure of surprise. “Although I admit there was a time when I wanted to empty my daddy’s shotgun in…well, places best not discussed in polite company.”

That hard mouth softened into a rueful grin. “I can understand that, and I surely do appreciate your restraint.” Grin fading, he scooted the stool closer. “I’ll do everything I can to make this easier for you, Madelyn, but you have to give me some guidance here. Which, considerin’ that’s your profession and all, should be a dead-bang cinch.”

“That’s just the trouble,” she said, her voice strident. “I don’t know how to handle this. Ever since I found out about the baby, I’ve been an emotional basket case.”

He nodded, serious as a judge. “Those baby-nurturing hormones can be a real pain sometimes.”

She gurgled a laugh, then bit her lip, fighting an overwhelming urge to cry. “It’s so…frustrating,” she muttered as a tear drizzled down her cheek. “See what I mean?” she added, dashing it away.

Smiling, he captured her hand in his. “I want to help you. I think I can, but first I have to know exactly what kind of problems we have ahead of us.”

“There is no us, Luke. There never was.”

“I was speaking medically, not personally.” He hesitated, then said gently, “I’m not asking you to forgive me. Or even to like me, though that would make things easier. But I am asking you to trust me professionally.”

She felt a wave of relief. A professional relationship was exactly what she wanted. All she wanted.

“I hope you warm up that…that thing,” she said, her gaze going to the shining speculum on the tray. “Otherwise, I swear I will shoot you.”

His eyes crinkled. “I’ll remember that,” he said before releasing her hand and scooting to the door to call Esther in again.

Forty minutes later Madelyn was dressed and waiting in Luke’s oak-paneled office while he finished with another patient.

Seated stiffly in one of two chairs by the desk, her hands folded in what was left of her lap and her mouth dry, she glanced around, distracting herself by absorbing the sights and smells of Luke’s private domain.

Like the rest of the office, it was furnished in Southwestern pastels. The chairs for visitors were well padded and covered in soothing shades of green and beige. His own chair was upholstered in brown leather that looked butter soft and showed definite signs of wear.

A Navajo blanket of excellent quality covered part of one wall, and a signed lithograph of the desert at dawn hung behind the desk. As far as she could see the only visible sign of his rodeoing days was a small bronze statue of a wild-eyed stallion trying to unseat its rider, used as a paperweight on the desk.

Both her charts were there, as well, sitting squarely in the middle of the blotter. Though she knew it was inappropriate, she was sorely tempted to take a quick peek at the notes Luke had jotted down in his left-handed scrawl. Only the knowledge that she would feel horrendously embarrassed if he caught her kept her hands in her lap.

Though by necessity intimate, the examination itself had been virtually painless. As he’d worked, he and Esther had ragged each other about a dispute over a called third strike during her son’s last Little League game.

By the time they’d finished insulting each other, the exam had been finished and Luke was helping Madelyn to sit up. Before she could launch into the anxious questions tumbling in her mind, he’d stripped off his gloves and been on his way out.

“We’ll talk in my office,” he’d told her with a noncommittal smile before disappearing.

So here she was, fully dressed again in her new maternity power suit, so uptight she was surprised she didn’t creak when she moved. Certainly she couldn’t sit still, she realized as she got up from the chair and went over to inspect the snapshots and children’s artwork pinned to a large bulletin board opposite the desk. Most of the drawings were addressed to “Uncle Luke,” the letters printed laboriously in crayon or pencil. Several, however, had obviously been done by an older child and showed a definite flair.

One in particular caught her eye. It was of a cowboy astride a yellow horse, his gloved hands crossed over the pommel, his hat pushed to the back of his head, the way Luke used to wear his when he was feeling playful. At eighteen, he’d been breathtakingly earthy, the epitome of untamed masculinity to a naive girl raised on cowboy lore.

“That was a Christmas present from my goddaughter.”

Startled, she whirled around. “She’s very talented.”

“I think so.” After closing the door, he crossed the room to stand next to her. She’d forgotten how tall he seemed when they stood side by side, how he filled up the room with restless energy even when he was standing still. She felt that same energy seeping into her now.

“That’s her there,” he said, indicating a glossy photo of a young girl perched in front of Luke on the saddle of a breathtakingly gorgeous palomino. About five or six, she had dark braids, big brown eyes and looked impossibly dainty snuggled against his broad chest.

“Her name’s Tory MacAuley,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “Her mom’s a kindergarten teacher and her dad’s a neurosurgeon at Port Gen.”

Madelyn forced herself to smile. “How old is she?”

“Five and three-quarters. A real proper lady already. Reminds me a little of you, actually.” His grin transformed his face, erasing years and strain. “She informed me a few weeks ago that all the boys in morning kindergarten were pigs.”

Madelyn laughed softly. “She’ll change her mind soon enough.”

“That’s a fact, though I wouldn’t care to be in her daddy’s shoes when it happens.” A look she couldn’t decipher crossed his face for an instant before he glanced toward the desk. “How about we have that talk I promised you?”

“Yes, fine.” Madelyn hurried to the chair she’d just left. Outside an ambulance wailed as it sped along the hospital access road, and rain pelted the twin windows. Luke snapped on the brass lamp, then waited until she’d seated herself before settling with surprising stiffness into his own chair.

“The baby’s a good size for twenty-three weeks with a good strong heartbeat. The two ultrasound photos Dr. Morrow included show a definite increase in the size of the fibroid, which is a concern. But your blood pressure is fine and from what I’ve seen, you’re in excellent health. Just to be on the safe side, though, I’d like to have Esther draw some blood and we’ll set up an appointment to do another ultrasound. After that, I’ll have a better idea—”

The door flew open, startling them both. “Sorry to interrupt, Doctor,” the redheaded receptionist exclaimed as she rushed in. “We just got a call from the ER. Marlene Gregory was hit by a car as she was crossing Powell Street, and the baby’s in trouble. The trauma surgeon said he’d meet you in the OR stat.”

Luke was already on his feet by the time the receptionist ran out of air. “I’m sorry, Maddy, I have to go.”

“Of course,” she said, rising. “I’ll wait.”

He hesitated, then came around the desk. “Look, I don’t know how long I’ll be. Where are you staying? I’ll call you when I’m done, and we can set a time to meet.”

“I’m at the Mallory Hotel downtown. But I don’t mind waiting. Really.”

“Go back there, order yourself a blood-rare steak with all the trimmings for lunch and then take a nice long nap.”

“But—”

“Doctor’s orders, Mrs. Foster.” He gave her a quick—and impersonal—smile before hurrying out.

Chapter 4

Built in the early twenties on a hill overlooking Portland’s central district, the Mallory Hotel retained all the elegance of an earlier more gracious era. In the lobby glittering crystal dripped from a magnificent chandelier while classical music soothed tempers and set the mood.

Madelyn’s room was on the fourth floor. Discreet signs directed Luke to the right and down a long dogleg. Thick green carpet splashed with pink and purple roses muffled the sounds of his boots as he checked the shiny brass numbers affixed to the old-fashioned doors. Her room was the second from the end and looked out toward the business district wedged between two mighty rivers.

The Willamette and the Columbia.

He chuckled to himself as he recalled her nervous travelogue in his office. That first night in Texas she’d chattered a mile a minute all the way to the motel, her breath coming out in cute little bursts. And when she hadn’t been chattering like a magpie, she’d been gnawing on that curvy little bottom lip. A classic response to anxiety. Him, he tended to dive a little deeper into that private place inside no one had ever seen. He knew the stony silence made him seem grumpy and maybe a bit remote, but anything was safer than having his insecurities hanging out naked for the whole damn world to kick.

His gut tightened as he lifted a hand and knocked. While he waited, he worked at blocking out the screaming ache in his spine. Just as he lifted his hand to knock again, the door swung open. It took him a moment to connect the rumpled sleepy-eyed angel in the purple robe with the sophisticated woman he’d left almost six hours ago in his office.

“Luke! I thought you were going to call.” Her voice had the throaty quality of someone who’d been asleep only seconds before.

“I thought about it,” he admitted, trying his damnedest not to notice the tendrils of pale hair that had slipped free of the classy twist to frame her face, but even a man with promises to keep could only stretch professional detachment so far. “But then I, uh, thought about how long it’d been since breakfast and I figured we could talk over dinner.”

She blinked, then frowned. Damned if she wasn’t adorable, standing there with bare feet and her mouth pursed in the closest thing to a kissin’ invitation he’d ever hoped to see on a pretty woman. Hell had to be a lot like this, he decided. Condemned to want the one thing you can never have, no matter how many years of penance you’ve paid.

“What time is it?” she asked, peering up at him distractedly.

“Goin’ on six.”

Her eyes flew wide. “Gracious, I slept four hours.”

“As your doctor, I have to say I’m mighty pleased to hear it. But as a man who’s got an empty space the size of Crater Lake in his belly, I’m wondering how long it’ll take you to decide on dinner.”

Those sexy green eyes darted a quick look at his midsection. He nearly sucked in his gut, before he caught himself. He was in some fairly major trouble here, he realized. Wantin’ to show off for the lady like the conceited fool he’d been at eighteen. Block it out, Jarrod, he told himself firmly. The lady was his patient. Only his patient.

“Oh, right, dinner, then conversation,” she said, stepping back. “Please come in while I get myself together.” She turned away, leaving him to close the door.

“How’s Mrs. Gregory?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder. No longer sleepy, her eyes were dark with what looked like genuine concern. He liked that about her, he decided, the fact that she could step outside her own anxiety to care about a woman she’d never met. He liked it a lot.

“She’s holding her own,” he told her with a smile. “The next twenty-four hours are crucial.”

“But she has a chance?”

“She has a chance.”

Relief bled into her eyes, but there were still shadows. Bad memories, he thought, the kind he’d never been able to shuck for all his trying. “And…and the baby?”

“A little boy, four pounds, six ounces. He has a chance, too.” He hoped she didn’t ask him how good a chance.

“Was the daddy…where was the little boy’s daddy?”

“Last word I got he was on his way home from a business trip to L.A.” He lifted a hand to scrub some of the tiredness from his face. The past two days were starting to catch up with him. “Turns out the elderly man who hit her had a heart attack. His chances ran out on Powell Street.”