lips move, he tried to process what was happening.
Becca Flannigan looked like the girl next door with her silky brown hair and piercing blue eyes with golden flecks and a navy circle around the iris. They were the kind of eyes that tempted a guy to stare a little too long. That’s what had happened the night he’d met her, when her sister had been screaming at her, telling her to leave the hospital, blaming Becca for her son’s accident, even though the kid had admitted he’d been drag racing. As he was on his way out after interviewing for the ER job, he’d witnessed Becca trying to ask a question about her nephew’s condition, and then he’d watched the boy’s mother tear into her. He probably shouldn’t have—he should’ve left well enough alone and gone back to his hotel—but as Becca had been walking away, he’d called her back and answered her question.
She’d looked so fragile that night, some protective instinct had sprung to life. He’d wanted to help her, set her mind at ease.
Even now she stirred that same visceral reaction that had previously attracted Nick. And when he’d walked into Bentleys across from the hospital to get some dinner before going back to his hotel and saw her sitting there, she’d been a ray of sunshine on his gray horizon of plans.
And he realized Becca had been talking, but he hadn’t heard a single word she’d said—except for pregnant and yes, we absolutely need to talk.
In the span of five minutes his entire world had upended. He couldn’t be a father. Well, yeah, he could be, but they’d used a condom. How had this happened?
He raked a hand through his hair as unsavory words galloped through his mind. What if this wasn’t his baby? What proof did he have other than one night with her around the time of conception? How well did he know this woman? He didn’t, beyond the fact that he’d been mesmerized by her that lone night three months ago.
He set his jaw to ensure his thoughts didn’t become words and escape into the ether.
Instead, he said, “Would you like to tell me how this happened?”
Becca frowned at him as if he was an idiot, and he realized how that must’ve sounded. Idiotic.
“Never mind,” he amended. “I’m—”
Something clattered on the other side of the curtains—a dropped supply tray, maybe, or something else metallic and noisy. Somewhere in the distance, a child cried, “I want my mommy.” He could hear one of the nurses in the adjacent area conversing with a patient as if she were standing next to him talking in his ear.
Suddenly, everything seemed amplified. They couldn’t talk about this here. Nick trained his eyes on the patient chart tablet for a long moment, trying to gather his thoughts—looking for something, anything, that might right this rapidly sinking ship. Her emergency contact was her friend Kate, or at least he assumed it was Kate. Kate Thayer, the chart read, friend. No husband or boyfriend or significant other. Becca had named her parents as next of kin. Which completely eliminated the possibility that she’d gotten married since the last time—the only time—he’d seen her. But wait—he scrolled back up to the top of her chart to check. Yes, marital status was listed as single.
He looked back at Becca.
She was the last person he’d dreamed he’d run into today.
He’d wanted to see her again. In fact, he’d thought about her often since that night. When he’d finally accepted the job, he’d planned on trying to look her up. How many Beccas could there be in Celebration, Texas? But he hadn’t had much spare time lately. Between wrapping up his job in San Antonio and moving to Celebration, he’d been slammed. He’d been in town only five days. His possessions were still in boxes stacked inside his apartment because he’d hit the ground running since moving.
And here they were. Reunited.
And she was three months pregnant. He didn’t need a calculator to do that math.
“When did you get back into town?” she asked.
Her question answered something that had been lurking in the back of his mind. Had she come here looking for him?
Of course she hadn’t. It said right on her chart that food poisoning had brought her into the emergency room.
Then another question elbowed its way into the forefront of his mind: When had she planned on telling him? Was it even part of her plan? If he hadn’t changed his mind and accepted the job, would he have even known about the pregnancy?
“I’ve been here less than a week.”
“I see.” He glimpsed a note of sadness in her eyes. Or maybe she was simply mirroring his own confusion back at him.
She looked small and fragile lying there. Despite everything—the bombshell, the uncertainty—he still had the damnedest urge to gather her in his arms and protect her.
Wasn’t that how they’d gotten into this situation in the first place?
With that thought firmly in mind, he reminded himself that he was at work. In this moment he was her attending physician. Thoughts like that were off-limits. She was off-limits.
“Sally will be here in a moment to check your vitals. When everything checks out, you can go home. You’ll want to follow up with your obstetrician, and, of course, if you start feeling ill, call your doctor. Or come back to the emergency room. If it’s an emergency.”
She was quiet while he updated her chart.
When he’d finished, essentially signing off as her doctor, he said, “When are you available?”
“Excuse me?”
“We need to talk.”
She shrugged, then lowered her voice. “Listen, I’m not going to try to force you into anything you don’t want to do.”
“Let’s not talk about this here.”
Even though he hadn’t meant to offend her, and he wasn’t putting her off—he was on the clock, and they needed privacy—she looked offended.
“When are you available?” he repeated.
“I don’t know. I guess, whenever I feel stronger.”
Really, there was no sense in delaying.
“How about tomorrow?” he said.
Thirty minutes later, Becca was in Kate’s car on her way home. It was cold outside on this mid-November evening and she felt the chill down to her bones. It amplified how weak and vulnerable she felt.
Despite how she’d wanted to reconnect with Nick, how she’d tried to find him right after she’d found out that she was pregnant, she hadn’t been prepared for the reunion to happen this way.
Even though he deserved to know the truth, she’d wanted the disclosure to be on her terms. The vulnerable side of her wished she was still safe in her cocoon, the only one who knew about the baby. No one to please. No one to convince that this child was wanted and dear and loved—even if he or she was a surprise. She had just come to terms with the situation herself. Now things had suddenly gotten complicated again.
Becca stared out the passenger-side window into the inky sky. The trees were beginning to shed their leaves and stood stark and bare in the chill night.
How symbolic, she thought. Exposed. Stripped down to the naked branches with nothing to hide what lay beneath. Somewhere from deep inside, a voice reminded her that some of these trees had lined Celebration’s Main Street for centuries. They’d endured winters and storms and climate changes to see another season.
This was simply a new season of her life.
Nick was coming over tomorrow to talk. While she understood that he needed time to digest