The Heart Doctor and the Baby (15 page)

“René, honey, I can't do this. I can't start over. It's not that I don't care for you. I do. You have no idea. But I never would have consented to your deal if I thought it would turn out like this.”

She hung her head, unable to bear looking at his reddening face and pleading eyes. She'd known the truth and insisted on trying to change it; how foolish of her to think three little words could make everything different. “Do you think I wanted this?”

He shook his head. “It took us both by surprise.”

“I know,” she mumbled.

Dead silence sucked the life out of the room.

“I've got to think things over,” he said, grazing fingers over his hair. He skimmed her cheek with a kiss, gave her a lightning-quick hug, then dashed out her door.

A moment later she realized he hadn't even bothered to get in his car, but had taken off on foot.

 

Panic tore into Jon. The pavement burned through his running shoes. When he'd taken up long-distance running after his messy divorce, little did he know how handy it would come in.

So that's what he'd turned into, a man who ran from a woman who loved him and the inevitable commitment. An SOB who didn't plan to stick around for his son. Could a paltry journal make up for a missing father?

He scraped fingers over his head and increased the speed. He needed to burn, to sear, the guilt puncturing his resolve. Lacy would graduate next June. He'd leave for China the next week…except he still hadn't officially signed up for the trip and the deadline was quickly approaching.

Each tangy sea breath stung through his chest as he reached the shore. High tide. The waves lapped the sand in dependable rhythm, their fluorescent froth lingering as if to remind him what he'd left behind. A part of himself.

Come on, this wasn't in the plan. A beautiful woman asked him to donate some sperm and he'd agreed. How the hell shallow was he?

He glanced ahead. What were these people doing on the bike and jogging path? Couldn't they read the signs? A young couple pushed a stroller and moved to the side
when he said, “On your left,” as he passed. They smiled and waved at him, as if they were oblivious and happy.

Across the park lawn another couple, older compared to the first, pushed a double-wide stroller with twins, and the father shouldered a third child in some sort of backpack seat contraption. Why were they smiling?

The dark-haired woman's face morphed into René's. Ice invaded his chest and sent a chill down his spine. She'd be alone. Would she be smiling?

He thought of the devastated expression he'd left on her face just before he ran out her door.

He'd fallen in love with her, too. Damn it! He'd explained away every symptom over the past few months, and had convinced himself that the developing feelings were nothing more than midlife growing pains. A forty-two-year-old man gets propositioned—in an unconventional manner—by a gorgeous younger woman, and the giddy feelings that ensued were nothing more than flattery. That was the story he chose to stick to.

The easy conversations, the great meals, the stolen glances and secret thoughts had been figments of his imagination. His heightened sense of honor and duty to René were what any man in his situation would have done. The birth coaching? That was a bit overboard, but still, any other man in his place would have offered to do the same, wouldn't they? Did that equate love?

The constant thoughts about René had been another story. He'd conceded that he liked having her attention, her adulation, even if it had been a snow job to get what she wanted.

But that line of thinking never rang true about René, and he'd never allowed himself time to think things through in that regard. Besides, he knew firsthand she wasn't like that. And now, she'd told him she loved him.

Surely her profession of love was the product of postpartum blues and wonky hormones. When she came to her senses, she'd thank him for running off, leaving her to her original plan of single motherhood.

What was with the strollers today? He made a quick sidestep to avoid another one, an all-terrain stroller exactly like the one he'd given René. Just because it was a sunny October afternoon, did every family in Santa Barbara have to brandish their kids?

He made a U-turn and headed back on the grassy patch bordering the sidewalk. If he saw one more baby he'd yell.

I love you.
René's words repeated in his brain. She'd bared her soul and what did he do? He ran away. Literally.

He let roll a string of curses blue enough to make a soldier blush, and prodded the running pace.

She'd looked so vulnerable sitting on her couch. Her eyes shone with emotion when she'd said she loved him, and instead of returning the sentiments, he'd tried to talk her out of it. He'd used the pitiful excuse of his sabbatical, his new job, his daughters and his divorce, then dropped her on her head and left.

He didn't deserve René.

She'd be better off without him. How could a woman like René—giving, fun, compassionate, tender, smart, sexy as all hell—consider him to be a person to love?

He tripped on a crack, flung forward and shoulder rolled back to his feet, as if he'd been kicked in the backside. He stood still while gathering his composure and looked around suspiciously. What the hell was that about?

As he started to run again, Evan's innocent face appeared in his thoughts. He ran faster. How will he fare without a father in his life? A boulder of guilt landed in
his stomach, rolling toward his toes, but it didn't slow his pace. How could he run away from them? What kind of man was he?

He saw yet another happy family out for a stroll. This time the young mother looked like Lacy. Hadn't she begged to babysit for René, then elbowed him, and with a knowing look and lift of her brow communicated how cool she thought René was?
I wish you could find someone like her.
Well, damn it, he had! Could his daughters accept a stepmother and half brother?

His ex-wife had pounded the point home that he wasn't good enough to spend a lifetime with. That's what René would want, a lifetime; what if he let her down, too? No, she'd be far better off without him.

Everyone would be better off if he stayed alone, yet he ran so fast he expected to spontaneously combust.

Who was he kidding?

He didn't want to be alone any more than he thought René wanted to be a single mother. And after two years it was more than time to kick Cherie and her negative comments to the curb. He was better than that. He deserved more. He deserved René. And Evan.

Here was this fantastic woman, the mother of his child, telling him she loved him, and he had a shot at a sweet kind of happiness he'd forgotten existed. He'd been so busy being a recluse, he'd put the possibility out of his mind. Thanks to his miserable divorce, he'd buried his feelings so deeply, he didn't even recognize the signs as they appeared one by one until he'd fallen in love with René.

Hell, he'd been in love with her for months. He just hadn't recognized it for what it was. It had happened in that moment when he couldn't let her go through the birthing
classes alone. The moment he'd volunteered, he'd been hers. The same moment she'd said she'd fallen in love with him.

The contract stood in their way, and out of insecurity over his failed marriage, he'd let it. Used it, even.

Turns out, René loved him, too. That is, if she hadn't burned his picture in effigy since he ran out of her house—he glanced at his watch—a half hour ago. As if possible, he quickened his stride and thought his lungs might burst, but he deserved the pain. He'd hurt the woman he loved and he needed to get back to her before she changed her mind about him.

He needed to undo the hurt he'd caused. A jab of side-stitch pain felt like payback. He deserved several more, yet he smiled.

He loved her. Hell, yeah. He loved her, and couldn't wait to get to know his son!

The palm trees blurred past. His breath came in rhythmical spurts. Heading back to René's he'd never run with such purpose in his entire life.

 

René had come undone. She'd melted into a puddle of tears and cried until she thought she'd heave. It was all her fault. She'd been the one to come up with this idea of having a kid with no strings attached, but she hadn't bargained on Jon becoming everything she'd always wished for.

He'd been there for her: dependable, strong, funny at the most unpredictable moments, tender at others. He was a father through and through. The love for his daughters shimmered from his eyes whenever he spoke about them, which was often. It pained her to realize Evan would never know such love from his father. Could she make up for it? Would she be enough?

She'd tried to compose herself, washed her face, checked on her son who was still sleeping, fortunately, and made herself a cup of peppermint-and-chamomile tea. She needed something to help settle her stomach and calm her nerves before she next nursed Evan. It was so much harder to let down her milk when she was nervous or uptight.

Oddly, her crying jag had left her feeling a modicum of relief. If only it were permanent. Since sobbing, she'd attained a state of repose that felt a bit like levitating over hot coals, and she waited to fall into the fire as she sipped her tea.

Movement by the avocado tree caught her eye. It was Jon racing toward her porch. Her stomach took flight. She jumped up as he hammered on her door. She opened it and he blew in like the north wind, strong, brisk and with a biting scent.

Jon dug his fingers into her hair and angled her face toward his, then planted a firm kiss on her mouth. Just as quickly he broke free.

“Forgive me. Please forgive me,” he huffed.

He kissed her again, this time clutching her flush to his body. “I was such a jerk. No. I was a complete ass. How could I be so awful to you?” He nuzzled her neck and kissed her beneath her jaw. “Please don't hate me.” Another kiss, this one on her brow. “I love you. God, I love you.”

“Jon,” she said, barely a sound.

“Tell me you forgive me. Please.” He grazed her ear with another kiss, then whispered, “Please.”

She hesitated.
You love me?
Could she forget the heartbreak he'd put her through for the past two weeks, and the devastation he'd left in his wake when he'd run off after she'd told him she loved him? Had she heard him right? He loved her?

If he thought he could break into her house, kiss her up and make everything all better, just like that, he had another think coming.

But she couldn't deny how her heart nearly burst when she saw him run back to her. Relief greater than anything she'd ever known had coursed through her veins at the mere sight of him. Her lips found his neck and tasted the salt from his sheen. Why had she kissed him if she hated him? If she couldn't forgive him?

He'd come back to her, knowing full well that she loved him, professing his love in return. What more proof did she need?

“I forgive you,” she said, barely audible.

“You do? Fantastic.”

He hugged her as if she might disappear if he let go.

“I want the world to know who Evan's father is,” he said, waltzing her around the room. She was incapable of resisting. “I want to be there for him when he takes his first step, reads his first book, throws his first baseball, when he kisses his first girl. I want to see it all, watch him grow, hear his voice change, send him off to college and then…maybe you'll come with me to China?”

She laughed at his audacity.

“You do forgive me, don't you?”

His intense brown eyes blasted into hers; she could hardly stand to look at them. They made her knees get wobbly and her mind fog up. She was angry as blazes at him, remember? Forgiveness was one thing, but what about trust?

He cupped her arms and held her in place. “I want to love you every day for the rest of my life. I want you to be the first face I see in the morning and the body I hold to fall asleep.”

“Jon.” It sounded more like a plea.

“I love you, René, and I know you love me, too.” He pulled back and smiled at her. “You already told me, remember?”

She cuffed his arm. “And you ran off.”

“I promise never to run off again.”

“What about that new job?”

“Leave the MidCoast Clinic? Never.”

Could she believe him? He
had
come through on all of his other promises to her. You bet she could.

The nursery monitor crackled with mewing and grunts. Evan was waking up. She took Jon's hand and led him down the hall. Together they watched their boy stretch and curl until he found his voice and made a heartfelt cry.

She reached for him. Jon stopped her.

“Let me,” he said.

When he held their son with noticeable confidence, René let free the breath she'd been holding. This wasn't a dream. This was Jon being the father she'd wished for.

Jon rocked Evan in the crook of his arm, and smiled at her. This time, she was the one to offer a kiss along with her heart, and he eagerly accepted both.

Her mother's saying repeated in her mind yet again—
be careful what you wish for.

How true. René had wished for a baby of her own, but it turned out she hadn't wished big enough. Things hadn't turned out as she'd planned—they'd ended up even better.

Her yearning for a family had been short by one person—a father. The desire had been so buried she hadn't even known it. Now, with Jon at her side holding her son,
their
son, a grander and more perfect wish had finally been granted.

One month later

“H
URRY
,
Jon, or we'll be late,” René said, slipping on her second earring.

Jon kissed Evan one last time before handing him over to Lacy. She grinned and cuddled her half brother as if her own.

“Don't worry about a thing,” she said. “I've got both of your cell numbers, Claire is just a few blocks away and I'm getting really good at taking care of my brother.” She kissed the boy. “Wait until Amanda finds out. She'll be so jealous.”

It would be their first night out together since the baby had been born and he'd moved in. Just the two of them having dinner in a special seaside restaurant without a single interruption. Heaven.

His daughter gave him a kiss on the cheek followed by a knowing look. He planned to propose to René tonight and Lacy couldn't disguise her suspicions. They'd marry in the summer, when Amanda had a break from her studies and could attend.

He'd start his sabbatical this summer, too, but China was the last thing on his mind. Nope. He'd decided to take
the year off, anyway—to be a house husband while René continued her practice. He thought of it as a grand adventure, something only a guy full of surprises might do, an adventure he wouldn't miss for the world. And René practically jumped with glee when he'd told her his astounding plan.

He stood grinning like an idiot at his daughter and son.

René's long slender fingers circled his wrist. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“You bet I am.” He glanced at her empty ring finger, then patted the small box in his jacket pocket. That finger wouldn't be empty much longer.