Daddy by Accident Page 2

  "Are you a relative, sir?" the clerk asked while strafing his naked chest with a disapproving gaze.

  "No, just a witness." He saw the militant glint in her eyes and was about to brush past her when he heard a familiar voice calling his name. Turning toward the sound, he felt a jolt of relief. Prudence Randolph was the best nurse he'd encountered in the five years he'd spent practicing medicine. She was also his neighbor and his friend.

  "So that really is the reclusive Boyd MacAuley under that gorgeous tan?" Prudy was an irrepressible tease and a charming flirt, but only with men she considered safe. She'd been divorced for years and claimed to have sworn off marriage forever.

  "Sawdust is more like it," he replied, suddenly conscious of his sweat-stained jeans and grimy skin. No doubt he smelled like the mangy dog he resembled.

  Prudy flicked him a curious grin, even as she was focusing her intelligent brown eyes on the patient. "Is she a friend of yours?"

  "Never saw her before. Said her name's Stacy Patterson. We weren't able to find a purse or any identification."

  "Auto accident?"

  He raked a hand through his hair and nodded. "Trans Am hit a tree on Astoria. She was in the passenger's seat. From what I can tell she banged her head on impact." He drew a hard breath. "She's pregnant. Just over seven months. No attending OB."

  Prudy's eyes clouded. "Vitals?" she asked the uniformed paramedic on the other side of the stretcher.

  While the EMT recounted the numbers, Boyd searched the young woman's face for signs of returning consciousness. The gash on her forehead was oozing blood into the bandage applied by the paramedics, and her skin was purpling around the wound.

  Small boned and too thin, she reminded him of a priceless porcelain doll his grandmother had kept on her dresser. Her skin had the same translucent quality as the fragile china, and her lashes were long and thick. Lost in the oblivion of sleep, she seemed very young and vulnerable—and terribly alone. It hurt to look at her, and yet he couldn't make himself walk away.

  "Call Dr. Hoy," Prudy told the clerk briskly. "And get a lab tech up here stat. We'll need blood work done." The clerk flicked Boyd a curious glance before she turned to leave. He could almost predict the questions she would ask Prudy later.

  "What about the driver?" Prudy asked as she held back the curtain to number four.

  Boyd hesitated, the image of death still vivid in his mind. "The poor guy went through the windshield. Looked like a broken neck."

  Prudy sighed. "Her husband?"

  "Ex, I think she said."

  "Is he the baby's father?"

  Boyd raked back the still-damp hair that had flopped onto his forehead. "She was pretty woozy and a little sparse on the details, but yeah, that seems a good bet."

  Prudy frowned. "Ex or not, it's still going to be rough on her when she wakes up, especially if she loses the baby, too."

  Yeah, it's always hardest on the one who's "lucky" enough to survive, Boyd thought as he watched Prudy and the two paramedics transfer Stacy to the narrow bed. There was a slash of yellow paint on one high cheekbone and yellow splatters on the bright pink basketball sneaker peeking out from the gray ambulance blanket tucked around her small form.

  "Oops, sorry." Jenkins, the senior medic shot Boyd an apologetic glance, and Boyd realized that he was in the way. He'd forgotten for the moment that he was a carpenter now, a blue-collar guy with callused hands more suited to holding a hammer than a scalpel. Though his profession had changed, his knowledge of medicine hadn't, however. He waited until the paramedics left, then cleared his throat. "Who's the OB on call?"

  "Jarrod." Prudy looked up from the blood pressure cuff she was affixing to the patient's too-thin arm and smiled. "We'll take good care of her, Boyd. The best. She'll be fine."

  "Yeah, sure she will." A sudden lump pressed his throat and he had to swallow twice before he could make it dissolve. He'd heard that before. He'd even believed it. He knew better now. "Guess I'll head on back then."

  Taking another step backward toward the curtain had him nearly colliding with an entering tech who sidestepped gingerly. "Sorry," Boyd muttered, and earned himself a pained look.

  "Sir, you'll have to wait outside until after the doctor examines your wife," the tech instructed impatiently.

  "She's not…" He stopped, realizing that the tech wasn't listening. Frowning, he turned to go, only to be halted by the sound of Mrs. Patterson's soft voice.

  "No, wait. I don't … want him to go." Across the cubicle, Mrs. Patterson was now awake and watching him with bruised eyes. When he locked his gaze on hers, she tried to smile. "I haven't thanked you."

  He cleared his throat. "No need. Mostly I just kept you company until the bus showed up."

  Stacy wet her lips and struggled to focus her mind on her rescuer's words instead of the all-encompassing pain in her head. "Bus?"

  "Sorry, I mean the ambulance." His mouth quirked. It wasn't quite a smile but held a certain promise she found endearing.

  "I don't … but of course, there would have to be … an ambulance. How silly of me … not to remember."

  The effort to speak set her head to spinning, and she hauled in air in an effort to clear her brain. Concentrate on his eyes, she told herself as his face wavered in and out of focus. Gray eyes in a deeply tanned face. Quicksilver eyes, framed by thick, blunt lashes the color of bronze. There was something haunting about those eyes. Something sad. Memories he didn't want, perhaps, or lingering shadows of a terrible suffering. For an instant, she thought she was looking into the eyes of her tormented husband.

  "Boyd?" she murmured, and heard his deep voice answering. The words were indistinct, yet she felt a sense of comfort.

  Another face swam into her field of vision. A face with feminine features and a kind smile. A face topped by a halo of shining copper. A nurse, she finally decided.

  "Is there anyone you want us to call for you, Mrs. Patterson? Family? Friends?"

  Stacy concentrated for a moment. "Some … someone should call my ex-in-laws in Seattle. Leonard Patterson, Sr., on Stanton Street." Old and frail now, the Pattersons had never forgiven her for signing the papers to commit their only son.

  Someone repeated the information, then asked if there was anyone else. A member of her own family perhaps? The baby's father?

  "Len…"

  "Len was the baby's father?" the voice repeated with a soothing calm.

  "Yes." Len had longed to become a father, but that was before a hopped-up kid bent on robbery had split his skull with a baseball bat. After that, he'd become a mean, angry man given to bouts of violence that had finally worn out her love and her loyalty.

  "Anyone else? A neighbor, maybe? Or a co-worker?"

  Stacy cleared her throat again of a sudden thickness and searched for the name that hovered just beyond her consciousness. A face wavered, round and patrician, with a frizz of curly white hair swooping over the apple cheeks. "Adeline … Marsh."

  "Is she a friend?"

  "Principal at Lewis and Clark Elementary. I've been substituting. Morning kindergarten." Stacy licked her lips, aware suddenly that somehow, her hand was in Boyd's again. Had she reached for him? Or had he reached for her? Either way, she was grateful for the human contact and curled her fingers tighter around his.

  "I'm … sorry about taking you away from your work," she murmured, her voice oddly thin.

  "It'll still be there when I get back." He bent lower, and his bare shoulders blocked out the overhead light.

  "Will your boss be angry?"

  "No boss. I work alone."

  She heard a low drone of whispered conversation and turned her head toward the sound. The resulting pain in her temple caused her to inhale sharply.

  "Easy, honey," he soothed, his voice low and scratchy.

  Slowly she adjusted the angle of her head until she could see his eyes, now dark and intense and probing. Deep lines fanned the outer corners, suggesting a man who knew how to laugh, yet the strongly molded face had
the look of a man more accustomed to discipline and control and restraint.

  "Miz Patterson?" a third voice inquired softly. "I need to draw blood for the lab now."

  It wasn't really a question, saving Stacy the trouble of replying. Boyd stepped back to allow room for a roly-poly woman in a blue smock. Stacy watched anxiously as the woman readied a syringe and hoped she wouldn't disgrace herself by fainting. Just in case, she looked away before the needle entered her arm.

  She felt a prick, then pressure. The overhead light was beginning to sear her eyes, and her head was spinning again. She felt her lashes drooping and quickly forced her eyes wider. It was important to stay awake and alert. In control.

  "Boyd?" Mindless of her aching head, she looked around anxiously.

  "Right here, Stacy." He took her hand again, and the cold that had begun to seep into her again abated. The self-confidence she'd built up over the past year was crumbling fast, leaving her feeling lost and scared and lonely.

  Some independent woman you are, she thought, disgusted with her pitiful lack of fortitude. Here she was, an expectant mother who wanted desperately to be held in the arms of a man she'd just met.

  She started to thank him again, only to find herself seized by a spasm of pain in the small of her back. She stopped breathing, her heart tripping. The pain spread, rippling toward her belly, nearly squeezing her in two.

  "No!" she cried in sharp agony. "It's too soon!"

  "Get Dr. Jarrod, stat," she heard the nurse order sharply. "Tell him the patient may be going into premature labor."

  Stacy clung to the strong hand wrapping hers, terror racing with the adrenaline in her veins.

  "Try to relax, Stacy. Take deep breaths." Boyd's voice was steady and calm, everything she wasn't.

  "Tell them to save the baby," she pleaded. "Make them promise. If there's a choice, my baby has to live."

  "Look, babies are surprisingly resilient, especially in utero," he said in that curiously raspy voice.

  "But what if she isn't? What if—"

  "Hey, none of that, okay?" Lifting a hand from hers, he brushed back a lock of her hair, his touch as gentle as a lover's caress. "You're going to be fine. Both of you."

  Stacy tightened her grip on his hand. "Is that a p-promise, or a guess?"

  His hesitation was slight but noticeable. Because he didn't want to lie? she wondered.

  "Definitely a promise," he declared an instant before the curtains parted to admit a tall, lanky man who, in spite of the blue scrubs, reminded her more of a working cowboy than a doctor.

  "MacAuley?" he exclaimed on a double take. "What the hell?"

  "Later," Boyd said, stepping back. He'd done all he could do for the dark-haired angel with the beautiful eyes. Now it was up to the professionals. And luck. It had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to believe in either one.

  * * *

  Two

  « ^ »

  Boyd thumbed open his third can of beer, drank deeply, then wandered out of the kitchen onto the back porch. It was nearly seven, and the sun was hovering at the edge of the western horizon, turning the sky to flame, while the conifers that typified the Oregon skyline suggested black teeth eating the sunset inch by inch. Below the ridge that wedged downward at a sharp angle, the Columbia River resembled molten lava as the sun's rays skimmed the surface.

  Propping a bare foot on the railing, he leaned forward slightly, hoping to catch a breeze, but the air was deathly still. At the house to the left, Linda and Marshall Ladd were barbecuing burgers. At the end of the short street, Portland firefighter, Cliff Balisky, was roughhousing with his two boys, who from the sound of their triumphant shouts were whomping up on the old man.

  Suddenly restless, he chugged down the rest of the beer in his hand and gave some thought to opening another. How long had it been since he'd been drunk enough to pass out? Drunk enough to buy himself a few hours of mindless oblivion? Four, five months maybe? Longer?

  Before Karen and the baby had died, he'd never been much of a drinker, mostly because he didn't like the reckless edge it put on his personality. Tonight, however, the need for numbness had overridden his customary caution.

  He knew the reason for his black mood. The ambulance ride, the all-too-familiar bustle of the ER. A baby in danger. A wisp of a woman with big green eyes and a tumble of silk-soft hair who'd somehow slipped beneath his guard and touched a part of him he'd thought he'd lost.

  The woman was fine, he assured himself firmly as he headed inside for another beer. Definitely in good hands and no doubt still sleeping peacefully, just as she'd been when he'd left her a couple of hours ago. Still, his conscience would likely give him fits unless he made sure, he decided as he reached for the wall phone by the kitchen window.

  Though the hospital switchboard was known for its efficiency, it took the operator an interminable five minutes to track down Prudy, another minute before he heard her calm voice in his ear.

  "I thought you might be calling," she said after he'd identified himself.

  "The hell you did." Boyd glowered at his reflection in the window over the sink. He was already regretting the impulse to call.

  "In answer to your question—"

  "What question? All I did was say hello."

  "She's resting comfortably."

  Boyd heard the teasing note in Prudy's tired voice and felt his patience thinning. "Are you going to tell me what I want to know or am I going to be banging on your door at five a.m. for the next week?"

  Prudy groaned. "You sure know how to bargain from strength, you rat."

  "A man's got to do—"

  "Okay, okay." He heard laughter in her tone and felt the tension clawing his spine ease off a notch. "She's concussed, which you already know, has a severe sprain of the left ankle and an impressive collection of bruises."

  Boyd cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. "And the baby?"

  "So far so good, although Mrs. Patterson's been spotting. Jarrod has her on a fetal monitor and an IV drip, mag sulfate. The fetal heartbeat is strong and steady."

  Boyd acknowledged that with a grunt. It was exactly what he would have done. "What's Jarrod's prognosis?"

  "Guardedly optimistic."

  He lifted a hand to the back of his neck and methodically kneaded the tension-twisted muscles. "Do me a favor and read me Jarrod's notes, okay?"

  "You know I can't do that," Prudy exclaimed softly through the wire.

  "Why the hell not?"

  "Come on, Boyd. You know the rules about a patient's right to privacy as well as I do. You're not a relative and you're not on staff, so therefore—"

  "Screw the rules. Tell me."

  "No."

  He felt his face growing hot. "Since when did you become so righteous, Ms. Holier-Than-Thou?" As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to call them back.

  The silence at the other end was more damning than a curse, and he drew a long breath in an attempt to level the sudden spike of anger that had had him speaking before he thought. Prudy was the last person he wanted to hurt. As friends go, she was the best. After the accident, she'd taken care of him like a persistent little mother hen, there for him when he'd needed someone. He'd been close to losing it then, closer than he wanted to recall. He'd battled back to a semblance of normality by burying his memories along with his ability to care too deeply for anything or anyone.

  "I'm sorry, that was out of line," he said when the silence grew longer than he could handle.

  "She really got to you, didn't she?" Prudy questioned quietly.

  "Yeah, I guess she did." More than he wanted to accept.

  "Boyd—"

  He heard the sympathy in Prudy's voice and ruthlessly cut her off. He could handle the past as long as it remained buried. "Give her my best, okay?" He hung up before Prudy could say more.

  Stacy woke to the echo of a scream. Her own, she realized with a pounding heart and drenched skin. She felt queasy and heavy, and her ankle throbbed. Disoriented,
she turned toward a glimmer of light to her left, then wished she hadn't as the dull pain in her head took on star-burst edges.

  The room's bare white walls were shadowed. The narrow bed came equipped with side rails and was slab hard. The pillow beneath her aching head was only marginally softer. Still, she was thankful that she and the baby were alive and in good hands.