LITMIR.BIZ

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with you outside?”

      Her green eyes looked worried. “In the hallway?”

      He figured whatever they had to say to each other didn’t belong to the gossip mill of Maitland Maternity. “No. Outside. The parking lot.”

      FORD LEANED against the driver’s door of Katie’s car just in case she decided to hop in, speed off and evade him, the way she used to after work. Damn it, was he simply acting like a possessive, rejected fool? The idea soured his mood. As he stared toward the OR doors, waiting for her, he realized he didn’t take kindly to being thrown off stride. That was the good thing about women like Blane. He knew how to handle them. He glanced around. Katie had parked under a streetlight, but otherwise, the lot was dark and empty, and the night was cold, even for December in Austin.

      “January,” he corrected, since the clock had ticked over into the new year while he and Katie were working. The operation had gone well, so where was she? Changing into party clothes, as he had? Had she been celebrating the new year with a lover? The father of the baby? Maybe it wasn’t his….

      “She’s not pregnant,” he muttered in angry exasperation, wishing his mind would let go of the ludicrous thought.

      Unfair as it was, he felt relieved to see her come outside wearing hospital greens and carrying folded jeans, which probably meant she hadn’t been anywhere. Not wanting to appear anxious, he kept leaning against the car, watching her, listening to the hard, solid connection of her boot heels on the pavement until she stopped in front of him. Somehow, he expected three months to have changed her, but she was the same familiar Katie. His eyes drifted hungrily over red coils of hair that had grown a fraction, and he recalled trailing fingers down the vibrant strands to smooth, now winter-pale cheeks, and how he’d played connect-the-dots with the freckles on her shoulders.

      Anxiously, she cleared her throat. “Uh…hi, Dr. Carrington.”

      She probably hadn’t planned that opening line, any more than he planned the traitorous tightening of his body when the soft Texas slur of her words churned his blood into a wild current. Hi, Dr. Carrington. It seemed a damn funny thing to say, since the last words she’d said to him were, Please, Ford, can’t we sleep like this? She’d meant with their naked bodies still hot, damp and joined. He’d smiled, informing her that sleep wasn’t in her future. And it hadn’t been.

      “Told you I’d be waiting, Katie.” Before she could answer, he added, “And I really think you should call me Ford.”

      “I guess I should,” she returned, swallowing hard. “Yes…I really guess so.” Her bright green eyes skated to where he was leaning against the car, and she peered at him through a fringe of red eyelashes. “I said I’d meet you. I wasn’t going anywhere, you know.”

      Maybe not, but she sounded as if she wished she were, something that further darkened Ford’s disposition. Hadn’t she had the slightest interest in seeing him again? “Did I say you were leaving? Anyway, where’s your coat?”

      She dropped her stacked clothes on the hood. “Sue said it was an emergency, so I just ran out the door.” Her eyes flicked over his tux and gray wool overcoat. “But I take it you were ringing in the New Year somewhere special?” Leaving him to wonder if she was jealous, she quickly added, “Sue assured me she was looking for Dr. Nelson.”

      Assured? Ford guessed that meant Katie no longer wanted to work with him. “Well, Sue got me.” And Katie was biding time, alluding to the party at Blane’s, where, Ford didn’t exactly feel inclined to tell her, he’d been bored out of his mind. Shrugging from the topcoat, he said, “Here.”

      Katie tossed her head, and nothing more than the mild reminder of her fiery independence threatened to set him off. Watching her crisp curls glint under the lamplight seemed such a travesty, too, when he wanted to feel them wrapping around his fingertips like springs of raw red silk.

      “Thanks, but I don’t need a coat.”

      “Yes, you do.”

      “Really.” She shivered. “I’m fine.”

      “Right.” The ungiving cotton of the short-sleeved greens tightly hugged her breasts, making plainly visible what the chill air was doing to her. He glanced away, but not before getting a good look at how she was affected. He waved the coat at her. “Katie. C’mon. Take it.” If she didn’t and he took another good look at her, he might do something he’d regret.

      “I said I don’t need it.”

      The words were out before he could stop them. “No,” he drawled coolly. “I guess proud Katie Topper doesn’t need a thing.” He hardly knew where the words came from, but she sure hadn’t given their night together any thought.

      She looked startled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Nothing,” he muttered.

      But when she snagged the coat from the crook of his finger, swirled it around her shoulders and hugged it to her belly, Ford had another gut feeling his deepest suspicions weren’t unfounded. He glanced from the hem, which brushed her ankles, to the shoulder seams halfway down her arms. Even though the ill fit made her look petite and feminine as hell, Ford swore to himself that he wouldn’t react. Then he went for broke. “I know this sounds crazy, Katie, but are you pregnant or something?”

      She gasped, then stomped her foot on the pavement, fisting her hands. “I knew you’d guessed, Ford! Why didn’t you just say so? Yes. Yes, it is true, Ford. I’m pregnant! I’m pregnant!”

      The sudden outburst, so like Katie, ended as abruptly as it began, leaving noticeable silence in its wake. The hospital was hushed, and the winter night too cold for the insects whose wings usually hummed under the street lamps. When Ford drew air into his lungs again, the inhalation seemed to whisper as if telling a secret. He started to suggest they get in her car so they could run the heater while they talked, but he couldn’t risk being in such a small, enclosed space with her. In close proximity, he’d either throttle her or do what he shouldn’t allow himself to do before this was settled—make love to her.

      A baby. He’d handled so many, but was the woman in front of him really carrying his? He could so easily imagine how Katie would look, full with his flesh, his blood. The thought startled him. He didn’t know exactly when, couldn’t pinpoint the moment, but he’d given up thinking about becoming a father. He was thirty-six and single, too damn old. He knew he couldn’t settle down with any of the women he’d known. He didn’t much like them. But now…

      She’d paled, her translucent skin turning the color of paper. “Uh…how did you guess?”

      Images were still filling his mind, of watching her belly becoming rounder, of holding the baby in his hands. “I’m surrounded by pregnant women sixty hours a week, Katie, just as you are.” And yet it was more than that, as if he were simply in tune with Katie.

      She nodded, suddenly looking small and strangely miserable, nearly swallowed up by his coat, and yet as she spoke, she thrust her chin upward in an imperious way he found truly annoying under the circumstances. “I…I’m sorry. I should have called.”

      No kidding. “If you’re trying to piss me off by saying that, Katie,” he warned, “you’re doing a fine job. You’re sure it’s mine?”

      As the remaining color drained from her face, making the freckles on her nose more visible, he realized he didn’t feel as guilty as he should have about wounding her pride, not when she hadn’t even bothered to call him. Her voice was a near whisper. “Of course it is, Ford.”

      “No man in Houston?”

      She looked totally taken aback. “No.”

      “No man here?”

      Her eyes narrowed, glittering. “No!”

      He forced himself not to acknowledge his relief. “But I didn’t rate a phone call?”

      “I’m here, aren’t I?”

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