Baby, Baby

It was time for the DNA test results that would finally answer the crucial question: Who was the father?

The silence in the room was taut with suspense as Judge Brown slid a letter opener under the envelope flap. Her agonizingly slow rip of the paper had the same effect on the room’s occupants as running a fingernail down a blackboard.

All drew in deep breaths when the judge extracted two sheets of paper. “For the benefit of the record,” the judge stated, “let it show that I’ve removed individual reports on blood drawn on September fourth by a hematologist at Good Shepherd Hospital laboratory. One report is for Kipp J. Fielding III, the other for Michael L. Cameron, M.D.”

Faith had her fingers crossed that Michael’s name would be inside that envelope—that DNA testing would prove Michael was the babies’ father.

Judge Brown perused first one sheet, then the other. “My stars!” she burst out. Both papers slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. The judge’s eyes, indeed her whole face, reflected her shock. Composing herself with an effort, she bent and retrieved the pages.

“In my twenty years of serving in various capacities with Family Court,” she said, “I’ve never run across anything like this….”

Dear Reader,

Two separate and quite diverse incidents served as catalysts for this story. First, my daughter had twins, the only multiple birth in our family, as far as we know. Helping out after the birth of the babies, I found that twins are far more than twice the work of having a single child. Two babies had four adults working twenty-four hours a day…to the point of being comedic. Or it would have seemed funny had we not been so blasted tired. Several years ago I’d written a story that included twins (Trouble at Lone Spur), but I knew I wanted to do another one. Infants this time. A story dedicated to all the hardworking parents of multiples.

Sometime after I’d returned home, and recovered from the hectic pace of my visit, the second kernel for this story germinated. I read a two-inch article in a local newspaper about a precedent-setting custody case involving twins. Voilà! A storyteller’s delight—a twisted plot device if I ever saw one. My story has virtually nothing in common with the actual case. That’s the real fun of writing. The story becomes uniquely a writer’s own. I hope you enjoy learning how twins Nicholas and Abigail end up with the loving parents they deserve.

Roz Denny Fox

P.S. I love hearing from my readers. Write me at P.O. Box 17480-101 Tucson, Arizona 85731.

Baby, Baby

Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PROLOGUE

January 4

MICHAEL CAMERON TURNED UP his coat collar before he stepped out of the cab. He took care to shield his medical bag from the cold, relentless rain blowing into New York City. “Keep the change,” he told the cabby, thrusting a folded bill through a slit in the window. Hunched into his topcoat, Michael stared up at the window of his luxury midtown Manhattan penthouse. Now he wished he hadn’t asked his secretary to phone Lacy and forewarn her of his arrival. She would be furious at his leaving her in the lurch again. “As if I have a choice,” he muttered, taking the front steps two at a time.

Bettis, the attendant on duty, opened the building’s main door. He extended Michael a large umbrella. “Nasty weather, eh, Doc?”

“Thanks.” Michael shook wet hair out of his eyes as he ducked under the canvas. “Nasty all right, but at least it hasn’t turned to sleet.” He lingered, making small talk. The longer he avoided the scene that surely awaited him upstairs, the better.

“Home early today, huh?” Bettis closed the umbrella and reached around Michael to press the button summoning the private elevator. “Big evening, I guess.” The older man winked. “Saks delivered Mrs. Cameron’s new dress. Oops. Don’t tell her I spilled the beans. I think she planned to surprise you.”

Michael frowned as he entered the elevator. “Lacy bought a new dress for tonight? Damn,” he muttered. Keeping the door ajar with his bag, he pushed back one cuff to check a flat gold watch. “I need a cab out front by two, Bettis. I’m scheduled on a five-twenty international flight. In this weather, traffic to JFK will be hell.”

The doorman nodded briskly, but his eyes were sympathetic as Michael let the door close. Michael hoped he hadn’t revealed his own unsettled feelings. It galled him to think the staff had probably discussed his rocky marriage—although it shouldn’t surprise him that Bettis was aware of his and Lacy’s problems. After all, the doorman occasionally dated the Camerons’ housekeeper.

Michael dug for his door key as the elevator glided to a stop outside his apartment. Could he really blame staff for talking when the situation between him and Lacy had gone from bad to worse over the past ten months? That was why he’d arranged a night out, hoping to mend their latest rift. An unexpected trip was the last thing he needed. But there was no other option. Throwing back his shoulders, Michael braced for battle as he moved to insert his key in the lock.

Surprisingly, the door swung inward. Caught off balance, Michael pitched forward, hands flailing, as Lacy flung herself at his chest. The key flew in one direction and his bag in the other, and Michael’s arms circled his wife’s too thin frame. His shocked sputter ended with a mouthful of Lacy’s fine blond hair. She paid no attention to his incoherent gurgle, only fused her mouth with his as she stripped him of his coat, jacket and tie.

“Mmm, Michael,” she whispered seductively. “When Maxine phoned to say you were leaving the clinic early, I sent Mrs. Parker to a movie.” Lacy’s momentum propelled Michael into the bedroom where they both toppled onto a king-size bed.

“Lacy, what the…?” He’d barely lifted himself onto his elbows when she unfastened her peachy satin robe to expose naked skin. Pressing her lips against his, she wound around him again. The kiss smothered his second attempt to speak. With sure fingers, she unbuckled his belt and released the zipper of his slacks.

“I see you’re ready, too,” she cooed, leaving his mouth long enough to run a wet tongue from his navel to the bulge of white cotton springing from the open zipper.

Michael exhaled swiftly. “La…c…y.” Her name was a groan ripped from his tortured lungs as she quickly slid over his erection with grasping hands and initiated a frenzied ride.

Release came for Michael before he caught his breath. The speed embarrassed him, yet he was more concerned about their rough coupling. It’d been weeks since they’d said two civil words to each other, let alone had sex. “God, Lacy, are you all right?” he gasped, raising his torso enough to ease her aside.

She pouted as she slid to the edge of the bed. Tossing her shoulder-length hair, she matter-of-factly retied her robe. “I thought this would be an incentive for you to come home early more often, Michael. Heaven knows your technique needs practice.”

He winced, as much at her underlying rebuke as the bright lamp she’d snapped on. “Lacy, what exactly did Maxie Lucas say when she phoned?”

“That you asked her to let me know you were on your way home. Why?” Her blue eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

Michael rolled off the bed and raked an unsteady hand through tousled brown hair. “Maxie was to warn you that I was on my way home to pack. The fourteen-year-old Norwegian girl I told you about has moved to the head of our transplant list. I got a call an hour ago. We have a match. I’m flying out tonight.”

A crash followed by breaking glass brought his head spinning around. Lacy, her pretty face contorted by anger, had cleared the nightstand with a sweep of her hand. Pill bottles lay strewn amid jagged pieces of glass from their smashed wedding photo.

“Dammit! I didn’t set out to disappoint you, Lacy. But I am the chief surgeon on the international heart-lung transplant team. I’d expect you, of all people, not to begrudge a child her chance.”

“I don’t need a doctor now, Michael. I need a husband.”

One of his eyebrows shot up to meet a rain-wet lock of hair.

“I hate that superior attitude you get, Michael. Almost as much as I hate that the first question out of your mouth after we made love was, ‘Are you all right, Lacy?”’

“Not this argument again,” he growled. “Getting over-tired, flu, colds—anything causing undue stress can still put your transplanted organs in jeopardy. Dammit, I don’t like arguing, Lacy. If it wasn’t such awful weather in Norway, I’d take you with me.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” she drawled sarcastically. “I could sit around a hotel while you spend twenty-four hours a day at the hospital. No, thank you, Michael.”

“Then call Faith. She didn’t have any time off at Christmas to visit, but maybe she’d like a break from Boston now. You two can take in some shows. I don’t think she’s seen the apartment since you redecorated this last time.”

“That’s because my sister spends as many hours at her hospital as you do at yours. I’ll go to the beach house—again. The sailing crowd doesn’t treat me like an invalid.” Her last words were muffled as she pulled a suitcase from the closet and flopped it open on the bed. With an aggrieved air, she folded a new silk dress that hung on the closet door.

“I refuse to be made to feel guilty about this, Lacy. I was a surgeon when you married me, and I’m a surgeon still. Name one thing you’ve ever wanted that I haven’t given you.”

“Your time, Michael.”

He gestured helplessly, then turned away to shed his remaining clothes. He strode into the bathroom and wrenched on the shower, returning to the bedroom just long enough to yank a black flight bag from the closet. “I took an oath to heal, Lacy. It’s what I do.”

“Amen. Not a day goes by that you don’t ask if I’ve taken my pills. If I’m doing my breathing treatments. If I’m warm enough. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“A few precautions seem a small price to pay for enjoying a normal life.”

“Normal?” Lacy paused in the act of pulling on a pair of slacks. “Normal women’s lives don’t revolve around endless checkups and buckets of pills, Michael. The don’ts in my life outweigh the dos. Don’t walk in the rain, Lacy. Don’t play in the snow. Don’t climb mountains. Don…don’t have children.”

Michael’s jaw tightened. “Your anti-rejection drugs place you at risk. Add to that the normal stress of carrying a child—but you know all this, Lacy.”

“Yes, Dr. God. Tell me again how normal I am.” With jerky movements, Lacy tucked in her blouse and began flinging clothing into the suitcase.

“There’s adoption,” Michael ventured after a pause. “But we’d need to solve our differences first.”

Stone-faced, Lacy continued to fill the case as if he hadn’t said a word.

Doubling a fist, Michael smacked the door casing on his way into the shower. When Lacy wore that closed expression, there was no discussing anything with her. Meanwhile, it was getting late. A kid in Norway counted on him. Lacy had been given a second chance. Why in hell couldn’t she appreciate the fact?

By the time Michael dried off and dressed to travel, Lacy had packed the third in a trio of matched luggage. Michael folded two suits and several shirts into his bag. “How long are you planning to stay at the beach?” he asked, eyeing her growing pile of luggage. Not waiting for her answer, he took his shaving kit into the bathroom to fill.

“Why would you care?” She elbowed past him and scooped an array of cosmetics into an overnight case.

“You’re my wife. Why wouldn’t I care?” His bafflement increased when she slammed the lid, tossed the small case with the others, then went to pick up the phone.

After punching in a series of numbers, she spoke into the receiver. “Bettis, this is Mrs. Cameron. Call the garage and have them send the Mercedes around. Then please come to the suite and collect my bags.”

“It’s pouring rain,” Michael said quietly. “If you must go today, call the car service to take you. I’ll arrange a few days off when I get back from Norway. We’ll drive back to New York together.”

“Go to hell,” she said in a voice that dripped honey.

“Lacy, dammit!” He faced her across the bed. “Why do you always have to pick a fight before I go on a trip?”

“And you’re forever off on one, aren’t you? For all we’re together, I may as well be single. I…I’ve made up my mind, Michael. I’m filing for divorce.”

“Divorce,” he said in a strangled voice. “God, Lacy.” His knees buckled and he dropped heavily to the bed just as a sharp rap sounded at the front door. Michael couldn’t force words past the lump in his throat. He knew things hadn’t been good, but—

Lacy left the bedroom. Moments later she led Bettis in to get her bags. The doorman eyed the broken glass. He made no comment, only gathered the cases as Lacy directed.

Michael caught her wrist or she would have gone without saying goodbye. “Don’t do anything rash until I get back,” he begged in a low voice. “Give me a chance to put things right. I’ll take a few weeks off. We’ll go to the Bahamas or something.”

She jerked from his hold. “It’s over, Michael. I’ve never been anything more to you than your first transplant.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes. Find another star patient. I want a man who sees me as a woman.”

Stunned, Michael watched her walk away. It was some time before he stood and resumed filling his shaving kit. He studied the hands reaching for his razor. A surgeon’s hands. His skill had brought them together. Well, technically, Lacy’s sister, Faith, had brought them together. She was a nurse at the Boston hospital where Michael had done his residency. Lacy was the one who’d demanded he set up practice in New York.

How had they gone from building a future together to…contemplating divorce? With hands not quite steady, Michael knocked a packet of pills from a shelf in the medicine cabinet. Absently he retrieved it. Lacy’s birth control pills. In her haste she must have forgotten them.

Michael dashed out of the apartment to catch her. Halfway to the elevator, he stopped. This was a full dispenser. Probably an extra that Lacy’s gynecologist had given her in case they had to travel on short notice.

A shiver coursed through Michael’s body as he recalled what had happened earlier. Replaying the scene in his mind, he felt his blood begin to flow again. Granted, Lacy could be impulsive, but she wasn’t foolhardy. Those were just angry words she’d thrown out, hoping to make him stay home. Her threats had become habit—a way to manipulate him. And he’d refused to bend. They were both at fault.

Sighing, he retraced his steps. He’d phone her the minute he reached his hotel in Trondheim. Once he turned the patient over to her own team for follow-up care, he’d talk to his partner about taking time off. Dominic would understand.

Michael finished packing and wrote a note to the housekeeper, letting her know that he and Lacy would be away for a week or so. He felt better for having a solid plan in place. Shifting his bags, he locked the door and went down to meet his cab.

CHAPTER ONE

August

A PERSISTENT RINGING dragged Faith Hyatt from a deep sleep. As one hand fanned the air above her nightstand in an effort to silence the sound, her sleepy brain insisted the call had to be a wrong number. She’d just come off two weeks of back-to-back shifts at the Boston hospital where she worked. Half the staff was laid low by flu. Maria Phelps, who scheduled shifts, had promised Faith four uninterrupted days off.

“’Lo,” she said in a raspy voice, burying the receiver in the pillow under her ear. Faith covered a yawn and tried to focus on the voice at the other end of the line.

In spite of exhaustion, she shot upright. Her head and heart began to pound, and the receiver slipped from her shaking fingers. Scrambling to find it in the dark, she brought it to her dry lips again and croaked, “Gwen, you’re positive the woman admitted through E.R. is my sister? Lacy Cameron?”

Long used to being ejected from bed in the middle of the night, Faith turned on a light and found clean clothes as the caller relayed details. “Yes,” Faith said, bending to tie her sneakers, “It’s possible she’d revert to Hyatt now that she’s divorced. I’ll be there in ten minutes, Gwen.” Smack! The receiver hit the cradle. Faith’s mind continued on fast-forward as she splashed cold water on her face, brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her short brown hair.

Her last contact with either Cameron had been in June. It was now the end of August. Lacy’s husband, Michael Cameron, had thrown Faith for a loop when he’d phoned late one night in early June to inform her that he and Lacy had divorced. At the time Faith had been crushed to think her sister hadn’t confided in her. But family ties had never meant to Lacy what they did to Faith. In fact, it was pretty typical of Lacy to arrive here in the middle of the night after months of silence, expecting her big sister to haul herself out of bed and put in an appearance at a moment’s notice. Lacy had always thought the world revolved around her needs. And when hadn’t Faith turned herself inside out for family? Sighing, she strapped on her nurse’s watch and rushed from the building. Lopsided though the relationship was, she and Lacy were bound together by blood.

Faith set out to jog the four night-shadowed blocks that separated her apartment building from the hospital. Passing the corner deli, she realized she hadn’t asked Gwen what was wrong with Lacy. No one detested being sick more than Lacy did. As her worry increased, Faith broke into a run.

At last, lights spilled onto the street at the corner where Good Shepherd had stood for over fifty years. Breaking her stride only long enough to press the button that operated the front doors, Faith rushed into E.R.

“Hi, Cicely.” Breathing hard from her sprint, Faith latched on to the plump arm of a passing nurse, another friend. “Gwen phoned. About my sister,” she managed after the next deep breath. “Do you know where she is, or which doctor admitted her?”

“Finegold. He sent her up to Three East. Said he’d do a complete workup after he finishes the emergency surgery that brought him in tonight. Your sister just dropped in, said she hadn’t seen a doctor. Finegold ordered tests, which Lacy refused until after you see her.” The nurse rolled her eyes. “The great Finegold doesn’t take kindly to anyone vetoing his edicts. I don’t envy you having to unruffle his feathers.”

Faith gave a puzzled frown. Finegold was senior staff gynecologist. “Uh…Cice, did Lacy say why she happened to be in Boston at this hour? She lives in New York City.” Faith frowned again. “Or she did. Perhaps Newport, Rhode Island, now. Her husband, er, ex, said she’d received their beach house in the divorce settlement.”

“I thought her chart listed a Boston address, but maybe not. Uh-oh. Hear those sirens? Headed our way. You’d better get out of here, girl, while the gettin’s good.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Faith ran and boarded the elevator as two ambulances screeched to a halt under the portico. Loudspeakers began to drone the names of staff who were needed in E.R. Doors opened and nurses spilled out.

By comparison to the E.R. chaos, the third-floor ward was silent. Faith stopped at the nursing station and spoke to a nurse she knew. “You admitted my sister, Lacy Camer…er, Hyatt.” Shedding her coat, Faith tossed it over a rack. “May I see her?”

Two nurses at the desk appeared to be relieved. “In 312,” one of them said. “We hooked her up to oxygen, Faith. It was all she’d allow.”

“Lacy hates hospitals.” Especially this one. First, their mother had been chronically ill. She was in and out of Good Shepherd for years. Then, in college, Lacy had developed degenerative cardiopulmonary disease. Faith stared into space as memories of those unsettled years crowded in. Her sister had been terrified of their mom’s cystic fibrosis. On their mother’s bad days—and there were many—care of the household fell to Faith. She was just seven when she first assumed responsibility for her baby sister, since their dad could only afford part-time help. About the time Lacy hit her teens, life became doubly traumatic for Faith, who by then attended nursing school at night. Her sister rebelled and refused to help take care of their mom. In spite of everything, the family had endured—until worse tragedy struck.

Mrs. Hyatt died and shortly after that, Lacy fell ill. Their dad folded inside himself. Only good thing happened that year—Faith met Dr. Michael Cameron, Good Shepherd’s rising star of heart-lung transplant surgery.

As she turned away from the nursing desk and approached her sister’s room, Faith guiltily recalled the secret crush she’d once harbored for the handsome, brilliant surgeon. The man who’d ultimately married her sister. How fortunate that Michael had never had any inkling of how she felt. Before she’d begged him to take Lacy’s case, Faith had rarely drummed up enough courage to even smile at the man. He’d left her tongue-tied and feeling giddy. Nurses didn’t feel giddy. It wasn’t allowed.

Hearing that Dr. Cameron had fallen in love with her more attractive, more outgoing sister really hadn’t come as any big surprise to Faith. The real shocker came when Michael telephoned to say he and Lacy had split up.

Now Faith wished her shyness hadn’t kept her from asking pertinent details. Michael had volunteered nothing—merely mentioned he’d been out of the country and he didn’t know about the birthday gift Faith had sent Lacy until a full month after her twenty-seventh birthday. Michael promised to forward her package to the beach house, which he said Lacy had received in the divorce settlement. He’d signed off, leaving no opening for questions of a more personal nature.

Faith, who’d observed numerous doctors’ infidelities, took for granted that Michael had ended the marriage. She knew from experience that all sorts of attractive women stood ready to trap doctors who were as successful and handsome as her former brother-in-law. Few men had the integrity to walk away from such easy bait. Michael had fallen off the pedestal she’d placed him on, and that disappointed Faith. She wondered if her reaction was a result of being more mother than sister to Lacy; after all, mothers resented people who hurt their kids. Lacy had probably been humiliated by Michael’s defection. That was, Faith had decided, the reason her sister had slunk off in private to lick her wounds. The reason Lacy had never returned any of her calls.

Refusing to dwell on those unhappy circumstances, Faith cracked open the door to Lacy’s room. Her legs refused to step over the threshold. Was that motionless body in the bed her once-vibrant sister? Perhaps this wasn’t Lacy’s room.

Letting go of the door, Faith tiptoed to the bed for a closer look. She gasped as her eyes lit on the patient’s swollen belly. She stumbled backward a step, not wanting to startle a stranger.

But…no. The hair, the features, were Lacy’s. Her sister was pregnant. Faith muffled an involuntary cry as the room spun wildly. It was impossible to stop statistics from running through her head. How many heart-lung transplant patients had successfully delivered babies? She battled the hysteria clogging her throat. Because of Lacy’s condition, Faith regularly sought out articles concerning organ transplants. She remembered reading in a discarded medical journal about one young woman’s successful delivery. One. And that woman’s journey hadn’t been easy.