Unexpected Legacy: Once Pregnant, Twice Shy / A Baby for the Doctor
“He freaking ruined my life. He broke my mother’s heart and mine, too,” Emerson grated, his teeth tightly clamped as he curled his fingers into fists.
Garrett was taken aback by the hard anger in his half brother’s eyes. Would Cassandra Clarks be able to handle being married to this guy for six months? He appeared only half-civilized, and dangerous, to boot.
“Emerson, I’m sorry if the measures he took were not to your liking, but your mother liked them very well,” Garrett said. He was referring to the three million-dollar payments she’d received for her silence—after his father died. Not to mention that he’d already been providing for her to have quite a healthy living while he was still alive. Emerson couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time. Julian had barely been ten. Garrett had been fifteen and Landon eighteen.
If their father hadn’t died, Emerson would be walking the streets without the Gage brothers ever knowing he existed.
Maybe they should have tried to contact him. Maybe Emerson resented that, too. But just seeing the grief on their mother’s face had been enough to make them want to keep him as far away from the family as they could.
Maybe, all hell would break loose when Mother once again realized they were dealing with him. But Landon had said that he’d take care of Mother. Enough time had passed that hopefully she’d look beyond her dead husband’s transgressions at this point. And their mother was shrewd when it came to business, too.
“Will you meet with me and my brothers to discuss our business proposition? We really need your help.”
Impatient, Garrett waited for Emerson’s answer, but his half brother only glared at him as he slowly headed over to resume his place behind his desk.
Emerson was more rugged than all his brothers, and even with his well-groomed appearance in that gray suit, there was an air of isolation around his tall figure that made Garrett somehow relate to him. He knew that Emerson was somewhere between Julian and Garrett in age, so that put him around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. His hair was dark as Garrett’s, his face as square and tan, but personality-wise, he seemed to be a wild card.
“I’ll give you a half hour,” Emerson finally conceded, his expression unreadable as he dropped into his chair and powered on his computer. “But not today. I have too much to do.”
“Fine,” he agreed. “Tomorrow then. Be at the Daily at nine a.m.”
“No can do. I’m afraid I can only do it Friday.”
Friday wasn’t ideal. It was three days from now and only a day before the wedding. But Garrett ground his molars, shut the hell up and took the offer. Something in Emerson’s angry expression when he looked up and gestured at the door to signal the conservation was over told Garrett this offer was the best he’d get from him.
“Don’t be late,” Garrett growled as he left.
* * *
“Kate, I’m calling and calling and no answer, then I come to get the things for the shower and they’re not even baked! What is wrong with you? It’s ten in the morning and we have work to do. This is our last gig before we’re swept away with all this wedding stuff. You didn’t talk to anyone all weekend. What’s the matter? It’s Tuesday. A new day awaits!”
Kate groaned when a chirpy Beth yanked open her bedroom curtains and a shaft of sunlight sliced between Kate’s eyelids. She waved a weak hand in the air and rolled onto her stomach.
“Go away, Beth.”
“No, I’m not going away. You, my sleepy little chef, will stand up, take a shower and—”
“I’m pregnant,” Kate groaned.
“—get to work. What did you just say?”
Kate covered her face with the pillow and screamed into its feathery depths while kicking off the sheets tangled around her ankles. “I’m pregnant. God! I’m such a fool. Fool, fool, fool.”
“You’re pregnant as in...you’re with child?”
Kate sat up and cracked open her puffy eyes. “Three tests, Beth. Three. And they all agree on the fact that I’m preggo. What am I going to do?”
Sighing in misery, she covered her face with her hands, refusing to answer the string of startled, quick-fire questions Beth bombarded her with next. “Well, whose is it? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me? When did you find out, damn it? Are you sure?”
Oh, Beth. She was like a bright little shooting star today—a bright little shooting star in Kate’s dark gray world.
Was Kate sure? Yes, she was sure. The test stick couldn’t get any pinker! The two lines, almost neon in their brightness, had been clear enough to spin Kate into a whirlwind of despair all through the night.
While miserably pondering what to do, Kate heard Beth shuffle around the room, no doubt in search of the pregnancy tests. Beth was big on evidence and that sort of thing. This came from being married to a douche bag before she’d fallen in love with Landon.
When her friend couldn’t seem to find them, Kate muttered, “They’re in the trash, Beth.”
“Oh.”
Beth disappeared into the bathroom. Kate glumly wondered what Garrett would do when he eventually found out she was carrying his baby. She remembered how handsome he’d looked two Sundays ago at brunch. He had been thoughtful and dark as sin, and staring at her so intently and so intimately, Kate had barely been able to eat anything. She’d felt eaten by him. He’d stood to follow her when she’d gone to pretend to fill her plate at the buffet, and she’d felt his hand at the small of her back. “You all right?” he’d murmured.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’ve been so busy with work, I keep wondering if you’re avoiding me.”
“I’m sorry. We can talk at the rehearsal dinner...that is, if you don’t...if you’re not bringing...”
“I won’t bring anyone if you won’t,” he said, staring at her intently.
“I won’t,” she assured him.
“Then I won’t,” he said back.
And oh, how she wished she had the courage to say she was sorry for what she’d said to him that day in her apartment, but the continued talk she heard from Molly and Beth regarding the Clarks and Gage wedding was driving her insane with jealousy and anger.
It killed her. How could he? How dare he tell her he wanted her in his bed while he was planning his brilliant and very convenient wedding? The desire that had whipped them up like tornadoes had now dropped them hard on land, and the whirlwind and the emotions in the air had been reduced to nothing.
Nothing but a one-night stand, that’s what it had been.
But of course, good ol’ Murphy’s law had come for a visit and made sure Kate got pregnant.
And now they were going to have a child together.
“Yes. You’re pregnant,” Beth agreed when she came back out of the bathroom.
A silence settled bleakly in the room.
You’re pregnant....
Her chest gripped with yearning. Along with the inexplicable fear of dying alone, without a family or anyone to love her, Kate had harbored another kind of fear for years. It was one of those little fears that took root in you and you never really knew why you had them—only that you did.
She’d feared she’d prove infertile when she grew up, and that she’d never be able to have the family she’d always longed for. She’d imagined, on her best days, that if she ever got pregnant, the thrill she’d feel would obliterate anything else.
Now, maybe a little kernel of thrill had taken up residence somewhere, in some quiet, motherly part of her, but it was too hidden to recognize.
Kate had proven fertile, yes. Physically capable of having a family, yes.
But she had conceived this baby with Garrett Gage.
And her considerable pride already smarted like hell since she knew she would have to tell him. Especially after this past month, when they’d both pretended at the family Sunday brunches that they were still just friends.
Kate saw that Beth had her cell phone in her hand and leaped out of bed. “No! What are you doing?”
Beth held the phone out of Kate’s reach, her expression stern as a concerned mother’s. “I’m calling a doctor. Unless you want me to call Garrett, Kate. It’s his, isn’t it? You look pale, Kate. I think—”
“Call anyone and die. Do you hear me?”
The thought of Garrett knowing this so soon, before she had time to build up her emotional walls against him...the thought of him finding out that just the thought of carrying his baby inside her made her queasy and restless...and the thought of him demanding to marry her out of duty and honor and all he held dearer than Kate...
No. God, it was worse than she could imagine.
Her worst nightmare come true.
Beth paused when she noticed the angry flush spreading up Kate’s neck. Lips pursed, she hung up, and started dialing again.
“No! Beth, don’t you dare.”
“I’m calling Molly, okay? We need to figure out how we’re handling this with the family. Don’t even try to stop me this time.”
Kate groaned. “Molly’s getting her paintings shipped to New York, and she’s got enough on her plate with a wedding in five days!”
“Fine, then Julian. Julian will help us with this, Kate, you know he will.”
An image of hunky, easygoing Julian, never judgmental, always one for cool-headed thoughts, flitted through her mind. Julian had always been the perfect coconspirator. Not only did he know how to stay quiet, it was his nature to.
But Kate still shook her head. “Beth, the wedding is in five days. Let’s just...drop this for now. Please. Please don’t tell anyone until I’m ready.”
Beth met her eyes dubiously. “But what are you going to do when you see Garrett at the rehearsal dinner? At the wedding? When are you going to tell him?”
“After the wedding. I can’t do it before. I want Molly to enjoy her day,” she said miserably.
“No, no, no, that’s not a good plan. It might be too late, Kate. He might be engaged by then to another woman!”
Pain wrenched through Kate’s insides. “I don’t expect him to stop his plans for me. Honestly. We could be better parents if we weren’t together than if we are forced to be together.”
“You’re afraid, Kate, and that’s okay. But you’re turning into a coward. Where’s the girl I know? The Kate I know would fight for him. Stop being afraid that he will break your heart. You’re breaking it yourself without even letting him know that he has it.”
Kate couldn’t reply.
But the words replayed in her head like an echo of a truth she wasn’t sure she was prepared to listen to when she had a pregnancy to deal with.
Was Beth right?
Was Kate so afraid of letting him in that she was running away, not from being hurt by him, but from loving him?
Oh, God. And now what was she going to do about Miami?
Nine
Kate was turning out to be one of those pregnant women who had nausea every morning, and it wasn’t fun at all. But at least by Thursday evening at Molly and Julian’s rehearsal dinner at the Gage mansion, she felt better. The wedding was to be held this upcoming Saturday at noon, and the gardens had been bursting with activity all day as contractors had started delivering tables, chairs...the works. Through the windows on the other side of the living room, Kate could see the beautiful white trellis that would serve as the chapel, halfway to being fully erected.
It was going to be a beautiful wedding.
Her heart soared as she watched Molly and Julian laugh while talking to the minister. Julian towered behind Molly, who seemed to be leaning back against him as if he were a pillar. His arms were loosely around her, his chin resting on the top of her head.
There was no doubt in Kate’s mind when she saw them that they belonged together. Molly had always loved Julian, but Kate hadn’t realized that Julian had loved her sister back until a couple of months ago.
She’d always believed in having one soul mate...until, at eighteen, she’d realized that the man she thought might be her soul mate didn’t seem to agree. He’d never openly touched her like Julian had touched Molly, but now she kept remembering the way he’d made love to her.
Did he care about her? Or was this all about her leaving?
“There you are!” Kate heard the booming voice of Eleanor Gage from nearby, and in the same instant, spotted the person she was speaking to as he came into the room.
Dressed in a black suit and gleaming silver tie, Garrett made such a striking figure that the atmosphere altered dramatically with him near. His beautiful face looked thoughtful and intense as he kissed his mother on the cheek, then lifted his head and seemed to be scanning the area for something. His gaze stopped roaming when he saw her, and she couldn’t breathe.
With an expression almost of relief, he came over. He had such purpose in his step, and her heart almost stopped when she saw the way his eyes glimmered with...happiness?
Oh, God, she was going to die when she had to tell him.
“We should’ve driven over together.”
His liquid black eyes raked her figure, and her pulse skyrocketed as though he could suddenly see with some sort of X-ray vision the little baby growing inside her. For a moment she thought he knew. He knew her secret and it would all be out in the open.
Drawing in a deep breath, she blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. “I hitched a ride with Beth and Landon.” The thought of being alone with him in the close confinement of his car again both terrified and excited her.
The more distance she kept from him, the smoother her plans would run.
He seized her elbow and pulled her along the room, leading her to the terrace doors. “Come with me outside.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to talk to you, Kate.”
She let him lead her to the exact spot they’d visited on his birthday, when he’d found out she was leaving. Rather than release her, his hand stayed on her elbow as he smiled and took in her dress with the thirsty eyes of a man who intimately knew her.
The situation worsened when he bent his head and his voice caressed her ear, its texture a seductive black velvet. “So what have you been up to? Besides avoiding me?”
She ducked, not wanting him to know he still made her knees weak, her insides mushy. She wished—goodness, she wished—that Garrett wasn’t considering marriage to another woman, so that Kate wouldn’t dread the moment she’d have to mention a child was on the way so much.
“Working and...packing.”
“Packing,” he repeated without any inflection whatsoever.
The fact that his hand was on her elbow, causing all sorts of ripples of want inside her, made her drop her gaze to take in the contrast of his tan skin with her fair complexion. As though that were an instruction for him to let go, he dropped his hold.
His eyebrows pulled low over his eyes—eyes that were hard with frustration.
“Kate, honestly, what the hell are you running from?”
Anger flared inside her. What else would she be running away from but him? “What do you care if I leave? Why are you so hell-bent on stopping me? Go and worry about your heiress!”
“I will, but you come first, Kate. You’ve always come first for me. Before anything in the world. And I happen to be responsible for you, Kate.”
“Oh puhleeze! Responsible, my fanny. I’m a grown woman, Garrett, a fact that you can attest to yourself. Why do insist on continuing to treat me like your sister?”
“Sister? Kate, I freaking slept with you!”
Her eyes widened in shock. Her throat clogged with emotion, and she spun around toward the glass doors. “I can’t do this right now. Not here. Not now.”
He stopped her with one hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. But it would be very damn simple for me to marry an heiress right now if it weren’t for the fact that you and I made love, Kate.”
“We had se—”
“We made love.”
His eyes glowed down at her fiercely. Crazily, she even thought she saw longing there. But if he longed for her, why would he even consider marrying anyone else?
“I told you it was a mistake. Please just carry on with your plans, and I’ll carry on with mine.”
“God, you’re so stubborn, Kate.” He propped his elbows next to hers on the balustrade and gazed outside, his expression pained. “You’ll never be able to forget your father died because of me, will you?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “No. That’s not true. I don’t blame you, Garrett. You were just a boy, and you wanted to help your father. Like you always want to help everyone. You misunderstood what I said. I might have blamed you for a time because I needed someone to blame. I was so angry.”
“Me, too.” He leaned forward and stared at the cluttered tables and chairs out on the lawn, and Kate watched his profile as the urge to touch him began to consume her.
“But my anger isn’t about that now. It’s about me. It angers me to want something that I can’t have.”
He glanced at her curiously, his head cocked to the side as he patiently waited for her to explain.
“Having a family is something I’ve wanted my whole life,” she admitted, softly.
He dragged her into his arms, and she was so exhausted from learning she was pregnant, she closed her eyes and let him. His thumb stroked her arm, causing goose bumps to jump along her bare flesh.
“I never thought I’d have one of my own, and now I can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispered.
Fighting to ignore the sensual stirring inside her, Kate closed her eyes, her connection with him too great to ignore. She suddenly wanted to cry, right here in his arms, at his confession. Because she was sure he was imagining having a family with someone else, with a woman he might marry for convenience. Not with Kate. Still, she loved him so much she couldn’t hate him for wanting the same thing that she did.
“You deserve to be happy, Garrett. You’ve tried to take care of all of us for so long. Even Julian and Molly.”
He rubbed her back and she rubbed his. “They hate me for making them keep their hands to themselves until now.” His whisper stirred the top of her hair.
His scent made her light-headed but instead of drawing away, she drew closer and inhaled, happy that he had an arm around her. “You’ve always tried to do the right thing.”
His lips twitched against her scalp, and he edged back and glanced down at her, searching her expression. “You’ve always trusted me, Katie. To do the right thing. But you don’t trust I’ll make the right choice with Cassandra?”
Her stomach twisted uncomfortably, and when she attempted to pry free, Garrett kept her pinned to him. Even his eyes held her trapped. “Relax. Let’s not fight, all right? Let me just hold you like this.”
His body emanated heat, and her every cell perfectly recalled the night she had belonged to him. Kate’s throat closed so tight she couldn’t talk, especially when she settled down against him once more. He ran a hand tenderly down the back of her head, and she relaxed her muscles despite herself.
“Katie, let me make it better for you,” he whispered against the top of her head.
Kate closed her eyes. She knew he felt compelled to watch over her, but Garrett had been tied to his promise and had looked at her as a duty his whole life.
Kate would rue the day she ever trapped him any further.
But now she was carrying his baby.
“If you leave—” he tipped her chin back to look at her “—who’s to tell me it isn’t your way of making me come get you?”
She edged back, wide-eyed, then scowled. “I would never do that! I don’t want you to...do anything. Plus, it would be hard for you to follow me with a new wife attached to your arm.”
“A wife I will not have if I choose not to,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re so interested in her if you’re not interested in staying here?”
She glared, and suddenly it was just too painful to look at him.
She shook her head, and turned to walk away but he wasn’t letting her go just yet.
“Where are you going, Katie?” he taunted. “Do I frighten you? Is it me you’re running away from?”
She was struggling, but he caught her and looked fiercely into her eyes. His breath fanned her face, slow and steady, warm and unexpectedly sweet.
“Garrett...” she whispered, dying with want as she clutched his shoulders.
He squeezed her. “Kate, I’ve known you all my life. I’ve been there for you all my life—I have to be there for the rest of it. You have to let me. We need to talk about what happened. We can’t just pretend that it didn’t when I’m consumed with knowing that it did.”
Her eyes were fastened to his mouth, and all she could think of was that his mouth was there for her. His lips were there to sear her again, brand her again. Kate trembled with the need to wrap herself around his shoulders and neck and never let go. She wanted to crush his mouth with hers and do all the things she hadn’t done with anyone else because she’d been waiting for the boy she secretly loved to look at her.
Now he was looking at her. His gaze hungry, missing no detail of her features. Almost seeing into her soul, discovering her secret, aching love for him.
“Tell me why you’re leaving. Is it because of me?” He couldn’t seem to help himself as he lifted his finger to trace her lips. Her breath caught, and his face darkened as he watched.
Kiss him. Tell him it’s him and that he’s going to be a father! But while all these impulses rampaged through her, she drew back an inch and considered it a good moment to retreat before she truly lost her senses. She’d lost them once. Now she was pregnant. She didn’t want to castigate him for that night, a night she had been wishing and praying would someday happen. She didn’t want him to pay with his whole life. She simply loved him too much.
Kate shook her head and glanced away. “No, it’s not you.”
Spinning away before she could lose her head, she hugged herself and stared into the house, where there was light and music and smiles everywhere.
“You could be carrying my—” Garrett cleared his throat behind her “—you could be pregnant, Kate.”
The air felt static as she turned back to him in alarm. “Excuse me?”
The intensity in his eyes terrified her. “We didn’t use protection, Freckles.”
She shook her head. Fast. Almost too fast.
“You’d tell me if there were consequences, right?” he asked meaningfully.
Her world tilted on its axis. What if she went ahead and told him that she was having his child? Her stomach cramped at the thought.
She was loath to worry Molly a day before her wedding. Kate was the eldest and had cared for her like a mother, had always set a good example. How could she bear detracting from her sister’s joy right now?
She had to wait until after the wedding.
She bit her lip, glancing away. “Whatever happens, I meant what I said. I’m not marrying ever without love.”
“Why? Do you love another man?”
Swallowing, Kate met his stormy black gaze. “No, Garrett. It would have been hard for me to love anyone, when my whole life I’ve been in love with you.”
He blinked at her words.
God.
She couldn’t believe she’d said them.
But she had.
She had to come clean.
She glanced away, blushing. “That’s why I slept with you that night, Garrett. And that’s why I’m leaving. I want to be loved back.”
He stared at her as though flabbergasted, motionless and unmoving.
“We need to go. Dinner is about to be served,” she murmured and went inside.
He didn’t follow her for minutes, and from inside, she saw him leaning on the balustrade with his face in his hands, breathing hard.
Her insides knotted with pain for him. Maybe she shouldn’t have confessed it. But Beth was right. Kate was a coward, afraid he’d hurt her. She’d had to at least let him know that all the time they’d spent together had meant everything to Kate, even when she knew he had not ever been emotionally available to love her like she wanted him to.
Garrett was a fair man. He was a man who recognized his own flaws, maybe even to the extreme extent that he saw flaws where none existed. She knew he felt...unworthy. That he believed a man had died because of him. But he was also generous and giving, and he wouldn’t be able to stand the idea of causing Kate any pain.