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He pulled the chair over again and sagged down into it. ‘Okay, Amy. Let’s get to it. What’s going on here? Where do you normally stay? And what did David mean about maternity leave? Where do you normally work?’
She crossed her hands in her lap. ‘Wow, an interrogation. Or is it an interview? Is this how you talk to all your potential patients, Dr Adams? Do I have to pass muster before you’ll take my son on as your patient?’
He shook his head. Sleep deprivation was making him ratty. It didn’t matter what he’d read in her notes. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. She was going to have to tell him herself. ‘This is how I talk to the girl who walked away six years ago without a backward glance, and then turns up when she sees me on television.’
Amy felt her bottom lip tremble. This wasn’t going well. She could see he was tired. She knew he would be under extra stress looking after the First Daughter, but perfect timing was the one thing she didn’t have here. And she needed the assurance of Lincoln’s help now.
‘That’s not fair and you know it.’
He shook his head in frustration. His voice was quiet but even. ‘I know.’
She switched into professional mode. ‘Okay, Dr Adams. I normally live in Santa Maria in Butte County—around four hours from here. I work in one of the free clinics there. And my maternity leave started…’ she glanced at her watch ‘…officially around twelve hours ago.’
Her notes were still in his hands. But he wasn’t looking at them. It looked as though he hadn’t read them. It would be so much easier if he did, then at least he might understand why she’d left.
‘Why me, Amy, and why now?’
A loud burr came from the monitor beside her and the electronic blood-pressure cuff started to inflate again. Amy winced as the cuff over-inflated on her arm. Linc watched with alarm as the reading on the monitor climbed higher and higher. One-eighty…one-ninety…two hundred. Please don’t let her blood pressure be that high.
Amy’s voice cut through his thoughts. ‘There are a lot of kids currently alive in the Amazon because of you, Linc, and you know it. Kids who would have died if you hadn’t been on that boat.’
She saw him bite his bottom lip. Linc was a team player, not a glory hunter. She knew how uncomfortable he’d been in that press interview. He must have said the words ‘I have a fantastic team’ at least five times. She knew he wouldn’t be interested in the chat-show interviews or celebrity magazine spreads that would materialise in the near future.
A black-suited figure crossed the gap in the curtains. She waved her arm. ‘Look at all this, Linc. When the First Lady went into premature labour, who did they call? You. They must have been able to get almost any doctor in the world, but they chose you to look after the First Daughter. The first presidential baby in nearly fifty years. What does that tell you?’
‘It tells me I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Amy, nothing else.’ He shook his head, ‘You make it sound grander that it actually was. Abby Tyler was the admitting physician here in Pelican Cove. She works with me at San Francisco Children’s Hospital. They asked her for a neonatologist and she recommended me.’
Amy waved her arms, ‘And you’re telling me that the whole secret-service brigade out there didn’t check your credentials? To make sure that only the absolute best of the best was looking after the President’s baby? I seriously doubt that. Hell, the other doctor is an award-winner.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’ll find it hard to believe, but that was sheer coincidence. David Fairgreaves has a boat moored in Pelican Cove, the man is an old sea dog. Whenever he’s here, Abby has an arrangement to call him for any obstetric emergencies. He apparently likes to keep his hand in.’
Amy folded her hands across her chest. ‘Oh, come on. You’re telling me the secret service didn’t check on him too? Especially that old stony-faced one. Does he ever smile?’
Linc laughed at her description of James Turner, the head of the presidential security detail, the original man-in-black. ‘I think I’ve only seen him smile once in the last three days—and that’s when he told Luke Storm, one of the other docs, that he couldn’t leave. Somehow I think his job must drain all sense of humour from his body. He spends his life looking over his shoulder for potential threats to the Presidential family.’
The blood-pressure cuff stopped abruptly. The hiss of air seeping out from it. Linc glanced at the screen again—150/96. A bit higher than before, but not yet dangerous. Still worth keeping an eye on. His eyes fell to his watch. There were a million things he wanted to say right now. A million things he wanted to know. Six years to catch up on. But David had been right. He had other duties—other priorities—that he couldn’t get distracted from.
‘I’m sorry, Amy, but I seriously need some shut-eye and I’ve a neonate to deal with who doesn’t want to feed.’
Her eyes fell to the notes, still clutched in his hands. She couldn’t hide the slight tremor in her voice. ‘Will you read my notes and tell me if you’ll agree to be my baby’s doctor?’ Her hands were back at her stomach, protectively rubbing her extended abdomen.
The notes. She knew exactly what he would read in there. But for some reason he didn’t want to give her an easy way out. Why couldn’t she just find the words to tell him? She had no idea he’d already read them. And he was beginning to feel too tired to care.
‘In the interests of professionalism I’ll read your notes, not now—later—but I want to hear everything—straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. There’s nothing in these notes that you won’t be able to tell me yourself. I’ll come back later. We’ll talk then—and I’ll decide if I can be your baby’s doctor or not. I can’t do it if there’s going to be a conflict of interest for me, and…’ his eyes rolled towards the outside corridor as he gave her a crooked little grin ‘…your timing could have been better.’
Amy watched as he exited through the curtains, her throat tight.
She needed him. She needed him to be there for her baby—and for her. He was the best in the world. No one else would do. She couldn’t lose this baby.
It had all seemed so simple in her head. As soon as she’d known she was at risk of pre-eclampsia, she’d known she had to find Linc. She’d seen him bring neonates that should have died back to life. And that was normal for him.
The long line of mothers who’d queued up on the banks of the Amazon to show them their healthy, growing children—children he had saved in previous years—was testament to that.
There had been no doubt in her mind. This was all about her baby. All about the little boy currently growing in her stomach.
So why was she feeling like a teenager with a schoolgirl crush? She hadn’t thought about Lincoln for the last five years.
No. That wasn’t strictly true. He’d crept into her dreams on a few occasions—all of them X-rated. But dreams you couldn’t control. Truth be told, she hadn’t let herself think about playboy Linc for the last five years. Too much potential for heartache. She’d had to concentrate all her energy on beating the cancer.
And now she was only here because she needed him for her son. Really.
When she’d had her detailed scan she almost hadn’t asked what sex her baby was. But at the last moment she’d changed her mind. She’d wanted to prepare for her son or daughter. She’d wanted to pick his pram, his bedclothes and the paper for his nursery wall. She’d even picked his name. Zachary. Zachary John Carson.
She whispered the name as her hands ran over her stomach. ‘Stay inside just a little longer, Zachary. I need you to be as healthy as can be when you come out. Momma needs to know that you’re going to do just fine.’ A tear slid down her cheek and the anger started to rise in her chest.
Why should the First Lady’s baby be any more important than hers? And why did she, after everything she’d been t
hrough, have to develop a condition that could threaten her baby?
But this was it. Cancer had crept through her body tissues and the chemotherapy had ravaged them. She’d lost her ability to have a baby naturally and this embryo was her last chance. Her only chance.
So how come she couldn’t just focus on her baby?
From the first second she’d opened her eyes and seen Lincoln again, her heart had gone into overdrive. There were so many things about him she’d forgotten. His intense gaze. His lazy smile. His flirting. The way he could comfort her with the touch of his hand and the stroke of his finger.
And the camouflage he kept around himself.
She’d seen how he jumped from being really comfortable around her one minute, like it had only been a few days since they’d seen each other, since they’d slept together and been wrapped in each other’s arms, to shifting into the professional role, the possibility of being her baby’s doctor and all the lines that blurred in between.
But she wasn’t asking him to be her doctor, so surely that simplified things?
So why did her heart keep beating rapidly in her chest every time he was next to her? Why did her hairs stand on end when he touched her and make her feel as if an electrical charge had run up her arm?
Amy squeezed her eyes shut tightly. She couldn’t allow herself to feel like this. Lincoln wasn’t interested in her. She was a six years past girlfriend who’d had a mastectomy and was carrying a child that wasn’t his. Why would he even give her a second glance?
He was only being kind. He was only being a friend. He couldn’t possibly want anything else from her, could he?
