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“I can’t do this.”
She gave him an appalled look. “What do you mean, ‘do this’?”
“Have a baby.”
She whimpered, a half pained, half strangled cry. “I guess it’s a good thing you don’t have to do anything.”
James winced, feeling her hurt and anger but too overwhelmed with his own emotions to address hers.
“This can’t be happening.”
“Just what every woman wants to hear when she tells a man he’s going to be a dad.”
“I don’t want to be a dad,” he reminded her. “I’ve never deceived you. No babies ever. You knew that. You agreed.”
“No one is going to make you be a dad.”
“You said you wouldn’t—”
“No, I wouldn’t, but biologically I can’t change my baby’s genetics. But that doesn’t mean you have to do a thing, James. Not one blasted thing.” She shuddered. “Move to Nashville. I don’t need you.”
She didn’t need him. Or anyone else. Not normally. But looking at the anguish on her face, he suspected she needed more than she wanted to admit.
Which made his chest hurt more.
“I’m not going to leave you.” Hell, he’d never wanted to leave her to begin with. Not really. He’d just wanted her to see what she was doing to their relationship, for her to put some effort in, too. “Not like this.”
“I don’t want you to stay like this. Go and be with Kristen or whatever appeals so much about Nashville.”
He stared at her in disbelief. She thought he would walk away from a woman he’d made pregnant? Did she know him so little? And how would he ever convince her that his decision to move out had stemmed from wanting her to notice him, not some other woman?
Then again, his reaction hadn’t exactly been ecstatic and he didn’t blame her for her hurt expression.
His timing had been way off. As usual. Which was why he’d avoided relationships. Until Melissa. One look and he’d been hooked. Before he’d known it he’d wanted nothing more than to spend all his free time with her.
A whimper had his attention shooting back to her. She’d turned away from him to stare out into the night, her back straight. Too straight.
She was crying, but trying to hold it in. He started to reach for her, to wrap his arms around her, and tell her that somehow all this would be OK. He cared for her and they’d work through this. Her cell phone rang, so he cursed instead.
“Don’t answer,” he ordered when she reached for the phone clipped to her waistband.
Pulling herself together, she swiped at her eyes. “It might be a patient.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t answer. For once, make me your priority.”
“I can’t not answer. It might be an emergency.” She ignored his plea, removed her phone, and flipped it open. “Dr Conner speaking.”
James seethed. How could she answer the phone during such a significant personal conversation? Would he always rate so far beneath the needs of her patients?
What of her pregnancy? How would she take care of a baby when she couldn’t even take care of herself because of the demands Sawtooth placed upon her?
Her face paler than ever, she closed the phone.
“I’ve got to go.” Big surprise. “Mrs Barnes overdosed on the Valium I gave her. She’s being rushed by ambulance to Dekalb General.”
She started walking toward the door, but he grabbed her arm, struck again by its leanness.
“Fine,” he ground out. “Let the paramedics and the ER doctor do their job. You don’t have to be there.”
