Jessica Matthews - His Baby Bombshell

“I’ve run into him a few times,” she said instead.

“Then I’m sure he’ll appreciate seeing a familiar face now that he’s here for the next few months. And speaking of faces, the stranger over there with Dr Mosby’s team must be our fellow.”

Sabrina lowered her club to study the group approaching the thirteenth green about fifty yards to her right. Instinctively, her gaze homed on the tall individual she hadn’t seen in thirteen months, one week and two days.

Even from this distance, she recognized his confident bearing, his long-legged walk, and his lucky black-and-purple Colorado Rockies baseball cap.

It was Adrian. The man she’d never expected to see until she’d plotted out every second of their next encounter, until she could think of him as a casual acquaintance rather than a lover, until she could face him with the cool indifference he deserved.

As aloof as she wanted to be, as often as she’d told herself she’d relegated him into her past and moved on with her life, seeing him with hardly any advance warning brought all of those painful emotions to the surface.

Her chest hurt as she realized his presence affected more than her own heart. His untimely arrival complicated everything she’d built for herself during the past year. She’d prided herself on her ability to work with anyone and everyone, but working with Adrian on a daily basis for several weeks was a punishment she didn’t deserve.

If disrupting her professional life wasn’t enough, he’d turn her personal life into a shambles, too. Pinehaven might be a suburb of Denver, but the people in this community were a close-knit group. Secrets were impossible to keep. All he had to do was ask the right question, and well-meaning people would share her meticulously vague story.

The same story to which only he could piece together all the bitter details.

Thank goodness his name had never crossed her lips. No one would associate him with the fellow who’d dumped her, not even Kate, her best friend and the OB nurse who’d coached her through her labor.

Tears of frustration blurred her vision and she rapidly blinked them away, hating the inevitability of Adrian turning her world into chaos after she’d finally, and with extreme effort, whipped it in order.

Instantly, her lungs seemed to deflate and she ran through the full gamut of emotions before finally settling on panic.

“Are we going to play or stand here all day?” Molly Blake, a third member of their Rusty Clubs foursome, whined as she swiped her forehead. “You guys might prefer to swelter under the sun, but I’d rather hang out in the air-conditioned clubhouse.”

Sabrina’s flight-or-fight response kicked into high gear. The only thought running through her mind was to escape before Adrian saw her. Contrary to what Kate might believe about familiar faces, Sabrina needed to postpone their imminent reunion so she could mentally prepare herself.

Numb, Sabrina stepped up to her ball and swung blindly. As soon as her driver made contact, she knew without even looking that she’d sliced the ball.

Time slowed as she watched it head in Adrian’s direction like a computer-guided missile searching for its target. Oh, surely fate wouldn’t be that cruel!

“Fore,” she yelled just before the projectile struck her nemesis on the side of his head.

He dropped like a rock and lay motionless on the manicured grass.

Horrified, Sabrina’s club slipped from her hand as her heart pounded. Dear God, she’d killed him!

She’d killed the father of her son.

“What the—?” Adrian squinted up at the blue sky, seeing stars when none had been a few moments ago. His head throbbed in time to his heartbeat and something warm trickled down his ear and neck.

“Just lie still for a few minutes, son.” A worried face hovered over his, blocking the sun from his eyes. “Give yourself a chance to recover.”

The world spun at all sorts of crazy angles, so he gratefully complied. “What happened?”

“Golf ball.” Mosby pressed a semi-clean golf towel to a spot above Adrian’s left ear. “How’s the head?”

He took stock. “Sore.”

“Any dizziness, nausea?”

“Some,” he admitted, hoping the power of positive thinking would slow down the spinning and churning of his internal amusement park ride from Tilt-A-Whirl to a sedate carousel.

Mosby peered into his eyes. “Pupils are equal and reactive, so you can rest easy on that account.”

“I’m OK. Just give me…a minute.”

“Take all the time you need,” Mosby advised, placing a hand on his shoulder. “An ambulance is on its way.”

“Not necessary,” he croaked, hating to appear weak, especially on his first official day in town. “I’m supposed to work in ER, not check in as a patient.”

“It’s very necessary,” Mosby assured him. “We take care of our own, and as of eight o’clock this morning, you’re one of us.”

Adrian folded one arm over his eyes, too befuddled to argue and quite content to lie on the grass until his wits returned. He heard voices and tried to focus on them through the pounding in his head, but none seemed to make any sense until he heard one so familiar it haunted him in his dreams.

“How is he? Is he OK? He’s breathing, isn’t he?”

Sabrina.

He’d known he’d see her again—the hospital wasn’t large enough to avoid it—but he wondered if her breathless concern would fade as soon as she realized that he was the one lying on the ground with a goose egg on the side of his head.

He lowered his arm and opened his eyes to see her face above his. Through his slightly blurry vision, he recognized her retroussé nose, high cheekbones, kissable mouth and eyes as black as midnight. “Yeah, I’m breathing and talking,” he answered for himself. “In a few minutes I’ll be walking, too.”

“That was one helluva slice,” Mosby commented. “I wonder who hit it?”

Even with his head feeling as if his brains had been run through a blender, Adrian was alert enough to watch color wash over Sabrina’s face. “I did,” she admitted.

Of all the people in this tournament, Sabrina had knocked him senseless? He wanted to laugh at the irony but his skull hurt too much. The best he could do was smile, and that turned out to be more grimace than grin.

As he covered his eyes with his arm once again to wait for the paramedics, one thought ran through his mind as clearly as a church bell on a calm summer day.

Paybacks were hell.

After seeing Adrian awake and alert, Sabrina felt marginally better, until she saw his ashen face and the blood trickling past his ear and down his corded neck to stain his shirt collar. In spite of everything that had gone wrong between them, in spite of past hurts, she’d never dreamed of physically harming him. Not that he didn’t deserve it, of course…

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “It was an accident. Honest.”

“Of course it was,” Mosby declared. “No one deliberately slices the ball.”

“That’s right,” she concurred, hoping Adrian wouldn’t accuse her of evil intent, at least not in front of this crowd of witnesses. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve never hit anyone before.”

“Or you haven’t been told,” Adrian remarked dryly. “That would have been quite a drive if it had gone straight.”

“Probably,” she agreed.

An ambulance siren wailed in the distance and he visibly winced, then sighed. “For me, I suppose.”

“Afraid so,” Mosby said.

“What if I don’t want it?”

Sabrina ignored his petulant tone. He’d hated receiving attention and today’s incident would forever mark him in the hospital staff’s collective minds. As a man who preferred to remain out of the limelight, he’d never forgive her for the notoriety.

Then again, he had worse things to hold against her than being the subject of well-meant gossip. Never telling him about their son topped this incident by a country mile. Oh, he’d no doubt be furious, but she’d endured too much during and after her pregnancy with no one but herself to rely upon to be afraid of his reaction. She’d had her reasons and as far as she was concerned they had been the right ones, but her bravado didn’t stop her from checking his hand for a wedding ring.

No ring. Not even a pale tan line marked his third finger.

How curious, especially after what she’d seen…

“Sorry, young man, but when you go back to Mercy, you’ll go none the worse for wear,” Mosby replied. “If everything checks out, you can report for work in the morning.”

Either Adrian recognized the finality in Dr Mosby’s voice or he’d realized that an ambulance ride wasn’t such a bad idea because he didn’t argue.

“Sabrina?” Mosby turned his attention to her. “Follow Adrian to the hospital and make sure he’s given VIP treatment. Nothing’s too good for our newest physician.”

Oh, sweet baby Jane. “Me?” she protested, before she realized that refusing would only foster unwanted speculation.

Mosby studied her. “Why not you?”

Why not her, indeed? She could give him a specific reason—Adrian had told her that he didn’t want her in his life—but mentioning their volatile past wasn’t appropriate under the circumstances. Fortunately, the perfect excuse popped into her head.

“I’m not sure he’d appreciate me doing the honors when I’m the one responsible for his condition.” She glanced helplessly at Adrian, hoping, expecting him to refuse her company.

“Nonsense,” Mosby declared. “Dr McReynolds is a professional as well as a golfer. Accidents happen. He won’t hold this against you.”

She wasn’t as certain, but she bit back a reply because anything she could have said would have raised questions she didn’t want to answer.

“I suspect you won’t play worth a hoot after this anyway, so your team will probably thank me.” The chief of staff added with a twinkle in his eye, “It may also be safer for the masses if you aren’t swinging a club.”

Great. She’d never live this incident down, either. For a woman who’d won regional tournaments in both high school and college, she’d rather be known for a brilliant achievement instead of a hapless slice that had knocked out a fellow golfer and sent him to hospital.

Mosby laid a hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “Never fear. We won’t abandon you. Will we, Sabrina?” he asked with a pointed glance in her direction.

She glanced at Adrian, wondering why he consented to Mosby’s plans. While he truly wasn’t in a position to refuse any more than she could, she wondered if he was simply too confused to realize what was happening. Accident or not, she felt guilty for causing his injury.

“I’ll get my things,” she said reluctantly, hoping she wouldn’t be forced to contact his sisters with bad news. Conditions such as skull fractures, subdural hematomas and nerve damage were serious possibilities. Although it was a shame he hadn’t shown initial signs of amnesia. It would solve a lot of her problems, she thought wryly.

“Good. I’ll check in with you as soon as we’ve finished our round. We’ll have test results by then.”

“Paramedics are here,” someone said, and the small crowd parted.

Sabrina stood off to one side, watching the emergency personnel apply a cervical collar and prepare Adrian for transport. The grim set to his mouth and his one-word replies suggested his head hurt worse than he cared to admit. Surprisingly enough, his vulnerability tugged at her heartstrings.

You’d feel the same for any injured person, she told herself, refusing to believe she held any tender feelings for him at all. After the way he’d treated her, thrown her love away like yesterday’s garbage, how pitiful would she be if she did? In another lifetime, she would have been more than happy to escort him to the hospital and act as his hospital liaison, but too much had happened since those blissful days. Far better for her peace of mind if she treated him warily or, at best, as a familiar stranger until she discovered why he’d taken this temporary position at Pinehaven Health Center.