The Nurse's Baby Secret

If she weren’t sitting on the sofa, she’d likely have staggered back from his verbal blow. Truly, there must be a gaping hole in her chest because her very heart had been yanked from her body. “Agreed. You don’t.”

“I never meant for you to think I’d stay in Chattanooga, or that I wanted to stay.”

She interpreted that as he’d never meant for her to assume he was going to stay, or want to stay, with her.

She’d been such a fool. She’d believed he loved her, had believed the light in his eyes when he looked at her was love, the real deal. She’d just seen what she’d wanted to see. Whatever that look had been, she’d never seen or felt it with past boyfriends. Maybe she’d mistaken phenomenal sexual chemistry with love. She wouldn’t be the first woman to have done so in the history of the world.

Devastation and anger competed for priority in her betrayed head.

She met his gaze and refused to look away, despite how much staring into his dark eyes hurt. They were ending. She’d thought everything had been so perfect and he’d been planning their end. “I think you should leave,” she began, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to hold her grief in much longer and not wanting him to witness her emotional breakdown.

She was going to break down. Majorly.

He started to say something but, shoulders straight, chin tilted upward, she stopped him.

“That you made this decision without involving me tells me everything I need to know about our relationship, Charlie. We aren’t on the same page and apparently never were. My bad. Now that I know we don’t want the same things from our relationship, there is no relationship. I want you to leave. We’re through.”

There. She’d been the first one to say the words out loud. Sure, he’d been dancing all around the truth of it, but she’d put them out there.

Not once since she’d seen that little blue line appear had she considered that he wouldn’t be happy about the news...that he wouldn’t be there for their child.

That he wouldn’t be there, period.

CHAPTER TWO (#ube700346-bfb4-544f-88a0-7de8bca06a99)

CHARLIE SMILED AT the petite lady he’d grown quite fond of over the past couple of years he’d been her cardiologist. “Now, now, Mrs. Evans. You’ll be just fine under Dr. Flowers’ care. He’s an excellent cardiologist.”

“But you know me,” the woman explained, not happy about his announcement that he was relocating. “If it wasn’t for having to cross that mountain halfway in between, I’d follow you to Nashville.”

“I’m flattered that you’d even consider doing so, but you don’t need a cardiologist who is two hours away. Mountain or no mountain, that’s not a good plan.”

“Then I guess you should change your mind and stay.”

If ever there was a time he considered changing his mind about his move it would have been the night before at Savannah’s apartment. The betrayed look on her face had gutted him, but he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do.

He’d set Savannah free and let her keep her pride by her being the one to say the words. He’d needed to let her out, but he hadn’t wanted to break her spirit.

Things were as they should be.

He was single, free to make the decisions for his life without her or any woman’s interference, and she was free of him and his baggage.

His father’s dying words had been pleas to Charlie never to be controlled by what was in his pants, and a declaration that no woman was worth giving up one’s dreams.

“Marriage and kids suck the life right out of you, son,” his father had told him. “You go after your dreams and you make them happen. You be the best doctor this country has ever seen and don’t you let a woman stand in your way, no matter how pretty she is. In the long run, she will eat at your soul until you despise her for taking away your dreams.”

Those had been the exact words from his last conversation with his father. He’d heard similar all his life, had known that was how his father felt about his mother, him.

Although he’d become way too involved with Savannah for far too long, Charlie wouldn’t let any woman tie him down.

Not because of his father, but because of not wanting to relive the hell of what he’d grown up with. He’d been a burden to his parents, had ruined their lives; he’d been unable to protect his mother from his father’s abuse, unable to protect her from the misery he’d caused. Charlie would never marry nor have children. Never.

He’d ruined enough lives during his lifetime already.

“You hear something different, doc?”

Charlie blinked at the elderly woman he’d been checking and instantly felt remorse at his mental slip into the past. Crazy that this move had him thinking so much about his parents, his failure of a family, his past. All things he did his best to keep buried. Maybe that had been the problem over the past year. He’d kept his past so deeply buried that he’d forgotten all the reasons why he shouldn’t have gotten so involved with Savannah. No more.

“No,” he told the woman with a forced smile. “Just listening to your heart sounds. Your heart is in rhythm today.”

“My heart is in rhythm every day. Just some days that rhythm isn’t such a good one.”

He finished examining her, then saw the rest of his morning patients. Typically, this was the time he’d go to the cardiovascular intensive care unit, see his inpatients, see if his favorite CVICU nurse could sneak away to grab a bite of lunch.

He’d gotten too attached to Savannah.

For both their sakes, he’d been right to take the job in Nashville. She might not realize it yet, but he’d done her the greatest favor of her life.

* * *

“You don’t seem yourself today.”

Savannah glanced up at her nurse supervisor, who also happened to be one of her dearest friends. Should she tell Chrissie the truth?

If so, how much of the truth?

The man I thought I was spending the rest of my life with told me last night that he’s moving two hours away? Or, I’m pregnant by a man I was crazy about but currently just want to strangle?

Neither seemed the right thing to say at work, where she had to hold it together and not cry out her frustrations.

“I’m okay.”

Chrissie’s brow lifted. “You usually walk around as if your feet aren’t affected by gravity. I’ve not seen you smile all day. So I’m not buying ‘okay’.”

Savannah gave a semblance of a smile that was mostly bared teeth.

Chrissie winced. “That bad?”

Savannah nodded. “Worse.”

“You and Charlie have an argument?”

Had they argued? Not really. More like he’d told her he was moving and she’d verbalized that they were through.

“I heard he turned his notice in yesterday. I wasn’t going to say anything until you did, but you’ve looked so miserable today that I couldn’t hold it in any longer.”

There it was. Confirmation that he was leaving. Everyone knew. Charlie was leaving her.

“I’m not sure what to say. My boyfriend—former boyfriend,” she corrected, “is moving out of town. I was shocked by the news and haven’t quite recovered.”