The Accidental Daddy

He smiled.

‘So’s beating cancer,’ he said. ‘But for me, right from the diagnosis, it was a goal to work towards. I had a friend planning a climb and that gave me the motivation not only to get through the treatment but after it to do the training and build myself up to peak physical fitness—the kind that was needed if I wanted to be included in the team.’

‘But the second fiancée?’

‘I’d thought I could settle down, build a general practice here. It almost happened.’

Joey studied the man who’d catapulted into her life while she tried to make sense of all he was telling her. There were loose ends everywhere and she wasn’t even up to the mistake part.

Although she wasn’t in that much of a hurry to get to the mistake part. She’d rather go on thinking the baby inside her was David’s—sweet, gentle David’s—for as long as possible.

‘But it didn’t happen?’ she asked, before she could get melancholy over David again.

Green eyes studied her in turn and she knew he was tossing up whether to tell the truth or offer a vague evasion.

‘Hmm,’ he finally said, ‘well …’

‘Spit it out,’ she ordered. ‘It can’t be any worse than the “you’re having my baby” line you used earlier.’

‘It was definitely my fault,’ he began, and she knew he’d decided on the truth. ‘I was due to be back in Australia a month before the wedding but, coming down, before we’d reached base camp where we were to fly out from, we had news of an avalanche on another part of the mountain—’

‘Involving other climbers?’

The man nodded.

‘We were closest, I’m a doctor, it was a fair climb to reach them. The snow and ice around them were so unstable we couldn’t risk a helicopter rescue so getting the survivors out was tricky. Once they were handed over to the professionals we went back.’

The look on his face told her why. There’d been fatalities and he and his fellow climbers had brought out the bodies as well.

‘Some people find it’s easier to accept if they can bury their loved ones.’

The quiet sentence confirmed her guess. But the wedding?

‘So just how long was it before you returned to your fiancée?’ Joey asked, as the meaning of this rambling excuse became clear.

‘I was in touch whenever I could be,’ he said defensively. ‘Emails, texts, phone calls, you know how easy it is these days.’

‘So what happened?’ she asked, deciding to get back on track, although she’d really have liked to ask more about the mountain—both climbing and mountain-rescue work.

Rescue work.

Meryl had mentioned that. It sounded … intriguing.

‘I was dumped by text,’ Max replied. ‘It was waiting when we brought the survivors down, only weeks after leaving the base of Everest, about the time I should have been home. She’d met someone who loved her more than mountains, someone who wasn’t the most selfish person ever put on earth.’

‘She put all that in a text?’

Her visitor grinned.

‘Not quite. That’s just what I took “Gt stfd am kpg ring” to mean. She’d told me the most selfish man on earth part many times and I’ve since heard her version of the story. Anyway, I went on another rescue mission to heal my broken heart—or maybe in the hope of breaking my neck because of my broken heart—and I’ve been … wandering since. Involving myself more and more with the problems of remote communities. Seeing how infectious diseases can decimate them. Trying to do something about it.’

‘And your lymphoma?’

His smile lit up the room.

‘All clear!’

Yes, non-Hodgkin lymphoma was like that—not like aggressive brain tumours, Joey thought sadly, remembering back. Remembering David insisting on freezing sperm in case she ever wanted it—telling her the best option would be her finding someone else to love, to make a family with. He’d been so sure she would …

Max watched the shadows chase across her face and knew she’d been thinking about her husband, who hadn’t left her for his own selfish reasons but had been snatched from her by death.

Why hadn’t she found someone else? he wondered. She was a lovely-looking woman, obviously intelligent and interested in things outside her own world—hadn’t she shown interest in the mountains?

But ‘Yes,’ was all he said, and let the silence settle between them.

She picked up a cracker and used it to push a piece of cheese around the plate, then poked at a grape, before looking up at him.

‘We’re down to the nitty-gritty now, aren’t we?’ There was so much sadness in her voice; he wanted to go and sit beside her, to put his arms around her and hold her tight—to assure her everything would be all right, although he knew full well nothing would ever be the same for her again.

Or him, if the strange stuff going on inside him was any indication …

He sighed. Holding her wasn’t an option, so he’d best get on with it.

‘Do you remember anything of the day your husband went to the clinic?’

She looked at him, a little frown forming between her eyebrows.

‘Not really. I would have been angry—I was always angry back then—although …’

He waited, seeing the frown deepen as she dug back in her memory to a time she’d rather forget.

‘Something happened. I do remember. It was at the clinic. Some kind of fuss?’

He waited and she shook her head.

‘I can’t remember details—I’ve blanked out as much as I can of that part of my life. But there was a fuss of some kind. I remember thinking—furiously—that I might have lost him five weeks earlier than I needed to have and all because of the stupid sperm.’

She gave her belly another pat as if to excuse her words, while Max recalled the events of the morning only too clearly.

‘There was a fuss,’ he told her, although the word ‘fuss’ hardly covered the magnitude of it. ‘A man came in with a gun. Apparently he and his wife had frozen four embryos some time earlier—there was some hereditary disease in one or other of their families and these had been tested and found free of whatever gene could cause the problem.’

‘And his wife had left him?’ Joey put in. ‘Of course! I remember David telling me the story.’

‘Exactly! Left him for another man, so the deserted husband wanted the embryos destroyed but apparently she was listed as the owner so the clinic couldn’t destroy them without her say-so. He pulled out a gun, grabbed one of the laboratory staff and demanded action.’

‘Just as you and David had done your thing in your discreetly curtained cubicles and come out clutching your little jars?’

She half smiled and all the attraction stuff started up in his body again. This was beyond bizarre. He had to concentrate on the story, then help this woman—who was the real victim of the clinic’s mistake—in any way he could.