Undercover Baby

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Is it because before the accident, I couldn’t handle the fact that I wasn’t able to conceive, or something like that, and you’re afraid to bring it up to me now?”

Diana, Diana...

“Since I have no idea of how I used to be, it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

It did once, my darling. You wouldn’t even discuss the possibility of adoption.

“I thought you were going to be honest with me.”

“I want to be.” His voice grated.

“So why the hesitation?”

He rubbed the back of his neck before turning from the window to look at her. “Because I don’t want to upset you. What I’m about to tell you could do just that. I would rather have waited for your memory to return, then no explanation would be necessary.”

She laced her hands together nervously. “But we don’t know when that day will come. If ever.”

“Don’t say that!” Her words filled him with fresh anguish.

“I have to. Some people lose their memories and never regain them.”

Dear God. You can remember everything about life except your own life! It doesn’t make any sense.

“Dr. Harkness says your memory will return.” Cal had to believe that or lose his mind.

“Maybe. In the meantime, do you expect me to live in a vacuum?” she blurted. “I’d rather be dead.”

Cal groaned. “Never talk that way again, Diana. Not even in jest.”

“You’re not inside my skin.”

My wife—Where have you gone? I don’t know you like this.

He swallowed hard. “No. I’m not. I couldn’t begin to understand how you feel.”

“Thank you for saying that.” Her voice wobbled.

He wanted to wrap her in his arms and will her memory back, but he couldn’t do anything. Not one damn thing. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

“Please—if you care for me at all, tell me the truth.”

“All right.” He placed his hands on the back of the chair. “That baby upstairs is not our baby.”

“What? But of course it is! It’s Tyler!”

“No, Diana. You say you want to hear the truth, but already you’re fighting me.”

An awkward silence prevailed. “D-did we fight a lot in our marriage?”

He swallowed hard. “Never.”

After a long silence she whispered, “I’m sorry. Please go on.”

His heart reacted like a runaway train. “I don’t know if this is a good idea. Why don’t we wait for the doctor?”

She shook her head. “Don’t do this to me. Finish telling me the truth. I have to hear it. I promise I won’t interrupt again.”

I’m damned whatever I do, aren’t I, sweetheart?

“We’re pretty sure you found him on the doorstep at your work this morning. He was lying in a grocery box. There was a note. The unwed mother who left the baby there knew you would discover him. When you saw that the baby was jaundiced, you immediately brought him to the hospital for care.

“On your way into the emergency room, you slipped and hit your head on the pavement. Some ambulance attendants found you sitting on the cement, holding him. That’s why they brought you inside. When you couldn’t remember anything, they looked in your purse, found your identification and called me.”

Her lustrous green eyes filled with tears. “Tyler’s really not my baby,” she murmured in agony.

What have I said, what have I done?

Go on, Rawlins. Finish it.

“No. An abandoned baby is a ward of the court. You called him Tyler because that was your grandfather’s name. It’s the name you had hoped to call our baby, the one you miscarried a few months ago.”

“I had a miscarriage?”

He nodded. “You’ve had three, the last one after you were four months along,” he said gently.

“Nol ” Her look of horror mixed with a hint of pleading tore him apart.

“You asked for the truth. I didn’t want to hurt you. God knows I didn’t.”

Tears gushed from her eyes, forming rivulets down her pale cheeks. Suddenly she was convulsed. Her despair was worse than anything he’d heard during the traumatic week following her last miscarriage when she’d cried nonstop for days.

“Darli—”

“Don’t call me that!” she broke in on him. “For the love of heaven. Just go away and leave me alone.”

Sick in a way he couldn’t describe, Cal left her bedside and headed out of the room for the nursing station. The nurse who’d settled Diana in was just coming down the hall.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Rawlins? You look ill.”

Cal groaned in response. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. Clearing his throat he said, “Diana figured out she didn’t give birth to the baby upstairs in the nursery, so she forced me to tell her the truth. Now she’s inconsolable and it’s my fault.” His voice shook. “My wife needs help!”

The nurse eyed him with compassion. “I know this is hard on you. While I call Dr. Harkness, why don’t you take a seat in the waiting room around the corner. I’ll find you as soon as I’ve talked to him:”

Cal nodded.

Like the shell-shocked victim of a bombing, he made his way to the lounge, trying to grasp the enormity of what had happened since his wife had left his bed earlier that morning.

“Cal?”