The Doctor's Pregnant Bride? / The Texas Billionaire's Baby: The Doctor's Pregnant Bride? / Baby By Surprise

Sara Beth gave her credit. She sounded genuinely pleased.

Ted shook hands with his father. “I thought I’d surprise you. This is Sara Beth O’Connell. Sara Beth, these are my parents, Brant and Penny Bonner, and a family friend, Tricia Trahearn.”

Sara Beth caught a cool, speculative look from Tricia as they shook hands.

“It’s been a long time, Tricia. How are you?” Ted asked, clasping her hand for a moment too long, in Sara Beth’s opinion. Or was she doing the holding?

“I’m well, thank you. You’re looking wonderful.”

“I can’t complain.” He let go, then bent to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Happy anniversary.”

Shock surged through Sara Beth, then annoyance. Oh, yeah, she was going to get him for this. It was bad enough she seemed like a party crasher, but he also hadn’t bothered to tell her it was his parents’ anniversary.

“Thank you, darling,” Penny Bonner said, lifting her glass to her husband. “Thirty-four years. Time does fly.”

The only available seating was a second settee, facing his parents. Ted led Sara Beth there. She thought she was doing an admirable job of keeping her expression neutral, while an internal volcano threatened to spew. She’d accepted his invitation because she’d wanted an adventure, to recapture that piece of herself. Instead she felt like an intruder.

Which was Dr. Ted Bonner’s fault, big-time.

Hadn’t her mother warned her forever about doctors, particularly about doctors, love and romance? Yes, yes, yes. Forever. From as far back as Sara Beth’s memory reached. Doctors lived in a world of their own, her mother had said. It was one of the reasons Sara Beth had kept away from Ted, since she’d been dazzled by an instant attraction to him. Nothing serious could ever happen between them.

“Glenfiddich on the rocks for you, I imagine, son?” his father said, then looked at Sara Beth. “What would you like?”

To dump a whole bottle of that pricey whiskey over your son’s head. “White wine would be wonderful, thank you.”

Brant moved to a bar cart, then returned with their drinks. No one spoke. The awkwardness grew by the second. Sara Beth didn’t hazard a glance toward the sexy Tricia Trahearn, but felt the woman’s interest. Or maybe she’d zeroed in on Ted. Either way, she didn’t look anywhere but in their direction.

Sara Beth also wondered how irritated his mother was. Not only would she have to add another place at the table, there would be an odd number instead of even.

Ted’s mother ended the silence. “Tricia is visiting her parents for a month,” Penny said.

Penny was short for Penelope, Sara Beth recalled from Ted’s conversation in the car. His parents were old Boston. Very old Boston, as in James-Bonner-arrived-in-America-on-the-ship-Truelove-in-1623 old Boston. Penelope and Brantley were family names from a long and duly documented genealogy through the centuries. Ted was officially Theodore, so named after ancestors from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. “It could’ve been worse,” he’d told her as he’d parked the car. “Several were named Percival.”

“How are your parents?” Ted asked Tricia, swirling his drink then taking a sip.

“Disappointed in me, as always.”

“Why’s that?”

She recrossed her legs and bounced her foot. “I haven’t married and procreated yet.” She offered a small toast. “I’m sure you’ve heard the refrain.”

Sara Beth didn’t appreciate Tricia’s lack of subtlety, nor the way she seemed so familiar with Ted.

Ted smiled, returning the gesture with his glass. “Tricia is a judge,” he said to Sara Beth. “Youngest on the bench at the moment.”

Of course she is. Probably everyone he knew held positions of power and influence. Sara Beth was proud of where she came from and what she’d accomplished, but this was a whole new world to her.

“Appointed judge. Not here, but in Vermont,” Tricia said. “We’ll see what happens come election time.”

“It’ll be a landslide,” Penny said with assurance. “And for the record, we don’t pester Ted about marrying and procreating, as you so bluntly put it, do we, darling?”

“I suppose one would have to define the word pester, Mother,” Ted responded, but with a smile. His father laughed.

“So, where did you and Sara Beth meet?” Penny asked.

“She’s the head nurse at the Armstrong Fertility Institute.”

“You work together?”

“Not together, exactly. I’m research. She’s medicine,” Ted said.

Sara Beth was fine with the fact he was fudging the truth a little. They weren’t a couple, after all, and they wouldn’t officially be working together until tomorrow morning.

“Do you help deliver babies?” Tricia asked.

“We don’t do deliveries at the institute. We use the hospital next door. A lot of specialized staff and equipment is necessary, since we often have multiple births. I do, however, attend some of the births. Some of our patients find it comforting to have a familiar face present,” Sara Beth explained.

“You enjoy your work?” Penny asked.

“I—Yes, I do. I’ve known since I was a child that it was what I wanted. I’m sure the decision was influenced by my mother, who was head nurse at the institute since Dr. Armstrong started it. She retired recently.”

“And your father?” Penny asked.

Sara Beth wondered if Ted knew her background. In the car she’d only mentioned her mother, and he hadn’t questioned her about her father. “My father has never been part of my life.” But maybe he will be. Maybe I’ll find him, after all. The vault could hold the answers.…

She realized how quiet the room had gotten. No one knew what to say. “My mother and I are very close, though. How did you two meet?” she asked, diverting the conversation to his parents.

Brant laid his hand over Penny’s. Love and affection radiated from her face, and it made Sara Beth hunger for someone to look at her that way. She’d been in a position to observe a lot of couples through the years, couples who were usually under a lot of stress, either trying to get pregnant or waiting out a complicated pregnancy, so they didn’t always glow. Still, it was wonderful to see a husband and wife so obviously in love after so many years.

“Our mothers were in Junior League together,” Penny said. “Brant and I hated each other on sight.”

“We were four years old,” Brant said. “She was annoying.”

“And he annoyed.”

“When did it change?” Sara Beth asked.

“On my sixteenth birthday,” Penny said. “His parents made him come to my party.”

“I did my duty and asked her to dance, a fast dance where we wouldn’t touch, but the song ended right away and a slow one started. I felt stuck.”

“That was all it took,” Penny said, her smile warm as their gazes met. “The moment we touched—”

“Pow.” He stroked her hair. “I stole a kiss later, and that was it for me.”

“Same here.”

Sara Beth glanced at Ted. He was looking into the distance, probably devising some chemical formula in his head—or maybe planning when he would see Tricia again. Or maybe he’d just heard the story too many times for it to have impact. To Sara Beth it was incredibly romantic.