The Millionaire And The M.D.

Amy was lying on the exam table with the head slightly elevated. She looked expectantly at Rebecca, then smiled when she saw her brother. Not a big smile, but it was the first Rebecca had seen. It was a start.

“Gabe, you sit there next to Amy.”

He did as instructed and the teen started to reach out for him then dropped her hand when he ignored it and sat. Not a good start, Rebecca thought, when he rested his elbows on his knees and linked his fingers.

She walked around the exam table and sat on the stool beside the instrument. “This won’t hurt. I promise.” She gently lowered the sheet covering the teen’s belly, then picked up a tube of gel. “I’m going to squirt some of this on. It’s not cold. One of the really exciting advances in medicine is warm gel. Now, if someone could just come up with a way to keep a stethoscope above freezing.”

This was a tough room and she was getting no cooperation in her attempts to ease the tension. One look at brother and sister told her the bridge over those troubled waters would have to be miles long. Probably it would be best just to get this over with. She picked up the transducer and pressed it against Amy’s stomach, then moved it around, relieved that she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“The baby is active. That pulsing is the heart—it’s normal and strong. Everything looks very good.” She glanced at her patient, who was staring straight up at the ceiling. Again, benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it was hard to decipher organs and limbs unless they were pointed out. She pointed at the image on the screen. “Here’s a foot. And a little hand. See here?”

Amy said nothing and Gabe wasn’t looking, either. He was staring at the floor and frowning as if it were a competitive sport. What was up with these two? She suspected she knew what Amy was going through, but Gabe’s reaction puzzled her. Did he not like babies? Or doctors? Or his sister? Whatever it was, they were going to have to get over it because there was a life at stake. An innocent life.

“The baby has a very strong kick. Right now it’s turned away, but if it moves just right, I might be able to tell you the sex.” She looked at them to gauge a reaction to that suggestion, but neither responded, and she didn’t understand the absolute indifference. But she couldn’t make them care. All she could do was her job. The best outcome to this pregnancy was a healthy mother and baby and she’d do everything in her power to make that happen.

When she’d seen everything and gauged a due date, she moved the transducer around and typed in the command to print various views of the fetus. After wiping the gel off the teen’s stomach, she said, “Okay. We’re finished. I can—”

Amy pulled her shirt down, sat up and swung her legs to the side of the table before sliding off. “I’m going to the car.”

Gabe stood. “Amy, wait. Dr. Hamilton is—”

The girl never looked back but simply opened the exam room door and left.

Gabe rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, then met Rebecca’s gaze. “I apologize for my sister’s rudeness.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Hard not to.”

“I’m concerned, but not about her manners.”

His frown deepened. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything looks okay with the baby. I was just hoping that this procedure would help her connect to what’s going on, engage her emotionally with the changes in her body, help her bond with her baby. But she’s still in denial.”

“I guess I can understand.”

“Then maybe you can tell me why she’s indifferent to this pregnancy,” Rebecca said.

“Why would I be able to do that?”

“Because you’re acting the same way.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Gabe, you wouldn’t look at the baby, either. Is it possible that she’s interpreting that as disapproval?”

“I’m not judging her.”

“Does Amy know that?”

“You’d have to ask her. But like you said, what with all the changes happening to her, it’s—” He blew out a long breath. “I don’t have a clue why she’s acting the way she is.”

And he didn’t volunteer an explanation about his own attitude, which unfortunately made Rebecca acutely curious, on a strictly personal level. The difference was he was in perfect health and not facing a life crisis like Amy. Maybe it was time to say out loud what she suspected.

“Is it possible, Gabe, that this pregnancy is a result of your sister being sexually assaulted?”

If she’d punched him in the stomach, he couldn’t have looked more stunned. “No.” He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

Two for two in the Thorne family denial department. Rebecca needed him to get it, but no way would she tell him her own experience was the source of her gut feeling. When she’d talked to Amy about the baby growing inside her, the defensive expression was replaced by a bruised look and she’d bet it was all about trust betrayed in the most intimate way. Rebecca knew how that felt. She just didn’t know how it would feel to have a part of the assaulter growing inside her.

“Look, Gabe, I know you think I’m young and inexperienced, but I’ve handled a lot of pregnancies. They don’t give you a license to practice medicine unless you have the training. I’ve seen a lot of reactions—from the unplanned pregnancy in a committed relationship to the infertile woman heartbroken when she learns that she will never feel a baby move inside her. In my experience, even the mother who didn’t plan to get pregnant usually gets excited and is emotionally engaged when she sees her baby for the first time. Amy wouldn’t even look. A child conceived through an act of violence would explain why.”

He shook his head again. “That’s just not possible.”

“No?”

He loosened his tie with a quick and irritated jerk of his hand. “It’s just…Amy…In your practice…Have you seen assault victims?”

Every time she looked in the mirror. Rebecca’s chest tightened, but this wasn’t about her.

She let out a long breath. “Yes. Unfortunately. Before, when I suggested you get in touch with your feminine side, I know you can’t. Not really. And especially with something like this—Men don’t understand what it’s like to feel powerless. But it would explain a lot about Amy’s apathy.”

“If she’d been—If someone had…raped her…she would have—” Anger snapped in his eyes, making them a bottomless blue. “I’d like to say that she would have said something to me. But—”

“What?”

“But the truth is we’ve never been close.”

“Maybe this is an opportunity to change that.”

“The age difference,” he went on. “And…other things.”

Rebecca couldn’t afford to care what those other things were, although she was curious. And, okay, she did care. But he wasn’t eighteen and pregnant. Whatever he was dealing with would have to wait. The clock was ticking for Amy and she needed him.

“It’s possible that this situation could bring the two of you closer.”

For a split second amusement flashed through his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that sometimes people just want to brood and be ticked off? They don’t want to see the silver lining in any situation.”

“I understand.” She leaned a hip against the exam table.

He did the same and half sat, just inches from her. “I doubt it. You’re Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

Not so much, she wanted to say. But his words opened up a warm fuzzy place inside her—a place where she wanted to be a normal woman attracted to a very good-looking man. But…There was always a “but.” And she’d learned there always would be. Her trust had been betrayed twice—first in body, then in spirit. There wouldn’t be a third time.

She opened her mouth to say something, and Gabe silenced her with his index finer. In spite of her cold thoughts the touch made her warm again, but it was a heat that started in her center and radiated outward. She’d never experienced warm-and-fuzzy warm followed by wow-he-makes-me-hot warm. It was a one/two punch and she so didn’t need it.

“I’m not Shirley Temple. I’m not an empty-headed optimist. I’m a doctor and my name happens to be Rebecca.”

“So now it’s okay for me to call you Rebecca?”

It had been okay since he barged into her office demanding that his sister get an appointment. The man might want his sister to go home, but he wasn’t going to leave her out in the cold.