Part 31 (1/2)
He lifted one brow. ”That spaghetti worked fine for me,” he said.
”I have no idea what's wrong,” she said. She sniffed. ”I feel completely fine now. That coffee even smells good.”
”Emma,” he asked. ”When did you last have a period?”
”Oh, s.h.i.+t,” she said.
It was next to impossible to get an immediate appointment with an OB, especially if you were a woman about four weeks pregnant. What they routinely did was give you vitamins and see you for the first time at a couple of months, maybe three months. But Adam taught with a man whose wife was an OB and called in a favor because Emma was worried. She was afraid she'd gotten a positive pregnancy test because something was terribly wrong. After all, she'd been through a little over a year of infertility tests and treatments.
”I can't see that anything is wrong,” Dr. Winnet said. ”And you are definitely pregnant. Due in the fall.”
”But I was told my only hope was in vitro!”
”I'll request the records from your specialist and do a little blood work, but if you were infertile, you're not anymore. And you appear to be in excellent health.”
Her records were electronic and therefore transferred from Dr. Grimaldi in New York within a couple of days. Dr. Winnet called her. ”I'm a little confused. You say he did a fertility workup? Because all I find in your chart is regular exams, birth control medication, one cyst removal.”
”No, no, not birth control pills. I was taking hormones to stimulate ovulation. I was x-rayed for blocked fallopian tubes. We were getting ready to harvest eggs for in vitro when...” She stopped. When Richard said, ”I don't have time to deal with this while I'm consumed with the investigation. They're demanding records constantly. Just let me get through this and we'll give it a go.”
”Maybe I can find better records at the hospital or surgical center where the procedures were performed.”
Emma took a deep breath and tried to think clearly. It couldn't be that it had all been a lie. ”Dr. Grimaldi had his own surgi-center.” And she had gone with Richard after-hours because of Richard's impossible schedule.
”I'll call them, ask if they have records for your procedures.”
But there were none.
”Could the records have been lost?” Emma asked.
”Possible, but unlikely,” Dr. Winnet said. ”It has happened, though it's rare. But all that aside, your blood work is good, your physical was excellent and you have no reason to worry.”
Emma would never know for sure, but she strongly suspected she'd been pulled into the web of Richard's many lies yet again. When she first suggested a baby, he didn't like the idea because of his age. When she pestered him, he made an appointment with Dr. Grimaldi-early evening when there was only one nurse present and no other patients. Emma had felt, as she often did, that she was given special treatment because of Richard. She was flattered to be seen by such an important doctor after the office was closed. Dr. Grimaldi had seemed thrilled to help Richard with this little problem. And now she thought Dr. Grimaldi had probably been very well paid for his fraud.
”I'd bet my life on it,” Emma told Adam. ”He pulled off things I never could have dreamed of.”
”Well, the only thing I want to pull off with you is a child. I didn't think I'd ever be a father.”
”You don't have much choice now, do you?” she said.
”You're going to have to come clean with Riley,” he said. ”We can do it together, you can do it your own way, you can enlist June to help, but it has to be done. Like it or not, we're all family now.”
”I'm sorry for the surprise, for the shock,” Emma said.
”I'm not,” he said. ”I wasn't sure how I'd ever convince you to give me a chance. I couldn't be happier about it. And all I want to do is make you happy. Think you can live with that?”
She smiled and touched his sweet face. ”I'm sure I can.”
Chapter Twenty.
Maddie had a date for the Valentine's dance. It was her first official date, the kind where a boy formally asks a girl for a special occasion, when a perfect dress has to be found. But, there were three soph.o.m.ore couples going together, not a sixteen-year-old among them, thank G.o.d. So they were chauffeured by parents. And Jock came over to Riley's house to see Maddie all dressed up and picked up by her date.
He didn't act like one of those caricature dads who growled and threatened the skinny young man, and Riley was so proud of him for that. He was completely comfortable, complimenting Maddie, grinning at the kids, taking a few pictures and texting them to his side of the family. And when they were gone, off to the dance, Riley opened a bottle of wine and poured them each a gla.s.s.
She clinked his gla.s.s in a toast. ”That's going to be hard to get used to-watching her go off with a man like that.”
”That wasn't a man,” he said. He pulled her down on the couch beside him. ”She's going to figure us out real soon, you know.”
”I think she has no idea it's you I've been talking to at night.”
”It's probably none of my business, but what happened to the other guy?”
”We parted on friendly terms,” Riley said. ”I invited him to lunch, told him that many circ.u.mstances combined to make me realize I wanted to get to know my daughter's father better. He was pretty civil about it.”
”Pretty civil?” Jock asked.
”He's a very nice guy and I suggested we stay in touch, remain friends, and he said no, thank you.”
”Smart man,” Jock said.
”What are we going to do if we don't work out?” Riley asked.
”You mean if it doesn't work for you? It's working pretty well for me.”
”I don't want Maddie traumatized,” Riley said. ”You know she'll be thrilled to think of her parents romantically involved. What if we hit a wall, fight, split apart again? What if that happens?”
He smiled and just shook his head. ”Couples argue sometimes. People disagree.” He put his arm around her and pulled her closer. ”It's okay if that happens. But those things that kept us apart as teenagers-we don't have those things to wrestle with anymore. At least I don't. I'm not scared and immature anymore. And you and Maddie are my family. You think I won't do anything under the sun to protect that?”
”How long have you been like this?” she asked him.
”I don't know. Look, I'm not the smart one. But my mother says I have good common sense.”
”There hasn't been anyone for me,” she said. ”No one.”
He chuckled. ”I wish I could say the same, but I made a few women completely miserable, looking for someone to love.”
”It is positively ridiculous that we've loved each other for all these years and couldn't get together on anything.”
”I think Emma has something to do with it.”
”Emma?”
”Riley, you've been hung up about Emma for sixteen years. Feeling guilty, angry, lonely. You blamed yourself for so much. You blamed her when you couldn't blame yourself anymore. Then she came back, wounded after all she went through, and you saw that she was just a hurt little girl willing to do whatever she had to do to get her life back. Just like you had been. The two people who had failed you in the worst time you'd ever faced-me and Emma-are back, hoping for another chance to be there for you.”
”I get that you are, but Emma?”