Dr. Mommy. Elizabeth BevarlyЧитать онлайн книгу.
make it a habit to answer your door in the middle of the night when you’re here all alone?” he asked, not bothering to disguise the fact that he considered such behavior to be, well, pretty stupid.
“Hey, I don’t usually have to answer the door in the middle of the night,” she told him. She decided to let him sort out for himself whether that was because she didn’t normally have visitors at that time of night, or because there was usually someone else here with her—someone of the masculine persuasion—who answered the door that time of night for her.
Before he could object further, she added, “I thought it might be a patient. And I didn’t just run down and pull the door open wide in welcome. I checked through the window first. That was when I saw the woman standing at the foot of my driveway.”
Nick narrowed his eyes at her. “You actually saw a woman leave the baby?”
Claire shook her head. “I didn’t see her literally put the basket down on my doorstep, but I think it’s a safe bet she’s the one who left the baby here, yes.”
“Did you get a good look at her?”
“Not really. It was dark, and it was snowing pretty hard, and the part of the window I was looking through isn’t completely clear. But the brief glimpse I got of her gave me the impression that she was young. All I can tell you for certain is that she was white, had long blond hair, and was wearing a black jacket and beret. Those are about the only things I’m sure of.”
Nick nodded slowly. “Did you speak to her at all?”
Again Claire shook her head. “As soon as I saw her out there, I switched on all the outdoor lights, but she took off running before I could see her clearly or say anything. For what it’s worth, she did seem hesitant to go. Even after I came outside, she didn’t bolt right away. Just slowed down on the other side of the street and watched me. It was only after she knew I saw the basket that she took off running. I think she wanted to make sure the baby was taken inside before she left.”
Nick eyed her thoughtfully as he processed the information. “You sound like you’re defending her actions.”
Claire opened her mouth to protest, then closed it, putting some thought into her response before giving it. “Maybe I am, in a way,” she relented. “Whoever the young woman was, she really did seem reluctant to leave. I don’t think she would have abandoned the baby unless she was sure someone would be home to take it inside.”
“It still doesn’t excuse what she did.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Claire agreed.
He paused a telling moment before adding sarcastically, “But I can see why you’d think her behavior was acceptable.”
Okay, now that made Claire mad. “I never said her behavior was acceptable,” she countered. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Nick.” She refrained from adding again.
“Yeah, but you’re no fan of children, are you?” he charged.
“Hey, I like kids just fine,” she told him. “As long as they belong to someone else and keep their distance.”
He nodded, making no effort to hide his disappointment. “So you can probably sympathize with the woman who left that little bundle of joy on your doorstep, can’t you? You’d probably do the same thing if you found yourself saddled with a baby you didn’t want.”
Claire knew there was little reason to dignify that allegation with a response. But she couldn’t quite help herself from retorting, “I would never abandon a child. Nor would I conceive one I couldn’t care for. So no, I don’t sympathize with her. But I do think it’s wrong to summarily judge and sentence her without knowing the circumstances of her situation.
“Still,” she hurried on before Nick could interrupt, as he clearly wanted to do, “I can see how a guy like you would see the situation as either-or. You never were much good at distinguishing shades of gray, were you? It was always Nick’s way or no way with you.”
She could tell there was more—a lot more—that he wanted to say on that particular matter, but he set his jaw resolutely and instead asked, “What else can you tell me about this episode that might be helpful?”
For the next quarter hour Nick asked a lot of questions about the baby’s abandonment that Claire did her best to answer. For most of them, however, she could provide nothing helpful. Everything had just happened so quickly, and she’d just been so surprised by it all, that few details had registered in her brain.
Finally, though, Nick seemed to run out of questions, so he clicked his pen again, flipped the notebook closed and tucked both back inside his coat pocket. Then he spared another backward glance toward the sleeping baby and turned back to study Claire with clear concern. She waited for him to pose another question about her unexpected visitor. But very softly he asked, “How’ve you been, Claire?”
The quick and unexpected change of subject—not to mention the unmistakable tenderness in his tone—caught her off guard, as did the glimmer of genuine affection that briefly lit his eyes. Gone, for an instant, was the antagonism and accusation that had heated the air between them earlier. Gone was any sign that he felt anything other than honest curiosity about her well-being. For a moment, Claire had no idea what to say. Because for a moment, she honestly didn’t know how she’d been.
“Um, fine,” she finally muttered, shaking off the odd sensation that everything in her life was wrong. “I, uh…” She swallowed with some difficulty and glanced away. “I’ve been fine.”
“Just fine?”
She inhaled a shaky breath and released it slowly, wishing she could turn back the clock almost twenty years, to the day she’d first lain eyes on Nick Campisano at Overdale High School in Gloucester City. It really had been a lifetime ago. Back then, Claire had been the shy, skinny new kid, hiding behind big glasses and baggy clothes. Nick Campisano, with his dark good looks and gregarious disposition and total self-confidence, in his red-and-gold, multilettered football jacket, had seemed like a Roman god. Even as a sophomore, he’d already been making a splash on the varsity teams. And Claire, as a lowly freshman, hadn’t entered his sphere of existence at all.
No, that hadn’t happened until she was a junior, and he was a senior. When she’d gotten contact lenses and gone through a second puberty that had rounded her out nicely. They’d been in study hall together, where fate—and Mrs. Ballantine—had thrown them together at the same table. It had taken all of five minutes for Nick to charm Claire into going out with him. After that, there had been no turning back for either of them.
Not until the day she graduated from Princeton with a BS in biology and an acceptance letter to Yale med school. That was the day everything began to unravel.
“Yes, fine,” she told him when she remembered that his question required an answer. “I’m fine,” she repeated yet again, as if by saying it often enough, she could make the statement true.
“Yeah, well, I guess I can’t disagree,” he told her, his voice low and appraising. “You look terrific.”
A tiny splash of heat ignited in the pit of her stomach at his carelessly offered observation. Immediately she extinguished it. No sense getting fired up over something that wasn’t going to happen, she told herself. Unable to stop herself, however, she replied, “You look pretty good yourself.”
He shrugged the compliment off quite literally, then waited until she was gazing at his face again before he continued. “Nice house,” he remarked with absolutely no inflection one way or another. “Guess you’re doing pretty well these days.”
“I do all right,” she concurred.
He expelled a single, almost derisive chuckle. “All right,” he echoed. “You probably paid more for this house than I’ll make in ten years.”
She couldn’t contradict him, because she knew he was right. So she said nothing.
“Guess