One Night That Changed Everything. Tina Beckett

her up afterward, and they’d dressed without a word. Had collected their things, walked through the office and out the front door in silence. Until she’d inserted the key into her car door, only to have a hand cover hers, stopping her from fleeing into the night.

      “Hannah, I’m sorry. We’ll talk … later.”

      Sorry. The very word she’d dreaded hearing. It ranked right up there with horrified and talk.

      She didn’t want to talk. Or even face him.

      He was in surgery this morning, leaving Hannah with a full slate of patients who needed her to be on her game. And no time to plan what she’d say when she eventually saw him again.

      And she would.

      Unless she quit. The idea had come to her the night before, tickling her with temptation before she dismissed it as ridiculous. She needed this job, especially now. What had happened last night was a fluke. Greg had been hurting, and she’d botched her attempt to comfort him by sending out the wrong signals.

      No. That was a lie. They had been the right signals, and he’d picked up on them as easily as the PET scan had homed in on the cancer in her lymph nodes.

      Stella poked her head into the room. “Are you ready for the next patient?”

      “Yep.” She forced a smile, knowing it probably looked as strained as she felt.

      “You okay?” The receptionist’s concern only made her feel worse, because she was far from all right.

      Why couldn’t her little encounter with Greg have happened two weeks from now? A month? Anything outside the five-day lifespan of sperm? And with the washed sperm used during inseminations, that window was even narrower.

      If she got pregnant now, nothing other than a D.N.A. test could prove whether the baby was the donor’s or Greg’s.

      “Hannah?” Stella’s voice broke through her thoughts.

      “Sorry. I’m fine. Just daydreaming.”

      Or nightmaring, whichever you chose to call it.

      The receptionist stepped inside the room and closed the door. “About anyone I know?”

      “No.” The word came out on a strange wobbly note, and she decided some kind of explanation was due. “I had an I.U.I. procedure yesterday, and I was thinking about the possibilities.”

      And that was the absolute truth.

      “Oh, honey, congratulations!” Stella enveloped her in a bear hug, and if the fifty-year-old’s ebullience was in direct proportion to the tightness of the squeeze, it was off the charts, since she’d just wrung the last molecule of air from Hannah’s lungs.

      Her brain a bit woozy from the lack of oxygen, she hurried to add, “I don’t even know if it took yet or not, so please don’t tell anyone.”

      Especially not their boss.

      All she needed was for Greg to hear she was pregnant the second he walked into the office.

      He’d immediately wonder if she was angling for something, since there’s no way she could know twelve hours out whether or not he’d knocked her up.

      Right.

      Horrified would be the least of her worries, if that happened. And looking for a new job would be the order of the day.

      “Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”

      Since those lips tended to flap around like pancakes tossed from a cast-iron skillet, this could mean trouble. Which meant she’d have to talk to Greg, like it or not.

      Too bad she couldn’t rewind to yesterday and go back to calling him Dr. Mason. Only if she did that now, he’d assume she was doing it because of their little interlude, and he’d be right. No, the less emphasis she placed on what had happened, the less likely it was to change their working relationship.

      “Okay, Stella, where’s our next patient?”

      * * *

      The next two hours passed in a frenzy of work and worry. She forced the latter to remain in the background, only letting it surface when she had five minutes to spare, which was thankfully not often.

      Her last patient of the day sat on the exam table, a jewel-toned silk scarf artfully draped around her head. The woman’s blue eyes sparkled with life. Claire Taylor had already defied the odds once and was well on her way to doing it a second time. The lumpectomy she’d had three years ago was now a mastectomy scar, but she was cheerful and positive. Since her first diagnosis, the twenty-six-year-old had gotten married and was already looking ahead to a bright future.

      “I talked to a plastic surgeon last week about reconstruction.”

      Hannah glanced up from her examination. “I didn’t realize you were even thinking about it.” Claire had opted not to have the reconstruction right after the surgery. She’d been through a chemo regimen once before and didn’t want to have to worry about anything but getting through that ordeal. She was halfway through her eight-treatment cycle—heading down the home stretch.

      “I wasn’t. But I haven’t been as sick this time as I was the last time. Or maybe I just remember it being worse because I didn’t know what to expect.”

      Hannah could relate to that. She’d saved her scarves—all fifty of them—as a reminder that she was a survivor, and that she intended to keep on living. Every once in a while she wore one around her neck and talked about it with her patients. As one survivor to another.

      Maybe Claire was at that point as well—gearing up to tell the world she was ready to enjoy the rest of her life. “What did the surgeon say?”

      “That he could take some skin from my stomach to construct the breast. So I’d get a tummy tuck and a perky new boob at the same time.”

      “Wow, a twofer—you lucky girl.”

      Right as she said it, she winced, realizing she’d also gotten one of those: two batches of sperm for the price of one. But in this case she could have done without the figurative tummy tuck and been perfectly happy sticking to the lab-generated portion.

      Claire laughed. “I know, right?”

      “What does your husband think of all this?”

      “Oh, you know how they are. He claims to love me just as I am, says I don’t need it.” The woman’s lips twisted. “So who said I was doing it for him, anyway?”

      It was Hannah’s turn to laugh. “Did you tell him that?’

      “No way. Let him think it. It’ll add some spice to our love life.”

      Hannah could feel the heat crawling up her stomach on its way to her face. The sound of a knock and then the door opening didn’t help, especially when Greg strolled in, his face a study in exhaustion. But when he saw Claire, his eyes softened, the edges of his mouth turning up in a smile. “I couldn’t let one of my favorite patients get away without a single hello.”

      Claire laughed. “Okay, then. Hello.”

      Had he really come back to the office to say hi his patients? Or was he here to have the Dreaded Talk?

      Why hadn’t he just gone home? This could wait. She was tired too, and she wasn’t up to a conversation about regrets.

      He continued talking to his patient, not giving Hannah a second glance as he listened intently to Claire’s plans for surgery. He held out a hand for the chart, which Hannah gave him. A moment passed as he perused the contents, flipping pages. “I’d like it if you waited until after you complete the regimen, just to be sure. You’ll be stronger and there’ll be less worry about infection.”

      “That’s what the surgeon said, as well.” Her hand crept up to the robe, and the hollow left by the mastectomy. “It’s healing well, and he says I’m a