The Bride Said, 'Surprise!'. Cathy Thacker Gillen

Luke rubbed the tense muscles at the back of his neck. “I asked her point-blank who Jeremy’s father was but she refused to answer the question directly. And instead, talked about making a series of mistakes that couldn’t be undone.”

      “So she could still be talking about you,” John theorized bluntly, quickly realizing what Luke was getting at.

      “If Jeremy was born prematurely, yes, then Jeremy could very well be my son.” Luke waited, hoping they would reveal what he needed to know. To his disappointment they didn’t.

      “I understand what you want us to tell you, but…you really should get this kind of information from Meg,” Lilah said.

      Luke had been afraid they’d have this reaction. “And if Meg still won’t tell me?”

      John shrugged and exchanged a long, thoughtful glance with his wife before advising, “Then you wait until she trusts you enough to do so.”

      Luke sighed unhappily. “That might never happen.” Which left him with even fewer options—find out on his own by whatever means necessary if Jeremy had been born prematurely or hire an attorney and demand a paternity test. Neither option appealed to him. More important, neither option was something Meg was likely to condone. Feeling more frustrated and shut out than ever, Luke knotted his hands into fists and shoved them in his pockets.

      “We understand how you feel,” Lilah said gently. She reached over and patted his hand. “We’ve tried to get Meg to unburden herself to us. Or at least to do right by Jeremy’s father and tell him about his son. For a while I thought we had succeeded, because a few weeks after she learned she was pregnant she went off, determined to tell him.”

      Luke’s hopes mingled with the fear that he wasn’t the only person Meg turned to in her grief and her need…fear that he might not be Jeremy’s father after all. “And?”

      Lilah sighed. “Meg never said what happened when she returned, but it was easy to see she was absolutely devastated by whatever had transpired while she’d been gone.”

      Luke’s heart thudded heavily in his chest. “You think Jeremy’s father abandoned her?”

      “That was our guess. In any case Meg told us then that she was going to bring up Jeremy on her own. She didn’t want to do it that way, but she had no choice. We told her we would always support her, and we have.”

      “Meg never came to talk to me,” Luke said, sad to realize all over again that he might not be Jeremy’s father after all. “If she had…you have to know I would have been there for her and for Jeremy.” It wouldn’t have taken a baby to get him to marry her, either. All Meg would have had to do was give him the slightest sign that they had a chance to be together, and he would have waited for her forever. As it was, seeing no reason to hurt Gwyneth with the truth, he’d broken off his engagement to Gwyneth without a decent explanation, hurting her unconscionably. And only following through on his promise and marrying her six months later because she was still so devastated and determined to wait for him, and he didn’t want to be responsible for ruining Gwyneth’s life, too. The bitter irony of it being, of course, that he had ended up more or less ruining Gwyneth’s life anyway, despite his efforts to be the best husband and father to their children he could possibly be.

      “I don’t want to hurt Meg,” Luke said, meaning it with all his heart.

      “Then be there for her now,” Lilah said gently.

      John nodded. “Be her friend.”

      The problem was, Luke thought, he wanted so much more than that where Meg was concerned. He always had. Always would.

      Chapter Three

      Monday morning, unable to shake the suspicion that Jeremy was his son, that Meg just wasn’t telling him, Luke sat in front of the hospital computer in his office staring at the screen. As a physician on staff, he could access all patient files with the push of a button. It would be as easy as that to find Meg’s medical records and discover not just if Jeremy was born prematurely, but also the estimated date of Jeremy’s conception. He could learn Jeremy’s and Meg’s blood types and match them up against his. With that knowledge he could swiftly either confirm his paternity or eliminate himself completely.

      But it would be wrong to violate Meg’s privacy that way, Luke thought as he went back to the new-patient files he was supposed to be reviewing. It would be a breach of the medical ethics Luke had sworn to uphold. And Luke could not do that. No matter how much he wanted to know the truth.

      “You didn’t go to Meg and ask her those questions we talked about, did you?” John McCabe asked Luke as he walked in several minutes later for their scheduled meeting.

      Luke looked at the man he would be replacing as chief of family medicine. John McCabe had come over to make sure the transfer of patient files was complete and discuss the particularly difficult cases so Luke could start seeing patients later in the week. Luke was glad for the help and any wisdom John could impart about the patients Luke would now be caring for in John’s stead. He just wished John McCabe weren’t so efficient at sizing up his mood.

      “No, I didn’t.” Unable to completely hide his frustration, Luke closed the folder in front of him and sighed.

      “How did you know?”

      Clad in a sport shirt, slacks and casual boots that fit his newly retired status, John sat down opposite Luke. He laid his Stetson across his knee. “Because I saw Meg a few minutes ago, down in the emergency room, and she looked fine. If you’d asked her what you asked Lilah and me and told her you’d been to see her ex-boyfriend, well, I figure she’d be looking as troubled as you do now.”

      Luke frowned and turned a brooding glance to John. “I meant to confront her. I wanted to.”

      John looked momentarily concerned. “Then why didn’t you?”

      Luke sat back in his swivel chair and braced both palms against the edge of his desk. Feeling more tense and frustrated than ever, he recounted the events of the weekend. “By the time I got home Friday evening all her sisters were there. There was zero chance to talk to Meg privately. As the evening wore on, I had my hands full with my girls. Meg and Jeremy were gone all day Saturday and Sunday—where I don’t know.” Which had left him cooling his heels all weekend, still hoping he was a father to the son he had always wanted—a son who needed him desperately—yet unable to do anything to confirm or refute it without Meg’s help, which she was unlikely to give.

      John settled back with a sigh. “Meg spoke at a nursing conference in Dallas over the weekend. She took Jeremy with her, and they spent the rest of the weekend going to Six Flags and the big water parks there.”

      Glad to have that mystery solved, Luke nodded thoughtfully, then woefully continued his recounting. “By the time Meg and Jeremy got back last night, it was late, and I knew we both had to come into the hospital today, so…” Luke spread his hands wide and let his voice trail off.

      John’s wise dark-brown eyes narrowed. “You’re having second thoughts about grilling her at all, aren’t you?”

      Luke shrugged, not sure what he wanted except maybe a life with Meg and his son. He’d already missed Meg’s pregnancy and a good chunk of Jeremy’s childhood. He didn’t want to miss any more. And knowing what a delicate situation he was in if he was Jeremy’s father—and he still hoped there was a chance he might be—he was afraid of screwing things up even more than they already were. Which was exactly what would happen if he pushed Meg too hard.

      “The more I think about it, the more I think confronting her now with what I found out from Kip is a bad idea. She resents me enough as it is.” With good reason. Guiltily Luke pushed on. “I have to wait for the right time. I want her to get to know me again, wait until she trusts me and wait until the kids settle in, before I tell her I went to see Kip and I want her to confide in me.”

      “Don’t wait too long,” John warned. “Meg’ll