Daddy By Choice. Paula Detmer Riggs

pantherlike way of walking that had first attracted her to Luke.

      “It took me years to stop hating him. I…it can’t be good for the baby to stir all that up again.”

      “Then don’t let it be stirred.” Stern, suddenly, and intense, Doc’s eyes bored into her. “If you want to give that little one a chance, get yourself on the next plane to Oregon. Charm the man if that’s what it takes. Play the guilt card if he balks. Remind him of all he cost you if you have to, but convince him to take you on.”

      Madelyn bit down on the urge to refuse point-blank. This baby meant everything to her. Everything. Yet, how could she bear to rake up the misery of the past all over again?

      “Maddy, you’re a strong woman,” Doc said gently but with audible conviction. “You’ve handled much worse than this and survived. You’ve made yourself into a real role model for the young folks in this sorry old town. You even married a man who didn’t value you near enough because your folks liked him.”

      At the mention of the baby’s father, her gaze dropped. The eldest of eight children, Wiley Roy Foster had been adamant in his desire never to be a father. Since four specialists had told Maddy she would almost surely never conceive again, theirs seemed an ideal match. And they had been happy in the beginning. Gradually, however, the hopeful early years settled into a mundane routine. Wiley Roy wasn’t so much a bad husband as a complacent one. Nothing she tried could shake him from his rut, while little by little, she found herself feeling lonelier and lonelier.

      When she’d told him she was pregnant, Wiley Roy had stunned her by issuing an ultimatum. Perhaps he’d provided the sperm, he’d said but he was in no way a father. She had to choose between him and the child. He’d moved out of their split-level Spanish colonial home on the day she refused to terminate this pregnancy. His rejection had hurt, but the pain was already fading. The hurt Luke had caused never had.

      Sensing the tangle of emotions, Doc reached over to take the hand she’d clamped like a talon around the arm of the chair. “Madelyn, I’ve checked this man out thoroughly. He has some of the most impressive credentials I’ve ever seen and an impeccable reputation, both professionally and personally. Everything I’ve learned tells me he’s no longer that callous hell-bent-for-leather rascal who sloped out on you when you needed him most.”

      “What if you’re wrong?” she asked, studying the familiar face carefully.

      “Read his curriculum vitae, and then if you’re not convinced, we’ll move on down to the next name on the list.”

      Still she hesitated, dropping her gaze to hide her eyes from Doc’s too-perceptive gaze, her stomach in knots and her heart beating so fast she had trouble catching her breath.

      “Maddy, I know I didn’t take as good care of you as I should have the first time, but believe me, I wouldn’t recommend this if I didn’t think it was exactly what you needed right now.” Very gently Doc’s hand squeezed hers, drawing her gaze back to those kindly eyes. “Think of the precious little one who’s counting on you to protect him or her, Maddy. Think of your baby.”

      It hurt to talk. Hell, it hurt to breathe. Since Luke was pretty much forced to do both, he set his jaw and pushed himself past the pain. It was a skill he’d developed a lot of years back and had saved his sorry ass more than once.

      “You gonna give me your opinion or are you just gonna stand there, wasting time neither of us can spare?” he grumbled at the big blond man leaning with arms crossed against the sink in one of the emergency-room cubicles, watching him through narrowed eyes.

      Boyd MacAuley was one of the best neurosurgeons in the country. He was also a good friend. Luke’s best friend, if he had to choose. Although it was only a little past nine in the morning, Boyd had the look of a man in need of eight solid hours of deep sleep. It was a feeling Luke knew all too well. In the past thirty-six hours he’d only managed a couple of catnaps between deliveries.

      “You know my opinion, hoss.” Boyd’s voice was edged with an impatience to match Luke’s own. “I’ve given it to you at least once a month for the past two years. You need to have those disks repaired. As it is, I’m amazed you’re still on your feet.”

      “I don’t have time for more surgery.”

      “Make time.”

      Luke sucked in his breath and sat up. He was used to the sharp stab of pain in his lower back every time he moved. It had been the sudden weakness in his right leg that had nearly sent him crashing to the floor in the operating room. Fortunately he’d already performed the emergency C-section on Phyllis Greaves and was fixing to apply the staples to the incision when his left leg had buckled on him.

      As luck would have it, the first-year resident assisting him had once been a linebacker for Oregon State, which meant that he’d been strong enough to catch Luke’s one hundred and ninety pounds without keeling over himself. Otherwise Luke was pretty sure he’d be nursing a few major bruises, as well as a battered ego.

      Now, an hour later, the numbness was gone, replaced by a throbbing that felt exactly like a red-hot poker had been jabbed through his calf muscle. He knew the cause of course—scar tissue surrounding the fourth and fifth lumbar vertebrae impinging on the sciatic nerve. Mostly he could ignore it, but when he was tired, like now, he tended to limp badly. Today was the first time his leg had actually gone numb, however.

      “If I do let you cut, how long before I can go back to work?” he asked when it was safe to breathe again.

      “Two, three weeks, then six, eight more of restricted activity. In a brace of course.”

      “Bull. I’ve done my research. I figure three months before I can handle even routine deliveries. Longer for the high-risk moms.”

      Boyd let out an exasperated sigh. “So you scale back for a while. I know a half-dozen third-year ob/gyn residents who would kill to work under the great Luke Jarrod.”

      “Shove a sock in it, MacAuley.”

      Luke swung his legs over the edge of the table, then waited out the renewed surge of pain. An accident his last year on the circuit had blown out his back. High-risk surgery had gotten him back on his feet. The brace he hated had kept him going through his last two years in med school. Years of back-strengthening exercises and therapy had gradually allowed him to shuck the brace.

      After the accident his mentor at Stanford, Dr. Danton Stone, had done his best to tout him off obstetrics, telling him repeatedly about the toll a specialty like that would exact on his ruined spine. Dan was right, Luke thought with a pang of resignation. So, unfortunately, was Boyd. Much as he hated to admit it, he couldn’t keep up his present pace much longer without surgery.

      “All right,” he conceded with a sigh. “Give me a few months to scale back my patient load.”

      Boyd shook his head. “A week, two tops.”

      “Not a chance. I have a dozen ladies ready to go any minute now, almost all of them having potential for major complications.”

      “You have a potential for major complications—like permanent paralysis if those wonky disks cut into your spinal cord.”

      “Unlikely.”

      Boyd snorted. “Lord save me from stubborn jackasses.”

      “Stubborn, hell. I agreed to let you cut into me, didn’t I?”

      “Fine. Let’s nail down a date.”

      Ninety minutes and counting after Madelyn had walked into the ugly redbrick medical building, she was perched on the padded paper-covered table with the dreaded stirrups, waiting for Luke.

      She had a lot of experience at that, she realized, fighting the sudden urge to laugh hysterically. Agonizing months of waking up every morning expecting her shy lanky bronc buster with the amazing blue eyes and irresistible smile to walk up the crumbling front steps of the shabby old house on Alamo Street, a wedding ring in the pocket of his Wrangler’s. Just like