Daddy By Choice. Paula Detmer Riggs

she’s here as a patient?” he pressed, more confused than ever.

      Dorie offered him a curious look. “Since she filled out the new-patient forms, I think that would be a safe assumption, yes.”

      “Damn.” He raked his hand through hair still damp from his shower. The rare nervous gesture from a man who prided himself on his control had Dorie narrowing her gaze.

      “Luke, is there a problem?”

      “Hell if I know.”

      Dorie regarded him strangely for a beat, then broke into a knowing grin. “Aha, an old girlfriend. And from the panicked look on your face, I’d say the flame is still flickering inside that lean mean bod of yours.”

      Luke bit off a crude reply. “Don’t you have insurance forms to fill out?”

      “Yes, sir.” Dorie snapped him a mock salute before disappearing into the reception area.

      Luke braced one hand against the wall and dropped his head. His heart hammered his chest as he fought to regulate the breathing that threatened to tear through his throat like a feral howl.

      He’d struggled for years to drive his darlin’ Maddy Sue out of his head. Years and years of going weak in the knees whenever he heard bubbling laughter or caught a glimpse of thick blond hair shining in the sunshine. Of feeling his gut knot and twist whenever he saw a woman holding a baby.

      He should have figured God wouldn’t let him slide forever, he thought as he pushed himself away from the wall, squared his shoulders. He’d sell his soul for a drink right now, he thought as he took another ragged breath, then opened the door.

      Chapter 2

      The white coat with his name embroidered in red above the pocket said he was an MD. The calendar said he was six weeks away from his forty-first birthday. Two steps into the room and he was an eighteen-year-old rodeo bum, with a crushing pressure in his chest and shock waves in his gut from a hard-knuckled punch in the solar plexus.

      It was exactly the same as it’d been that blistering-hot day in Texas, he realized with a kind of stunned dismay. One minute his life had been under his control, the next he was reeling.

      Maddy had been as pretty as a picture at seventeen. Now she was stunningly beautiful. A sophisticated lady exuding poise and a quiet confidence, even perched on the end of his examining room table with her spine as straight as a die and her chin pridefully high.

      The big hair that had mesmerized him was gone, but the glorious color was that same shade of honey shot with sunshine. Once it had spilled to her shoulders in glossy waves, swishing like molten silk with every sassy toss of her head. Now, however, it had been tucked back out of the reach of man’s hands into a chic twist right out of one of Dorie’s glossy magazines. He wanted to ask why she felt she had to keep all that wonderful sunshine hidden away, but he’d lost the right to ask her that kind of question.

      “Hello, Maddy,” he said after closing the door behind him. He hadn’t felt this wired since the last time he’d dropped from the top rail of the chute onto the back of a nightmare.

      “Doctor.” She inclined her head, queen to subject. Damn, but she was something, he thought, fascinated in spite of the wariness skimming his nerves.

      Ordinarily he offered his hand to a new patient, the first fragile thread of trust. Only the certain knowledge that it would cost him more to touch her than he wanted to risk had him trying a smile, instead.

      “You look terrific.” His voice came out rusty as hell, but he had a feeling it was the words themselves that had her eyes narrowing between those long fluttery lashes.

      He let his gaze drift lower, skimming the curves that filled out the pale yellow jacket in all the right ways to mess with a man’s head. She was also pregnant, he realized with a jolt that twisted all the way through him, leaving him a little breathless. About six months along was his best guess.

      He still remembered the jagged despair in her voice when she’d told him that the surgical field had gotten contaminated during her C-section, and the resulting infection had scarred her fallopian tubes, rendering her sterile. The guilt he’d carried had been a bloody hole in his gut ever since.

      “So you really are a patient,” he added when she remained silent. “I wondered.”

      “I didn’t lie to you when I told you I was sterile,” she said, her drawl softer than he remembered, though flavored now with a hint of tension. “According to Doc Morrow, the odds of my ever conceiving again were too small to even measure.”

      “Doc Morrow?”

      “My family doctor in Whiskey Bend. He delivered me when I was born and he delivered my…our baby.” She took a quick breath, the only sign of distress he could detect. “He was also the one who arranged for the adoption.”

      Pain was a vicious hand wringing him dry. “I’m sorry, Maddy. Deeply sorry.”

      A hint of some fierce emotion darkened her eyes. “Sorry enough to make sure I keep this baby?”

      He had a long list of questions, all of which filtered down to one. “Why me?” he asked quietly.

      “I have a fibroid that’s growing.” She hesitated, then added with the barest suggestion of a tremor in her voice, “Doc’s only treated one similar case, and that patient went into premature labor at six months.” She took a breath, her eyes suddenly sad. “She lost the baby.”

      Luke cursed silently, one pithy vehement expletive. It could be worse, but not much, he thought as he leaned his butt against the edge of the sink and shifted most of his weight to the leg that didn’t throb.

      For years he’d tortured himself with thoughts of how it would be if he saw Maddy again. It was a game he played with himself when he had trouble sleeping. Mostly his fantasies had been shaded toward raunchy—in a respectful sort of way, of course, since Maddy was a good girl. But this… His chest tightened, the way it used to right before a ride. Like a fist grinding against his sternum.

      “There are a lot of good baby docs in Texas,” he hedged. “Marston and Wong at Baylor, to name two.”

      She dismissed that with a brief frown. “I contacted them both. Each said you were the leading doctor in this area. As did the two other experts in high-risk pregnancy I consulted. I’ve also read the article you wrote about treatment of fibroids during pregnancy.”

      “Which one?”

      “The one in the Journal of the American Medical Association.”

      He nodded. “JAMA published three. Which one did you read?”

      That brought her up short, but she recovered quickly. “The one that explained why the kind of fibroid I have can’t be surgically removed without risking a miscarriage.” Her hand crept to her belly. “The more I read the more I realized how easy it would be to lose this child.”

      He crossed his arms over his chest and marveled at the woman she’d become. Bright, confident and way way out of his league. “I’m sure your research told you that myomas are unpredictable. They can cause some really mean complications one month and go dormant the next.” They were also decidedly dangerous when they took a notion to grow, a fact she obviously knew as well as he did.

      “Since this…this baby means everything to me, I’ll do whatever it takes to carry it to term.”

      “Even tolerate my presence in your life again?”

      “Obviously.” Her chin came up. “Since you’re considered the best, you were my first choice.”

      It was an answer that should have pleased him. Instead, it terrified him.

      When he’d been facing a tough ride, he’d survived by paring his mind to the basics. Things he knew how to do, like shoving his butt hard against the rigging and keeping his head tucked tight so his neck didn’t snap. Skills he’d practiced