The Maverick's Bride-To-Order. Stella Bagwell

her to swoop in occasionally on visits and bestow a few ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ before sweeping out again. The perfect—and distant—godparent.

      And that was all. Callie wasn’t meant to have a bigger role than that!

      Sitting there, she felt numb. She knew she needed to go to the bathroom. To check that result. All she had to do was excuse herself …

      Callie leapt to her feet and turned to Lucas to say something, but he’d gone. Her eyes tracked a movement to her left and she saw him disappearing into her bathroom …

      ‘No!’

      The bathroom door closed and she heard him lock the door.

       Oh, God …

      She waited.

      And waited.

      She heard the flush of her cistern, then the running of her sink taps. Closing her eyes in disbelief, she could see in her mind’s eye him picking up the test on the sink and finding out that …

      That what? It could still be negative, couldn’t it? There was every possibility that the egg salad she’d eaten last night had been off. And the day before that? Maybe that jacket potato had been past its sell-by date …

      Lucas emerged from the bathroom. He held the test in his hand and came back into her lounge, looking perplexed. His every step was heavy. Then his gaze met hers. ‘You’re pregnant?’

      She stared at him, hearing the words but needing confirmation still. ‘It’s positive? Two lines?’

      He turned it round so she could see and, yes, there were two solid pink lines.

      Callie’s mouth went dry. Sinking back down onto the couch, she felt her head sink into her hands. Tears burned her eyes with a fire she’d never felt before.

      ‘You’re pregnant.’

      This time it wasn’t a question.

      Callie sat numb, aware only of Lucas sinking onto the couch next to her, just an inch or so away.

      She hoped he wouldn’t put his arm around her, or tell her everything was going to be okay, because how could he? How could he know?

      Neither of them had any idea.

      So they sat in silence, staring only at the carpet.

       CHAPTER ONE

      DR LUCAS GOLD sat next to Callie in the ultrasound waiting room, wishing he had something he could do with his hands. Nerves were running him through with adrenaline, and he had to fight the strong urge to get out of his seat and pace the floor.

      He wasn’t used to feeling out of his depth in the hospital. It was his home turf—the place he felt most secure. He knew what he was doing with work and he was looked up to and respected for it. But this situation was brand-new. Something he’d never experienced before. It was completely terrifying and he had no idea how to handle it. His insides were a mish-mash of conflicting thoughts and emotions, all jarring with each other and fighting for superiority, whilst on the outside he hoped he was maintaining an air of calm authority. As everyone was used to.

      His best friend, Callie, was drinking water from a white plastic cup, an oasis of calm, whilst he sat there, rigid, a million thoughts running through his head.

      ‘Callie Taylor?’ A nurse in blue scrubs stood in a doorway.

      He glanced at Callie, meeting her gaze and offering a supporting smile, although he knew he was probably just as nervous as she was. This situation was all just so … complicated! Not the way he’d imagined this time in his life being at all. But he tried not to show it. He didn’t want Callie worrying. He didn’t want her to think that he had any doubts at all.

      Not that I do. Have doubts, that is. Not about the baby anyway.

      And he knew that she just had to be as frightened of this as he was. The situation wasn’t perfect, was it? For either of them. People didn’t normally plan to have babies like this. But it was the situation they were in and he was going to make it work—no matter what. The important thing here was the baby, and he was determined to do right by his child as well as his best friend. After all, he was the one who’d got her into this mess. There were so many men who got a woman pregnant and then, when the circumstances changed, left them holding the baby.

      Well, not me. I could never be that man.

      They both stood and he reached out to touch her upper arm, just to offer her some reassurance. But something held him back and he stopped, letting his hand drop away, pretending not to have done it and hoping she hadn’t noticed. She wasn’t his to touch, after all.

      ‘After you.’

      He followed her into the darkened room and stood by her side. He held his hands out as she got onto the bed, to make sure she wasn’t about to fall whilst she carried his precious cargo, before sitting down in the chair beside it.

      The sonographer smiled at them both. ‘Oh, Callie, I didn’t realise it was you!’ It was one of her colleagues: Sophie. ‘Are you happy for me to perform your scan today?’

      Callie nodded. ‘‘Course!’

      Sophie beamed. ‘So exciting! Okay, can you confirm your name and date of birth for me?’

      Callie gave the details.

      ‘And it says here that this is your first pregnancy?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      Callie’s voice held a tremor and Lucas glanced at her, wondering what she was thinking.

      ‘And when was the date of your last period?’

      ‘February seventh.’

      Sophie fiddled with the plastic wheel that Lucas knew was a predictor of delivery dates. ‘So that makes you twelve weeks and two days today—is that right?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Okay, so what I’m going to do is ask you to lower the waistband on your trousers. I’ll put some gel on you, which might feel cold but will help the transducer move around easier and also helps with a better image. Now, do you have a full bladder?’

      ‘Fit to burst.’

      Sophie laughed. ‘I’ll try not to press on it too hard. So, do you want to just undo your trousers for me and lower the waist?’

      Lucas glanced away, looking elsewhere to give Callie some privacy. He waited for Sophie to tuck some blue paper towel into the top of Callie’s underwear before turning back. He watched the sonographer squirt on the gel, mentally hurrying her in his mind, but smiling when Callie gasped at the feel of it on her warm skin. Then he waited.

      Sophie had the screen turned away from them both as she made her initial sweeps with the scanner, and Lucas had to fight every instinct in his body not to get up and go round the bed to have a look at the screen himself!

      It was difficult to be the patient. To be the person on the other side. He was used to being the one who knew what was going on first. But he knew he had to wait. Sophie would be checking for an actual embryo first, then a heartbeat, before she turned the screen for them to see.

      He’d have to learn how to be patient if he was going to be a good parent.

      He glanced at Callie and noticed the frown on her face in the half-light. He wanted to tell her it would be all right, to hold her hand tight in his and tell her that there was nothing for her to worry about, but he knew he couldn’t. Not yet. What was the right etiquette in this situation? No one told you that at the clinic.

      She’s pregnant with my child and I daren’t even touch her.

      Besides, how could he tell her there was nothing to worry about? It wasn’t true, was it? There