Her Hired Husband. Renee Roszel

his shirt front and took off the wedding ring she’d given him. “I don’t care what you tell them.” Plunking it into her hand, he went on. “I’ve been looking forward to a vacation for three years. Three years,” he repeated. “My flight leaves in forty-five minutes. Tell your grandparents whatever you want. Tell them I had to go to a medical convention. Or aliens beamed me up to the mother ship. I don’t care.” He closed her fingers over the wedding band, and squeezed as a parting gesture. “Have a good life.”

      She made a pained face. “I’ll pay you!”

      “I don’t want your money.”

      “What do you want? I’ll do anything!” she cried. “Don’t you see? They think I’m inferior. They think my mother married beneath her, that my dad was some kind of inferior subspecies just because he was a firefighter from Texas and not old money from Boston. If they find out I’m having a baby and I’m not married—well, they’ll be convinced I’m the riffraff they predicted.”

      “Riffraff?” Noah was astonished by such a crazy statement. “I doubt that. I’d have to agree raising a child without a stable, two-parent family is hardly ideal, but I’m sure you’re making more out of their reaction than—”

      “I’m not! You don’t know me or my grandparents, so you can keep your opinions to yourself! Doctors!” she scoffed. “Insufferable know-it-alls, every last one of you.” She eyed him angrily. “Why I’m having this baby is my business, not my grandparents’ or yours.”

      “If you’ll recall, you dragged me into it.”

      “That was my mistake,” she said. “But I’m not making a mistake about my grandparents’ attitude. They’re the world’s most self-righteous, narrow-minded, class-conscious, stuffy snobs!” She pressed her fists against her temples. “I won’t let them blame any decisions I’ve made on inferior Johnson genes. I couldn’t stand seeing their revolted expressions if they knew the father of my baby came from a freezer in a sperm bank, and a glorified turkey baster played cupid!”

      Noah was startled to hear there was no man in the picture. She was pretty enough to have her pick of daddies for her child. He wondered why she’d opted to get pregnant at all, let alone by artificial insemination. Maybe she didn’t like men. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t his concern. “Look, I can see you’re upset, and I feel for you, but this isn’t a good time.”

      She stared at him for a heartbeat, her pinched expression making it clear she didn’t buy his “I feel for you” remark. Maybe she was more correct in her assessment than he cared to admit. Single motherhood was a tough row to hoe. To choose it voluntarily was highly unorthodox and questionable. If Miss Johnson was like too many of his single-parent patients, she hadn’t given adequate thought to what she was getting herself—and an innocent child—into.

      “Right.” Heaving an exhale, she threw up her hands in defeat. “It’s not your problem and you’ve got a plane to catch.” She indicated her grandparents’ bags. “But could you—er—take those up, first? There’s no way my grandmother could do it—or even consider it—and I don’t think I could get that trunk upstairs without going into premature labor.”

      He shot the pile of luggage an unfriendly glare, but hesitated for only a second. Somehow he knew arguing with this little dynamo would merely waste time. “Okay. All right,” He headed for the suitcases. “Then I’m gone.”

      The phone rang, but Noah paid little heed. His focus was on the eight matching leather suitcases and one steamer trunk the size of a compact car. Exactly how long had the Vanderkellens planned to be away on their cruise. Four years?

      “It’s for you,” Sally held out the receiver. “Somebody named Jane. Says it’s important.”

      He stopped in the middle of hefting the trunk. “Jane?” His girlfriend was at the airport with Sam and his fiancée, Dorothy. Maybe their flight had been delayed. For once that would be good news.

      He lowered the trunk to the foyer tiles and took the device from Sally’s outstretched hand.

      “I’ll get your fifty,” Sally whispered.

      He shook his head, covering the mouthpiece. “It won’t do you any good. I won’t take it.” Noah made a point of turning away to indicate the subject was closed. “Hi, honey. What’s up?”

      “Sugar!” came a familiar, breathy voice. “We’re waiting. What’s keeping you?”

      “I’m just—”

      “Noah, you have to get here. I’ve got a wonderful surprise for you!”

      He didn’t doubt that, and grinned. When he started to reassure her, she rushed on. “Oh, I can’t stand it. I have to tell!”

      His grin faded. This was wasting time, but he knew better than to try to stop Jane in the middle of a gush.

      “Lovey,” she said, sounding coy. “I’ve made a slight change in the itinerary.” Her pause was just drawn-out enough for Noah to experience a prick of apprehension. “Dorothy told me about Bonaire, and I’m sure you didn’t realize there’s absolutely no night life there. Nothing but scuba diving.”

      “That’s what we’re doing,” he reminded her, experiencing a twinge of irritation. “Remember, you said you wanted to learn.”

      “Well, sure, but I thought we’d do that one afternoon, maybe two. I didn’t think you meant to scuba dive day in and day out for the whole vacation!” Her voice had taken on a slight whine. “Noah, with my delicate skin, I can’t spend a lot of time in the sun. That’s why I changed our reservations to the most scrumptious hotel on Aruba. You’ll adore it. Aruba isn’t that far away from Bonaire. You can maybe meet Sam and Dorothy a couple of mornings to dive while I sleep in. It’ll be absolute heaven!”

      Noah heard his vacation plans getting flushed, but couldn’t believe it. “You’re kidding, right?” he said with a light laugh, presuming this was her idea of a joke.

      He hadn’t been diving since college and was excited about starting again. For a long time he’d been searching for an antidote for the stress and long hours of his work. Something to balance out a career he loved, but found too all-consuming. He needed peace, a quiet place to go and rest, both physically and emotionally. The cool, silent primeval depths of the ocean seemed perfect.

      His first effort in finding emotional peace had been his relationship with Jane. She was beautiful, always ready for fun. But after two years, he was starting to realize something was missing.

      “Kidding?” she asked. “Why would I kid, Noah? We can do our thing and they can do theirs. Doesn’t it sound like heaven?”

      He experienced a tightening in his gut as the detestable truth hit. “No, Jane,” he muttered. “It doesn’t.”

      “What?”

      Noah could almost laugh at the disbelief in her tone. She had no idea he might be angry, that he would consider what she’d done to be self-centered, high-handed manipulation. Just two months before, to Jane’s dismay, he’d turned down a plum job at Boston’s Women’s Hospital. According to her, in her invariable whine, “the Barrett name means something in Boston! You could do anything you want, be important there!” To appease her, he’d been forced to get Sam to cover for him while he took her on a long, romantic weekend in Las Vegas.

      Yeah, he knew all about the Barrett name and the obligatory pomp and circumstance that came with it in Boston society. That was a major reason he’d left to attend the University of Texas, then Baylor’s College of Medicine. By the time he graduated he’d lost his Boston accent, loved the casual comfort of cowboy boots, so he’d stayed on to open his ob-gyn practice in Houston. The Barrett name didn’t mean a hill of beans in Houston. Besides, he liked his patients, especially the cases he saw one day a week when he volunteered at a charity clinic.

      He remembered how Jane had complained, “But you can have your precious charity