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Whose Child?
By Susan Gable Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-71204-9
Chapter One
LEXIE JACOBS HAD NEVER felt more afraid or alone in her life.
That said a lot, since the two sensations had become near-constant companions in the past few months.
"I don't know how I'm going to pay you," she said for at least the eighth or ninth time. "I don't have any money." Yesterday she'd given her last twenty to the old man who'd offered her a room in his enormous old Victorian house. After her car had died just outside of town. In the snow. She had a total of $4.63 left in her pocket. "And I don't have any insurance -" Searing pain radiated through her body as her uterus contracted, transforming her semicoherent babbling into a twisted moan.
"I told you, don't worry about that. This baby is coming into the world now, whether you've got money and insurance or not. And since I'm not about to let you deliver on the sidewalk - good! The baby's head is crowning, Lexie. We're almost there," the young doctor said, looking up at her. "Push!"
The nurse, an older woman with black hair, propped her upright. "Come on, honey. Push hard!" She started counting.
Lexie scrunched her eyes shut and bore down with everything she had. Sweat trickled down the side of her face. Time blurred, measured in sets of ten-counts as she pushed and the unbelievably short minute-and-a-half rest periods between contractions.
Relief came as the child was pulled from her body.
"It's a girl," the doctor announced.
"Congratulations, honey," the nurse murmured as she lowered Lexie to the exam table.
Eyes still closed, she tried to catch her breath. A girl. She'd brought a little girl into the world.
All by herself.
The sharp, reedy wail of the newborn elicited cheers from the waiting room beyond the faded curtain of the tiny medical clinic in the equally small town of Mill Creek, Montana.
Not exactly where or how she'd expected to deliver this baby.
No, that was supposed to be Millcreek, Pennsylvania. And David was supposed to be at her side.
"Boy or girl?" someone shouted.
"A baby girl," the doctor answered.
Applause thundered back, and a chorus of "Happy Birthday" began from the other patients who'd been forced to wait when Lexie, clutching her enormous belly, had stumbled into the clinic on the arm of the old man who'd insisted she call him Pappy.
Warmed by the response from these people, she opened her eyes to see the doctor pass the squirming, squalling infant to the nurse. The nurse's smile faded, and her expression held a question as she looked down at him. He shook his head slightly.
"What? Is something wrong?" Lexie's voice caught as a sliver of panic swelled in her throat. "Can I see her?"
"Everything's fine," he said. "Let's just have Martha clean her up for you first, and then weigh and measure her. Besides, we're not finished here. We still have more work to do."
"Everything's there?" she asked, not reassured. Her prenatal care had been lacking recently. Being on the run would do that. "All the fingers and toes, and everything else?"
"Ten perfect little toes, ten long fingers - this one's going to play the piano," the nurse answered from the other side of the curtain where she'd disappeared with the baby.
Exhausted, Lexie closed her eyes again, barely registering the doctor's soft-spoken comments as he delivered the afterbirth and whatever else went on after a woman had a baby. She was too tired to care.
At least, about that. She had more important things to worry about.
A while later, a warm masculine voice penetrated the haze of drowsiness she couldn't seem to shake. "Lexie?"
"Hmm?"
The doctor - she kept thinking of him as the young doctor, even though he had to be several years older than she was, but then, she'd aged a heck of a lot in the past four months - stood beside her, a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. "Does she have a name?" he asked gently.
A name.
It wasn't supposed to be her responsibility to name this child. But now ... An overwhelming flood of homesickness poured through her - the same empty ache that had driven her off the main highway onto the Pintler Scenic Route, in the direction of a tiny town that shared its name with her hometown. How she wished her own mother could be here. "Sarah," she choked out. "Her name is Sarah."
"That's pretty." He edged closer, his eyebrows drawing together. "Now, before I give her to you, I want to explain something."
Lexie's stomach did a double cartwheel. "Something is wrong." She rose up on her elbows, reached out one hand toward the baby. "What's the matter?"
"It's not serious. I just wanted to give you a little warning. She has a port-wine birthmark on her face."
"Let me see her." She accepted the wiggling bundle swaddled in a white blanket. Round, chubby cheeks, tiny button nose, wisps of dark hair - and the right side of her little face blotched with a deep purple mark, as though someone had spilled grape juice on her.
Lexie's lower lip trembled and tears welled up, blurring her vision. "It's my fault," she whispered. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault."
She looked at the doctor through a watery haze. "Is it genetic?" Bad genes triggering the birthmark would go far to soothe her guilt.
He shook his head. "No. It's just something that happens."
"Then how do you know it's not my fault? I haven't seen a doctor in months, and -"
"It just happens," he repeated firmly. "No one's at fault."
Lexie returned her attention to the newborn in her arms. The tiny mouth stretched open in a yawn. She stroked the baby's unblemished cheek, causing the infant to turn her head. Soft pink lips pursed in a sucking motion.
A surge of warmth flamed across Lexie's chest, tightening her throat, making it hard to breathe. Despite the fact that her milk wouldn't come in for a few days, her breasts ached with the need to nurse the baby. This child was depending on her. Had been depending on her for some time. And Lexie wasn't going to let her down.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Whose Child? by Susan Gable Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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