The Once and Future Father

An accident.

It had been in an accident that he had allowed himself to feel something, to give way to a temporary lapse in judgment and actually believe that he could be like everyone else.

That he was free to love and feel like everyone else.

But he knew better.

“I’ll change later,” he muttered as he followed them out the front door.

Dylan pulled it shut behind him, making sure the lock was secure before he hurried to his car. It was only as he waited for the driver of the ambulance to start the vehicle that Dylan allowed himself to sag, resting his head against the steering wheel. It was the only outward sign of fatigue he allowed himself. And only for a moment. Anything more and his control could break.

He was too numb to think. He wouldn’t have let himself think if he could. It was better that way.

Or so he told himself.

Since he knew the ambulance’s destination, he actually made it to Harris Memorial’s emergency room parking lot a hairbreadth behind the vehicle. He was out of his car and at the ambulance’s back door just as the attendant was opening it. He helped the man lower the gurney, then took his position at its side as Lucy and her baby were guided through the electronic doors.

Dylan curbed the urge to take Lucy’s hand, curbed the urge to touch her. The less contact he had with her, the better. There’d already been far more than he’d bargained on.

Then what was he doing here, trotting beside the gurney if he had no intention of getting any closer than he had? he demanded silently. He was supposed to be on duty, taking his turn at maintaining surveillance, not halfway across town on the ground floor of Bedford’s most popular hospital.

What he was doing here, he told himself, was being a friend. To Ritchie if not to Lucy. And Ritchie’s sister had been through a great deal. She’d had both death and life flung at her within the space of less than half an hour. Even if there had been no history between him and Lucy, if ever he saw a woman who looked like she needed a friend, it was her. Process of elimination made him the closest one she had around.

“I have a doctor here,” he heard her saying weakly to the attendant walking just ahead of him beside the gurney. “Sheila Pollack.”

Dylan was vaguely familiar with the name. He’d heard several of the men at the precinct mention the woman, saying their wives and girlfriends swore by her. He grasped at the tidbit, needing something to do, to make himself useful. Anything to keep him from coming face-to-face with the past and have to deal with it.

“I can have her paged,” he told the paramedic. He turned to go to the registration desk.

“Don’t bother, we’ll call her office,” an amiable, matronly-looking nurse told Dylan as she came up to join the delegation around the gurney.

He fell back without a word, feeling useless.

“Don’t go,” Lucy called to him. “I want to talk to you. About Ritchie.”

“It’ll have to wait until we get you cleaned up, honey,” the nurse told her. “My, but that is one beautiful baby. You do nice work.” She glanced at Dylan. “Is this the baby’s daddy?”

Lucy forced herself not to look in Dylan’s direction. “No.”

Dylan tried to grab at the excuse the nurse had inadvertently given him. It was a legitimate way out of this uncomfortable situation. And he did have to get to the stakeout.

But Lucy’s eyes were imploring him to stay. The excuse died on his lips before he had a chance to say it. There was no way around it. They had unfinished business to tend to.

“I’ll wait in the hall until you’re ready,” he called after her.

She raised her voice. They were almost around a corner. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Her voice lingered after she disappeared from view. “I’ll hold you to that.”

His lips curved before he could think better of it. “I know.”

Chapter 3

Dylan straightened up slowly. His back had begun to ache, and it felt as if it was taking on the shape of the hospital wall he’d been leaning against. He’d been waiting out in the maternity ward corridor far longer than he figured he should have.

He glanced at his watch. It was time to go.

He’d put in another call to dispatch the moment Lucy’s gurney had disappeared behind closed doors. This time he’d had them patch him through to Dave Watley, the man he’d been partnered with off and on over the years. The message was short, terse. He was going to be late. Watley had been surprised, but he’d hung up before the man could ask why.

Even as he’d rung off, Dylan had fought his own silent battle over the wisdom of hanging around outside Lucy’s hospital room.

He had a job to do and it wasn’t here.

Still, he hadn’t given Lucy any sort of accounting about her brother. In his defense, there’d been next to no time. But that didn’t change the fact that he owed it to her.

Frustrated, he shoved his hands into his pockets, purposely avoiding looking in the general direction of the nursery. He didn’t need that sort of distraction right now.

And Lucy didn’t need to listen to the grisly details about her brother’s death right now, he thought. She certainly wasn’t in any shape to answer questions. Though part of him wanted to get this all over with and put everything behind him so he could start fresh again, he knew it’d be better for both the department and Lucy if he came back later, when she was up to it.

Or maybe not at all. Maybe if someone else handled this, it’d be for the best all around.

“Excuse me?”

Having made up his mind, Dylan had turned toward the elevators and his escape route. The low voice, aimed in his direction, momentarily put his plans on hold. Dylan looked over his shoulder to see a refined, tall blonde comfortably attired in a white lab coat that partially covered a blue sundress. She was looking straight at him. “Are you Detective McMorrow?”

“Yes?”

The verification was tendered slowly, cautiously, telling Sheila Pollack that this man was more accustomed to receiving bad news than good. And that, police detective or not, the tall, rangy man before her was a private person. Not a bit like her Slade.

With a smile meant to put him at his ease, she offered him her hand.

“Hi, I’m Sheila Pollack, Lucy’s doctor. She told me you delivered the baby.” She smiled and offered Dylan her hand.

He shook her hand mechanically, surprised at the firmness of the woman’s grip. “The baby more or less delivered herself. I was just there to catch her.”

“That’s not the way Lucy tells it.” Her smile grew sunnier. “Nice job.”

Dylan shrugged, accepting the compliment the way he accepted any compliment that came his way, offhandedly and with little attention. It was criticism that helped a man grow, not empty words. His father had beaten that one into him until he’d been able to defend himself.

He looked over the doctor’s head toward the room where they had taken Lucy and her baby. “How she’s doing?”

“Mother and daughter are fine, no small thanks to you. Right now, they’re both asleep. I think the ordeal exhausted them.” She studied him for a moment. “Lucky for Lucy that you were there.”

“Yeah, lucky,” he muttered more to himself than to the statuesque woman. She was looking at him as if she could read his mind. Annoyed with himself, he dismissed the thought as ridiculous. “Well, I’m on duty, Doctor. I’d better go.”

Sheila nodded. She had other patients on the floor to look in on. And a roomful waiting for her back at her office. But because each of her patients was more than simply just that to her, she paused where she was for one more second.