Baby, Baby

“That you asked her to let me know you were on your way home. Why?” Her blue eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion.

Michael rolled off the bed and raked an unsteady hand through tousled brown hair. “Maxie was to warn you that I was on my way home to pack. The fourteen-year-old Norwegian girl I told you about has moved to the head of our transplant list. I got a call an hour ago. We have a match. I’m flying out tonight.”

A crash followed by breaking glass brought his head spinning around. Lacy, her pretty face contorted by anger, had cleared the nightstand with a sweep of her hand. Pill bottles lay strewn amid jagged pieces of glass from their smashed wedding photo.

“Dammit! I didn’t set out to disappoint you, Lacy. But I am the chief surgeon on the international heart-lung transplant team. I’d expect you, of all people, not to begrudge a child her chance.”

“I don’t need a doctor now, Michael. I need a husband.”

One of his eyebrows shot up to meet a rain-wet lock of hair.

“I hate that superior attitude you get, Michael. Almost as much as I hate that the first question out of your mouth after we made love was, ‘Are you all right, Lacy?”’

“Not this argument again,” he growled. “Getting over-tired, flu, colds—anything causing undue stress can still put your transplanted organs in jeopardy. Dammit, I don’t like arguing, Lacy. If it wasn’t such awful weather in Norway, I’d take you with me.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” she drawled sarcastically. “I could sit around a hotel while you spend twenty-four hours a day at the hospital. No, thank you, Michael.”

“Then call Faith. She didn’t have any time off at Christmas to visit, but maybe she’d like a break from Boston now. You two can take in some shows. I don’t think she’s seen the apartment since you redecorated this last time.”

“That’s because my sister spends as many hours at her hospital as you do at yours. I’ll go to the beach house—again. The sailing crowd doesn’t treat me like an invalid.” Her last words were muffled as she pulled a suitcase from the closet and flopped it open on the bed. With an aggrieved air, she folded a new silk dress that hung on the closet door.

“I refuse to be made to feel guilty about this, Lacy. I was a surgeon when you married me, and I’m a surgeon still. Name one thing you’ve ever wanted that I haven’t given you.”

“Your time, Michael.”

He gestured helplessly, then turned away to shed his remaining clothes. He strode into the bathroom and wrenched on the shower, returning to the bedroom just long enough to yank a black flight bag from the closet. “I took an oath to heal, Lacy. It’s what I do.”

“Amen. Not a day goes by that you don’t ask if I’ve taken my pills. If I’m doing my breathing treatments. If I’m warm enough. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“A few precautions seem a small price to pay for enjoying a normal life.”

“Normal?” Lacy paused in the act of pulling on a pair of slacks. “Normal women’s lives don’t revolve around endless checkups and buckets of pills, Michael. The don’ts in my life outweigh the dos. Don’t walk in the rain, Lacy. Don’t play in the snow. Don’t climb mountains. Don…don’t have children.”

Michael’s jaw tightened. “Your anti-rejection drugs place you at risk. Add to that the normal stress of carrying a child—but you know all this, Lacy.”

“Yes, Dr. God. Tell me again how normal I am.” With jerky movements, Lacy tucked in her blouse and began flinging clothing into the suitcase.

“There’s adoption,” Michael ventured after a pause. “But we’d need to solve our differences first.”

Stone-faced, Lacy continued to fill the case as if he hadn’t said a word.

Doubling a fist, Michael smacked the door casing on his way into the shower. When Lacy wore that closed expression, there was no discussing anything with her. Meanwhile, it was getting late. A kid in Norway counted on him. Lacy had been given a second chance. Why in hell couldn’t she appreciate the fact?

By the time Michael dried off and dressed to travel, Lacy had packed the third in a trio of matched luggage. Michael folded two suits and several shirts into his bag. “How long are you planning to stay at the beach?” he asked, eyeing her growing pile of luggage. Not waiting for her answer, he took his shaving kit into the bathroom to fill.

“Why would you care?” She elbowed past him and scooped an array of cosmetics into an overnight case.

“You’re my wife. Why wouldn’t I care?” His bafflement increased when she slammed the lid, tossed the small case with the others, then went to pick up the phone.

After punching in a series of numbers, she spoke into the receiver. “Bettis, this is Mrs. Cameron. Call the garage and have them send the Mercedes around. Then please come to the suite and collect my bags.”

“It’s pouring rain,” Michael said quietly. “If you must go today, call the car service to take you. I’ll arrange a few days off when I get back from Norway. We’ll drive back to New York together.”

“Go to hell,” she said in a voice that dripped honey.

“Lacy, dammit!” He faced her across the bed. “Why do you always have to pick a fight before I go on a trip?”

“And you’re forever off on one, aren’t you? For all we’re together, I may as well be single. I…I’ve made up my mind, Michael. I’m filing for divorce.”

“Divorce,” he said in a strangled voice. “God, Lacy.” His knees buckled and he dropped heavily to the bed just as a sharp rap sounded at the front door. Michael couldn’t force words past the lump in his throat. He knew things hadn’t been good, but—

Lacy left the bedroom. Moments later she led Bettis in to get her bags. The doorman eyed the broken glass. He made no comment, only gathered the cases as Lacy directed.

Michael caught her wrist or she would have gone without saying goodbye. “Don’t do anything rash until I get back,” he begged in a low voice. “Give me a chance to put things right. I’ll take a few weeks off. We’ll go to the Bahamas or something.”

She jerked from his hold. “It’s over, Michael. I’ve never been anything more to you than your first transplant.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes. Find another star patient. I want a man who sees me as a woman.”

Stunned, Michael watched her walk away. It was some time before he stood and resumed filling his shaving kit. He studied the hands reaching for his razor. A surgeon’s hands. His skill had brought them together. Well, technically, Lacy’s sister, Faith, had brought them together. She was a nurse at the Boston hospital where Michael had done his residency. Lacy was the one who’d demanded he set up practice in New York.

How had they gone from building a future together to…contemplating divorce? With hands not quite steady, Michael knocked a packet of pills from a shelf in the medicine cabinet. Absently he retrieved it. Lacy’s birth control pills. In her haste she must have forgotten them.

Michael dashed out of the apartment to catch her. Halfway to the elevator, he stopped. This was a full dispenser. Probably an extra that Lacy’s gynecologist had given her in case they had to travel on short notice.

A shiver coursed through Michael’s body as he recalled what had happened earlier. Replaying the scene in his mind, he felt his blood begin to flow again. Granted, Lacy could be impulsive, but she wasn’t foolhardy. Those were just angry words she’d thrown out, hoping to make him stay home. Her threats had become habit—a way to manipulate him. And he’d refused to bend. They were both at fault.

Sighing, he retraced his steps. He’d phone her the minute he reached his hotel in Trondheim. Once he turned the patient over to her own team for follow-up care, he’d talk to his partner about taking time off. Dominic would understand.

Michael finished packing and wrote a note to the housekeeper, letting her know that he and Lacy would be away for a week or so. He felt better for having a solid plan in place. Shifting his bags, he locked the door and went down to meet his cab.

CHAPTER ONE

August

A PERSISTENT RINGING dragged Faith Hyatt from a deep sleep. As one hand fanned the air above her nightstand in an effort to silence the sound, her sleepy brain insisted the call had to be a wrong number. She’d just come off two weeks of back-to-back shifts at the Boston hospital where she worked. Half the staff was laid low by flu. Maria Phelps, who scheduled shifts, had promised Faith four uninterrupted days off.

“’Lo,” she said in a raspy voice, burying the receiver in the pillow under her ear. Faith covered a yawn and tried to focus on the voice at the other end of the line.

In spite of exhaustion, she shot upright. Her head and heart began to pound, and the receiver slipped from her shaking fingers. Scrambling to find it in the dark, she brought it to her dry lips again and croaked, “Gwen, you’re positive the woman admitted through E.R. is my sister? Lacy Cameron?”

Long used to being ejected from bed in the middle of the night, Faith turned on a light and found clean clothes as the caller relayed details. “Yes,” Faith said, bending to tie her sneakers, “It’s possible she’d revert to Hyatt now that she’s divorced. I’ll be there in ten minutes, Gwen.” Smack! The receiver hit the cradle. Faith’s mind continued on fast-forward as she splashed cold water on her face, brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her short brown hair.

Her last contact with either Cameron had been in June. It was now the end of August. Lacy’s husband, Michael Cameron, had thrown Faith for a loop when he’d phoned late one night in early June to inform her that he and Lacy had divorced. At the time Faith had been crushed to think her sister hadn’t confided in her. But family ties had never meant to Lacy what they did to Faith. In fact, it was pretty typical of Lacy to arrive here in the middle of the night after months of silence, expecting her big sister to haul herself out of bed and put in an appearance at a moment’s notice. Lacy had always thought the world revolved around her needs. And when hadn’t Faith turned herself inside out for family? Sighing, she strapped on her nurse’s watch and rushed from the building. Lopsided though the relationship was, she and Lacy were bound together by blood.

Faith set out to jog the four night-shadowed blocks that separated her apartment building from the hospital. Passing the corner deli, she realized she hadn’t asked Gwen what was wrong with Lacy. No one detested being sick more than Lacy did. As her worry increased, Faith broke into a run.