Doctors in the Wedding Page 18

  “Hello? Maddie? Where are you today?”

  Blinking rapidly in response to her brother’s teasing question, Madison looked up from the game pieces she’d been staring at so blankly. “Umm, sorry. Is it my turn?”

  “It is,” Alice said from across the game table. “Are you okay?”

  Smiling fondly at her niece, Madison nodded. “I’m fine, thanks, hon. Just have a lot on my mind.”

  Madison’s mother and sister-in-law had chosen to sit out the games this time. Her mom sat in a chair looking through the newspaper ads for tomorrow’s Black Friday sales while Jacqui sat nearby with her latest knitting project. Jacqui looked up from her intricate project to ask, “Don’t you have to rank your program choices soon?”

  “I’ve got about two weeks.”

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t try to influence you, dear, but is there any chance you’ll choose to stay here in Little Rock?”

  Madison answered her mother’s question gently. “Wherever I choose to go for my fellowship, you won’t have to worry about us losing touch, Mom. I’ll still call every day, when possible, and I’ll be home for holidays and visits whenever I have the time off.”

  “You’ll be leaving us, won’t you?” Her mom seemed resigned to the inevitability.

  “Probably for the fellowship,” Madison conceded. “As good as our program is, I’ve spent the past eight years here. I think I should get some training elsewhere so I’ll have a broader experience to build on in my future career.”

  “As much as I’ll hate to see you leave, I’m sure you know what’s best for you.”

  Madison wished that were true. At the moment, she wasn’t feeling at all certain she knew which path to take for her future, either professionally or personally.

  “Do you have a feeling about which program you’ll rank first?” Mitch asked.

  “I’m considering Dallas,” she said casually, then added, “Or maybe Oregon.”

  “I vote for Dallas,” Alice piped up. “It’s closer. And we could come visit you and see a Cowboys game. Or the Rangers! And we could go to Six Flags and maybe ride horses and stuff.”

  Seth tugged at one of his daughter’s brown curls. “No one said you get a vote, kiddo. Madison’s not going to choose a program based on the sports teams you like best.”

  “I thought we were playing a game here,” Madison said in an attempt to change the subject.

  Alice sighed gustily. “It’s your turn. We can’t play until you do.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” Hastily, Madison picked up the dice.

  It wasn’t long until the conversation drifted off Madison, to her relief, and onto the other exciting family development. Alice chattered about how eager she was to meet her new baby brother or sister. She assured everyone she would be thrilled to babysit anytime her services were needed, to the amused skepticism of her elders, who figured the novelty would wear off quickly enough when she had a date or a chance to attend a party with her high school friends.

  “You’re feeling okay, Meagan?” Madison asked, noting that her older sister certainly looked to be in glowing health.

  Meagan nodded happily. “So far, so good. Not even any morning sickness.”

  “I never had morning sickness, and neither did my mother,” their mom commented. “I guess it runs in the family.”

  “Instead, you had to pass down your ragweed allergies,” Mitch complained humorously. “Thanks a lot, Mom.”

  After everyone chuckled at that, Meagan commented, “Maybe if I’d had some morning sickness, I’d have realized I was pregnant before two and a half months had passed. You’d think a doctor would be more tuned in to such things, but since my surgery, I haven’t been all that regular and there was the chance I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant at my age and with only one ovary.”

  “If you’re going to start talking about women’s issues, I’m out of here,” Mitch complained wryly.

  Alice rolled her eyes. “You’re a doctor, too, Uncle Mitch. Geez.”

  He grinned. “I’m a bone surgeon. Basically a carpenter. I get to use power tools and everything—no gynecological issues involved.”

  “You should have been at that dude ranch when I was trying to remember how to deliver a baby,” Madison said with a shake of her head. She’d told her family a little about the incident, saying only that she and another doctor who was equally inexperienced with labor and delivery had handled the birth. They’d been too amused by her humorous recounting to ask many questions about her involuntary assistant.

  Madison thought of the conversation with her sister again when she climbed into her car a couple of hours later, carefully storing a stack of leftovers in disposable containers on the seat next to her. Something Meagan had said nipped uncomfortably at the back of her mind. Sitting behind the steering wheel before turning the key, she mentally replayed her sister’s account of how long it had taken her to realize she was pregnant.

  Swallowing hard, Madison counted weeks on her fingers. When she had to switch to her other hand, she felt the bottom fall out of her stomach.

  She’d been so busy and so distracted for almost six weeks that she hadn’t paid attention to her own cycles. It had never even crossed her mind that she could be pregnant. She and Jason had been so careful. They’d used protection every time—except that one last time in Dallas, in the shower, she remembered rather sickly.

  One time. Was her luck really that bad?

  Maybe it wasn’t true. Like Meagan, she had a history of minor gynecological problems which had led to menstrual irregularity in the past. She was a few months overdue for her annual checkup. Maybe this was something else entirely. As she had just stressed to her family, she was not an ob-gyn.

  Still, she thought she would make a stop on her way home. After that…well, she couldn’t look that far ahead just yet.

  Jason had no clue what had gone wrong. Was it something he had done or said? Had Madison’s day with her family caused her change in attitude toward him? Had she reconsidered all he had said to her last night and decided he had no place in her future?

  The problem was, she wasn’t talking. For the first time since he’d met her—admittedly, not that long ago—her usually animated, expressive and approachable face was completely closed to him.

  He’d returned to her apartment from his aunt’s house at just before nine. Rather than letting himself in with the key, which seemed a bit presumptuous when she was there, he’d rung the bell. Her expression had been distant from the moment she’d opened the door to him. She’d responded to his conversational overtures politely, somewhat absently, little more than monosyllabically.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  She asked him courteously if he wanted anything to eat or drink. He replied with a laugh that he couldn’t possibly fit another bite into a stomach already filled with his aunt Lindsay’s cooking. She didn’t laugh in return.

  His phone beeped with a text message alert. Glancing at the screen, he saw that it was from one of his cousins, wishing him a happy Thanksgiving. He’d talked to all his immediate family members earlier, and he would answer this message later. No rush, he told himself, setting the phone aside. He had more important issues to concern him now, he thought as he studied Madison’s somber face again.

  “Is everything okay with your family?” he asked cautiously. It was none of his business, of course, if there had been a family quarrel or some other unpleasantness that had affected her mood, but if she needed to talk, he wanted her to know he was here for her.

  “Yes, they’re all fine, thank you. And yours?”

  “Yeah, great. I enjoyed visiting them. It’s rare we have a chance to chat in small groups like that. Usually on holidays there’s such a huge mob of family it’s hard to talk to anyone one on one.”

>   “I’m glad you had a nice visit.”

  He couldn’t take this any longer. He got the impression that her odd mood had nothing to do with her family and everything to do with him. “Okay, Madison, what’s going on? Is there something you want to say to me?”

  Still wearing that inscrutable mask, she tucked her hands inside her elbows. “I was just wondering—when were you planning to head back to Dallas?”

  He felt his left eyebrow rise. “Kicking me out?”

  It had been a joke, of sorts, but when she didn’t smile, any faint amusement he’d felt faded abruptly. “You are kicking me out?”

  “Of course not,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely sincere. “It’s just that I’m going to be pretty busy the next couple days, and I wouldn’t want you to be bored. I had some plans for the long weekend, and I’d kind of hate to cancel them at this point because I’m going to be so busy in the coming weeks.”

  “I told you when I arrived without notice that I didn’t want to get in your way if you had other plans for this weekend,” he reminded her evenly. “I meant it. All you have to do is tell me and I’m out.”

  She avoided his gaze by brushing at a nonexistent piece of lint on her dark pants. “Maybe it’s best. It could become a little awkward.”

  “It?” he repeated, trying to understand.

  “Us,” she clarified, waving a hand in a vague gesture that included them both.

  This just kept getting worse.

  “Madison—are you breaking up with me?” He didn’t know how else to phrase it.

  She seemed to draw even more tightly into herself, if that were possible. Again, she spoke without actually looking at him. “I would hardly define it that way. Breaking up would imply we had something more than—well, than a weekend fling. Even though it was technically a few days more than a weekend.”

  The extent of the pain that shot through him in response to her use of the word fling let him know just how hard he’d fallen for Madison, no matter how brief their time together had been. Apparently, he’d inherited the full Walker capacity for tumbling into love almost overnight—but unlike his fortunate relatives, he had fallen for someone who clearly didn’t return his feelings.

  “So, it’s over?” As much as he’d hated to ask, he needed the answer.

  “I just think it’s best for now,” she muttered with a nod. “The timing just couldn’t be worse.”

  That sounded like an excuse if he’d ever heard one. Hadn’t he assured her earlier that he wouldn’t interfere with her career plans? He would have been content, for the most part, to see her when it was convenient for them both, hoping those encounters, no matter how brief, would eventually lead to a future together. He hadn’t promised it would be easy to maintain a relationship under those circumstances, and he had no doubt it would have been frustrating at times, but he thought they could have made it work, if Madison had been willing to give it a try. Apparently, she didn’t think it was worth the effort.

  “Then I won’t interfere with your busy schedule any longer,” he said, heartache erupting in cool temper. “I’ll just get my bag and clear out of your way.”

  “Perhaps that would be best,” she repeated.

  The fact that she didn’t even attempt to detain him just cut even more deeply. He stalked into the bedroom and grabbed his bag, still finding it hard to believe it was ending this way between them.

  “Take care of yourself,” he told her gruffly as he moved toward the door. “I wish you the best of luck in your future.”

  “Thank you. Good luck to you, too.”

  He didn’t even know what to say to that. Looking over his shoulder one last time, as if to imprint her face in his memories, he let himself out, closing the door with a sharp snap behind him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Madison lasted all of three minutes after Jason left before bursting into tears.

  She had handled that whole scene abysmally. For a psychiatrist, she had no skills at all when it came to dealing with her own emotional crises. Maybe she should have chosen another specialty, she thought with a miserable sniffle.

  She paced the living room for an hour, alternately crying and cursing herself for being an idiot. Every time she almost got a grip on her tumultuous emotions, the thought of never seeing Jason again set the tears flowing again.

  Her hands were shaking when she poured herself a glass of water and carried it into the living room. She sat on the couch, sipping the cold liquid without even tasting it, staring blankly at nothing while she tried to think rationally.

  She had certainly gotten herself into a mess this time. Why did she always have to be the one in the family to do things so differently? Her siblings had very traditionally fallen in love and married before starting their families. Meagan and Mitch had always predicted that Madison’s predilection for impulse would get her into trouble someday. Looked as though they were right.

  Pregnant. She drew a shaky breath, still trying to come to terms with the word several hours after seeing the results of a home test. She knew she would have to have the results confirmed, that there was a chance it was a false positive…but deep in her heart, she knew it was true. What she didn’t know was what she would do next.

  She would have to talk to Jason eventually. It was only fair. And she knew exactly what his overdeveloped sense of responsibility would lead him to do. She couldn’t bear the thought of him making some big, noble sacrifice for her sake.

  He had viewed her as the opposite of all the people depending on him, making demands on him, expecting him to take care of them. She had a lot of decisions to make in the near future, but she was fully capable of making them and dealing with the consequences on her own. She could take care of herself—and this new life, for that matter, if that were her ultimate decision. It wouldn’t be easy, but she could figure it out.

  Maybe she didn’t need Jason in her life, but she certainly had grown accustomed to having him there in a very short time, she thought sadly. Maybe they could have had a special relationship in time, but this development had changed everything. She would never know now what might have unfolded between them naturally.

  The ringing of a phone made her start and almost spill her water. It wasn’t her ring tone, she realized abruptly, searching the room for the source of the sound. She spotted Jason’s phone on an end table just as it buzzed again.

  Groaning, she stared at the device in indecision. She wouldn’t feel right answering his phone, especially under the circumstances. But what if it was an emergency? She had no idea where he’d gone or how to reach him. How long would it take him to notice his phone was missing? Would he come back for it, or would he simply get a new one to avoid having to see her again?

  She could hardly blame him if that was his decision. He’d looked angry when he’d left. He must think she’d lost her mind, the way she’d acted that evening. With no warning, she’d all but thrown him out of her apartment, and after they’d had such a lovely breakfast together that morning.

  What was wringing her heart in painful spasms was the memory of his expression when he had looked at her just before he’d walked out. In addition to confusing him and angering him, she was pretty sure she had hurt him. And that had never been her intention.

  His phone stopped ringing, and she assumed the caller had been transferred to voice mail. She would have to return his phone to him, of course. He’d mentioned his uncle’s name, Dr. Nick Grant, a local pediatrician. Madison didn’t know him, but she could find him. Tomorrow, maybe.

  When she heard the tap on her door, she knew it wouldn’t be necessary for her to track down his family. Jason had returned to reclaim his phone for himself.

  Drawing a deep breath, she set the water glass on the coffee table, then dashed a hand over her cheeks before movi
ng to the door. She only hoped she could bluff her way through the next few minutes without melting into a miserable puddle at his feet.

  She had his phone in her hand when she opened the door. She tried to keep her face shadowed when she held it out to him, hoping to hide the ravages of her tears. “You forgot this.”

  “I know. I just realized it.” He accepted the phone, then planted his hand on the door as if to keep her from closing it in his face. “Madison, could we talk for a minute? I really hate to end our time together on a bad note.”

  “I don’t want to do that, either,” she confessed. “It’s just—well, it’s late.”

  “I know. I won’t stay long. I just—” His words trailed off as he searched her face, seeming to really see her for the first time since she had opened the door. She looked quickly away, but it was too late. “Madison—”

  “You’d better go,” she whispered. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  But he was already inside, the door closed behind him, his hand on her chin as he gently lifted her face. “You’ve been crying.”

  “I’m fine.” She wasn’t, of course. She was a mess. And she wanted nothing more than to burrow into his arms and just lose herself there until she regained her usual equilibrium and self-sufficiency. But she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t be like everyone else in his life, depending on him to solve all their problems.

  “Madison, talk to me. What’s going on? Is it something with your family? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  His obvious sincerity made tears hover again, but she blinked them back impatiently. She was not a crier! Her hormones must be in a real mess for her to behave this way now. “Thank you for your concern, but—”

  Jason shook his head impatiently, though his tone was still gentle when he said, “It isn’t just concern. I care for you, Madison. I think I fell in love with you the first night I met you. And seeing you hurting like this—well, it’s tearing me apart.”