The rebel doctors secret.., p.13
The Rebel Doctor's Secret Child, page 13
When the first thing she saw was Knox where he stood deep in a conversation with Sable, the office manager, she did the first thing she could think of. She ducked into the first door she could find. It wasn’t until she heard someone clearing her voice that she realized it was Lori’s office. Turning, she found her mentor, along with the practice’s other midwife, Sky, staring at her.
“Sorry, I just...” Bree tried to think of some excuse that would have her interrupting the two of them. Before her brain cells supplied her with anything that sounded plausible, Sky went to the door and cracked it open.
“Well, well,” Sky said, shutting the door behind her and giving Bree a questioning look before looking over at Lori. “Since I’m thinking it would be very unlikely that you are trying to avoid the office manager, it seems our new midwife is avoiding Nashville’s famous bad boy.”
“That’s not who he is anymore,” Bree said, realizing too late that taking up for Knox was the last thing she should have done. “I mean, I don’t think it’s fair to judge him by what he did when he was a kid.”
“Oh, she’s got it bad, Lori,” Sky said.
Bree felt the blush as it crept up her face. Bree knew she was only teasing her, but the midwife had hit too close to the truth.
“Stop teasing her, Sky. It wasn’t that long ago that you were mooning around over Jared.”
“I never,” Sky said, then stopped. “Okay, maybe I did.”
When Lori’s eyes turned back to her, Bree wanted to slide under the door and take her chances with being cornered by Knox even though she still didn’t know she’d feel uncomfortable seeing him there after what they’d shared. How did people do this? It wasn’t that she was embarrassed that they’d had sex. Or that she felt they’d done something wrong. They were both consenting adults. It had just seemed so intimate. And he knew she had been a virgin. She’d bared so much of herself to him. Been so intimate when she normally held back so much. Maybe the word for what she felt was shy?
“When me and Jack set it up for you to work at the clinic, you were very adamant about not wanting to work with Knox. I think your exact words were ‘I just don’t find him particularly likeable.’ I take it that has changed? Did the two of you kiss and make up?”
Bree’s face got even hotter. There had been a time when she and her sister had teased each other unmercifully like this. She missed the closeness that she’d shared with her twin. It had been years since she’d had someone to tease her.
“Oh, my goodness, you kissed him?” Skylar said before busting out laughing.
“Sky, stop it. You’re embarrassing her,” Lori said before turning to Bree. “Please tell me you didn’t kiss him.”
When Bree didn’t answer her, Lori dropped her head onto the desk. “It’s all my fault. I feel like I threw you to the wolves.”
“Okay, the two of you need to stop,” Bree said.
“I’m sorry,” Lori said, lifting her head. “We shouldn’t have teased you. But in all seriousness, I don’t want you to be hurt. I know Knox has changed a lot since he went into medicine. The work he does in the rural areas is tremendous. But what do you really know about him?”
Bree almost laughed. The two of them had no idea. Not that she could explain all of that to them. His being Ally’s father would eventually come out. There would be no way to keep that news private. It was even possible that it would be reported in the media at some point because of his parents, which could bring up the story of Brittany’s death. She and Knox would have to find a way to protect Ally from the attention if that happened. Just one more reason to make sure they told Ally about her mother and Knox carefully. The child had lost her mother suddenly; it didn’t seem right that she should suddenly be faced, while unprepared, with a daddy, too.
“I’m a big girl. I can handle it,” Bree told the two of them, turning toward the door. And for the first time since Knox had left her bed, she felt like she could handle it. She could handle all of it. The way her and Knox’s relationship was changing, the need to find a way to explain Knox’s sudden presence in his daughter’s life to Ally, and even the fact that Knox could now have more rights to her niece than Bree did. Knowing him now, she felt safe that the two of them could work together to make all this work. And yes, she was even beginning to believe that she, Knox and Ally might be able to find a happy ending together.
That thought put a smile on her face that lasted throughout the day. After that, the hours went by fast as she and Lori saw mostly obstetric patients and then attended a late-afternoon delivery, which left a smiling new family with a healthy baby girl. It wasn’t until she was rounding on their last postpartum patient that she saw Knox. She started toward him, then saw that he was in a deep conversation with one of the anesthesia nurses. When the woman smiled at him, Bree remembered her toothpaste-ad smile. A feeling came over Bree that she had never felt before. Possessiveness? Jealousy? A mixture of both? It wasn’t a feeling she liked. While she had no claim over Knox, she also knew he wouldn’t have slept with her if he was involved with someone else. That thought calmed the green-eyed monster that had wanted to come out. Instead, she managed a smile and wave as she passed the two of them in the hall, then continued to her patient’s room.
She wasn’t surprised when she came out to find Knox waiting for her. She’d known in her heart that he would want to see her as much as she wanted to see him. It seemed like days since she’d seen that smile of his, and seeing it made her smile, too. Why had she been so concerned that things would be awkward between them? There was no awkwardness now. Instead, there was an openness, an honesty, that had always been missing. She liked the way things were between them now better than the way things had been when she’d been keeping secrets.
“I’m glad I caught up with you. I kept missing you at the office,” Knox said when he saw her. “I’d thought we’d share lunch, but you were tied up with Lori.”
“It’s been a busy day. Do you have a patient delivering?” she asked.
“No, I’ve just finished a Cesarean section. A patient with a complete previa came in bleeding,” he said, falling in beside her as she started back down the hall toward the exit.
“The mom and baby?” she asked, though she knew they had to be okay or he wouldn’t be standing there all relaxed.
“Both doing good, though mom is receiving her second blood transfusion now. I was going to see if you’d let me take you and Ally out to supper, but I think I’d better stay here. She’s still having more bleeding than I would like. I wanted to spend some time with y’all, though.”
Looking down at her watch, she saw that there was only a few minutes before her alarm would go off and she’d have to be on her way to pick Ally up at the local athletic center, which provided summer day care. “I understand. I’m about to head out to pick up Ally now. Maybe you could call later tonight?”
“I will,” he said, then turned when one of the labor and delivery nurses came rushing toward him, calling his name.
“That doesn’t look good. You better go. Just call me later,” Bree said, waving him away when he looked back at her. She watched as Knox jogged toward the nurse then started giving orders. She heard OR and knew his patient wasn’t doing well. There had once been a time when she’d wanted to be the doctor standing there giving orders. Tonight she was glad that it wasn’t her.
* * *
Bree rushed into the county clinic pulling a slow-moving Ally by the straps of her backpack behind her.
“There you are. I wondered if you were going to show up today. I know this is your last week but it’s not the time to be slacking,” Lucretia said with her usual big-dog bark and her puppy-dog bite. Then Ally peeped from behind Bree. “Wait. Who is that?”
“This is Ally, my niece,” Bree said. “And Ally, this is Ms. Lucretia. She works with me and Dr. Knox.”
Ally gave the woman a little wave, then looked around the room. “Don’t you have a TV in your waiting room?”
“When we got to Ally’s summer care program there was a note that they had a water pipe burst and would be closed till it was fixed. Knox said it was okay for me to bring Ally to work. I thought maybe she could hang out in reception with you?”
“Of course, she can. I can always use a helper,” Lucretia said.
“Did I hear my name?” Knox said, coming in from the back of the office. “Hey, Ally. How do you like the clinic?”
Bree watched as Ally’s disappointed face changed immediately. Running across the room, the little girl threw herself against Knox. Hugging Ally, he looked up at Bree. Even with her limited experience with it, she knew that it was love she saw in Knox’s eyes. But when he looked down at Ally, Bree couldn’t help but wonder if all that love had been for his daughter or if, maybe, some of it had been for her.
Which was a ridiculous thing for her to even be worrying about. Why did her mind constantly go to the negative where Knox was concerned? Was it the uncertainty of where the two stood after the night they’d spent together? Probably. She lay in the bed last night waiting for his call, the whole time wondering if she was making too much of that night. And then she’d remember how happy he’d seemed when he’d seen her at the hospital before he’d rushed off to an emergency, and she’d felt better.
But when the hours without a call from him had continued to tick away, she’d been left feeling forgotten and alone. Was this what her sister had felt like?
She realized then that Ally had been talking to her. “Can we, Aunt Bree?”
Bree looked from Ally to Knox. “I’m sorry, can we what?”
“I was telling her that my mother had invited the two of you back to the ranch this Saturday. I know it’s Jared and Sky’s weekend on call, so you and Lori should be free.” There was something in Knox’s voice that said this wasn’t a simple invitation. He seemed to be holding his breath as he waited for her answer. Her mother’s instinct was warning her that something was up.
“How about we talk about this later? We’ll have patients coming in any minute and I want to get Ally set up with some of her toys in the reception office.” Bree was prepared for the disappointment and the whining that came from Ally as she began to bargain in order to secure Bree’s agreement to the trip. What she wasn’t prepared for was the disappointment in Knox’s eyes. But when he turned and walked away, she knew that they would be discussing this later.
But when the morning rush hit and Bree went from patient to patient performing everything from Pap smears to treating abscess infections, she didn’t have the time to worry about the fact that both Ally and Knox weren’t happy with her. Between every patient, she checked on Ally. While she might not have been happy with her aunt, the rest of her behavior couldn’t have been better. Lucretia had put her to work stapling together the handouts they supplied to the women they see to find other resources to help with housing and food. Not for the first time Bree thought how lucky she was that she’d been able to provide for Ally over the years. It hadn’t been easy, but her little girl had never gone to bed hungry and she’d always had a safe place to live.
She’d just checked on Ally and was headed back to see a new patient when Knox waved her into an empty exam room.
“Can we talk for a minute?” he asked, the seriousness in his voice so different from his usual joking manner.
“I have a patient waiting,” she began.
“There will always be a patient waiting. It won’t take but a moment.” Knox opened the door wider and she walked in.
“I wanted to talk last night, but by the time I left the hospital it was too late.” When he offered her a chair, she took it. If he wanted her to be seated, he had already decided that she wasn’t going to like whatever it was he wanted to say.
“The patient with the previa? How is she?” Bree asked, mainly because she had worried about the patient when she’d left the hospital, but also so she could stall Knox from saying whatever it was that she knew would change things between them.
“There was no stopping the bleeding. I had to perform a hysterectomy,” Knox said. “It was their second child and they had wanted more. I hated it, but it was either that or she was going to bleed to death. I went by to see them this morning and they both know they made the right choice.”
“I’m sorry that it ended that way, but I’m glad she’s okay.” Of course they made the right choice. The only choice they really had. Sometimes the hardest choices are the ones where there really isn’t a choice. Telling you that you have a choice is just someone’s way of giving you some power over the situation, when truly your power has been taken away. Bree had faced those choices in her own life. Right now she felt that she was about to face another one of them.
“I wanted to talk to you about Ally. I think she’s ready for us to tell her that I’m her father.” When Bree started to interrupt him, Knox stopped her. “Can you honestly tell me that you will ever think she’s ready?”
Bree looked at Knox. She knew he was right. She’d had Ally all to herself almost from the time she was born. She knew it was selfish to want to hold on to her this way. And Knox wasn’t asking for her to give Ally to him. He was just asking for her to share her niece with him. And he was right; she’d never think Ally was ready for this news. How could you prepare a little girl for something like this?
“I’m Ally’s father, Bree. The longer we keep this from her, the worse it feels. She has the right to know.”
“But what if she isn’t ready? How do we tell her she had a daddy all this time and I didn’t tell her about him?” Bree felt the tears begin to flow, but there was nothing she could do about it. “What if she hates me for keeping you from her? She’s too young to understand that her mother had reasons that she thought Ally shouldn’t know you.
“And what about the promise I made to my sister? I’ve already broke that once. I feel like I’ve let everyone down.” Bree felt Knox’s arms come around her. Laying her head on his shoulder, she spilled her last secret. “What if she grows up and realizes how much of this was because of my promise to her mother and how much of this was because I wanted to keep her all to myself?”
“It’s going to be okay. We’ll talk it out among the three of us. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. There’s a lot that we need to figure out together. But we need to move forward, Bree.” Knox moved away from her then and tipped her face up to his. “Ally loves you. Nothing that happens after this will ever change that.”
Knox bent down toward her, his lips just grazing hers when a voice came from behind them. “Have the two of you forgotten that we have patients in the office? If you’re going to be doing all this lovey-dovey stuff, you need to at least shut the door.”
“I thought...” Knox began.
“We didn’t mean to...” Bree said, then stopped when she saw the amused look on Lucretia’s face. “Can you let my patient know that I’ll be right there?”
“I can, but there’s someone else you need to see first. That little girl, Megan. The one that those horrible human traffickers took. She’s here with her mother.”
Both Bree and Knox followed Lucretia out of the room to where a young girl who barely resembled the Megan they had met sat in the waiting room. There was no trace of makeup on the young girl’s face and her hair had not only been washed, but had also been cut into a neat shoulder-length bob. Her clothes were clean and she looked like she’d gained some weight. Bree was sure that there would always be trauma left from her experience, but it was easy to see that she was on a good track for recovery. Beside her sat a woman not that much older than Bree. She was pretty like her daughter, but Bree recognized the fatigue and stress in the woman’s eyes. The woman had gone through hell while searching for her daughter.
“We wanted to bring you these,” the woman said, standing when they entered the room. “Megan helped make them. She wanted to thank you and the police officers for everything you did for her.”
“Thank you. We were glad that we could help.” Bree knew that they’d only offered the girl food and a phone call, but it was those two things that had gotten the girl off the streets and back with her mother. What wrong turn Megan and her mother had made didn’t matter now. All that was important right now was that they were back together. With help, hopefully the two of them would work things out and be okay.
While Knox and Megan’s mother talked, Bree went to look for her own little girl. Seeing the teenager who had once been in so much danger made it seem all the more important that she hold Ally close. She knew that Knox wasn’t going to take Ally and run away with her. She knew Knox would never endanger his daughter in any way. But after all the years of providing for Ally all by herself, it was hard for her to think of giving some of that control up to Knox.
When Bree found the reception office empty, she began to go through the exam rooms. When she got to the one that held her patient, the only one left in the office, she listened at the door, thinking Ally had probably gone in to talk to the woman while she waited, even though she’d been warned to stay out of the occupied rooms. But when she entered, she found that her patient was there alone. Excusing herself again, with the promise that she’d return as soon as possible, Bree went to the bathroom at the end of the hall. There were only so many places where Ally could be in the small offices. Knocking on the bathroom door, then opening it to find it empty, the panic that had begun to rise inside her burst out. “Ally? Ally? Where are you?”
Bree rushed back through each room, calling out for her little girl. When Knox met her in the hallway, she was shaking so badly that she could barely get the words out of her mouth. She had experienced this once when she and a three-year-old Ally had been shopping and the toddler had decided to hide in a clothes rack where Bree couldn’t see her. There was no way to describe the fear you felt when your child was suddenly gone.
