A Kiss of Color: The Complete 3 Book Collection (17 page)

Helena swallowed the nausea rising in her throat. Of all the days for Dr. Forge to call out…The young woman took a deep breath. Xavier was always telling her that she overreacted – that she was fully capable of handling anything that came her way. Helena, being as high-strung as she was, usually had difficulties believing in herself. After all, she still had a full year and a half between her and a full MD.

“Nicole.” Helena hurried down the hall to stand behind the reception desk and face the triplets’ mother, her face flushed with stress. “I’m so sorry, but Dr. Forge called out sick today. We could try and get someone in, but-”

“Well, couldn’t you just see them?” The young mother looked nervously back at her children who were, for the moment, still behaving – but her nervousness told that things might soon take a turn for the more uncomfortable. “They love you. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

Helena bit her lip. Raising a hand to place over her churning stomach, she took a deep breath, before her insecurities spilled from her mouth. “Nicole, I…I’m not a licensed physician. I don’t want to do anything…I mean…your children-”

“Helena.” Reaching out, Nicole took her opposite hand, looking slightly desperate. “I trust you.”

Those three words did more to galvanize the young woman than anything that had been said to her all morning. She would, she promised herself, be safe. She would just be diagnosing the children’s ills, and she could always refer them to another doctor to confirm any prescription she might want to give the triplets if, indeed, she did find any problems. “Ok.”

Nicole’s face lit up at her reply. “Oh, thank you!” She turned to call to her children, giving Helena precious little time to prepare herself for their stampeding into her. The physician-in-training took a deep breath, tried to calm her churning stomach, and then called to Miranda to help her ready the examination room.

To Helena’s immense relief, the examination went off without a hitch. Melanie was as cooperative as a little girl suffering from a fever could possibly be, and it didn’t take long for Helena to discern that she was, indeed, suffering from a slight ear infection. The good news, however, was that neither of her brothers had contracted it. Instead, they were simply suffering from slight summer colds.

The dark-skinned woman was able to breathe a sigh of relief as she doled out lollipops to the triplets and prepared to call Doctor Forge in order to check things over with her before she issued a prescription for Melanie’s infection. She was just seeing the family out into the waiting room, when she was greeted with a sight that made her mouth fall open.

Doctor Forge was waiting for her at the receptionist’s desk next to Miranda, a wide smile on her face. Helena looked from the middle-aged woman to the receptionist at her side. The only one who seemed equally surprised to see her there was Nicole, who gathered her children to her as she stared at the woman in disbelief. “Dr. Forge? Helena told me that you wouldn’t be in today! That you had called out sick.”

“Mrs. Thatch. I’m so very sorry about this little mishap.” Dr. Forge stood, towering over everyone present at her lofty six-three height as she held out her hand to shake Nicole’s. “But I’m sure you’ll be proud to know that you have helped us do something I thought we might never achieve.” The doctor glanced down at Helena, her gaze not unkind. “We’ve been trying to give our young intern here the confidence she needed to make her own diagnoses for months and finally decided that it might be easier if she had no choice but to treat patients herself. I hope you’ll forgive the deception…and look at it as having done Helena a favor.”

The dark-skinned young woman gaped. So, Doctor Forge hadn’t been sick at all? This had all just been some kind of elaborate ruse to get her to treat patients of her own free will? For a moment, Helena wanted to be upset. Everyone who worked in the office knew how nervous she was about being alone with patients. They knew how her nerves tended to be. Why would they do this to her? It raised her stress levels to amazing heights, made her pulse race…and induced her to do the very thing she feared.

To overcome her inhibition.

Helena looked from Nicole, to Miranda, to her mentor and then down at the grinning children below her. They had each done their part, Nicole however unwillingly, but the end result had been that she had treated the children without a hitch, and somehow managed to have enough faith in herself – and fear for their well-being – to do her job. “I don’t think there’s any need for you to have that prescription approved.” The doctor nodded at the paper Helena held in her hand. “I watched the entire proceedings on the camera and, as I suspected you would be, your diagnosis was absolutely correct. Congratulations, Helena.”

Instead of holding out her hand to shake, however, Susan extended her arms, offering the younger woman a warm hug. Helena couldn’t resist the grin that spread across her face as she stepped into her mentor’s arms. Perhaps she had been a little too rash in fearing her own shortcomings. After all, Xavier told her that she often underestimated herself.

He’d been telling her the same thing over and over since they’d started dating four years ago.

As the children joined in the hug, simply caught up in the warmth that permeated the waiting room, Helena found herself believing for the first time in a long time that she could tackle the world. That everything would be OK, and she could be the best pediatrician on the west coast when her time came.

While she was riding this euphoric high, however, her body turned on her. All at once, a wave of dizziness washed over the young woman and she found herself suddenly light headed. She stumbled, holding tightly to Dr. Forge as a concerned sound escaped the elder woman. “Helena?” She inquired lowly, “Are you alright, dear?”

Before the young woman could answer that she was fine, a wave of nausea swept over her that had her fighting to keep her breakfast down. She broke from Doctor Forge’s embrace to steady herself against the nearest wall as the room began to swim around her. She caught sight of all six of the concerned faces in the room a moment before her discomfort swallowed her, and she plunged into darkness.

When Helena awoke, she did so slowly, fighting her way out of the blackness that had enveloped her. To her surprise, she found herself on an examination table in the office, and, almost immediately, Susan Forge’s worried brown eyes caught hers. “Helena! You were out for about three minutes, child. I was starting to get worried.”

As she spoke, another wave of sickness assaulted the young woman and she made a desperate gesture. Luckily, Miranda was present in the room and understood. She rushed to grab a basin moments before Helena emptied the contents of her stomach into it embarrassingly.

She felt absolutely awful.

God, what was wrong with her? Had she caught a bug? Some sort of virus? Because she’d been feeling this way for the past few weeks. Usually, she was able to get through her days without very much backlash from her stomach, but today, it seemed as if everything had come to a head. She had an intense ache right between her eyes and she felt as if she would fall over if she tried to stand. Helena flopped back down against the table, gratefully taking the cup Miranda offered her to wash out her mouth with cool water.

Jesus. She had gone from being a nervous wreck to being on top of the world to feeling like she was on her death bed. “
God
…” She breathed, wincing at the sour taste in her mouth. “This is awful.”

“You don’t look very well.” Miranda frowned. “Maybe you’ve got a bug? There’s been some stuff going around the building…”

“How long have you been feeling out of sorts, Helena?” Susan had now entered examination mode, and Helena winced at becoming a patient more easily than she was willing to administer to patients of her own.

Helena sighed, placing a comforting hand over her churning stomach. “Um…I don’t know really. I think it’s been brought on by the stress of starting my surgical trials. I’ve been feeling nauseous throughout the day for a couple of weeks now.” Her opposite hand found the place the pain in her head was radiating from and massaged it firmly. “Maybe I just need some rest? I’ve been pulling a lot of late nights recently.”

Dr. Forge nodded sympathetically, jotting a few things down on a pad before raising her gaze to meet Helena’s. “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but would you mind giving me a few samples just so we can check things out for you? We wouldn’t want anything going unchecked.”

For once, Helena allowed herself to relax as the Doctor took a few blood samples and asked her to give a bit of urine. She was feeling a lot better after she was provided with a cup of soda water and a few crackers, and found herself sitting up on the examination table with Miranda keeping careful watch over her as she waited for her results.

When Doctor Forge re-entered the room, her expression was carefully guarded. Helena immediately found herself on high alert. Having worked with Susan for the past two years gave her the ability to tell when the doctor was going to deliver bad news. “What is it, Dr. Forge?”

The tall woman took a seat in the chair beside the examination table, looking through the results on the clipboard in front of her before fixing Helena with her steady brown gaze. “Well, Helena, before we talk about your results, I’d like to ask you a few questions. “

“…Alright.” Helena found herself slightly confused as to where the conversation was headed, but she nodded slowly.

“When was the date of your last period?”

The question caught the young woman completely unawares. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d even thought about her period. She’d been so stressed lately that she hadn’t really kept track of it. “I…I’m not sure, actually. Sometime last month? Maybe the month before?”

“But you have no idea of the date? Not even roughly, perhaps?” Embarrassed, the young woman shook her head. Xavier would probably know better than her as he observed how cranky she got when she was menstruating.

“Alright. And we had you on Depo shots, correct? When was the last time you had one?”

Well, Christ. She couldn’t quite remember that either. What Helena did remember was that she kept setting reminders on her phone for making her next appointment, and had never gotten around to actually doing it. But she’d had a shot within the last two or three months, that was for sure.

“It had to have been in April or May sometime.” She replied confidently. “I remember coming in on my off day.”

“Really?” Doctor Forge raised an elegant eyebrow, her expression one of slight disbelief. “Your charts say your last shot was over six months ago.”

Helena’s eyes widened. Six months? How on earth could she have gone for so long between her shots? Despite how crazy her life with Xavier could be, she tried to keep on top of things pertaining to her health. “Well, is there any way I can get one today?” She inquired, somewhat sheepishly, “before your evening appointments?”

The doctor was giving her a look that made her slightly nervous. Setting her medical chart down at the edge of the examination table, Susan sighed, shaking her head. “I’m afraid that will be impossible, Helena.”

“Why?” The dark-skinned intern arched a brow. “If you’re going to be busy, I could administer it myself. I’ll need your permission, of course-”

“It has nothing to do with how willing I am.” Susan cut her off gently, “But with the law.” Reaching out, she took Helena’s hand lightly in hers. “It’s illegal to administer contraceptive drugs to pregnant patients.”

For a moment, Helena wasn’t sure she’d heard her mentor correctly. Illegal to administer to…pregnant patients? But she wasn’t…she couldn’t be…

All at once, it all made sense. The nausea, the fatigue, the mood swings that had been driving her half out of her mind. The realization itself was enough to make bile rise anew in her throat.

She was going to have a baby.

A baby she was
completely
unprepared for.

***

This week was going to go down in history as one of the most memorable of Xavier’s entire life. He could still hardly believe what had happened in the past few days. He was still processing the deal in his mind, and there was still a mountain of paperwork to be hashed out, but in the end, the results still read plainly:

He had just signed a three hundred million dollar deal with one of the largest technology distributers in the country for exclusive rights to their troubleshooting and maintenance services. This would, of course, mean expansion on a massive scale once the deal went public. He’d have to hire hundreds of workers and open up many more locations in order to provide the resources he’d signed on for, but Xavier knew it would be done.

It was the sheer scope of the deal that fascinated him. The deal with Harrison and Harrison was the largest he’d made to date. He, who his parents had told him would never amount to anything. They had completely and totally cut him off after he’d graduated from Antioch, and he was lucky to hear from them two or three times a year. Despite the fact that he was beginning to make his own fortune, they were still loathe to be associated with him and the defiance he’d shown them.

It hurt.

Much more than he was willing to admit. But Xavier had always been particularly sensitive to the dysfunctional nature of his family. Even though he was over thirty, they still wanted to control everything that he did – and if they couldn’t, they wanted nothing to do with him. It was as simple as that. He supposed he should be lucky that he hadn’t been cut off from his family entirely. He still had Brandy, his older sister, who called him almost every week, thrilled with the progress he made.

And then, there was Emily.

He hadn’t seen her in years, he realized. She’d been shipped off to boarding school at the tender age of ten, and had barely been home since. In much the same fashion as he and his other siblings, she’d been pinioned into doing exactly what they wanted her to do – or else. Xavier had seen less and less of her since he’d gone away to college, and now, when he had a spare moment to think, he often found himself wondering what his little sister was up to.