An Accidental Mom (5 page)

Lily snuggled closer still, blurring the lines where she ended and he began. He ended the comforting kiss but didn’t let her go. Couldn’t let her go…not just yet. She felt good in his arms, so good, pressed close to his heart. It felt right, holding her, kissing her, and yet…

So much time had passed since he’d left for Chicago, yet nothing had changed.

He still yearned for Lily, and she still deserved better than the likes of him.

“Nate will be fine,” she said again, leaning her cheek against his chest. “You’ll see.”

She’d misread his mood, he realized. Big-hearted, see-the-good-in-everyone Lily had convinced herself that the entire cause of his misery was concern for his son. Well, there was more to it! It was also about believing Lily would never be part of his life.

Max kissed the top of her head and heaved a sad
sigh. “I hope so.”
Hard to believe a man could mess up his life as badly as you have in just thirty years.

“And
you’ll
be all right, too.”

Maybe. But he sure didn’t deserve to be all right. Physically healthy, yes, because Nate needed him, more now than ever. But emotionally? Nah. He didn’t deserve that, not one whit.

“Thirsty?” she asked.

He wasn’t, but nodded anyway.

“You stay here, in case Dr. Prentice comes out to talk to you about Nate. I’ll find a vending machine, get us something cold to drink.”

He nodded again. My, but she was beautiful, especially looking up at him that way, her enormous green eyes brimming and shimmering with full-out affection. She looked at Nate that way, too—proof she’d be a loving, devoted mother. If only…

No point torturing yourself,
he thought. Dreams like that were for schoolgirls, not grown men who’d botched up their lives.

“Back in a jiff,” Lily said, popping a tiny kiss to his chin. “Don’t pace a path in the floor while I’m gone, okay?” she called over her shoulder.

He smiled despite himself.
And don’t you be gone too long,
he thought. Because if Dr. Prentice came through the O.R. doors and the news wasn’t good, well, Max knew he couldn’t face it without her standing beside him. He didn’t want to face anything, not even
good
news, without her beside him!

Max watched her walk down the hall. When she disappeared around the corner, he flopped onto a tweedy-seated waiting room chair and knuckled his
eyes. “Shouldn’t have kissed her, Sheridan. Should’ve kept your big dumb lips to yourself.”

Because now that he knew it was everything he’d dreamed it would be, he was a goner. Her helpful nature, her nurturing tendencies, her adorable gestures—they’d all plucked a chord in him that he hadn’t even known existed, putting music and harmony and balance into his dreary, lonely life. But that kiss…

She deserved better, and if only she’d give herself half a chance, Lily could find happiness with another man.

Another man? The mere thought made his heart ache, made his stomach lurch, made his ears hot. The picture of her, smiling that
smile
of hers for some other guy, kissing some other guy the way she’d just kissed him…

Max drove his fingers through his hair. Why was the stupid procedure Dr. Prentice was giving Nate taking so
long?

On his feet again, he walked the length of the hall and back again. All right, so Lily would marry someday, have a couple of kids, live the rest of her days fulfilled and satisfied and, yes, happy. And he’d make himself be happy
for
her.

Because, to put it simply, she deserved it…and he didn’t.

“What we’re going to have to do,” Dr. Prentice said, tugging off his surgical mask, “is called a keyhole bypass.” He sat across from Max and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve done dozens of ’em, and
it’s usually the last step in cases like Nate’s. Minimally invasive—doesn’t require me to crack the sternum.”

Max nodded while Lily patted his hand. If only she could do something to fix everything wrong in his life! That power, she knew, was God’s and God’s alone, and she prayed that when this was over, Max’s faith in the Almighty would be back, and stronger than ever.

Dr. Prentice, meanwhile, grabbed one of the paper napkins she’d brought back from the cafeteria. Clicking his ballpoint pen, he began drawing a diagram of the human heart.

“See, Nate has a hole, here, in the top chamber of his heart, called a secundum atrial septal defect. Fortunately, there’s an adequate rim around the hole to allow us to implant a device to close it.”

Prentice scribbled, while Lily watched Max trying to take it all in.

“My team and I are gonna close that hole up,” the doctor continued, “using an Amplatzer occlusion device. Basically, it’s nothing but a wire mesh disk that’s about the size of a dime.”

“How long will it last?” Max asked.

“It’s made of nickel and titanium, and filled with polyester fabric, so I’d have to say forever. In a few months, it’ll be completely covered by heart tissue, which means it’ll be a permanent part of Nate’s heart wall.”

Max put the drawing down and hung his head.

“Sounds scarier than it is,” Dr. Prentice said.

“So, how does it work, exactly?”

“We’ll insert it into a catheter that we’ll run through the femoral vein in Nate’s groin to his heart. When the disk comes out the other end, it’ll deploy—open up kind of like a tiny umbrella against the inner and outer walls of the heart, directly over the hole.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Max said, staring at the drawing. “What are the risks?”

Dr. Prentice shrugged one shoulder. “The whole process is far less formidable than open-heart surgery. But it’s surgery, nonetheless, which means there’s a small chance of bleeding, infection, perforation of the heart, device embolization—”

“Embolization?” Max picked up the napkin, turned it this way and that.

“An obstruction, like with a blood clot. But that’s rare, very rare. Once we get the thing in place, we’ll watch for leaks, and—”

“Leaks?” Max’s head snapped up.

“Again,” Dr. Prentice stressed, hands up to forestall Max’s fears, “that’s the exception rather than the rule. Couple months back, I performed the procedure on a little girl with a condition similar to Nate’s. Took less than two hours, and she was sitting up in bed, playing with her little brothers soon after the anesthesia wore off—and home again the next morning.”

Relief softened Max’s features. “How’s she doing now?”

Prentice winked. “According to her mom, she’s running the pants off her brothers.”

“Will he be in much pain?”

“For the first few days he might experience some slight discomfort, but that’ll pass quickly.”

“Will he be able to feel it?” Max winced. “I mean, when he moves around, will it—”

“Not one of my patients has indicated they’re aware of its presence at all.”

“So he’ll be a normal, active kid again afterward?”

The doctor laughed. “I didn’t have a chance to spend much time with Nate, but it didn’t take long to figure out he’s the kind of kid who isn’t gonna let anything slow him down much.” He stood, patted Max’s shoulder, then headed back to the O.R. “He’ll be fishing and swimming and chasing down pop-flies in no time. Don’t worry,” he said over his shoulder.

“Easy for you to say,” Max muttered as the doctor left. “Nate’s not your son.”

Lily stood beside him, leaned her head on his shoulder. “Easy, now. He’ll take good care of Nate. The nurses say he’s the best in Texas, and I say he’s a good man.”

He brought her into the circle of his arms. “I understand how his reputation as a surgeon precedes him, but you just met him. How could you possibly know what kind of man he is?”

“I looked into his eyes,” she said, blinking up at him. “And you know the old saying…”

One side of Max’s mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Well, if he slips up, even a little—” he shook his fist “—I’m gonna shatter both of those windows to his soul.”

Lily giggled and wrapped her hands around his fist. “C’mon, tough guy. Let’s go see your kid.”

The next days passed in a flurry, with Lily staying at Georgia’s apartment with Nate while Max waited
outside the O.R. during Georgia’s leg surgery. Lily fully expected that once his son and mother were home again, Max would relax.

But he didn’t.

After interviewing a dozen nurses, he hired a pleasant, middle-aged woman to look after Georgia and Nate while he worked in the diner. And he worked from dawn ’til dark, filling in wherever he saw the need—bussing tables, washing dishes, mopping floors. When he wasn’t busy with patrons and staff, he pored over the ledger books in the cramped, cluttered office space behind the kitchen.

If she didn’t know better, Lily would have said he was intentionally avoiding any contact with people—herself in particular. Because every time she’d called to ask how his mom and little boy were progressing, he’d answered with one-word replies. The first few times, she blamed his tone on stress, but by the sixth or seventh call, Lily felt she had no choice but to assume Max didn’t want to talk to her.

His attitude answered her
unasked
questions, too, things she’d been asking herself ever since that wonderful moment when Max had tenderly held her close: What had his breathtaking kiss
meant?
Was it proof he cared for her, too? Dare she hope their relationship could begin to shift, gradually, from friendship to…more? Or had it been simply the result of Max’s mounting worries about his little boy’s condition. Had she mistaken his reaching out to her for comfort and reassurance for blossoming love?

Lily decided she wouldn’t make a fool of herself,
not even for Max Sheridan, not even if she’d loved him since junior high. She’d always been close to Georgia, and almost from the instant he burst into the diner, Lily had adored little Nate. Max’s chilly conduct couldn’t change that. So she’d call when he was working in the diner, ask the nurse to put Georgia on the phone, find out what she needed to know about Georgia and Nate without the grumpy, distant middleman!

She’d done well with her new “be cool” attitude, balancing the ranch checkbook and caring for her winged and furred charges with visits to Georgia and Nate, real well. Until the church social.

How Georgia managed to get Max to attend was anybody’s guess. But there he stood in the food line, filling a plate for Georgia, another for Nate. She knew neither plate was his; Max had never liked chicken wings, and a healthy portion of the golden-fried stuff lay on the foam dish. Blue jeans clung to his muscular thighs, and he’d rolled back the cuffs of his white shirt, exposing brawny, slightly hairy forearms. He’d gotten a haircut; she knew because when he’d kissed her outside the O.R. that day, her fingers had played in the dark waves caressing the back of his neck….

Stop it!
Lily scolded herself. Remembering that moment, and how it left her weak-kneed and dizzy, accomplished nothing. Well, that wasn’t exactly true—memories of that sweet slice of time made her yearn for him all the more, because she’d so wanted to believe it meant as much to him as it had meant to her.

“Hey, Snow White!” Georgia hollered from across the room.

Smiling, Lily crossed the green-tiled floor of the church basement and grabbed a chair. “Nice to see you’re getting around without that wheeled contraption of yours,” she said, kissing the redhead’s cheek.

“Couple more weeks of physical therapy,” she said, thumping the rubber-tipped end of her cane on the floor, “and I’ll be rid of this, too!”

“I imagine you’re chompin’ at the bit to get back to work.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve loved every minute away from that greasy spoon of mine.” She looked around, waved Lily closer. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, if you promise to keep it to yourself.”

Nodding, Lily pulled an imaginary zipper shut across her mouth. “Mmmm’s the wrrrd,” she said through tight lips.

One last scan of the room told Georgia no one else could hear. “Robert asked me to marry him,” she whispered.

Lily’s eyes widened as she leaned back and gasped. “That’s wonderful news! Why do you want to keep it a secret?”

“He hasn’t told his kids yet, and I haven’t had a chance to tell Max and Nate, either.”

Lily frowned. “You don’t look very happy about it. Don’t tell me you said no.”

Georgia made an are-you-kidding face and said, “Don’t be ridiculous! He’s a wonderful, loving man. I’d be crazy to let him slip through my fingers.”

“Then, why the long face?”

“I have another bit of news, and I’m not too sure Max is gonna like it.”

Lily giggled nervously. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Georgia laughed. “’Course not, you silly nut!” When the moment passed, she said, “I’m going to retire. Permanently. Robert, too. We’re going to take a world cruise for our honeymoon.”

“Why would Max object to that? You’ve worked hard in that diner all your life.”

“Because I want to hand the deed to that diner over to him. It’s been in the family for generations. I don’t want it going to strangers.”

Lily thought about that. He’d pulled hundreds of shifts in the diner as a boy, and although she’d never heard him complain, exactly, if his expression and body language were any indicator, he hadn’t liked the work one bit.

And he’d spent the past six years in the big city, no doubt working at a big fancy desk in an air-conditioned, mahogany-paneled office. Probably lived in a ritzy Chicago suburb, too, in a too-big-for-him house on a street with other snooty accountants.

“What scheme are you two cooking up?”

Lily lurched and Georgia gasped.

“Oh!” Georgia exclaimed. “You just shaved ten years off my life, sneaking up on us that way!”

Max chuckled. “I didn’t sneak. It’s just that you two were so deep in discussion, you didn’t hear me.” He raised an eyebrow. “So, what gives?”

“None of your beeswax, boy,” Georgia said, chin
in the air. “Honestly, how old does a mother have to be to get a little privacy?” She sniffed.

Max held up his hands in mock surrender. “
Excuse
me for interrupting. I only came over to deliver your plate.” He put the dish on the table, then handed her a paper napkin and plastic utensils.