Her Greek Doctor's Proposal (17 page)

“What? Why?” Dora gasped.

“Baby’s heartbeat is dropping again because the cord is around its neck. Give me a minute.”

Almost as short of breath as the laboring mother, Laurel stared down at the baby’s head, now out of its mother’s body and being held gently in Andros’s hands. Then her breath stopped completely and she felt a little woozy when she saw the baby was beyond blue, and the umbilical cord was wrapped several times around its neck.

She sucked in quick breaths to calm herself. Big help she’d be if she fainted in the middle of the birth. Andros slid his fingers carefully beneath the cord, gently loosening and unwrapping it, then finally slipping it completely off over the baby’s head. “Okay, ready now. Let’s have a last few good pushes, Dora. You’re doing great. Can you help her, Laurel?”

Fear gave Laurel super energy, and she pushed hard on Dora’s belly as the woman worked to
deliver her child. After a few monumental pushes, the baby slipped from its mother’s body into the waiting hands of Dr. Andros Drakoulias.

“Another girl!” Andros said, glancing up with a smile so big that that dimple of his showed again. “And she’s as beautiful as her mother.”

Dora sagged back, gasping and beaming, looking from the baby to her husband and back again. Yanni leaned forward to give her a lingering kiss, speaking soft words in her ear that Laurel couldn’t understand, but at the same time she knew exactly what he must be saying.

Laurel felt about as wrung out as Dora, but wired too. She watched Andros rub the baby gently all over with a towel then put a bulb into her mouth to suction out fluids. The tiny thing seemed alarmingly blue, and the seconds seemed like minutes before the baby’s head finally began to pink up, then her torso, as she cried out in lusty breaths.

The parents laughed and kissed, Andros grinned, and Laurel sagged, letting out a huge sigh of relief.

What an amazing experience. Scary and exhilarating and wonderful and unforgettable.

“You did a great job, Dora. Baby’s had a bit of a rough time, so we need to get her warmed up and breathing well before I hand her over to mama.” Andros’s gaze met Laurel’s. “Are
you okay handling the baby, Laurel? She needs to be dried off with the towels to warm her up, wrapped with a dry one, then put under the heat lamp and given oxygen. I already have it turned on, so just position the mask over her mouth. I need to take care of Dora.”

“Yes. Of course.” She hurried over, not knowing exactly what to do, but whatever it was, she knew Andros would guide her through it if she messed up somehow.

He handed her the still slightly wet baby, and a moment of terror nearly stopped her heart. What if she dropped it?

“Don’t worry. She’s not glass.” Andros gave her an encouraging smile. “Just dry her off like you would a little puppy after its bath, swaddle her up, then put her in the warmer.” Andros grinned as though he’d read her mind, and she wondered what expression was on her face for him to see.

Heart thumping, she grabbed up a towel and carried the baby to the warmer. Softly, she began stroking the child with the towel, dumbstruck at the little brown eyes staring up at her as she did. As though the baby, just a few minutes old, was avidly studying her brand-new world.

“Dora, I’m going to give you some oxytocin to help your uterus clamp down and stop the bleeding. Okay?”

Laurel didn’t look behind her, but knew the new mother wore the same expression on her face she’d had all along. Complete confidence that Andros would take care of everything.

She finished drying the baby, marveling at her mini fingers and feet, her tiny elbows and knees, then awkwardly swaddled her, sure any nurse would laugh at the pitiful job. The immeasurable good Andros accomplished every day struck her with awe. Yes, she loved her job. Following in her parents’ footsteps. Uncovering history, learning from the past, was valuable to humankind’s education. But this?

This put it in perspective. A dig wasn’t life or death. It was about past lives and past deaths, but, when it came right down to it, helping others today and now was the most important thing anyone could do.

Helping her sisters become the people they’d become had been more important than getting her PhD done. More important than any dig, no matter how meaningful. She was glad to be free of the responsibility now, but postponing those things to raise and guide her sisters had been the biggest accomplishment of her life so far. How had she never appreciated that before?

The little baby staring at her from under the heat lamp raised her downy eyebrows, seeming to agree. Laurel smiled, stroking the infant’s soft
cheek, feeling a strangely serene, inner calm she couldn’t remember feeling since before her parents died. For the first time, she realized that maybe having a baby of her own one day had its place on her list of life goals.

She’d head back to the mountain, into the caves, tomorrow. Hopefully she’d bring to a close her number-one goal. She’d leave no stone unturned to make it happen. But if she didn’t?

She’d remember this sweet little baby’s face, and be at peace with the outcome, knowing she’d given it everything she could.

“D
ID YOU REALLY
help Daddy born a baby, Laurel?” Cassie asked as the three of them sat at the breakfast table, her usual excitement on her adorable face and sparkling in her brown eyes.

“I did. It was amazing. Your daddy’s pretty amazing too.” She looked at him over her coffee cup, struck all over again by his astonishing physical beauty, somehow magnified even more by the dark stubble on his chin and the faded T-shirt stretching across his thick chest and arms. And his inner beauty too, which she’d seen last night. Radiating competence and caring, reassuring the mother throughout even the scariest part of the birth.

“I know,” Cassie said as she stuffed a piece of bread into her mouth. “How did I look when I was born, Daddy? Did I cry a lot?”

Andros stilled in midmotion, his gaze meeting Laurel’s before he put his cup back down.
“I wasn’t there when you were born, remember, sweetie?”

Laurel’s chest squeezed at his somber expression. Obviously, this was a painful subject for him, and she wondered when she’d finally find out about his relationship with Cassie’s mother and how she’d died. A woman he’d said he wasn’t close to. The knowledge that Cassie didn’t have a mother made her heart ache for the child. But she was lucky to have a father who so obviously loved her, and an extended family too, in Taryn and Petros and her grandparents. Laurel knew from experience that could make even a terrible loss more bearable.

“Oh. I forgot.” Cassie went back to eating, not seeming very bothered by the conversation, which eased the tightness in Laurel’s chest. “When are we going fishing, Daddy?”

“As soon as you’re done eating. I want to see that apricot go down the hatch.” He picked it up and held it to her mouth and she lunged at it, nearly biting his fingers. “Ouch! Are you a wild dog this morning? I need all my fingers, you know.”

Cassie giggled. “I’m a monster fairy. I have tiny teeth, but they’re very sharp and hurty.”

“Monster fairy? Sounds like a compromise with Petros.”

His amused eyes met Laurel’s, and they smiled
together in an oddly intimate connection. How could sitting here at their breakfast table feel so normal, so right, when she didn’t really know either of them all that well? How could it remind her of her own family, of breakfasts with her parents and her sisters that were the best memories of her life?

Moments she’d taken completely for granted until they were in the past. Until they could never happen again.

“You’re not working today, Andros?” she asked, wondering how the only doctor in town had time to fish.

“Since Christina’s gone a few days, I closed the clinic. Off work to play with Cassie, unless there’s an emergency.”

“Are you coming fishing with us, Laurel?”

“I can’t. Unlike your dad, I don’t have the day off.” Filled with a sudden longing to join them, she fought it back. She hadn’t been given this one last chance to find the treasure just to twiddle away the little time she had. Andros’s brows quirked at her in a questioning look and she braced herself. The man would not be happy about her plans to go in the cave, but it wasn’t his decision. Wasn’t his parents’ dream she had one more shot at realizing. Her chance to make them proud.

“With all the excitement, you never did tell
me why you came back. What is it you still need to do?”

She opened her mouth to tell him then closed it again. Coward that she was, she didn’t want to ruin this warm, pleasant moment they were sharing. And didn’t she deserve just a few hours of relaxation and fun on the boat with them? Just for a little while before work took 100 percent of her time? The way it had for her parents?

“You know, work can wait a little while longer. Because, you might not believe this, but…” She leaned closer to Cassie. “I’ve never been fishing. Will you teach me how?”

“Yes! I will! Can I get my tackle box now, Daddy? Please?”

“All right. I’ll pack up the last of your fruit for a snack.”

Laurel smiled as the child leaped from the chair and ran off, her spindly little legs practically a blur. Maybe it made her nosy, but she couldn’t help being curious about Cassie’s mother and what Andros had said before. Now might be the only chance she had to ask without the little girl around.

“So. Maybe enjoying a little nakedness together doesn’t give me the right to ask,” she began, wondering why she felt suddenly nervous, like maybe she didn’t want to know the answer after all, “but Cassie is the sweetest little thing,
and I can’t help but wonder about her mom. You said she passed away?”

Andros stared down into his coffee cup, not responding, exactly the way he’d acted when she’d brought the subject up on the mountain. That seemed like a long time ago now, but just as she was about to apologize for asking, for butting into something that wasn’t her business, he looked up and fully met her gaze.

“Yes. As I said before, it’s a sad thing for Cassie. But the rest of the story? It isn’t one I’m particularly proud of.”

Oh, Lord. Probably this really was something she didn’t want to know and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut at the same time that she found herself desperately needing to hear it.

“I spent my youth going from one girlfriend to the next. Thought that was a good thing, what guys did, right? Now I wish my parents had yanked me aside and lectured me on respecting women, but they didn’t. Don’t know if they turned a blind eye or honestly weren’t aware of it until after I left and they heard the gossip, but by the time I left Kastorini for school in the States, I had quite a reputation.”

“You’re a beautiful man, Andros, which I’m sure you know.” Hadn’t she about swooned the very first time she’d set eyes on him? “I bet it
was a two-way street, with girls throwing themselves at you.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to take advantage of it. But I did. And when I saw the big, wide world of a college campus, then med school and residency? I felt like I’d moved from dinner to a full banquet.”

“And you feel guilty about that.” She could see it in his eyes. Guilt. And while a part of her felt uncomfortable, maybe even a little cheap at being just another woman who’d offered herself up at that banquet, she also believed he was no longer that young, careless man.

“Yes. I do.” His eyes met hers again, intense and sincere. “Even before I found out about Cassie, I’d started to grow up. To see that women weren’t something to be enjoyed at random, even if that seemed to be all they wanted, too. I took a step back to think about who I was and who I wanted to be. Figured I just wasn’t capable of a lasting relationship with a woman. Had never wanted one, but knew I needed to start being more careful about who I got involved with so no one got hurt. Then I got a phone call that brought that lesson home for good.”

Laurel knew what that phone call must have been. Her heart twisted in a knot, and she covered his hand with hers and waited.

“Alison’s brother—Alison was Cassie’s
mother—called me. Said she’d died in a car accident, and I was listed on Cassie’s birth certificate as the father. Her parents were older and couldn’t take care of a toddler, and the brother was single and traveled a lot. So they decided to contact me.”

This time, his dark eyes were filled with pain. Remorse too, and her heart clutched even harder. “You didn’t know.”

“No. I didn’t know. I wish she’d told me, though I hate to admit I barely remembered who she was. Maybe she didn’t because she figured I’d be irresponsible.”

“No, Andros, she had to know the caring man you are would have stepped up.”

“Maybe, maybe not. When I first found out, there were plenty who knew me that doubted I would. And I wasn’t sure I could blame them.” He held her hand between both of his, his gaze not wavering from hers. “Maybe it happened later than it should have, but learning about Cassie brought me to that final step of realizing I was a man now, not a careless, self-absorbed boy. Which meant coming back to Kastorini to work with my father, as he’d always wanted me to. To raise Cassie here the way I’d been raised, to finally embrace the roots I’d been blessed to be given.”

She tightened her hold on his hand, giving him a smile that she hoped showed she understood.
That everyone had years they’d spent doing a whole lot of growing up, and it wasn’t always tidy or pretty. Hadn’t she struggled to guide her sisters, often failing miserably because of her own immaturity? “Gotta admit, I find it hard to believe there was a time you weren’t sure you wanted to come back. I love it here. Your place—your town—is truly special.” She had to bite back her next words, which had almost been
and you’re every bit as special, too.

“It is. Special, and hard for me to believe.” A small smile played about his lips now, and she was glad to see it. Happy he’d felt able to share all that with her, and happy he saw she understood.

“By the way.” He leaned in, a breath away. “Just so you know, you’re not just another fling to me. You’re damned special too.”

Her heart knocked at the words she’d almost said to him. She saw his smile, slightly crooked and more than sexy, just before his mouth touched hers. Her eyes drifted closed to savor the sensation. Sweet and slow, tasting a little like coffee and a lot like warmth and pleasure and simple happiness. Just as she was sinking deep into all of it, a banged-open door, followed by a voice so loud it was hard to believe it came from a tiny little throat, interrupted.