Countdown To Baby

Her stomach muscles clenched. “You mean—”

“I mean, I don’t believe for a minute that she was hit in the face by a softball. I think she was hit by a fist. And I’m pretty sure he either hit her or shoved her again tonight before I could get over there.”

“Surely Brandy wouldn’t keep excusing Marlin if he was actually hitting her.”

“You haven’t seen any other bruises or injuries?”

Cecilia thought about the question for a moment and then grimaced. “There have been a couple of bruises. And she sprained her wrist last month. She said she fell. But she’s the active type who’s always doing something physical like roller skating and climbing and swimming at the lake. I thought she was just a bit accident-prone.”

She stopped and sighed. “I guess I wasn’t really thinking at all. If I had been, I would have recognized the signs.”

“From what I’ve read, abused women are very adept at hiding the truth from their friends and family. Covering, making excuses, taking the blame.”

Cecilia still felt like an idiot. “I’ve seen it more than a few times in my job. You would be surprised and disgusted by the number of men who don’t stop punching their wives or girlfriends even during pregnancy. And the women almost always have a cover story—running into a door or falling off a porch or, well, getting hit by a softball. Or if they’re confronted by the truth, they make excuses for the jerks. The poor guy was just under stress or worried about money or being treated badly at work. Or maybe he’d had a little too much to drink and he wasn’t really in control of his actions, but he’s always so sorry later.”

“Brandy claimed this quarrel was all her fault. She said things she shouldn’t have and Marlin got mad. She was obviously ready to crawl to keep him from leaving.”

“I just can’t understand why she’s so desperate to hang on to him. I’ve tried to convince her that she doesn’t have to have a boyfriend to make her happy, but she has an almost neurotic fear of losing him.”

“From what you’ve told me of her background, she’s looking for someone to belong to. Someone who puts her first. It’s a shame she can’t find that with her grandparents rather than with some boy who doesn’t appreciate her.”

“I’ll talk to her grandmother tomorrow. Maybe a family counselor can help them. And I’ll try talking to Brandy again, though I’m not sure it would do any good. She thinks of me as her grandmother’s unmarried neighbor. She likes me well enough, but she thinks I’m too old to understand teenage love affairs. Nor is she interested in modeling herself after me. According to her, my life is boring—all work and very little play, in her opinion. She doesn’t understand when I tell her how much I love my work.”

“Maybe you should take her to work with you someday. Let her see what a vital and fascinating job you have.”

“If I thought it would accomplish anything, I would do that. But I’m not sure showing her my work would convince her that she should listen to me rather than Marlin.”

“It couldn’t hurt for her to watch a woman who’s competent, highly respected and fully in charge of vitally important situations.”

She couldn’t help but be pleased, of course, by the way he described her. “Maybe I will see if she’s interested in shadowing me one day. She’ll be a senior in high school in the fall and she really should be considering her career choices. Whenever I’ve asked, she’s merely shrugged and said she was still thinking about possibilities, but it couldn’t hurt for me to give her an up-close look at one option.”

“There’s always a need for young people to train for health care careers. Especially in nursing, I understand.”

Cecilia nodded. “In some areas of the country, nurses are in critically short supply. And there’s a growing demand for midwives, with so many doctors shying away from obstetrics practices.”

“It will be good for her to see that work can be challenging and enjoyable. From what I’ve always heard, the clinic is a pleasant place to work. Friendly co-workers, happy new parents, lots of cute babies.”

Cecilia lifted her eyebrows as she studied him across the table. “Maybe you should shadow me at work one day. Have you ever actually spent any time in the birthing center?”

“Well…no, not much. My job has always been in other areas, so when I’m in town I’m usually in my office at Bingham Enterprises. Are you telling me it’s not a happy place to work?”

“Obviously, I enjoy working there, but it isn’t a theme park. In any medical setting, you’ll find stress and tension and an occasional tragedy. Especially lately, we’ve—”

Realizing abruptly that she was being somewhat too candid with a man whose family controlled the workplace she was describing, she decided a bit more discretion was probably in order. “All in all, it’s a wonderful place to work. I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.”

His gaze was locked on her face. “What did you start to say about the clinic before you suddenly remembered that I’m a Bingham?”

She sighed lightly. Was she really s

o transparent that anyone could read her thoughts or had Geoff gotten to know her a bit too well during the past few days? Six days, to be precise, she thought with a vague sense of wonder that a week ago she hadn’t even known him.

“Cecilia?”

“I’ve told you it’s been a particularly tense time lately,” she reminded him. “Everyone’s nervous about the lawsuit—we can’t help but think about how vulnerable we all are to such actions as we go about our work. It’s a busy time, deliverywise, so we’re all working pretty long hours. The drug crisis affects all of us in one way or another as we deal with addicted mothers and affected newborns. Detective Collins watching our every move doesn’t help. One of our nurses is going through some sort of personal crisis, and she has been so jittery and tearful that it can’t help but affect the people around her.”

“And the stress Mari’s been under can’t help but affect everyone, either. Tension always seems to work its way down from the top.”

“We all understand that Mari has a lot to deal with.”