The Nurse's Baby Secret

She stared at the doctor. She didn’t want to stay in Nashville. She wanted to go home. Driving back and forth sounded better and better.

“You don’t have to drive back and forth. You can stay at my place.”

Savannah hadn’t seen Charlie since the recovery room. For a while, she had truly questioned if he’d been there or if she’d imagined him. But her mother had commented on how he’d kept vigil in the waiting area, how he’d called her, how he’d arranged for a room at the Loew’s Plaza Hotel and paid for it.

Her mother had gone home last night, fatigue overcoming her and Savannah insisting she go home. Under protest she had, but had called to check on her several times today.

Chrissie and a couple of the nurses from the cardiology floor had driven up to visit earlier in the week, and several other coworkers had called to check on her.

But until this moment she’d not seen or heard from Charlie.

The high-risk obstetrician didn’t seem taken aback by Charlie’s presence, which told Savannah that he’d been communicating with the specialist. Perhaps that should upset her, but at this point she didn’t care.

“That’s preferable to her driving back and forth two hours each way,” the obstetrician agreed. “She’ll need to be confined to bed rest, of course.”

“Of course,” Charlie agreed.

“There are excellent specialists in Chattanooga,” Savannah pointed out, annoyed that the two were making decisions about her as if she weren’t right there in the room and capable of making decisions for herself. She might have been in a major automobile accident and suffered a concussion, but she hadn’t lost her mind. Not yet, anyway.

“Agreed, but I’d like to keep a check on you myself and I’d prefer you not to be in a car for the two plus hours each way. You need rest, not an exhausting ride.”

“Two hours isn’t an exhausting ride. Not really,” she argued, despite knowing she’d do whatever was best for her baby.

“Regardless, I’d rather keep you here longer than for you to travel far from the hospital.”

Did they really expect her to agree to stay at Charlie’s? If circumstances were different she might suspect a set-up, but Charlie had left her, not the other way around.

Why would he volunteer to let her stay? Guilt?

“I will stay in Nashville,” she agreed without actually agreeing to stay at Charlie’s. Yes, she’d do whatever she had to do to protect her baby, but staying at Charlie’s wasn’t required to do that.

Only perhaps it was.

The only way Dr. Kimble would agree to release her to leave the hospital the next day was with the understanding that she would be under Dr. Keele’s care. Hello, he was a cardiologist, not an obstetrician. It wasn’t as if he was trained to deliver babies or to take care of pregnant women. He wasn’t. Still, they were Dr. Kimble’s conditions.

Not happy with the arrangement, Savannah allowed the nurse to wheelchair her out to Charlie’s car, allowed Charlie to stow the bag of her things Chrissie had brought to her when she’d visited, allowed the nurse to assist her into Charlie’s car.

It hit her again at that moment that she no longer had a vehicle. Hers was demolished. At some point she’d have to deal with her auto insurance carrier, with buying a new car, with getting behind the steering wheel and not thinking of the crash.

Her head hurt at the thought.

She’d deal with that later.

She settled back into the seat and closed her eyes.

“It’s just as well I live so close. Dr. Kimble wants you to keep your legs up as much as possible.”

“I don’t think sitting in a car is going to cause me any problems.”

“There’s no reason to take any chances.”

She kept her eyes squeezed shut and didn’t respond. What was the point? For the next few days, maybe the next week, she was stuck as Charlie’s house guest.

* * *

Charlie settled Savannah onto the sofa. With her feet propped up on one end and several pillows on the other, she lay there looking pale and much too quiet.

He’d half expected her to argue at every point, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t responded with anything more than one-word responses and a few thank-yous.