She wasn’t just pregnant anymore. She had an unborn daughter.
Chapter Fifteen
Watching Amelia pull into the lot, Craig’s welcoming smile dissipated when he saw her pull to a stop long before reaching him.
Leaving the bikes, he headed toward her car, concerned. Was she bleeding? Having contractions?
On the phone? he asked the questions silently, and with an oversized dose of self-disdain, slowing as he saw that she was in an active conversation.
He was about to turn around, to make it back to the bikes before she saw that he’d ever left them, before she knew he’d been rushing toward her, when he noticed her head move, her chin drop down to her chest.
At the car, he saw her hand rubbing her belly. She was crying.
His heart stopped. And then raced. He yanked on the door handle. It was locked. But she heard him, of course. Glanced up at him.
And that look on her face, beaming with something far greater than happiness, stopped the world from spinning. From turning at all.
She opened her door. “It’s a girl,” she said as she got out. “Her name is Isabella.”
He wasn’t sure how it happened, but she was suddenly in his arms and he was holding on. Tight. It was the first time they’d touched, other than hands passing over a bike, and the one brief kiss, and her body molded his. Thighs, stomach, chest to breast, her arms around his neck. He was in heaven. And the deepest of hells, too.
Because she was having a daughter, one that he’d helped create, but he would be sharing his life with neither of them: this beautiful woman nor the child she carried.
He held on. And then he let go. “You still want to ride?” he asked, getting himself firmly into his role in the moment. Finding his bedside manner—the one where he empathized, cared, but from a distance. He might play an intimate, prominent part during the moments his patients were with him, but he wasn’t meant to be a part of their daily lives. He was a professional service. Not a personal relationship.
Whether or not he wanted more was irrelevant. Unless, or until, Amelia invited him in...
“Of course.” Amelia sounded like she was on cloud nine as she walked beside him. And as though she knew that the situation was a little touchy for him, or maybe his lack of verbal response to her news had clued her in, she said, “Angie and I decided today to introduce some lace embellished baby clothes into our brand. We’ll start out like we always do, with a few test pieces and go from there. Since we order in the basic pieces, and embellish by hand until an item is established, the initial cost will be minimal.”
“So she’s staying?”
“That’s never been a question, according to her. I was the one making the offer more than it was.”
She went to her bike—Tricia’s bike, which Amelia was borrowing, he reminded himself—lifted the kickstand and stepped over the middle rail so she was straddling the bike between her legs.
Another moment and she’d have her foot on the pedal, her cute butt on the seat, and she’d be heading off.
Craig stopped short of mounting his own bike.
“Congratulations,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I’m proud of you for calling.”
He was. And he was happy for her, too. Honestly. Maybe now he could begin the separation process. The letting go.
She nodded, still smiling. “I can’t believe I waited for so long.”
“People have a tendency to procrastinate when the results mean a lot to them,” he offered. “Good or bad,” he added.
“Yeah,” she said, and broke eye contact, settled on the bike seat. “I shouldn’t have waited so long.”
She was talking about the results, about how she felt, having a daughter. And he watched. He couldn’t let himself imagine how that felt. Wouldn’t let himself. There was no good to come of doing so. Not until he had a family of his own.
And unless Amelia asked him to be a part of hers, he didn’t yet have one, no matter how strongly he felt about her. And the baby girl she was carrying.
His daughter.
He led off with a hard push, yearning again for the cliff trail he’d ridden hard the day before. Yearning harder. Yeah, it might be time to start letting go.
* * *