The Expectant Executive

He chuckled. “You’re ahead of me. I can’t think past how I’m going to juggle being in New York for your visits to the obstetrician and here, too.” He arranged the steaks on two plates, then spooned milk gravy over the tops. “It gets real busy around here in the spring and summer.”

“What’s it like here in the spring?”

She loved hearing Travis talk about the ranch. From everything she’d seen and heard, it had to be one of the most tranquil places on earth.

“After the snow melts, everything is green.” He smiled. “Then, when the wildflowers start to bloom, there’s all kinds of colors mixed in.”

“It sounds absolutely beautiful.”

He nodded. “With the snowcapped mountains in the distance it looks a lot like the postcards they sell at the tourist places over in Colorado Springs.”

“I’d love to see it,” she said, unable to keep the wistful tone from her voice.

When he slipped his arms around her waist from behind, she leaned back against his solid frame. “If you’d like, after the baby comes, I’ll take you on a trail ride up to some of the upland meadows.”

Turning to face him, Fin put her arms around his shoulders, raised up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I’d love that, Travis. But I still haven’t learned to ride a horse.”

“And you’re not going to until after the baby’s born.” He shook his head. “I’m not willing to take the chance of you falling. It might cause you to lose the little guy.”

It was completely ridiculous, but his statement caused her heart to squeeze painfully. She knew this would be his only biological child, and therefore as important to him as it was to her. But was the baby the only one he was worried about?

It was an undeniable fact that they were extremely attracted to each other physically. That was the reason they found themselves in their current set of circumstances. But was that as far as it went for him? Was the baby the only one he cared for? And why was she suddenly obsessing over it now?

“Honey, are you all right?”

“I’m a little tired.” She stepped back from his embrace. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll skip dinner and lay down for a nap.”

Fin could tell her sudden mood swing confused him, but that couldn’t be helped.

She needed time to think, time to sort through her feelings and try to understand why it was suddenly so important that the baby wasn’t his only concern.

Wanting to get away from him before she did something stupid like burst into tears, she hurried down the hall and started up the stairs. But she suddenly had the strange sensation of flying a moment before she landed in a heap on the hardwood floor.

As she lay there wondering what on earth had happened, a sharp pain knifed through her left side, taking her breath, causing her to draw her legs into a fetal position. Her pulse thundered in her ears and as the room began a sickening spin, she felt herself being drawn into a fathomless black abyss.

She thought she heard Travis call her name, but the beckoning shadows refused to release her. As she gave in to the mist closing around her, her last thought was of losing the baby she wanted so desperately and the man she’d come to love.

Seated in the waiting area at the emergency room, Travis was about two seconds away from tearing the hospital apart if somebody didn’t tell him something, and damned quick, about Fin’s condition. When he’d brought her in for treatment, they’d run him out of the examining room and he hadn’t been allowed back in there since.

He let out a frustrated breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. When he’d heard the loud thump in the living room, followed by an eerie silence, his heart felt as if it had dropped to his boot tops. He’d called her name as he started down the hall to see what happened, but at the sight of her crumpled body lying at the bottom of the stairs the blood in his veins had turned to ice water and he was pretty sure it had taken a good ten years off his life.

“Mr. Clayton?”

When he looked up, a woman in a white lab coat stood at the swinging double doors leading to the treatment area. Jumping to his feet, he walked over to her.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m Doctor Santos, the on-call OB/GYN,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Is Fin going to be all right?” he demanded. If she lost the baby, he’d mourn.

But if it came down to her life or the baby’s, there was no choice. He wanted the best care humanly possible for Fin.

Smiling, the doctor nodded. “Ms. Elliott cracked a rib when she fell, but I think she and the baby will both be fine. She’s healthy and the pregnancy seems to be a normal one, so I don’t foresee any problems.”