She was going to be a mother. Another laugh escaped her lips, and she dropped her hand to her stomach. There was no real sign of her pregnancy yet, but there would be, soon. Soon, there would be a baby.
After a moment, though, the elation Bella felt at the thought of becoming a mother was eclipsed by her worry. She would be a mother — and Luke would be a father. Surely he wouldn’t be as happy about that fact as Bella was, if she was even able to track him down to tell him. He was a surgeon, she knew that, and heprobably had a very busy career — and no interest in raising a baby with a practical stranger.
Bella bit her lip. For the last month, she’d managed to hold herself back from looking Luke up, but now it was time. She went into the living room and grabbed her laptop, sinking onto her narrow sofa and tucking her legs beneath her. She wished Stacy were still here to help her decide what to do — but it was for the best that Bella was alone. She could have called Stacy back, but she didn’t.
Bella looked up the name of the conference, plus “Luke,” plus “trauma surgeon.” The very first result was the profile of a doctor at the local Willamette Hospital, which was on the other side of the river. She clicked on the link, and a picture of Luke smiled at her from the computer. In the picture, he was dressed in dark blue scrubs and a white lab coat. He was smiling, just a little, and his gray eyes flashed with amusement. He had that same strong jawline Bella had been unable to take her eyes off, and seeing his face now brought memories flooding back.
She didn’t let herself fall into her memories, though.
Doctor Luke Porter,the description read,heads the ER at Willamette Hospital. A graduate of the Mayo Clinic’s residency program, Porter specializes in emergency surgeries. As well as his work in the hospital, Porter has published three research papers on triage in mass-casualty events, two of which have gained wide recognition.
Bella read on, her mouth falling open slightly. She’d known that Luke was experienced and good at what he did, but this went beyond what she’d expected. The man must work practically every waking moment to do everything he did.
Biting her lip, Bella typed “Luke Porter” into the search engine again. The Willamette Hospital description was the first result, but the next several were about his research papers, his summa cum laude graduation from Harvard, and his pro bono work teaching trauma surgeons from developing countries. Finally, she found a social media profile and clicked on it — and there it was. His phone number, right there on the screen. All she had to do was pick up her phone and call him.
She didn’t. Instead, Bella closed the laptop. She couldn’t call this man. Luke was successful, independent, and way out of her league. More importantly, there was a reason he hadn’t told her exactly who he was or given her his number — he hadn’t wanted more than a one-night stand. And a baby was a whole lot more than a one-night stand.
If she told him, he’d probably feel like he had to give her money or be part of the baby’s life, even if he didn’t want to. Bella couldn’t stand the thought of putting him in that position. She didn’t like help anyway, but she wouldn’t be able to bear it if Luke feltforcedto help her. Worse, he might just say that their night together hadn’t meant anything and that he didn’t want to see her or their child. In her memories, they’d had an amazing, world-shaking connection — but it had really only been one night. She was probably imagining a lot of it.
It felt wrong to keep the news of the baby from Luke, but it would feel worse to tell him the truth.
Bella stood and went to the kitchen to fix herself a cup of herbal tea. As she moved through the kitchen, grabbing the honey and the kettle and her mug with practiced efficiency, she became more and more certain of her decision. She wouldn’t tell Luke about the baby. Instead, she would become a mother the sameway she’d started her catering business and found her clients, moved into her apartment, and gone through college — alone.
“It’s okay,” Bella said aloud. She glanced down at her stomach, which was still as flat as always, and paused in the middle of the kitchen, the honey jar in one hand. The other she rested on her stomach. “I can do this.Wecan do this. I promise, I’ll be enough for you, okay?”
She paused, then laughed. “And being ‘enough’ probably starts with not talking to myself, huh?”
With that, she went back to making her tea. This was a huge, unexpected change — but Bella was excited. She’d have to put in a lot of work over the next few months to make sure The Cherry on Top didn’t fall apart. She’d have to read a lot of parenting books and buy a lot of equipment and think of a good baby name. But she could do it, all of it, on her own, just like she always did.
She had to.
And Luke, the baby’s father, a man she still couldn’t keep out of her mind, would never need to know about it.
CHAPTER 9
LUKE
“April showers bring May flowers, huh?”
Blinking, Luke looked up at the young intern, Doctor Jones, who was standing across the table from him. They were doing surgery on a young man who’d been in a car accident, and Luke had been so involved in clearing the field to suture that he hadn’t been paying attention to anything else.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Nothing.” Jones flushed over her mask. “I just realized it’s April, and I was thinking about how it’s always raining, and…”
“I could use some suction here,” Luke said as gently as he could, nodding to the patient’s open abdomen. “And a little focus.”
“Right. Sorry.” Still flushing, Jones did as Luke instructed, and he threaded in the first suture, his hands as steady as always.
In truth, Luke hadn’t minded the interruption that much — it was nice to remember that there actuallywasweather, and changing seasons, outside the walls of the hospital. Here, in thebright artificial light, surrounded by the smell of antiseptic, it was sometimes all too easy to forget.
Luke had thrown himself into work more than ever these last few months, trying to forget about Bella. Yet still, whenever he saw someone smile in a particular way or heard a certain kind of laugh, he turned, expecting to see her. He still saw her face on some of his patients, on the women he passed on the street, even in the waitress at his favorite restaurant. He thought he heard her laugh at least once a day.
A few months ago, Luke had decided enough was enough. He’d still been thinking about Bella a lot, so it was clearly a sign that he should find her. Around Christmas, he’d looked her up, but all he really knew about her was her first name. Bella. There hadn’t been any surgeons at the conference named Bella — and anyway, she’d told him she wasn’t in the medical field. She must have been just another guest at the hotel, though Luke wasn’t sure why a Portland native would have been staying there. And it didn’t seem like she’d had a room.
He’d scoured the internet for so long that he’d started to feel like a stalker, and then he’d forced himself to stop. Bella could have found him easily — there were only so many trauma surgeons named Luke in Portland. If she’d wanted to talk to him, she would have reached out, but she hadn’t. And that meant that she’d probably moved on easily from their night together, whereas Luke still thought about it, even now.
“I think we’re done here,” Luke said to Jones as he put in the final suture. “Close up, please.”
