Luke wanted her to say yes. It would complicate his life, but heneededher to say yes. He wanted to be able to take care of this woman who had taken care of herself, alone, for far too long. And he wanted to take care of their baby. If he said any of that, though, she’d probably turn him down completely and insist that she was just fine on her own, so Luke didn’t say it. He just waited.
Finally, Bella let out a sigh, and her shoulders slumped. “I just?—”
“Wait. Before you say no.” Luke held up a hand. “Think of it like this: I’m not trying to take care of you — I’m trying to take care of your baby, right? Maybe you can do this, not for yourself, but for the baby. Forourbaby.”
She looked back up at him, and a smile danced across her lips for a fraction of a second before fading. “Fine. For our baby, I’ll try. And… thank you.”
Relief flooded Luke, and he stood, adjusting his lab coat. “Wonderful. Now, I need to finish up my shift, and you need to stay here for monitoring a little longer. I’ll move you up to a private room as soon as one becomes available, but are you okay here for now?”
Bella nodded.
“And I can have someone bring you some Jell-O,” Luke added. “Or something else to eat. When was the last time you ate?”
Bella looked away, pink coloring her cheeks. “I may have forgotten to eat today. A little bit.”
“Bella, it’s two o’clock!” Luke cut himself off before he could say more. After all, he’d been in the same situation many times, so caught-up in work that he forgot to eat or drink. He hadn’t been pregnant at the time, but he could still understand. “I’ll have some lunch sent over.”
“Thanks.” She looked away. “I’m really more organized than this.”
He paused, one hand on the curtain, and turned back to her. She was looking down at her stomach, an expression he couldn’t quite read on her lovely features. He took her hand again.
“I know, Bella. I believe you. And now, we can try to be organized together.”
She looked up at him again, and he was suddenly aware that he was holding her hand in a very intimate way — his fingers now threaded between hers, one thumb skimming over the back of her hand. He quickly let go.
“See you soon,” he said. He slipped out through the curtains and flagged down a nurse to bring Bella some food and another pillow. Then, with a final glance back at the bed where she was resting, he went back to work. He did have a shift to finish, but he certainly wouldn’t be staying late today.
CHAPTER 14
BELLA
Bella quickly ate the cheese sandwich, chips, and fruit cup a nurse had brought her. None of it tasted very good — it had that bland taste and slightly off texture she associated with hospital food — but she was starving. As she ate, she looked out over the ER through the gap in her curtains she’d asked the nurse to leave.
Luke strode around the ER like he owned the place, which Bella supposed he did — he ran this ER, after all. He was calm, cool, and in control.
“Ellie, would you do another round of vitals on the patient in bed four, Mrs. Hayes?” he asked one nurse.
“Of course, Luke,” the nurse replied. Bella noted that he called the nurses by name and that they called him by name, too. Most of the doctors in the ER just called “Nurse!” when they needed something, but Luke was polite.
“Adjust your angle a little,” he told a young doctor a few minutes later, standing across the bed from him as he started inserting anIV. “There you go. Perfect.” He turned to the patient and added, “You’re in good hands.”
He’s a good teacher, too,Bella thought, watching him have almost the exact same conversation with another resident a moment later. He was patient, though he didn’t appear to be particular friends with any of them.
After Bella had been there for about half an hour, a trauma came in. Bella sat up in her bed, her heart rate skyrocketing, as two EMTs rolled in a patient on a stretcher. There was a lot of blood, too much blood. The EMTs told Luke a string of numbers and acronyms, and he nodded.
“Jones, you’re with me,” he called to one of the other doctors. “Jiminez, take point on the ER.”
He raced into a side room, where Bella couldn’t see him anymore, and she sat back in the bed, biting her lip. The patient had looked to be in bad shape, but surely he would be all right. Luke was clearly amazing at what he did. He was polite, constructive, and completely in charge.
And she was about to live with him.
Bella forced herself to take a deep breath against the wave of nerves that rose up in her at that thought. She’d spent one night with this man,one,and now she was going to move into his house. Apparently, she was even going to let him help with her business and her pregnancy.
This had to be a mistake. In any other situation, Bella would have flagged Luke down and told him to forget about it, that she could handle this on her own. But the truth was that she couldn’t. If she kept trying to handle her pregnancy on herown, she’d end up in the very precarious situation of choosing between financial stability and physical health.
Actually, she was already in that situation.
Stupid girl,Bella’s mother’s voice echoed in her head. Bella took a deep breath and banished the echo. She hadn’t spoken to either of her parents in years, but still, their insults stayed with her.
