Page 20 of Under Fire in Big Sky

Chapter Five

Lifting her head, Olivia stared at Eli. He stood still as stone. His lips parted. His eyes went blank. She didn’t even think he was breathing.

“The specialist was an obstetrician. When carbon monoxide enters the bloodstream, it binds to hemoglobin with a much higher affinity than oxygen. The strong bond makes it difficult for oxygen to be transported to the body’s tissues. Since CO binds even more easily to fetal hemoglobin than to the mother’s, the baby can be more seriously affected. All of which is further complicated by the fact that CO is eliminated more slowly from the fetus than from the mother. This—” she waved her hands at the HBOT unit “—rapidly removes the poison from the body.”

Eli appeared to recover from her bombshell well enough to respond. “Dr. Kelly told me she hoped two hours in there would be enough. What if it’s not?”

“Worst case, I do another stint in here, but the obstetrician seemed confident this would be sufficient. It’s only a precaution.”

Nodding, he gaped at her. “Wow. A baby.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Mine?”

Anger sparked inside her. “Of course it’s yours.”

“But I thought you were seeing another guy.”

“What? Why would you think that?” All this time she assumed they’d been on the same page. “Have you been with other people? When we’re not together?”

She never asked and neither did he. That was deal. Still, the thought of him with someone else, without giving her the courtesy of a heads-up, made her blood boil.

“No. Never,” he said. “I would’ve told you.”

Good. “I haven’t been with anyone else either. I’m certainly not dating anyone.”

Confusion wrinkled his brow. “We usually see each other every three to six weeks. It’s been months,” he said, dragging out the enunciation of the last word, making it sound as though it had been years.

“Only two.” Even though to her, it had felt like forever since she’d seen him, touched him, smelled him.

“You’ve been ghosting me,” he said, far more gently than he probably would’ve if she hadn’t been in the oxygen tube, “letting my calls go to voicemail. Until this job. Why?”

“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.” She needed to see his reaction, look into his eyes. “And I didn’t want to plan a visit, either, with you thinking it would be our usual arrangement. Not when I had this bombshell news to share. This assignment seemed like the perfect solution.”

“Since I picked you up from the airport, you were so standoffish, and there was the big talk you wanted to have, and then Dr. Kelly told me you needed to call someone important but wanted to talk to me first. I figured you wanted to call your new boyfriend and have him come to the hospital.”

“I need to call my boss. Lauren. I left my secure satellite phone in your truck, and I need you to get it, but I didn’t want to share that with the doctor.”

His mouth moved slightly, but no sound came out at first. “Oh.” He stood there, staring at her. “A baby,” he repeated with a mystified sort of sigh. “My baby. Is it okay?”

“Dr. Kelly did an ultrasound. I heard the heartbeat.” She pressed her palms to her stomach, thinking about the grainy image on the screen of her little peanut. “It was strong. Almost 140 beats per minute.”

“That sounds too fast.”

She thought the same thing. “Apparently, not for a fetus. Fast is healthy.”

“Why did you bury the lede by talking about us?”

She needed to know how he felt about her. If he wanted to make a go of this, have a real relationship because he couldn’t bear the thought of being without her. “You don’t want kids. Attachments.” No strings. “It was complicated.”

Eli nodded again, still looking shell-shocked.

For some reason, it was infuriating.

And utterly disappointing.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” She wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear from him.

“I…um.” He shrugged. “Do you want kids? You never talked about it.”

She had brought up marriage and babies delicately with him over the years, and his stance never changed. “I’ve talked about it. Whenever I broached the subject, the conversation ended with you telling me unequivocally what you didn’t want. But you never asked me what I wanted.” She thought if she told him how she felt, he’d take it as an ultimatum.