Page 2 of Surgeon's Surprise Baby
We?Moved here?He stepped closer to look at the baby.Two or three months old, maybe, although he was no judge of a baby’s age.A beautiful child with a peaches-and-cream complexion and dark, curly hair.Sleeping peacefully with a pacifier in her mouth.He counted back to the last time he’d been with Aria.The night before he left town to move to Marietta.Which was way too soon for the baby to be as old as she was.
Aria had to have been pregnant when he left.
Holy shit.
“Is she—” He broke off, unable to complete the question.
“Yes, she’s yours.I’m sorry.This wasn’t how I planned to tell you.”
A baby.He had a baby.He was a father.He stared at the baby, then at Aria.She was as beautiful as ever, maybe even more so.Her model’s face with high cheekbones, a gorgeous complexion, a firm but feminine chin, luscious lips.In short, she was a showstopper.“How… When…”
“Excuse me,” an irritated voice said.
Ryan realized they were completely blocking the aisle.He moved his cart to allow the grumpy woman to pass.Stunned, he was at a total loss for words.
The baby started to fuss.Aria said, “I need to get her home before she melts down.Are you free?”
He managed to nod.
“Come to my house,” she said and gave him the address.“Give me about an hour.We can talk there.”
She walked off, pushing the cart.The cart withhisbaby in it.
Chapter Two
That chance meetingthe day after they arrived in Marietta had solved Aria’s quandary of how she was going to find Ryan and tell him about the baby.She still had his cell number unless he’d changed it, but she hadn’t wanted to have this conversation over the phone.She’d thought she’d wind up tracking him down at the hospital, but fate had taken that problem out of her hands.She wouldn’t have chosen such an abrupt way of telling him he was a father, but it hadn’t been her choice.
Chance, or maybe it was fate, had decided for her.
Aria wanted to kick herself at her first reaction to seeing Ryan.He was every bit as fascinating as he’d been to her the day she met him—and the day he left Denver.At the store he’d hardly said anything.She was hopeless.How could she still want a man who’d walked out of her life without a backward glance?He hadn’t known about the baby but then, neither had she.Her periods had never been regular, and they’d used birth control so pregnancy hadn’t entered her mind until she’d gone in for a checkup with her OB/GYN and been told she was pregnant.Months after the fact.Only after she knew had she looked back and realized she’d had some signs of morning sickness, all of which she’d put down to different reasons.But the signs hadn’t been blatant enough for her to realize she was pregnant.
Sophie had been getting louder and louder, informing her mother that she was hungrynow.“Mama’s coming, baby,” Aria said, sitting in the rocker with her and opening her blouse.She’d wondered at first if she’d be able to nurse.Some women, she knew, couldn’t no matter how hard they tried.But for her nursing worked like a charm.Whenever she nursed Sophie a feeling of peace and happiness came over her.Sophie’s tiny hand grasped her finger while her other one rested on Aria’s breast.Content, Aria smiled at her baby and relaxed.
That is, she relaxed until she started thinking about seeing Ryan again.He’d probably be angry with her that she hadn’t told him about the baby before now.Honestly, she’d thought about not ever telling him.She knew full well that Ryan didn’t want a permanent relationship and that he never stayed in one place for more than a couple of years.A baby screamed permanency.
Once she’d had Sophie and fallen completely in love with her, she knew she couldn’t keep Sophie from Ryan.He deserved the choice.If he decided to walk away from Sophie without establishing some kind of relationship with her, then he wasn’t the man she thought he was.As for what she’d do if he did want a relationship with his child, they’d have to figure that out.
She knew one thing, though.She was not letting him back into her heart.One broken heart was enough.
*
Ryan showed upat Aria’s place an hour later, on the dot.Conscious that the child might be sleeping, he knocked quietly on the door.
When she opened it, he was once again struck by how beautiful she was.Motherhood agreed with her.
“Come in,” she said.“I put Sophie down for a nap so we should be able to talk.”She held a baby monitor in her hand.“Let’s go outside so we don’t wake her.”
“Afraid I’ll start yelling?”
She shrugged.“It’s a possibility.I know it’s a shock.”
No kidding.A baby.He had a child with the woman he couldn’t forget.A part of him was angry that she hadn’t told him until now.There was no way he’d have left town and left Aria to go through her pregnancy and the birth of the baby on her own.He followed her outside where there were two metal chairs that had seen better days.Not to mention, they looked terribly uncomfortable.
“Why didn’t you tell me before I left town?You had to have been pregnant, and pretty far along, by the time I left.”
“I was.But I didn’t know it.In fact, I didn’t know until I was almost five months along.”
He simply stared at her.“How could you not know?”
