Chapter Seven

'I'm Dr Davis. I hear you don't remember me.' Blair looked up from her book, relieved to quit pretending she could concentrate enough to read. A tall women stood in the doorway, finely dressed in a beige suit that complemented her dark-mocha skin. Her looks were lovely, but the supreme confidence in her eyes brought Blair the deepest sense of assurance she remembered feeling.

'I'm happy to meet you.' Blair took a get well card from the table and slid it into her book to mark her place. 'Come in.'

The other women set a file on the nightstand. 'Did you tell Charles about the baby?'

'Yesterday.' She left out the art where he'd gone and not come back.

'He didn't take it well?' Dr. Davis reached for the call button on the cord at Blair's shoulder. 'You can't blame him for that?'

'Maybe. Who are you calling?'

'A nurse. I'd like to examine you now that you haven't spotted for several days. Your body has endured a great deal of trauma, and I'd like to make sure the baby's perfectly healthy.'

'What do you need me to do?'

'Relax if you can.'

Blair tried to disguise her distress. 'I'm not sure I could even I remembered how to.'

Dr. Davis laughed. 'Good point.'

The nurse came, and the doctor began her exam. She seemed dissatisfied with what she found. From her particularly vulnerable position, Blair still tried to be brave. 'What?' she asked bluntly.

'Nothing to worry about.' Dr. Davis peered over her shoulder at the nurse. 'Open Mrs. Bass' file and remind me of her dates.'

The date of Blair's last cycle seemed to make matters worse. Blair fought her increasingly primitive need to remove herself from the doctors hands. 'You're scaring me.'

The doctor straightened peeling off her gloves. 'Don't be afraid. Nothings wrong, but I need to listen.' Taking the stethoscope from around her neck, she placed in on Blair's belly.

'I think we need and ultrasound.'

Blair grabbed her arm, pulling her close with strength that surprised her and the doctor. 'You can't hear a heartbeat?'

Humor softened the doctor's wide eyes. 'I hear plenty of heartbeats.'

Her response made no sense at first. Finally, Blair realized what she meant. 'Plenty?' she squeaked.

'Just two, but I don't rely on my ears this early on. Why don't we make sure before you pass out?'

'An ultrasound will tell you? Ultrasounds don't lie, do they? I mean I'm not suddenly going to come up with triplets, am I?

'Try to stay calm. Sudden isn't the way triplets show up.' Dr. Davis pulled the sheet up to Blair's waist. 'Why don't I use my influence to run the test now?'

Calm? At twenty-two, with a husband she didn't know? 'Now would be perfect.'

Dr. Davis picked up the large cup that stood on the nightstand. She shook the cup and then smiled as ice and water sloshed together. 'Start drinking this.'

…...

Later that evening, Blair stared at the ultrasound photo. Two babies. In another twenty-two weeks or so, she'd give birth to twins.

The two small beings on the ultrasound screen had reconnected her to the process of living. She wrapped herself in the happiness she'd felt at watching the two twisting shadows. They needed her, and she resolved to figure out who she was in time to be a good mom to her children.

And she'd learn to be a wife to her husband. He wanted their marriage. She must have wanted it, too. Their children deserved two healthy parents.

Someone knocked softly on her door. Blair lifted the top of her table and slid the ultrasound photo inside. 'Come in,' she called. She smoothed the sheet around her hips and legs and prepared to interrogate her visitor about her past.

Serena learned around the edge of the door. 'Do you mind if I join you?' she asked.

'I'm surprised you want to. Come in and let me apologize for the way I acted. It's just all a little new to me.'

'I shouldn't have run out of here, but I love you Blair. I don't expect you to pretend you feel the way I do, but I want you to depend on me. It's my turn to be there for you.'

'Well, don't sound so sad. You're about to settle your debts. I need a crash course in my own history.'

Serena's instant regret almost made Blair smile. 'What can I tell you?' Serena asked in a wavering tone.

With her new deadline, she had no time for subtlety. First things first. 'Why are you so reluctant to talk to me?'

'I'm embarrassed. You rescued me from every jam I ever got myself into. I can't repay you for-'

Blair interrupted. 'I know you all love me, because my close call seems to have turned me into a saint.' Saints held no charm for her. She didn't trust the tale, and she needed facts. 'Tell me the bad stuff , too.'

'What bad stuff?'

'We're best friends. You must have helped me as much as I helped you.'

A deeper blush darkened Serena's high cheek bones. 'You never really needed help.'

Not true. She probably just hadn't asked for it. 'I need help now.'

As Serena went on answering her question, Blair found that she didn't want to know what Serena thought of her inner workings. Plain facts mattered more. Maybe later she'd be willing to discuss her private thoughts. 'I have to ask you another question you won't want to answer.' She felt disloyal to Chuck after what Serena had said about their childhood. Imagining her husband as a lost little boy, forced to grow up, hurt her. She had to ask his sister about the state of their marriage, because she wasn't sure he'd tell her the truth.

'Were Chuck and I happy?'

Serena jerked back. 'How would I know?'

Blair held her sister in laws so familiar gaze with sheer will. 'You're my friend. I took you at your word when you promised I could depend on you.'

Serena looked as if she'd like to run for her life. 'You would no more have told me about problems between you and Chuck then you would have hired a plane to list them in the sky.'

'I have to know.'

'You aren't yourself.'

'I'm afraid not. I don't trust the way people describe me so far. I was stuffy.'

'Not stuffy, reserved.'

'So much circumspection sounds unnatural.' Blair tucked her sheet around her waist. A walk down the hospital hall might clear her fuzzy head, but weakness in her legs, combined with the deep cut on her thigh held her prisoner, and Serena had backed away when she'd needed her most. 'Thanks for talking. I appreciate your effort.'

'Wait.' Her expression dogged, Serena propped one elbow on the edge of Blair's bed. 'Let me try again. Chuck came o my apartment this morning, and he insisted I see you.'

Blair crossed her arms. She still possessed enough of her infamous self-sufficiency to resent Chuck's intervention.

'Hold on, Blair. He wanted to make sure I took care of you.'

If he knew she needed help, why had he stayed away last night? The obvious answer. She'd dropped a bomb on his head. He needed time to reconcile himself. Not the most romantic tactic , but if he Showed up again soon, she'd try to understand. 'chuck and I aren't your responsibility.'

'Listen to me. You have to listen if you ask for advice. I don't think he'd have come to me if he didn't care.' Serena fluffed her hair. 'Why are we talking about this? He loves you. He's been crazy since that car hit you.'

'He doesn't act like a man in love. He acts like something's wrong.'

'I noticed, but I don't believe your marriage went bad.'

Blair plucked at a loose thread on her sheet's hem. 'I'm glad my marriage comforts you, but I'd love to know how I felt about it.'

'Yeah.' Serena sounded unsure.

And she didn't even know about the twins.

…...

Again, Chuck stared at Blair's door. Someone had printed her name on a small, square whiteboard beside the metal door frame. He brushed away a smear at the and of the s in Bass. Then he went inside.

Favoring her injured leg, his wife turned from the window.

'Blair.' He'd expected her to be in bed.

'I almost stopped hoping you'd come, but I didn't want to be flat on my back when we talked.' A smile hovered at the corner of her mouth.

He knew that sweet shape as well as he knew his own face. He'd kissed that mouth, frowned at that mouth, dreaded seeing it thin and in anger, and waited with held breath for it to smile. A real smile - not like her smile now.

'You knew you could expect me?' Somewhere inside her remained the wife who'd trusted him to take care of her.

'If you'd stayed away tonight, I'd have understood you'd made your decision.'

No, this Blair wasn't the wife he'd lived with for three years. His Blair had never tested him.

'I'm glad I passed.'

'I didn't think of it as a trial. When you didn't call or come back yesterday, I assumed you had to think about where we stood.'

A cold fist squeezed his heart. 'Is that what you've been doing?'

She shook her head. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder, tempting him to slide possessive fingers through the strands before she slipped away from him forever.

'How could I decide anything without talking to you?' she asked in a low voice. Behind her, the night sky perfectly framed her pale skin and tense silhouette.

Her open gaze gave him hope for the first time since she'd run from the office.

'I want to go on together,' he said. 'You're my wife.'

'Don't put it that way, Chuck.' Emotionally, she distanced herself from him. 'I don't want us to stay together because we happen to be married.'

'I get the idea you don't want me to say I love you.'

Those words didn't belong between them since he'd hidden the business trouble and she'd concealed their baby from him.

She limped toward him, but she stopped beside her bed and flexed her fingers on the lip of her table. From her knuckles to her nails, her skin faded to palest white.

'I know something's wrong, and saying you love me would only alarm me now.' She lifted her chin. 'You could tell me what's wrong.'

No, he couldn't. it wasn't just that her injuries had given him time to win her back. He'd never been good at admitting she'd always be his deepest need.

He'd shown her in the only way he'd known how, providing a good life for her.

From now on, he'd pay more attention to her, become the husband she wanted. His father's decades old advice rang in his ears. 'Give your wife the good things in life. Provide, and provide well, or she'll find a man who can.'

'I still don't know why I decided not to tell you about the baby.' She slid her gaze away from him. 'Don't we need to know why?'

'One day I hope you'll tell me.'

'Tonight I have to tell you that I had test today.'

'What kind of test? Is the baby all right?' Fear nearly dropped him to his knees. Even if he couldn't provide for this child as he and Blair had grown up, he love this baby. He'd be the best father his resources allowed.

'I've scare you again. I'm sorry.' Blair hurried around the bed and reached for his hand.

Her fingers felt vulnerable in his, but he couldn't let go. 'I should be tacking care of you,' he said. 'I should have found a better way to say this. Dr. Davis did an exam today and discovered we're having twins.'

'Twins?'

She nodded. Seconds passed. He didn't know how to respond to twins. The cost, the timing. She'd never understand his panic. Distance came into her eyes. By not answering, he was losing her, the woman he'd loved since he'd learned to love, and the woman he no longer knew.

He threw a longing look at her chair. 'Do you mind if I sit?''

She grinned, and he sat without her consent. Was she laughing at him? She didn't respect him for sitting?

'Not that I mind,' he said. 'The twins. I don't mind the twins.'

'You don't have to prove how tough you are. If I hadn't been lying down I might have fallen.'

'Twins.'

'Will you tell me how you really feel?'

'Startled.' He tried hard to think how she'd want him to answer. How he should answer as a decent human being who wanted his wife back and who knew he could love both his children when the shook wore off. 'How are you?' he asked her.

'Glad to see you.' She squeezed his hand once and then let go to scoot onto the edge of her bed an straightened her leg. 'I couldn't tell anyone else before I told you.'

He should be the first to know. He tugged at the hem of her robe. 'Do you feel anything for me?'

Her expression was solemn, but full of regret, 'I fell responsible.'

He let her go. 'I don't know what to think about responsible.'

She folded her hands. 'Let's just be honest and see what kind of relationship we can salvage.'

'I want a marriage.' He still didn't mention the business. Eventually, she'd understand. Between the twins and her memory loss, he couldn't add to the pressure on her.

He'd been afraid she'd leave if he admitted his lie about the company had caused all their problems. Now, he kept the embezzlement to himself because he wanted to protect his wife and their unborn children. This time, he was right to try to protect her.

END CHAPTER SEVEN

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