Something About Joe (19 page)

Allison’s
eyes were swimming with tears. “Are you sure he’ll be all right?”
she said, moving away from the cot.

Joe put his
arm around her. He was filled with a fierce yearning to protect her
and her child from any hardship or pain. The anxiety contorting her
lovely face wrenched at his heart.

“
I’m pretty
sure,” the doctor said. “I just want to keep an eye on Mitchell.
You can stay with him; there’s room for you all as we’re very quiet
tonight. Just call a nurse if you need any help,” she said, as she
moved away.

Allison thanked the doctor and then fell
silent for a second, looking uncertainly around her.

“I’ll stay with you,” Joe said, holding her
a little tighter.

“Me, too,” chimed in Katie.

Allison
squeezed Joe’s arm in gratitude before she turned away from him.
She gave Katie a hug. “It’s nearly midnight, I want you to go
home.”

“
But—
”

“
We don’t
all need to be here. I’m going to call you a cab.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Katie asked,
a worried look on her pretty young face.

Allison
smiled and looked at Joe, and his heart did a somersault at the
expression in her eyes. “Joe’s here,” she said, “we’ll be
fine.”

Joe left
Allison with Mitchell and walked Katie out to her taxi. She still
looked anxious. “I keep blaming myself,” she blurted out. “Maybe
there was something else I could have done.”

Poor kid,
she really had done her best. Allison was fortunate—Katie was an
excellent nanny. “You heard the doctor, you did great,” he
reassured her. “You couldn’t have done any more. But now you need
to go home and get some sleep.”

He waved her
off and turned back toward the ward. He should be grateful to
Katie. If she hadn’t left Allison in the first place he wouldn’t
have had the chance of becoming Mitchell’s nanny—and Allison’s
lover.

Making love
with Allison had been mind-blowing. He’d never felt like that with
any other woman. But what now?

Allison
wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman. And he wanted to make love
with her at every opportunity. Yet he had no intention of settling
down. So why was he letting himself get involved? Was he allowing
desire for her beautiful body to completely stifle those warning
bells in his head?

He thought
about it as he walked back into the ward. He thought about the
triage sister’s assumption he was Allison’s husband and Mitchell’s
father, and the change in her expression when she realized he was
not. He’d never felt more like family to Allison and her son and
yet he was nothing to them.
A
good friend
, Allison had described him to
the nurse. Is that all he wanted to be to her and
Mitchell?

Allison was
standing by Mitchell’s cot, looking down into his face. “He’s still
asleep but a little restless,” she said, her face drawn with worry,
her eyes still glistening with tears. She shivered and wrapped her
arms around herself.

“
C
old?” he asked.

“
A little.
Though your jacket helps.”

“
Keep it for
as long as you like,” he said.

“But aren’t you cold?”

“I’m tough.”

Allison
looked adorable in his too-big jacket. And just as well she had it
on—in her haste she hadn’t fastened her dress properly and it gaped
open revealing a creamy, voluptuous swell of breast.

She noticed
the direction his eyes had taken. “That was wonderful tonight,
wasn’t it?” she whispered, moving into his arms. “I can’t wait to
do it again.”

Then she
became serious as she looked up at him. “It means so much, you
being here with me and Mitchell tonight. I don’t know how I can
thank you.”

Her sensuous
mouth trembled and Joe stilled it with a finger as he gently traced
her lips. She shivered again, though this time he doubted it was
from cold.

“
I’m glad
I’m here for you,” he murmured, before he gently kissed her,
holding her close to him, her breasts soft against his chest. Never
had it felt so right to be with her.

A discreet
cough caused him to pull away from Allison. A nurse stood near the
cot. “I’ve brought an extra chair,” she said. “Shall I put it
here?”

“
Yes,” he
said at the same time Allison did and they both smiled.

The nurse
left them alone again. Allison pulled his jacket closely around
her. She checked on Mitchell again. “I really need coffee,” she
said. “How about you? I saw a vending machine out near the waiting
room.”

“
That would
be great,” Joe said. A strong, hot coffee was just what he
wanted.

“Can you keep an eye on Mitchell?”

“Sure,” he said.

Joe watched
her as she walked away from him, his black jacket covering her
shapely bottom, her long silky dress flowing incongruously beneath
it. Allison Bradley, the right woman at the wrong time. What was he
going to do about it?

He stepped
over to the cot and looked down. The dangerous fever broken,
Mitchell slept, but he seemed restless. His hair was still damp
from the unnatural amounts of perspiration he’d lost. For the first
time since Joe had known him, Mitchell’s hair lay flat on his
head.

As Joe
watched, the little boy opened his eyes. They were clear, though it
took him a few moments to focus. When he did, the first thing he
must have seen was Joe’s face, creased with worry and
concern.

Mitchell
smiled, a slow, tremulous smile—a smile lit with all the
uninhibited emotion of a child not yet two.

He reached out his tiny, starfish-like hand
to Joe and Joe held it, engulfing it with his own man-sized hand
and squeezing it gently.

“Daddy,” Mitchell murmured in a small,
broken voice warm with unabashed love, then said again, a little
louder, “Daddy.”

Joe felt his
heart spasm painfully with some powerful, unnamed emotion at the
child’s innocent words. Surely he knew Peter was his father? Yet he
didn’t think Mitchell was delirious. These words were meant for
Joe. Words he must have heard other kids saying to their
fathers.

He realized
how much this little boy had grown to mean to him. For the first
time he could ever remember, Joe’s eyes filled with tears. He had
to clear his throat before he spoke. “I...I’m not your Daddy,
Mitch. Just...just Joe. I can’t be your Daddy...”

A
llison came back to the ward to
check with Joe how he wanted his coffee. When she heard Mitchell’s
voice, her first impulse was to rush to the cot. But she stopped
just inside the doorway, her heart wrenched by her son’s innocent
utterance. Only to hear Joe’s words.
I’m not your Daddy, Mitch. Just Joe. I can’t be your
Daddy.

She put her
hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp. Then rushed out of the
room, unable to bear hearing any
more.

In the empty
hospital corridor, she stared
sightlessly
at the coffee vending machine. She felt overwhelmed with
sadness—sadness and a painful feeling of inevitability. Joe had
never left her in doubt that he didn’t want a stepchild. But she
had started hoping he might change his mind. Tonight he couldn’t
have been more loving towards Mitchell, more devoted to his
care.

Mitchell had
adored Joe from the start. To him, Peter was just an image in a
photograph. To Mitchell, Joe was a daddy.

Was it too
much to ask
that Joe would grow to love
Mitchell, would welcome the fact that she and Mitchell came as a
package deal?

She’d grown
to see that behind his sexy, devil-may-care exterior, Joe was
decent and good. She didn’t know how she could have got through
this terrifying night without him. The old term “tower of strength”
had real meaning.

But how
could she love someone who could not accept her child? The words
she’d overheard reverberated in her heart.
I can’t be your Daddy.

If Joe could
not
genuinely love Mitchell as a father
should, there could be no future for them.

Her adoptive
mother
had probably thought her father
would grow to love his adopted daughter in time. But he hadn’t. And
Joe had never even pretended he wanted to take on
Mitchell.

Hot tears
spilled onto her cheeks. She’d have to stay in the corridor until
she got herself together. She couldn’t let Joe see her like
this.

She wanted
Joe more than she could ever have imagined wanting a man. She’d
been powerless to stop the desire that had flamed between
them
. She hadn’t expected to fall in
love; it had happened with surprising speed.

Right now
she
wanted Joe as her man. But there was
Mitchell. He was her heart and her soul. She’d carried him inside
her for nine months and, although now they were physically
separate, he would always be part of her. Inextricably linked.
Every part of her demanded she do what was right for him. For his
sake, she would have to end things with Joe, though it broke her
heart to even think about it. She put her hands to her face and
stifled the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her.

J
oe jerked his head up from where
he was leaning over Mitchell’s cot. He thought he’d heard a noise.
He listened.

There was nothing.

No one.

He turned
back to the little boy, still holding onto his hand. “I can’t be
your Daddy because I’m not married to your Mommy,” he
explained.

Mitchell
murmured something unintelligible that might have been
“Okay”.

With his
other hand, Joe smoothed back the damp hair from Mitchell’s
forehead and tenderly stroked the smooth cheeks.

How could
his own child, “flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood”, be more
precious to him than this one had become?

A sudden thought chilled him. If anything
had had happened to Mitchell, the little boy would never have known
how important he’d become to his beloved nanny.

Mitchell
smiled again, flashing his small collection of baby teeth. His eyes
closed, the ginger lashes resting on his cheeks. Joe felt
Mitchell’s little hand relax. Then Mitchell sighed, a small,
perfect sigh of contentment.

Joe’s heart turned over at the precious
sound of it. To think he was the cause of that sigh. It was an
honor. A privilege.

Now he could put a name to that feeling in
his heart.

It was love.

Love for
this child. Love for this child’s mother. Love that encompassed
both of them.

He loved
Mitchell because he was Allison’s child, as well as for his own
bright little personality. He loved the mother all the more because
of the love she had for her child.

Allison and
Mitchell were a joint package. Now he understood exactly what it
was Allison had been trying to explain. Love one, love the other.
Lose one, lose the other. And he couldn’t bear to lose either of
them. This had happened quickly—in just two weeks—but he’d never
felt surer of anything.

He gently
stroked the little boy’s cheek. He noted the change in breathing as
Mitchell slid into a deep sleep.

“
Little
guy,” he murmured, “I’m not your daddy though I sure want to be.
But, you see, I can’t be your daddy without some help from your
mommy. I’ll just have to talk her into it.”

He took one
hand away from Mitchell’s cheek, and gently disengaged the other
from his little hand. His grip was surprisingly
powerful.

Joe
pulled the sheet up over Mitchell’s chest.
“Sleep tight, son,” he whispered, as he stood back from the
hospital cot.

A
llison knew what she had to do.
She looked a mess. What had started out as sexy disheveled was now
red-rimmed eyes and tangled, knotty hair. But she was past caring.
What did it matter any more how she appeared to Joe?

She walked into the ward with the coffees.
Joe was sitting quietly besides Mitchell’s cot, watching him.
Allison’s heart contracted with bitterness and regret. Why couldn’t
Joe love her son?

She handed
Joe his coffee with a hand that was not quite steady. In response,
he gave her a warm, tender look that momentarily shook her resolve.
He was such a wonderful man. Not just sexy but compassionate and
caring. He’d really come through for her tonight.

But it could never work.

She cleared
her throat. “Joe,” she said.

He looked up
at her. “Mitchell’s fine
,” he said. “He
woke up but he’s asleep again. Poor little guy needs the
rest.”

Allison felt
tears start again. Joe made it sound like he cared for Mitchell,
and he might, but he would never feel for him as a father
should.

There was no
point in further delay. She hardened her heart and her expression.
“Joe,” she said again, “we can’t go on. I...I want to end our
relationship. Now.”

The
blood drained from Joe’s face, leaving it white
behind the shadow of his beard. Her heart contracted painfully and
she looked away, unable to meet his eyes.