From partners to parents!

Dr. Gabriel Jackson and paramedic Penny Davenport make a great team—despite driving each other crazy! She’s Manhattan Mercy’s daredevil helicopter pilot, who thrives on adventure after a childhood spent wrapped in cotton wool, while he’s the cautious flight doctor who, after a disastrous marriage, will never take risks again.

But after the elation of surviving a storm explodes into passion, Penny discovers she’s pregnant! This could be an unforgettable Christmas—if they listen to their hearts and take the greatest risk of all!

Dear Reader,

Every book I write is a new puzzle to figure out—that’s part of why I do it. Writing a book in a continuity like this—a miniseries within the line—is the biggest puzzle in the world. If you’re unfamiliar with how these book babies are born, this is what happens: our talented editors cook up a bunch of linked characters, do some world-building to craft a community, then put together a project book with outlines and info for the writers who’ll be collaborating to write the books.

This is extremely challenging. You have to take someone else’s characters, shove them and the outline into your brain, and start running. Because of the nature of the beast, if one story deviates from the plan all the other stories might have to too. It requires a lot of off-the-cuff problem-solving and co-operation. It also requires extremely talented editors to make sure it hangs together at the end.

In short, it’s the kind of project that forces you to grow as a writer. It also means the final result is never just due to your effort, it’s even more of a team effort than usual—and it has to be a great team to work. Writers who’ll immediately give feedback on something within minutes, or brainstorm a way to craft an event that has to happen in your book for future books to make sense. It’s kind of a miracle, and kind of a nightmare at times, but it turns out some of the best stories.

I really hope you enjoy Gabriel and Penny’s story, and I hope you’ll pick up the other books in the series to see how the remaining Davenports get their happy-ever-afters.

Amalie xx

The Rescue Doc’s Christmas Miracle

Amalie Berlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AMALIE BERLIN lives with her family and her critters in Southern Ohio, and writes quirky and independent characters for Mills & Boon Medical Romance. She likes to buck expectations with unusual settings and situations, and believes humour can be used powerfully to illuminate the truth—especially when juxtaposed against intense emotions. Love is stronger and more satisfying when your partner can make you laugh through the times when you don’t have the luxury of tears.

Books by Amalie Berlin

Mills & Boon Medical Romance

Hot Latin Docs

Dante’s Shock Proposal

Desert Prince Docs

Challenging the Doctor Sheikh

The Hollywood Hills Clinic

Taming Hollywood’s Ultimate Playboy

Return of Dr. Irresistible

Breaking Her No-Dating Rule

Surgeons, Rivals…Lovers

Falling for Her Reluctant Sheikh

The Prince’s Cinderella Bride

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

First, I must thank Dr Trish Connor from the bottom of my heart for her help figuring out what was wrong with Penny! I knew she had to have had a childhood illness, and had a list of boxes that illness had to tick to make the story work, but no idea what the illness could be. She listened to the list, rapidly spat out several options, and generally was a lifesaver. Without her directing me to juvenile dermatomyositis, which Id never heard of, Penny might have never come alive to me as fully as she did. Massive thank-you to Dr Connor.

I must also shower love on Robin Gianna, sister-in-law to Dr Connor, who handled the conversation one day over lunch while I was panicking. :)

Finally, I’d like to thank Amy Ruttan, Annie O’Neil and Robin Gianna for the brainstorming and handholding it took to get this crazy book baby born. Love you, ladies!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

WERE IT NOT for the strong shopping bags protecting her clanking purchases, Penelope Davenport would never have made the walk back to her darkened motel, if the brisk, sometimes sideways shuffle she’d been doing through the gusting wind and sheets of rain could be called a walk. Whatever it could be called, it was better than her flying had been today.

Deep in the pit of her belly, she still felt the plummeting sensation triggered two hours earlier when the early autumn storm she’d been trying to outrun had caught them despite her best efforts, and a microburst had tried to slam her flying ambulance into the ground.

She still didn’t know why they hadn’t crashed.

Altitude had been on her side. And the storm’s sharp down-blast of wind had probably only caught them at the edge. Luck no doubt could be credited with making her jerk the stick in the correct direction, tilting them out of the wind to where she could level out and avoid killing them all.

The energy, a terrible need to just keep moving, had stayed with her too. If she stopped now, her bones might burst from her skin.

Yes, she’d kept Baby in the air.

Yes, she’d been given clearance to fly between storms.

And they’d gotten their patient to a Schenectady hospital for treatment, even if they’d had to divert an hour’s flight north to do it.

But she still felt responsible for such a near miss. Not only had there been almost death, but her partner, Dr. Gabriel Jackson, couldn’t even treat their patient at the new hospital, having no privileges there. On top of that, he got a ruined night not doing whatever he’d planned on doing, and he was stuck in a powerless motel without supplies.

Precisely how she’d ended up hiking to a strip mall during the height of a line of storm cells for stranded-at-a-lousy-motel-during-a-power-outage supplies.

Anything to make it better. For her. For him...

There had been attraction between them from the jump. A chemical thing that sometimes made them look too long, and sometimes required she remind herself what they were and should be to one another. Professional. Coworkers.

The first week they’d worked together had been peppered with awkwardness only eased when they actively treated a patient. In the confines of the chopper, even though it maintained a mild hospital-like antiseptic scent, she’d babbled her way to every destination because the act of talking helped her keep from thinking too much. To keep from noticing the light cologne he wore with its hints of ginger. To block out that vibrating awareness that filled up the spaces between them.

But with all the crazy bouncing around in her head, none of that would matter tonight. They were just going to hang out, eat some liquor store sausage and cheese sampler, drink wine, play cards, and talk. Him for once, rather than her filling up the space. He knew more about her than she did about him.

A blast of wind flattened her into the side of the motel just as she’d reached the awning-covered walk that should’ve gotten her out of the rain. Another ten or so doors, and she’d be inside, and safe, and she could roll up in the bedspread like a burrito to get warm.

Dying of pneumonia from how wet and cold she’d become after all that? Yeah, that’d suck. Gabriel would probably find the biggest horse pills with which to save her life, just to punish her for having gone out in a freaking monsoon.

He’d do it all while being sedate and so handsome it was like a big cosmic joke. Of course he would have to look like that—jaw that still looked like geometry even with the beard he kept short enough she wasn’t sure it was technically a beard, or just some long, perfectly groomed stubble. The best-looking men were always the least attainable.

They’d never spoken about it, never made a move, but there had come to be an understanding between them. Conversations that began with proclamations of the benefit of having such a great partner to work with didn’t need many lines to read between. The way he would sit away from her during work meetings, always on the other side of the conference table. She knew what interest looked like in a man’s eyes, and she’d seen it there, so his distancing techniques said everything else.

Just as she reached his room, she felt the bag with the wine start to tear, and captured the bottle with her thigh against the hollow metal door. Knocking with her elbow was all she could manage.

“It’s me!” A sudden clap of thunder drowned her out. Not exactly the entrance she’d planned. Then again, she hadn’t really planned much beyond go to the store and make tonight better. In the back of her mind she held on to have a great time as her final objective, because it was at least statistically possible.

If he was moving in there, she couldn’t hear anything over the rain.

“Hurry up, I think it’s going to rain!” Ha-ha. See, she still had a sense of humor, before her untimely passing from hurricane-induced pneumonia.

Another blast of wind smacked her in the back and wrapped her completely saturated hair around her face. It stuck like a furry squid.

She opened her mouth to curse the door down—if she had to dig out her own key for the room next door it was all over. But as she began considering the logistics of juggling her tearing bags, the door opened. Before he could say anything, before he could yell at her for this exercise in ridiculousness, she grabbed her slowly shredding bag of wine by the rip and darted inside, the rest of her loot in swinging bags presently cutting off her circulation at the elbows.

“You think it’s going to rain?” he said, like he couldn’t tell a joke when he heard one. Because his mood was apparently so foul he couldn’t even picture a reason to be in a good one. “Are you nuts? You walked somewhere in this? You look like you just got pulled out of the Hudson.”

Laughing a little, she swung the bags up onto his table. “It was only about half a mile. I think. I don’t know. I’m better at judging distances from the air, less good at it from the ground. Though since I’ve only been flying a couple years and been on the ground the rest of my life, you’d think it’d be the opposite.”

For a normal person, it probably would’ve been, but Penny had learned young to judge distance by how far she’d be able to walk or roll her wheelchair. It was more a can-I-make-it-that-far? measuring system than something with math and numbers. Being now able to easily walk a mile, or whatever, in the pounding rain was something to celebrate. Not that he needed to know all that. It certainly wouldn’t help put him into a better mood. He might even start fussing over her health—like her family still did on occasion, even though she’d been in remission for years.

“Niagara Falls is coming off the roof.” Even though Gabriel’s words were complaints, his tone had taken on that sardonic lilt that let her know that even in the dark he was shaking his head and saying words he really didn’t expect to mean anything to her. Might even be rolling his pretty brown eyes.

“Yep. But what was I going to do, call a cab to go the equivalent of a few blocks? Rain’s not going to kill me.” She hoped. But, goodness, she needed to warm up. Which...she didn’t have a plan for. No spare clothes.

“Your teeth are chattering,” he noted.

“I don’t know how you can see anything in here, it’s dark.”

“I can hear them clacking.”

She clamped her mouth shut to control the noise and finished piling her dripping bags on the table so she could dig out the candles she’d purchased. Candles meant fire, meant light, and especially some kind of heat.

“I know you’re trying to be nice.”

“I am,” she chirped, felt her voice wobble with her involuntary jaw wobbling, still determined to give Dr. Grouchy a better evening than the universe had conjured for either of them. Finding the matches and grabbing one of the candles, she created fire. And light. “Saw a strip mall on the way here with one of those cheapo general-store places beside a liquor store.”

Clack. Clackity. Clack. She gritted her teeth until her jaw tensed and felt more under control. She kept the rest of it short. “Got supplies. You could play along, pretend you’re someone who doesn’t hate f-fun. M-might s-surprise y-you.”

The last several words stuttered out and she gave up trying to pretend. She was cold. During her brisk walk in the downpour she’d stayed more or less warm. Standing around made the chill seep into her, and life become decidedly less livable.

Outside the storm continued to rage, and when a gust blew against the side of the building, she looked over and noticed Gabriel was in his underwear.

Gabriel was in his underwear.

How had she missed that?

Putting the candle down, she smooshed her wet hair back from her face, where it was obviously obstructing her vision, and looked at him. Beneath his carefully zipped flight suit he’d been hiding all that?

Even as dark as the room was, she could see the definition of abs in his rich, brown skin. Wide, solid shoulders. Hip flexors. Good God, the man had chiseled hip flexors.

Which would be something she could spend time appreciating as soon as she got warm.

“Did you get something dry to wear in that?”

“Would be wet if I had. But I think you have the right idea.”

She fumbled for her zipper, fingers suddenly stiff and wooly, and failed to sufficiently grab the tab to draw it down three times in succession. Her fingers just slid right off the end when she pulled. A mild sound of alarm was all it took to set him into motion, and suddenly he was in front of her, taking over.

Under any other circumstances, she might hesitate to strip down to her undies with the partner she’d been actively trying to ignore her attraction to, but him peeling the sodden, freezing material down her arms at least provided an excuse for the wash of goose-bumps she knew were as much to do with him undressing her as her looming hypothermia. When he knelt to help her with the boots, she put her hands on his shoulders, and immediately wanted to mash her whole body against his. The man was hot, in every sense of the word.

At least that fear that had been pitting through her was gone now. She wasn’t feeling...all that hesitant anymore either. “How do you feel about underwear hugging? You, me, mashed together. You’re giving off heat like a space heater and I really like that about you right now.”

“I’m a normal temperature. You’re just cold. It doesn’t have to be freezing temperatures to get hypothermia. You know that.”

Yes, she did.

Despite the irritation lingering in his voice, his touch was gentle. Large, strong hands cupped the back of each leg as he helped ease her clothing off.

Beneath her suit, she generally dressed for comfort. That meant white cotton bikinis and a snug strappy tank top. Being endowed with modest curves had advantages, one being the ability to skip confining undergarments, especially under such unstructured clothing as a flight suit.

She puffed as he stood back up and she had to clamp her arms to her sides to keep from flinging herself at him. “Yell at me later.”

“I will. After you’ve had a shower and warmed up.” And he sounded like he meant it.

Gabriel pulled her back sometimes, providing a special kind of stoicism that balanced her out. She was used to some measure of grumpiness when she did something he found dumb, but after the day they’d had the idea of him yelling at her made her stomach churn.

“Do you hate me?” The words erupted from her mouth before she could give them a proper spin around in her head, and even though she’d just told him to yell at her later.

“Hate you?” He shook her sodden flight suit out and draped it over the other chair, then looked back down at her, his still handsome scowl flickering in the light of the candle. “Why on earth would I hate you?”

“Because I almost crashed us. I couldn’t... I couldn’t outrun it. I thought... But then the wind...” She faltered around, and suddenly the words caught up with her emotions, and she knew she was crying by the hot rivers on her frigid cheeks.

“You did outrun it,” he said, his voice gentle. One strong arm wrapped around her, propelling her toward the bathroom. “You got us here. It was supposed to go south of us. Everyone said so.”

Everyone said so. She nodded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut to stop that horrifying leaking. But it wasn’t enough. Several big, gulpy breaths later, she gave up and turned to fling her arms around his waist.

Everywhere their skin touched, she grew warmer. The firm wall of his chest under her cheek, the strong arms that immediately came around her wrapped her in heat.

She needed comfort, to know that her partner, a doctor who treated her—the only Davenport at Manhattan Mercy without the title—like an equal, still had faith in her.

“You won’t be afraid to fly with me after this?”

Her underthings were wet, she realized as she felt his skin start to cool, or at least stop feeling quite so warm through the soaked material. She was getting him wet.

“I won’t. We’ll talk about that later, but right now you need to get in the shower,” he said, his mouth against the crown of her head. “Who knows if the water will stay hot for long, and you’ve stopped shaking.”

“It wasn’t raining that hard when I left,” she muttered. The colder she got, the less intelligent her foray into the blistering rain seemed. No matter how good her reasoning at the time.

You’ve stopped shaking. His words swam up to her as he wrapped his arms around her hips and lifted, then walked into the darkened bathroom to deposit her right in the tub.

People stopped shaking when they warmed up, or when they got too cold and their bodies gave up shaking to get warm.

He adjusted the water quickly, then stepped in with her, positioning her under the spray so that the almost too hot water hit the back of her neck, then her head, and once it had had a few seconds to cascade over her, he turned her by the shoulders so that her back came against his chest, and the water warmed up her front side.

She shivered again for a couple seconds, and then relaxed back against him, her head on his shoulder, and her hands seeking his on her hips to drag his arms back around her waist. Standing under the spray, in their underwear...

“This went a lot different in my head.”

“Did you sing and dance your way through the rain in your head?”

“No, the rain didn’t factor in. I just thought, get the wine, get some food, get candles, cards, munchies... Talk to Gabriel and give him a good night to make up for whatever you had planned at home.”

“I had nothing planned.” His mouth was at her ear, and the words should’ve taken the edge off somehow, but she found herself spinning to face him instead.

Probably her third dumb idea of the day, but, unlike the first two dumb ideas, she just didn’t care.

It was dark, the candle left in the other room, but as she pulled the tank top over her head she heard his breathing hitch. He couldn’t see anything as with the lights out the small, interior bathroom was little more than a cave, even with the door open to a slightly less dark room beyond. But he felt her skin when she pressed forward. Lifting her arms and rising on tiptoe, she didn’t stop, although she satisfied that urge to mash herself against him, and still didn’t stop when his head dipped to meet her kiss.

CHAPTER ONE

Two months later...

LOCKED IN A stall in the ladies’ room at Manhattan Mercy, Penny leaned against the polished metal separating wall and stared at her watch.

Across from her, perched atop the toilet-paper dispenser, sat a white plastic wand that could change her footloose existence forever.

It seemed emotionally safer to watch the hand on her watch ticking by than to stare at the tiny display for the entire minute it would take for the one line to appear, or two—results on the test she’d put off taking for three weeks.

At first, she’d been unable to accept it was necessary. She’d had condoms. They’d used condoms. They hadn’t even been purchased at the cheapo general store, they had just been in her bag in case some kind of life opportunity happened. It was New York City. She could conceivably run into anyone. Like that guy from that movie...the one with the smoldering eyes. And maybe he’d be drunk, bored, or somehow seduced by her ability to walk and chew gum at the same time, and then...magic would happen. If she had condoms.

A week later, she’d accepted they may have been old condoms.

Last week she’d known for sure she needed to take a test. It had really only taken a week or so to take it...

Still, hoping it was negative felt wrong. Because what if it wasn’t? She’d already be in the running for Mother of the Year from procrastinating on a pregnancy test without making disappointment the first emotion she felt for a tiny life she’d created.

Definitely the sort of thoughts you never ever tell your child. Or anyone else.

Or even better, thoughts to avoid having altogether.

Every second the tiny hand ticked, her stomach grew heavier and more rumbly. When it finally passed the sixty-second mark, she lowered her wrist but still couldn’t bring herself to look at the test.

This was not how women took pregnancy tests in commercials. They had pink bathrooms and a partner waiting outside the door, ready to celebrate, with something bubbly but nonalcoholic.

Which she didn’t want anyway.

It would be all right. Everything would be all right. Nothing bad would happen just because she looked at the little window...

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shoring up her flagging courage that came with a twinge of self-disgust. The fact she even needed to boost her bravery should shame her into looking. Courage was a cornerstone of her entire personality. If something scared her, Penny had a personal maxim to run toward the thing, unless it was a bear.

Another deep breath slowly exhaled didn’t help either.

Nope.

A minute—or even two now—wasn’t sufficient time for this. Why didn’t they make delayed response pregnancy tests so you could work up to it? It wouldn’t have to take that long for the testing, just some kind of delay on the display.

I feel I’ll be ready to look at this Thursday. Push the Thursday button. Then take that many days to come up with a plan for how not to freak out.

She couldn’t wait for Thursday. She also couldn’t look at the thing in a bathroom stall. Leaving aside questions about her emotional maturity, if she wanted to get in the pre-flight and maintenance checks before their shift started, she needed to go now.

She snatched the little wand and stuffed it into the thigh pocket on her flight suit, zipped that pocket closed, and barreled out of the stall to clean up and get upstairs.

The whole not-looking business was even dumber than her hike through a hurricane. She didn’t need to look, the answer had burned into her frontal lobe before she’d swiped her debit card at the pharmacy. Regular Rosie didn’t miss a single period, let alone two, for no reason. The test was a formality, therefore she was extra-stupid for not just looking at it.

Gabriel would’ve told her so too, only she’d been unable to tell him about any of this before now. He would’ve picked her up, and squeezed her like an orange until she tinkled on the damned wand.

The morning after that night, which she still found herself lingering over in quiet moments, he’d suggested the things they’d done never leave the motel room. It became the No-Tell Motel, minus all the sleazy connotations, because he’d declared it and she’d agreed. It was the sensible thing. Gabriel never suggested things that weren’t sensible, and sometimes he was the only reason she did things that were sensible. She’d seen the sense, despite not really wanting to see it.

When he’d opened the door to leave the room, she’d grabbed his head and kissed the breath out of both of them one last time so she could hold to that agreement. The hedonistic part of her, the part that loved life and experience, hated giving up that experience so quickly.

But? Sensible. She wasn’t in the market for a relationship, at least not a relationship relationship, even if she could’ve carried on a little longer. Tried out other rooms and, through trial and arduous study, gathered the data to support the hypothesis their night had borne: sex with Gabriel Jackson was as good as it got.

But so was working with him.

She really had no idea what friendship would be like with him, or anything else outside work and the unspeakable night because, despite her efforts, they hadn’t gotten to the cards and friendship-building conversations. They’d showered...vigorously. Then they’d made a mess of the bed even more vigorously. The wine had been drunk in between all that. There had been other pit-stops where they’d consumed cheese and sausage because stamina required fuel, but none of the business their mouths had gotten up to had been in the vicinity of talking.

Unless you counted that talk. The sexy smattering of words between lovers.

Just like that.

Don’t stop.

Oh, God...

Heaven help her, she was doing it again. Thinking about all that, which had caused all this. The consequences.

She took the stairs at a run, pounding up the ten flights separating her current floor and the helipad on the roof.

At the top, with blessedly buzzing lungs and legs, she checked her watch on her way to the chopper. Just over two minutes. She’d have to do better if she was going to make it up eighty-six floors at the Empire State Run-Up in the New Year. If she even could do the stair-climbing marathon while pregnant.

She climbed into the thing she’d been calling “Baby” for two years and worked through the checklist to go over gauges and start it up. Only when she’d finished did she sit back and reach into her thigh pocket to pull out the wand. Before giving herself a chance to think anything or to get worked up, she flipped it over and read the display.

Two lines.

Yep.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. A full look tracked Gabriel’s long stride eating up the distance between them.

“Dang it.” She stuffed the wand back into the pocket and zipped it as fast as she could.

Then the door opened and he gave her a look.

“What?”

“Why aren’t you starting it up already? Is there a problem?”

“What problem? There’s no problem,” she blurted, too fast and too loud, then gestured haplessly at nothing, trying to get back on course. “I’ve already done the checks. Why are you...?”

He never came up to the roof anymore unless they had a call.

“Did we get a call?” She looked at the radio and her stomach sank. Off. She hadn’t turned it on during her pre-flight checks.

He said nothing, just turned the radio on while she started the massive rotors spinning.

“Where are we going?” she asked, buckling in, and by the time he’d answered she was ready to lift off. That was part of why she went through the pre-flight checks—it was set up to go from nothing to flight in under a minute.

“Is everything all right?” he asked through the comm once they were in the air. It wasn’t concern she heard so much as that hint of frustration that appeared in his voice every time things didn’t happen when he expected.

To lie, or not to lie...

“Can’t complain.”

She really couldn’t, at least not right now. And complaining was something she tried to only do inside her head. Complaining about anything could still trigger her loved ones trying to rescue her, which she could appreciate on an intellectual level even if she couldn’t abide it anymore. Complaining about anything related to health? That might even bring her whole family out in full flailing fit mode, maybe even with questions about whether she was healthy enough to gestate a human life.

The shape of the test in her thigh pocket stood out, and she prayed Dr. Notices Everything didn’t notice until she was ready to share.

“You’re pale. Are you sick?”

* * *

Gabriel might not understand much about what went on inside Penny’s head but he understood her body unfortunately well, beyond just what his training had taught him about her physiological signs of distress.

Pale face and darkness under blue eyes so bright the blackness beneath them seemed blacker. Some kind of unsteadiness in her hands. The silent call radio. No music either during her pre-flight routine, and she always listened to music when on standby. Tight-lipped when normally talkative...

She squinted at him, then adjusted something amid the toggles and switches without answering him. Not right.

Despite the somewhat fumbling quality her hands had taken with switches, on the controls everything went smoothly. The flight was steady, a straight line, something he could appreciate since his life depended on it, but something was wrong. And if she stayed true to form, he was going to have to shake it out of her. Later. They were already in the air, so his chance to swap out a focused pilot had gone.

The two months since their...mistake...hadn’t been entirely easy months. The first couple of weeks had been the worst. Awkward enough that she’d barely looked him in the eye any particular day, which had been rougher than he’d have thought. But with a little willpower, and a pact of mutual amnesia, they’d worked through it and things had found a new normal, somewhat off-center from the way things had been before.

Like when they bumped into one another changing in the locker room. She’d been wearing the same kind of simple and somehow ungodly sexy cotton things, and when she’d looked at him, he’d seen his thoughts reflected back at him. The pink that had infused every inch of her pale flesh had backed it up.

Not embarrassed. Aroused. And unhappily so.

Awkward.

Now he changed in the men’s room and avoided the locker room unless he had to, or unless she’d gone home for the day. His initial plan had just been to keep everything as low-key and low-stress as he could so that she could forget. He knew he couldn’t forget, but he wasn’t as prone to impetuousness as she was—he could resist. When he found himself watching the way she tapped the end of her pen on her lower lip while filling out paperwork, he could shake himself out of it. Stop thinking about her mouth. Not give in to temptation. But that seemed harder for Penny to do, so he just tried to keep temptation from coming up.

It had worked at first when they’d started working together and just had to ignore a spark, and it had even worked briefly in the middle of the time since their night, but a couple of weeks ago things had started getting tense again. Made no sense, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Time was supposed to take care of things like this, but their agreement not to discuss it meant he couldn’t even act as he would’ve in the past. Ask her what was wrong. Offer her an ear for her troubles. Just suss out symptoms and determine whether her oddness was physical or emotional... No easy course of action.

If this was attached to the desire for another night, he couldn’t blame her, even if he would turn her down.

“How long?” he asked through the comm, since he already had one patient to focus on, righting his thoughts. If she wanted his help, she’d ask for it.

Normally he wouldn’t have to ask how long. Normally his chattering partner freely gave information during flight.

She still didn’t look at him, but she did let go of the controls with one hand to point. “There. We’re landing on the roof next door.”

Taciturn. Definitely something wrong. If he didn’t expect to need her paramedic skills, he’d put her on light duty for this run. But the patient they were flying to was a steel worker who’d fallen from the beams of a new construction site. Since they’d called for an ambulance rather than a coroner, all he knew for sure was that he’d need her at her best.

“We’re bypassing the stretcher. I don’t know what the site looks like, the board is the only safe bet. Are you well enough to carry it?”

She did look at him then, her eyes narrowing to slits. “I can do my job. I’m fine.”

Gabriel didn’t argue with her, but he’d never heard the words “I’m fine” and had it be anything near fine. Even if she put up a fight to stay on the job anytime she was ill, she’d never looked so put out with him over asking.

With an easy touch, she put the chopper down atop the neighboring building, and he unstrapped and went to grab bags.

“Get the board,” he ordered, wrenching open the sliding door and hopping out to make a run for the roof access door.

It always took her a moment longer to disembark due to having to power down the chopper. Him running ahead to the patient was part of their usual routine as every second mattered and he did whatever he could as she brought up the rear.

He hit the stairs running, and took all eighteen stories down on foot. Waiting for the elevator always slowed them down.

Across the lobby with a nod to Security, he bustled out the door and rounded the building. Just as he reached the construction site, the manager met him, slapped a hard hat onto his head and led the way across the dirt and gravel lot, around piles of construction material, to the concrete pad beneath steel beams, and his patient.

No blood haloing his head, a good sign and something he’d seen enough on the job with jumpers and falls from great height. Heads didn’t stand up well to concrete, unless they didn’t hit first. The man had landed on his feet, at least briefly, and his head had probably hit last.

Gabriel fell to the man’s side.

Unconscious.

Breathing fast.

He felt for a pulse, found a rapid rate to go with the breathing.

“How long ago was it?” He began gathering information as he fished out a penlight to check pupils. One responsive, the other fixed.

“Less than ten minutes.”

“How far did he fall?” Gabriel looked up again at the open beams for one that would align with the man’s location.

“About thirty feet. That beam there.”

Onto concrete.

When he lowered his eyes again, he saw Penny running full tilt across the construction site—without a hard hat but with the backboard held over her head. That would help a little if someone dropped something on her.

“Get her a hat,” he said to the manager, then went back to his patient.

When she reached him, she put the board down alongside the patient and then began digging into his bag to help, extracting a neck brace first thing. A hat made it to her head, but didn’t slow her down.

“How’s he doing? What’s his name?”

He hadn’t asked.

“Frank,” someone answered, and Penny thanked him, then started talking to Unconscious Frank as she fitted the brace around his neck, explaining what she was doing, as was proper.

“He’s seen better days. There’s some kind of cranial hemorrhage or swelling, one pupil unresponsive. And I think internal bleeding, his heart is going hard. Get a line in him, saline.”

He ordered, she complied. That was the one thing unchanged since their unfortunate encounter—she always worked hard and fast. Competent, and something more. She may have been born to society, but she’d managed to become compassionate in a hands-on way, and it made a difference in the way she treated their patients. She might not be one hundred percent today, but she was still fighting for them.

A whole family of doctors, and she’d become a paramedic. He should ask her why sometime, but knowing her adrenaline junkie tendencies, paramedic fit. They were the first on the scene for the big emergencies.

Opening the man’s shirt, he looked his belly and chest over, noted bruising on his left rib cage, then began to feel his belly for telltale signs of bleeding.

Like the turgid area on the left upper quadrant. “How’s the line?”

She flushed the catheter she’d just inserted into the man’s arm, nodded, and then hooked up a saline line to it. “We’re good. I’m going to pin it to your suit. It’s wide open, do you want it slower?”

“No, his spleen is ruptured, I don’t know how badly. Run the drip wide open. We have to get him in the air.” He lifted his head out of the way and Penny produced a massive safety pin from somewhere, and clipped the saline line to the shoulder of his suit.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of protocol taught in medical training, but she’d done it before. Once they got to the chopper, she’d have to fly them to the hospital, and unclipping it from her own shoulder to free her to fly would slow them down. The first time she’d done it, he’d been surprised, but over their months, working together, her unusual methods had ceased to be strange. She always had a reason for the things she did, and he didn’t doubt she had a reason to be so pale and stiff-lipped now. Which was what worried him.

“Get his legs,” he ordered once the bag swung from his shoulder, and waited until she was there. On the count of three they lifted, moved, and lowered their patient, then secured straps.

“You and you, help me carry him,” he said to the manager and another strong-looking worker watching them. “Let my pilot run ahead and get the chopper running so we don’t lose any time.”

Penny waited until they’d started moving, then went to take his bag of supplies, swung it over her shoulder, and ran. She would push the button for the elevator and have Security hold it for them while she took the stairs. That was how she worked. She thought ahead, and he was grateful for that.

So, whatever was wrong, she was probably handling it. Maybe he should just let her handle it. The problem was, he had to be the one who forced her home when she did get ill, or would admit to being ill. It had become a happily infrequent part of his job description, but a part nevertheless.

By the time they’d reached the chopper, the blades were whirring. They got Frank loaded quickly and he put his headset on.

“They’re already prepping an OR.” Penny’s voice came through the comm. “A surgical team’s going to meet us at the roof to type him for transfusion.”

“What did you report?” He locked himself into the jump seat over his patient, and while she flew he affixed leads for the portable heart monitor and checked again for pupil dilation.

“Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture, irregular pupil reaction, possibly some kind of spinal damage, and unconsciousness.”

All that was the most she’d said to him all day.

“Okay.” He called in another update, laying on the need for an MRI, then asked over the comm, “Why did you suggest spinal damage?”

“Skydiving. Landing jars badly.”

Not his favorite answer, but not wrong either. Leave it to Penny to frame things in terms of extreme sports activities, that was like her. Answering with so few words on a subject she could chatter hours about usually? Again, not like her.

No matter how hard she’d hit the ground running today, something was definitely wrong.

* * *

As soon as they’d handed over their patient to the surgical team atop Manhattan Mercy, Gabriel took Penny’s elbow to keep her from following the team inside. Not letting himself touch her had been another way to keep temptation at bay, and even this casual, platonic touch to her arm felt exasperatingly intimate to him. But it had a purpose.

She turned to look at him, her elbow held out from her body at an unnatural angle, her brows up in question. On top of the high building, the wind blew loudly enough that talking meant shouting, even with the helicopter blades silent. He jerked his head back toward the chopper.

“You want to go somewhere?” She was nearly shouting over the wind, eyeing his hand on her arm again. It wasn’t as though he gripped her in anger, though he’d admit frustration at having to have this conversation again, and his grip wasn’t strong enough to hurt. Sometimes he had to grab her to keep her from flitting away.

A quick shake of his head and he answered with one word. “Talk.”

The flare of wariness in her blue eyes only firmed his resolve. He released her, went and opened the sliding side door, climbed in, and scooted to make room for her.

If he hadn’t suspected anything before, the way she looked at the sky, at her feet, and generally stalled for time would’ve given it all away.

She had to talk herself into speaking with him.

After about half a minute, she squared her shoulders and marched over to board the helicopter, nearly closing the door behind her. It was enough to dampen the wind and make this conversation less stressful than it would’ve been if it had to start from a position of yelling, but remained open enough for easy escape.

She perched on the edge of the seat, one hand staying on the door handle, and looked at him. “What do you want to talk about?”

So ready to fly.

“You know what I want to talk about. You shot me a nasty look, but you never actually answered me. Are you ill? Because you look like hell.”

Blunt. Maybe a little too blunt, but if that was what it took to get through to her, so be it.

“I’m fine.”

“Pale. Black circles. No motormouth. No music before flying. No band radio. You didn’t even know we’d been called out. Want to revise your statement?”

“That was a mistake. Normal people do make mistakes sometimes!”

“Fine. If you want to stick to the Not Sick story, then are you hungover? Are you distracted by whatever last night’s festivities were?”

“Oh. My. God. You’re jealous? That’s what this is?”

She couldn’t have shocked him more if she’d just decked him.

They’d made an agreement! And the only way to keep up his end was to refuse to rise to the bait.

“I have plans to be alive tomorrow. A distracted pilot is a bad pilot.”

“Did I fly badly?” Her voice rose, bringing it right back to near shouting level. “Did I perform badly today?”

“No.”

“No. I did my job just fine.”

“You’re distracted, at the very least, and you’re a distraction. Whether or not you’re willing to admit it. I can’t focus on the patients if I’m constantly checking on you to make sure you’re still upright.”

“I’m not sick—”

“I don’t care.” He cut her off. “Do whatever it is you need to do to function at your usual level. Do shifts in Emergency until then, I don’t want you on my crew. I’ll get another pilot.”

A fierce blush washed into her cheeks but didn’t detract from her paleness. It actually amplified how very pale she was against that bright red contrast.

“I’m so glad that you don’t care.”

Still shouting...

“Since you don’t care, and I know you don’t because we’re not friends, this is probably the perfect time to put your mind at ease. It’s not an illness.”

She never liked him questioning her over sickness, which had always bugged him, like he should feel guilty for being concerned about her or about their patients. But this was extreme, even for her. His neck prickled and he fought the urge to touch her again, but this time because he wanted the connection that was still there. But her reaction was so far outside the bounds of normal, he couldn’t be certain it wouldn’t make things worse.

She ripped open the sliding door, climbed out, then forced her hand into a pocket on her suit. In the next instant she had something in hand, but before he could identify it, the thing bounced off his left cheek and she slammed the door.

She’d thrown something at his face.

He didn’t know whether to go after her or let her stomp off.

A glance down confirmed the thing had bounced out of his field of vision. With a sigh, he bent forward to look beneath the seats.

There was some stretching and, although he’d spotted it, to reach it he had to smash his face against the front seatback and feel blindly.

As soon as his fingers curled around the length of it, his stomach bottomed out.

He knew very few things that shape.

And only one that could be an answer to what wasn’t an illness.

He straightened, pulling his hand from beneath the seat, and looked down as his heart beat louder and louder, like thundering rotors.

Positive.

CHAPTER TWO

NO SOONER WAS Penny off the roof than she was jogging for the stairwell. A woman couldn’t make an exit like that and then be easy to find...in the extremely unlikely chance that a real, flesh-and-blood man would behave like a movie hero and chase after her. Not that she wanted him to, she’d just bounced a pregnancy test off his face.

She hit the stairs two at a time to head for her supervisor’s office. Gabriel had demanded she go home, and she’d take that advice. Not because she was underperforming, she wasn’t, but she’d be lying if she pretended she wasn’t distracted. She was. And she’d be lying to herself if she tried to pretend she wasn’t tired. Emotionally tired or physically, she had no clue, but both should resolve with the same treatment: a nap.

However, there was one accusation she would cop to that had no bearing on the situation—she definitely was behaving differently than normal, and it was hard to be filled with supercharged optimism when you felt like you were in an uncontrollable spin without a fixed point on the horizon to guide you.

Once she’d begged off for the afternoon, she hurried out and summoned a cab. Earbuds and her streaming music service allowed her to shut down for the ride home. It wasn’t until she opened the door into her own private space that guilt began to ooze from her chest. She could feel it rising off her like toxic vapor.

She should’ve told Gabriel more gently and she really shouldn’t have thrown the test at his head. He hadn’t deserved that. But he’d just hit that sore spot, maybe unknowingly, and her knees had jerked. In those few words he’d made her feel she was on the cusp of being rendered helpless again, like a wheelchair waited around the corner, crouched and sinister. Like any second she’d revert to being an observer in her own life.

The flight suit she always changed out of before coming home still hung on her, so she dropped her bag on the way to the stairs to her bedroom loft above to go change into something lounge-worthy, then headed back down to fling herself onto the sofa.

If it was already two months in, she’d have seven, or something, to go. She should make an appointment with a doctor she didn’t share genetics with. But how long before she was shuffled off to the side just by virtue of being pregnant, regardless of how healthy she remained during her pregnancy? How long before they took her off the chopper and made her work every rotation on the floor in the emergency department?

How long before she was sidelined by her baby?

She stared into the open rafters above, sighing at herself. There was a worse emotion to attach to an innocent baby than disappointment. Resentment.

That word didn’t apply yet, but she could see it on the horizon, a black monolith on her own internal skyline. Would that be better or worse than the emotion she couldn’t even deny to herself: the fear that her child would be cripplingly sick just like she’d been, but not be one of the lucky twenty percent?

* * *

Darkness fell over the city before Gabriel’s day ended. Manhattan was never truly dark, but during the holiday season it was even brighter than normal. Everywhere he looked he saw festive reminders of the holidays, glittering lights, red bows, and jingle bells. In front of Penny’s Tribeca building, a leafless tree had been wrapped in tiny blue lights that transitioned to purple and pink. Even the tiniest branches glittered like crystal, but in a funky way that let the outside world know the eclectic apartments they’d find inside the converted factory.

He liked Christmas in a vague sort of way, mostly as a quiet Christmas Day with his parents, but the rest of the season left him flat.

The test felt like an anvil in his pocket, and had all day. From his flight suit to the street clothes he now wore, it had stayed with him. Even now, hours later, he didn’t know how to feel about it any more than he could figure out how to get it out of his mind.

He’d had his shot at marriage and a family a decade ago, and had proved insufficient to the task of husband, so he’d never gotten to the father stage of family life. It had been planned—big family, lots of children—but he’d missed important steps somewhere along the way, and hadn’t yet figured out where he’d gone wrong. Once marriage had been taken out of his future plans, so had the idea of being a father, one of the many reasons he’d always been meticulous about safe sex.

As he made his way across the lobby, the differences in their lives came into focus. Temperamentally mismatched. Historically mismatched. Socially mismatched. Financially mismatched. He did well, but by Davenport standards... If she decided to exclude him from his child’s life, the attorneys she could hire could see it done.

Her name on the directory pointed him to the top floor. Penthouse, of course. Old wealth.

Which put his next move in a light that people would probably misconstrue, but he’d make it anyway. Even if he’d failed spectacularly as a husband the first time out, even if they were entirely different kinds of people. Marriage before the child came would increase the strength of his rights. He’d like to think he knew Penny well enough to rule out the likelihood she’d bar him from his child’s life, but he wasn’t willing to bet on it. Look at how wrong he’d gotten things with Nila.

If he and Penny could work things out, it would actually be a good thing. She might be impulsive, but she was also kind, and the days they didn’t work together, he missed the optimism that rolled off her for most of the day. He could live with that being part of his daily life. They were extremely sexually compatible. If they could work out some kind of understanding about the rest of it, it could work, at least long enough to provide the kind of stable base their child deserved.

Once outside her door, he rang the bell, and she opened it so quickly she could’ve been just standing there, waiting for him. Except she was disheveled and had the soft look of sleep about her eyes, along with wearing some rumpled cotton pajamas.

As soon as the door stood fully open, she launched in.

“Gabriel, I am so sorry.” The words came in a rush and her arms hitched halfway up her chest and back, like she was about to hug him, but wasn’t sure he’d let her.

It was the opening he needed. He stepped through the door, closed it and flipped one of the locks before turning back to her.

The stricken look on her face had him reaching for her cheek. It had been in him just to comfort her, let her know he wasn’t angry, let her know that things had changed again, but the haunting light of vulnerability in her eyes pulled him in.

Instantly, when his hand cupped her cheek, her eyes fell closed and she tilted her head into the touch, like she’d been just as worried about their fight, like she needed comfort too. Mercy, he wanted to kiss her. And he shouldn’t, that would be a jump too far, too soon.

Instead, he gave a little tug to bring her to him. Her arms opened and slid around his ribs and he let himself hold her in an easy, relaxed embrace, his chin resting atop her head as she breathed out so slowly and deeply that he knew she’d needed it.

How do you feel about underwear hugging?

Her question from months before swam back to him, bringing a grin with it. There was something about her that felt great in his arms. Maybe it was her perfect height compared to his, and the way his chin rested on her forehead when she tucked in close, and how he could feel the fan of her eyelashes on the side of his neck. Maybe it was the combination of her slender, feminine frame and the strength he felt in it, or the mop of soft, wavy hair and how, when even slightly ruffled, her delicate scent drifted out, calling to something in his chest.

He just knew he liked it. He liked it enough to force his way through the rest of the questions and worries he’d had all day. Start the conversation. Get it going. Keep things calm. That had been his mistake earlier when she’d grown frustrated and pelted him with a pregnancy test.

“Are you all right?”

“Are you all right?” she answered, without moving an inch, but alarm bells sounded in his head. Health conversations always set her off, even if this was entirely a health concern.

“You felt bad earlier.” He squeezed her a little tighter as he spoke, a tool he’d never had the opportunity to use to calm down these conversations in the past, so who knew how well it’d work?

“I was shocked. Sort of. I didn’t feel sick, I just felt, I don’t know, unsettled? Kind of nervous?”

He simply nodded, still trying so hard to take it slowly. Not to rush ahead, not to demand answers, not to drag her off to the court house or frog march her to the altar.

So, today’s symptoms weren’t directly related to her pregnancy, not in a physical illness way. That was something. Her pale shakiness was shock. Okay.

Now for the question he’d been dreading. A sinking, hollow feeling in his stomach made him want to hold tighter, so he forced himself to relax his hold on her and lean back so she’d look up at him.

“Are you going to have it? I need to know what you’re intending.”

As soon as the words came out, she stepped back from him, fully back until no longer in arm’s reach, her own arms drawing up like even her appendages couldn’t be within his orbit.

He knew her well enough to know that she’d respond best to calm discussion, even if he could feel his hackles rising. He didn’t want a repeat of their earlier confrontation.

Her eyebrows came together, her eyes went wider, pupils dilating to the point the black overwhelmed the usual vibrant blue. Mouth open, breathing faster... Fear. Fear responses. What did that mean?

Tension stole across his shoulders as well, but the emotional landmine between them sat there, both of them frozen, as if even a wrong flick of the eyes could set it off.

Was she afraid of his reaction when she answered, any reaction, or was there a reason to be afraid if she responded?

“Penny?”

“What do you want me to say? I don’t know what answer you’re looking for.” She swallowed and her gaze skirted downward, but unfocused, as if searching her own mind for answers. Until the fuzziness lifted, and she focused on his hip.

He followed her gaze to his right front pocket, and the outline of the test there. Maybe it would get her moving again. Ducking his hand in, he withdrew the plastic wand and held it out to her. “I want you to tell me the truth. We made a life, I deserve to know whether or not it gets to come into this world.”

Penny felt her throat close as he produced the test, and offered it to her. But it was his words that brought tears. “You want it? You’re not trying to tell me you...?”

“I want it. God, of course I want it.”

The rasp in his voice echoed the truth she saw in his deep brown eyes. There was even a reverence in the way he held the test out to her she hadn’t noticed before. It didn’t simply lie on his palm, his fingers curled loosely around it, he cradled it—this nothing piece of plastic.

Whatever else happened, she could count on that. He already loved this child, or at least the idea of it.

She laid her hand over the test and curled her fingers over his hand, then kept right on going until she’d folded her arm back and dragged his around her waist. Her other arm up over his shoulders, she pulled back into the hug she’d escaped when his words had curdled her insides.

“I thought I’d bungled it all up. That you were going to shout about it, or just...not, you know, because...we weren’t...”

Words refused to come into any kind of order, but the feel of his other arm around her waist helped. Made it better. Even after all the torturous hours she’d spent this afternoon practicing the words to use for the Get Out of Jail Free speech she’d been planning to offer. And which she should still give him, even if she was in no way ready to jump into that conversation with both feet when just the merest whiff of discord had almost made her lose her lunch on him moments ago.

“You know, this is all your fault,” she half teased instead, but kept her voice light so he’d know she was mostly teasing. “If you hadn’t had that rule about not mentioning anything, I could’ve given you some warning. Like, ‘Hey, things are amiss in Uterus Land.’ That’s part of what I felt so guilty about. I had a little time to work up to taking the test, but you’ve only had, like...eight hours to get used to this.”

“I’m not used to it yet.”

“Me either.”

“But you want it.” He needed to hear it again, and that was okay. That was something easy she could give him.

“I want the baby.” She confirmed that part easily enough, but a little rueful chuckle followed. “I don’t want to be pregnant. At all. I’m trying not to freak out about that part, but I want this child. Really.”

The hug started to go past the point where it was probably getting weird for him so, no matter how good he felt, she still felt compelled to try and be sensible. A quick kiss to his cheek, and she stepped back again, snagging the test as she retreated to the sofa to sit.

“Because of work?” he asked, following the conversation, as well as her, to the sofa.

Because it seems too much like sickness.

“Because it seems very restrictive,” she said instead, and found herself again looking at the test she’d had so much difficulty looking at earlier. “And uncomfortable. I guess. Plus, there’s...you know, figuring things out. I don’t even know how to start that conversation, like—”

“We should get married.”

He said the words so quickly she had to mentally replay his words to even understand what he’d said. Then came a giggle, which promptly turned to real laughter at the absurdity of the idea. He was playing with her! Joking around! Everything was going to be all right.

“Right? Like that! Because, you know, people are going to ask. I don’t know why, but they will. Things at work, I guess that could be weird for you with all the Davenports underfoot. But we should try to be sensible, right? Like—”

“We should get married.”

The second time he said it, her laughter was more a confused burst of air. When she looked at him, it stopped cold.

No matter how serious he tended to be, his expression was usually relaxed. At least as long as people were listening to him, and obeying, that was the other one. He was great at his job because the man had a massive brain and cared about people, but also because he projected an aura of confidence and subtle dominance, so people usually did what he said. Except her when she disagreed with him. And sometimes just because she liked to mess with him. Briefly. Playfully.

Which she definitely didn’t want to do right now. His narrowed eyes and tilted head gave off a light warning, and killed the relaxed, joking conversation she’d thought they’d been having.

“You’re being serious? I thought you were just trying to make like...a tension breaker.”

“How many proposals have you ever heard of that were made as a joke?”

“I don’t know. I never—” Was she supposed to come up with instances where people fake-proposed as a joke? She didn’t have any, but she could identify other jokes that were outlandish and had never happened in real life. “Some days you barely even like me. Are you saying you love me now?”

“I’m not saying that. I don’t love you, but love isn’t a requirement for a successful marriage.”

“Yes, it is. Have you ever seen my parents together?”

He skipped her question, and doubled down on his argument. “It’s not a requirement. Marriage requires mutual goals, mutual respect, values, and when you add to it a not inconsequential sexual compatibility, it’s got all the ingredients. That’s before we even consider the child, who deserves the best start we can give it.”

“Gabe, the only part of that I agree with is the part about the child.” Okay, that was a lie, she agreed with the sex part, but if he was ignoring whatever he wanted to, she could as well. “This baby deserves the very best life we can give it. But the pressure of a home with two people who don’t want to be married to one another is not that. This isn’t 1960. You don’t have to marry me because I’m pregnant.”

“If this were 1960, that’s not the way this would go between you and me, and you know that.”

He’d gone and stiffened up again, and not only did she feel bad for having laughed, she felt bad about her own reaction. Her nerves, usually made of steel, weren’t up to another fight today. She tried again. “We don’t have to marry to be family to this baby. You’re already the father, and I’m already the mother. Rings and empty vows aren’t needed to validate biology.”

He stood and paced around her coffee table, arms folding in such a way as to draw attention to his shoulders, and the way his long, elegant fingers flexed over his forearms.

Not what she should be paying attention to. She was supposed to be convincing him that it wasn’t a good idea rather than just rejecting him, though how this conversation had circled around to marriage, she had no clue.

“I don’t want to be married. You don’t want it either. You don’t want a relationship—you made that very, very clear two months ago. People who don’t want to be married have the worst marriages. That’s a lot to put on kids.” Which brought up his point that she didn’t want to discuss, but which she now felt compelled to because her mouth had gotten ahead of her to plural it to more than one child. “You know that there would be more than one, because you’re right... We have...not inconsequential sexual compatibility. So, you know, this is a bad idea.”

For once in her life she didn’t want to stand up—she was still tired from her nap—but the way he prowled around made her stand. She put the test on the table, then followed around to his side and promptly wrapped her arms around his shoulders again, over the arms still crossed over his chest.

His already stiff posture turned into granite. She was hugging living rock. What had happened to the relaxed, affectionate man who’d arrived not even half an hour ago?

She squeezed tighter, pulling him down just enough that she could rest her chin on his shoulder and her cheek against the side of his neck.

His arms twitched, and then uncrossed. He placed his hands at her waist, but did not hug back.

“This is the worst hug in history. You did much better earlier. Remember those hugs? Before and after we got a little panicky? You’re supposed to use your arms, not just your big ole man hands.”

“Not feeling a lot like hugging.”

“You feel like playing some crazy game of hopscotch where you have to hop in every square to get to the next,” she said, stepping back again but taking his hands. It felt like tread-lightly territory. “But that square marked marriage is a fake-out. You didn’t need to marry me to make me pregnant, that’s already been established. Just like I can carry a child to term and push it out of my body without a wedding ring on my finger. You don’t have to marry me to be a dad. To share custody of our child with me. We are modern, civilized people. We can make our own family, have like...a parental partnership where we can be friends—which, by the way, it would be good for you to deny you barely like me like you didn’t do a minute ago when I gave you the opening to—because we’re adults. You don’t want an unhappy marriage hanging over this kid’s head before she even gets a functioning brain stem.”

“You want me to have shared custody?” He cut to that exact part of her speech, once again ignoring the rest.

“Of course I do. I want my baby to know his or her father, to have a real father in her life. You’ll be a great dad.”

“With paperwork to make it official.”

He really thought she was going to screw him over here. He may have skipped the opportunity to reassure her that he liked her, but he did like her. Genuinely, not just as his work partner. But he didn’t trust her.

She let go and stepped back, her attempts at comfort having served no purpose whatsoever. “With papers to make it official.”

They hadn’t become friends over sharing their life stories, and they hadn’t become friends over this child—it was far too soon for that kind of friendship to manifest. They’d become friends over work, over mutual respect and trust on the job.

They had to figure out how to transform that work partnership to something arguably more important. If he needed paperwork to do that, she could give it to him. And hope trust followed because this suspicion of his made her chest hurt.

* * *

The next morning, Gabriel found himself loitering in the staffroom rather than going up to the chopper ahead of receiving a call. He had no reason to stay downstairs, he just needed some space. He had no power over her, outside the ability to send her home from work when she tried to soldier through sickness. He couldn’t make her marry him, but couldn’t make himself give up on the idea either.

He had a living example of the outcome to a kid disadvantaged in the parent department. Plenty of kids came through it fine, but he didn’t want to take the risk. He wanted his child to have exactly what he’d had growing up: a mother and a father, both offering stability, love, an atmosphere to flourish in. It was in their power to provide that. Whatever she’d been on about with her parents, it couldn’t have been that bad. All their children, except Penny, were doctors. She was successful in her own right, and worked every day to help save lives. She made some other questionable decisions, but nothing malignant.

He should probably go check on her, wade in early, but he just wasn’t up to it yet. And she never hung out in the staffroom. Ever in motion, she was always doing something—checking inventory, restocking, performing routine checks on the equipment, or visiting with people in the department so she didn’t have far to go when a call came. Her oddest and most recent habit had become running up and down the top three flights of stairs, something he’d taken every opportunity not to ask her about. Especially after that night, when he’d decided distance was the only way to get them back to professional-only interactions. Knowing more than she had already just randomly shared would make that harder. But now it was one of a million of questions he should ask.

Not asking had never helped anyway. He still had a bevy of inappropriate thoughts. That was before yesterday had forced their night back to the front and center of his thoughts.

His radio crackled and Dispatch blazed through, announcing their first call of the shift. Time to face the music.

When he reached the chopper, she already had it fired up, ready for him. Only when he climbed in, Penny wasn’t at the pilot’s controls. It was a man.

Lawson.

They’d flown together a couple times, and he was a competent pilot and paramedic, but he wasn’t Penny.

“Where’s Penny?”

“Don’t know. They just called and asked me to come in and pick up her shift. I guess she’s sick.”

That sharp pinch at the back of his neck returned.

Sick and called off without a showdown? Was that some kind of carry-over from yesterday’s battle, or was she really sick?

Grilling Lawson wouldn’t get him answers, and they had a job to do: someone waited for their help. He buckled in and put on his headset. “Go.”

Making the decision to focus didn’t mean it was so easy to do so.

Penny was stubborn, perhaps the most stubborn person he’d ever met, so it was entirely possible she’d called off to make some kind of point. Last night had started out better than it had ended, but he’d thought the situation at least set to neutral when he’d gone home.

If she called off but didn’t call him, did that mean anything? Could she have just called off to go to the doctor?

If she had called off on her own because she was ill, she must be very badly off.

“What’s wrong, boss?” Lawson’s voice cut through his thoughts.

He turned to look at the pilot. “Nothing. Why?”

“You just sighed massively. I didn’t just come off shift or anything, I’m not going to be operating at some lower level today than any other shift. Chill.”

Chill.

“I know. We’re good,” he said simply, no desire to engage in further conversation about it. It would be even more futile than the thoughts ricocheting around his cranium.

Whatever was wrong, she should’ve damned well called to tell him. So much for all her talk last night of wanting him involved.

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