Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby. Carol Marinelli
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Ethan said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Where do you want to go and eat?’
Penny didn’t care, so they ended up in the same pub near the hospital where he had been with Gordon, and they took a booth and sat opposite each other. He saw the dark smudges under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. The treatment must really be taking its toll by now.
‘Jasmine’s coming back the day after tomorrow,’ Penny said. ‘Well, as long as Jed’s mother keeps improving, so tomorrow should be the last time you have to do it.’
‘It’s not an issue.’
‘I am very grateful to you, though. Jasmine was worried that I’d just stop the treatment and I think she was right.’
‘Have you told her I’m giving them?’
‘Yes.’ Penny nodded. ‘She sends you her sympathies.’
He’d prefer self-restraint.
‘When’s your next blood test?’
‘Seven a.m. tomorrow.’
‘Do you want to change the next one?’ Ethan asked. ‘Go in a little bit later?’
Penny shook her head. ‘Thanks, but it has to be done early.’
She ordered nachos smothered in sour cream and guacamole and cheese, and it surprised him because he’d thought she’d order a salad or something.
And usually she would but this was like PMS times a thousand so she just scooped up the cheesiest bit she could find and sank her teeth into it with such pleasure that Ethan wished he hadn’t ordered the steak.
‘Have some.’ She saw his eyes linger on them.
‘Who’d have thought?’ Ethan said.
‘I’m good at sharing.’
‘I meant the two of us being out together. What a difference a week can make.’
Penny smiled and he rather wished she hadn’t.
‘How come you’re so petrified of needles?’
‘I’m not as bad as I used to be,’ Penny said. ‘I did hypnosis, counselling and everything, just to get to where I could let someone give me one.’
‘So you think hypnosis works?’
She saw his sceptical frown. ‘I don’t know,’ Penny admitted. ‘I mean, I’m still scared of needles but the hypnotherapist did get me to remember the first time that I freaked out—I was at school and we were all lined up to get an injection and the girl in front of me passed out.’
‘Mass hysteria?’
‘Possibly.’ Penny had thought about it practically. ‘But my father had just left my mother a couple of weeks before, so apparently, according to the counsellor, it was my excuse to scream and cry.’ She gave a very wicked smile. ‘Load of rubbish really.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘All I know is that the fear is there and I’m having to face it over and over and over. Sometimes it’s terrible, sometimes it’s not so bad. I was good at my blood test this morning.’
‘You were good tonight.’
‘Yep,’ Penny said. ‘And had Jasmine’s mother-in-law not had a stroke, you’d never have known and we’d have been able to look each other in the eye.’
‘I’m looking you in the eye now, Penny.’
She looked up and so he was. She saw that his eyes were more amber than hazel and there was a quickening to her pulse. How could she possibly be thinking such thoughts? She couldn’t be attracted to Ethan. She had to stay focussed on her treatment—her plan to become a mother. Except thinking about babies had her thinking about making babies the old-fashioned way!
With Ethan?
It was very warm in the bar; it must have been that causing this sear of heat between them, and Ethan wished he’d asked for his steak rare because it was taking for ever to come.
‘Do you have any phobias?’ she asked when thankfully his order had been delivered and normality was starting to return.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Flying?’
‘Love it.’ Ethan smiled.
‘Heights?’
‘They don’t bother me in the least.’
She did, though, Ethan thought as he ate his steak and tried to tell himself he was out with a colleague, but Penny was starting to bother him a lot, only not in the way she once had. He was just in no position to say. To his absolute surprise where Penny was concerned, since that morning when she’d turned round and smiled, there had been a charge in the air.
One that to Ethan really didn’t make sense, because he liked his women soft, curvy and cute, which was a terrible word and one he’d never admit to out loud, but that was what he liked.
And there was nothing soft about Penny and there wasn’t a curve to be seen, and as for cute …
‘What are you smiling at?’ Penny frowned.
‘Nothing.’ He reminded himself of the reason they were actually out. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘assuming this round of treatment is a success, how many embryos are you having put back?’ He saw her blink at the rather personal question.
‘Two.’
‘I think I’ve just found my phobia.’
Penny grinned. He made no secret of the fact he had no desire to ever be a parent, so she asked him why.
‘I’m not sure really,’ Ethan admitted. ‘It’s the responsibility, I guess. I save it all for work. I’ve just never wanted to settle down, let alone have a baby.’ He gave her a wide-eyed look. ‘And certainly not two at the same time.’
‘Twins would be lovely,’ she said, ‘then I’d never have to go through this again.’
‘You should speak to my mum first,’ Ethan said. ‘I guarantee if you did you’d only put one back.’
‘You said she was a single mum?’
‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘I said that she raised us on her own. My father died when we were six.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked at him. ‘Same age as Justin.’
He gave a small mirthless smile, her hit just a little too direct.
‘How did you deal with it?’
Ethan gave a shrug. ‘You just grow up overnight.’ He never really talked about it with anyone. ‘It’s tough, though. I heard Vera, my aunt, telling Justin to be brave, and it was all the same stuff she told me. Then there was Jack, my uncle, he’s my dad’s brother, giving me lectures over the years about how I was the man of the house and I needed to be more responsible. I hope they don’t say the same to Justin, it scared the life out of me.’
Maybe that was why he held on to his freedom so much, Penny mused, and she couldn’t help asking more.
‘And were you the man of the house?’ Penny asked, and she gave a thin smile when he shrugged.
‘I tried to be,’ Ethan said. ‘And resented every minute of it. Then being a teenager sort of got in the way of being sensible.’
‘Did you miss having a dad?’
They were both being honest, and after all she had asked, and he wasn’t going to sugar coat his response just because it was what she wanted to hear.
‘Yes,’ Ethan said. ‘But I do accept that things are very different now. Back then there weren’t so many women raising children alone. I used to feel the odd one