mind as she waited for the doctor to come into the examination room. The open-back gown barely came to her knees, and the sheet Mary Beth gave her to cover with wasn’t doing a very good job. She inhaled deeply when she heard someone approaching out in the hallway. Her breath rushed out with a loud whoosh when Mary Beth pushed a cart with a computer on the top of it into the room.
“What’s that?” Alana asked.
“Internal ultrasound machine,” Mary Beth told her. “Doc should be here in a few minutes. Just relax.” She hurried out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Alana let out a long sigh. Cold chills that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning vent being right above her chased down her spine. Goose bumps popped up on her arms, and her breath came out in short gasps.
She couldn’t give her father the truth. To keep from crying—again—she focused on a height and weight chart hanging on the wall. She was six feet tall, so according to the chart she should weigh 148 pounds. She’d tipped the doctor’s scales at 145 that morning, so she was pretty close to normal.
That wouldn’t last long, though, not if she was pregnant. Her stomach would swell faster than her skin could grow, and she would waddle like a duck, and Pax would think she was ugly. Poor man had sure gotten himself into a mess when he agreed to a fake marriage.
Voices outside her door took her attention away from the chart and the pictures she visualized in her mind showed how horrible she would look in a few months. Two people were arguing right outside the door. She leaned forward and listened so hard that her ears ached. One had to be Mary Beth, and she was not happy.
“I’m goin’ in.” Pax’s voice came through loud and clear.
Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat when Pax pushed his way into the exam room with Mary Beth right behind him.
“What are you doin’ here?” Alana asked.
He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m your fiancé, and I’ve got every right to be here.”
She tugged the sheet up over her chest, only to leave her thighs and legs exposed. “How did you even know I was here?”
“I followed you,” he said. “Are you pregnant? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird all weekend?”
The two of them were totally focused on each other, so Mary Beth took advantage of the situation and eased out of the room.
“I don’t know.” Alana pushed the sheet back down and twisted the corner into a knot. “The pregnancy tests I took were positive, but there’s no way I can be pregnant. I wasn’t ovulating. From what I read on the Internet, cancer will present a false positive, so I’m waiting for Doc to tell me what the blood work said.”
“And you didn’t tell me…why?” Pax crossed the small room in a couple of long strides and took Alana’s hand in his. “If we were really engaged, my place would be right here with you. Hell, if we weren’t doing more than dating and you thought you were pregnant, you still should have told me.”
“I wanted to be sure.” Wearing nothing but a backless gown and a sheet, Alana was sitting on the end of an exam table, and his touch still caused sparks to bounce off the light green walls.
“It doesn’t matter what the doctor says, Alana.” Pax brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I’m here for you. I’ll be right here with you. I’m not going anywhere, darlin’.”
Doctor Wilson pushed into the room with a chart in his hands. He laid it on the countertop and flipped it open to the first page. “Your blood work shows absolutely no abnormalities that would indicate cancer, and every sign that you are pregnant. Congratulations to both of you.”
“Are you sure?” Alana whispered. “Do you need to do more tests?”
“No, you are definitely pregnant,” he said again. “Now lie back, put your heels in the stirrups, and we’ll do an ultrasound. I’ll push this screen closer to you so that you and Pax both can see your baby.”
She stared up at Pax, and be damned if his eyes weren’t twinkling.
“This will be a little cold. Sorry about that,” Doc Wilson said. “And I don’t usually do an internal ultrasound this early, but…” He pointed toward the screen. “That little bean right there is your baby. That’s Matt