Read Online The Heart Doctor and the Baby by Lynne Marshall - Free Book Online Page A

pain, right?”
    â€œNo. No chest pain. Just sore now.”
    â€œThat’s progress. Take off your shirt and let’s have a look.”
    After performing a thorough examination, Jon invited Antonin to get dressed and meet him in his office. He exited the room and strode toward his door. On the way, he noticed René with a bright smile, standing at the mouth of the hall. He slowed his step. She gave him a subtle thumbs-up.
    What? He did a double take to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. He tilted his head as if for reassurance that she had indeed given the high sign. She nodded rapidly, continuing to smile so wide she could star in a commercial for toothpaste.
    He went to his office and picked up the phone, punching in her com line number. After the second ring she picked up.
    â€œAre you saying you’re pregnant?” It took on the first try?
    â€œYes!” Her excitement burst through the receiver.
    A moment lapsed, as a swell of something bathed him. Joy? Pride? Nah, that would be absurd, but, hey, it took on the first try! “I think this calls for celebration,” he said.
    â€œDefinitely.” She sounded breathless.
    â€œI’ve got a bottle of nonalcoholic sparkling cider the girls didn’t drink on New Year’s. How about tonight at eight. My house.”
    â€œSee you there.” She hung up.
    â€œCongratulations,” Mrs. Grosso said, while assisting her husband into his office.
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œYou wife. She pregnant?”
    â€œOh. No. Just a friend of mine.”
    Mrs. Grosso still knew how to look coy. “Your girlfriend?”
    â€œJust a friend.”
    He shuffled the stack of lab reports on his desk and waited for the couple to settle in. It might prove harder than he originally thought to keep a secret about the fact that he had something to do with René’s pregnancy.
    Â 
    René tapped on Jon’s steel door five minutes early. It sounded like a vault opening, and he must have been waiting just on the other side, it opened so quickly.
    â€œHey,” he said, eyes bright. His black tailored shirt, with sleeves rolled to his forearms, hugged his trim, long torso. The jeans fit just right, too. She’d noticed he’d shaved off his beard earlier in the week and missed it, but evening stubble darkened his face. The image set off a burst of excitement on an already-overloaded day. She chalked it up to fatigue mixed with euphoria.
    â€œHey,” she replied as she entered his loft. The perfectly square main room was decorated with clean urban minimalism, and surprisingly unusual artwork balanced out the sparse furniture. Dare she say sensual artwork, with warm and inviting shapes and colors? She scanned the room, and noticed an alcove separated by a Japanese paper screen that was most likely his bedroom. A closed door next to it she pegged as the bathroom. The mantel sans fireplace came complete with a large mirror and—she had to look twice—larger than life-size angel-wing artifacts? Jon?
    â€œMy daughters tease me about that one, too,” he said as a smile slid across his face. “Found them in Venice. Couldn’t resist. The shipping fee was astounding.”
    A laugh tickled up from deep inside. She imagined Jon in Italy making plans to ship his art home, using sign language and pointing to the wings. Then another peculiarthought popped into her mind about him and Cherie dividing up their property during the divorce, and Jon insisting he keep those serene angel wings. What kind of man would want to look at angel wings every day? She smiled at him, a man who’d already proved himself as an angel. It felt good to be here, to share the news she’d been bursting to tell the world all day.
    She followed him toward the spotless new kitchen wedged into the far corner of the completely undivided room. Her eyes bugged out at the conference-size black-enameled dining table, and how he’d taken