Chapter 6
Six
Luc
I look up from the chart expecting routine. Instead, the room tilts.
She’s standing near the window, one hand resting lightly on the counter. Dark blonde hair pulled back. Bare face. Her startling blue eyes are wide, like she’s already braced for something she doesn’t want to hear.
Maryanne.
The name surfaces without permission, though it isn’t the one on the chart.
Maybe this is someone else. It was dark that night. For half a second, I tell myself it’s coincidence. Paradise is small, but there are four GP practices, and this is my first week. It’s just someone who looks like her.
I mean, I’d hoped I might see her again, but not here and not under these circumstances.
Then she shifts her weight.
The movement is what does it. A memory clicks into place with unsettling clarity—firelight, bare feet in sand, the way she looked at me.
Maryanne.
The name her friend offered easily, casually. She said she was a surgical nurse, and…Simran was a teacher.
My pulse kicks up. I keep my expression neutral out of sheer muscle memory, but inside, something rearranges. This isn’t chance. This isn’t my imagination filling in blanks. It’s her.
I glance down at the chart again. Addison Dempsey.
I lift my eyes back to her face, searching now instead of observing. There’s recognition there, too—faint but unmistakable. And complete surprise.
That tells me everything.
I’ve had one-night stands before. More than I should have if I’m being honest. But faces always blur, names fade. That’s the point. Clean lines. No overlap.
This isn’t that.
This memory never wavered. It’s been there all summer, surfacing at inconvenient moments—late nights, early mornings, quiet stretches when my mind had nothing better to do than replay a body pressed against mine and a voice saying yes without hesitation.
I straighten slightly, focusing on the role I know how to inhabit. Doctor first. If I’m not the father, and then nothing changes.
“Addison?” I say, keeping my tone even. Professional. Safe.
Her lips part just enough to suggest she’s about to correct me—or maybe confirm it. Instead, she nods. “Yes.”
“Not Maryanne.”
She blushes and looks away. “No.”
I look down at the chart again, buying myself a second. “You gave me a different name,” I say.
Her gaze sharpens. Instead of answering, she tilts her head and looks at me with unsettling calm. “You gave me your last name.”
That I did. I’m not sure how to respond.
“Where is Dr. Hutchinson?” she asks.
“He’s going to retire at the end of the year, and I’m taking over his practice, so I’m starting to see his patients.”
“You’re a doctor?” She wraps her arms around herself.
“I am. Are you a nurse?”
She looks away again. “No. And my best friend, Emma, isn’t a teacher. She’s an aerospace engineer.”
My eyes widen. I’ve never questioned anything about those introductions until now. Her eyes don’t leave mine. But she’s not challenging me. She’s observing. Measuring.
The silence stretches. I break eye contact first, returning to the chart again, needing the buffer. My name is printed at the top. Anderson.
I remember giving her my last name that night without question, like she was one of my guy friends or something. I don’t know exactly why I made that choice, but I remember that it mattered to me that she knew who I was, even if we were only meant to exist for a few hours in each other’s orbit.
That’s not usually how I feel about quick encounters like that. And then to meet her again like this?
“You’re pregnant,” I say because avoiding it won’t make this any less real.
She nods again. “Yes.”
A beat passes. My mind latches on to the first solid ground it can find. It can’t be mine. The thought arrives fully formed. We used protection. I remember that clearly. Relief seeps in.
I watch her closely now, noticing what I missed at first—the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers curl inward like she’s holding herself together by force of will.
“I thought you were a tourist,” she says quietly. “I didn’t expect to ever see you again. You weren’t around this summer.”
The words don’t accuse. They explain.
“I was finishing my residency in Vancouver,” I tell her, though that isn’t what she’s asking. Not really.
She nods anyway, as if it fits into a story she’s already told herself.
“I didn’t think names mattered,” she continues. “I thought it was a moment.”
It was. That’s what I believed as well, until she wouldn’t leave my mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me the condom broke?” she asks, a flicker of something nervous beneath her composure.
“It didn’t,” I say immediately. “I would’ve known.”
She studies my face, searching for something. When she doesn’t find doubt there, she nods.
The relief in me deepens, layered now with certainty. This isn’t my baby. Can’t be. Okay.
Then she speaks again.
“I hadn’t been with anyone before you. And I haven’t been with anyone since.”
The room goes very still.
The space feels smaller now, narrowed in a way I didn’t invite and don’t know how to manage. “Were you going to tell me?” I ask.
Her brow furrows. “We didn’t exchange any information, and I didn’t know you gave me your last name. How would I have found you?” She thinks a moment. “If I’d known, I grew up with an Anderson. Though I doubt you’re related to them.”
I nod slowly. “If you’re referring to Elise Anderson, she’s my cousin.”
Her eyes widen, and she looks up at the ceiling.
“And now?” I ask.
“Now, I’m here,” she says. “And you’re here.”
There’s something deliberate in the way she says it, like she’s drawing a boundary and stepping inside it at the same time.
I flip through pages in the chart that don’t need flipping. “You understand why that complicates things,” I tell her.
She lets out a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it didn’t carry so much weight. “I didn’t come looking for complications.”
Neither did I. “And now?” I ask again.
“I’m here for my four-month checkup.”
I nod and jot a note I don’t need, my pen moving while my mind keeps circling the same thought. “You asked why I gave you my last name,” I say. “I usually don’t.”
Her brow lifts slightly. “Then why did you?”
“I think because I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” I explain. “You said you were a local, but there was something about you that said free spirit.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t expect to see you again either. I definitely didn’t expect you to be my doctor.”
“I’ll transfer your care,” I assure her.
Her eyes narrow. “Why? Is there a problem? Do I need a specialist?”
“I want to do what’s appropriate.”
“For now,” she says, “let’s not change anything. In this town, gossip spreads fast, and I’ve worked hard to keep the circle of people who know about my pregnancy very small.”
I force myself back into the chart. Four months.
The timing lands squarely in the safe zone my mind has already claimed. We used protection. It can’t be mine.
“I didn’t plan to ask anything from you,” she says.
“That’s not how this works,” I say sharply. I have no idea what I want.
“That’s how I need it to work.”
“If there’s any chance the baby is mine,” I tell her, “I need to know.”
She sighs. “I know.”
“Then we don’t decide anything today.”
“I’m just here for my four-month checkup.” She can’t look at me now. “Running into you wasn’t on my to-do list.”
“If the baby is mine, I’ll be involved.”
She nods. “I figured you’d say that.”
Professional concerns push forward. “There are ethical considerations.”
“I don’t want special treatment.”
“You’re not a problem,” I assure her.
We sit in that moment too long.
“Let’s do the exam,” I finally say. It’s the only thing I know to do.
I fall back on procedure, following the routine ingrained in me. Blood pressure. Weight. Notes.
“Lie back,” I tell her. I measure her stomach and look at the results of the ultrasound she got yesterday.
I click a few buttons, and the image appears on the screen. “Did you get a picture of this?”
“I did.”
“Do you want to know the sex?”
“Can you tell?”
I nod.
“I guess if you know, and then I should too.”
“It’s a boy.”
Her breath catches. “I was so sure it was a girl.”
Then she hops off the table, grabs a trash can, and vomits. She wipes the corner of her mouth. I reach for a paper cup and fill it with water from the sink.
“It hasn’t let up,” she says. “But it should soon.”
I look through her chart and note that her weight has gone down a bit. Now that I see her lunch in the trash can, I realize she’s not gaining anything. She may even be losing weight. “You’re not gaining enough weight.”
“I’m trying.”
“You may have hyperemesis gravidarum,” I say. “It’s treatable.”
“I know,” she says. “Dr. Hutchinson suggested I take something.”
“Okay.” I click a few buttons and the printer below the computer spits out a prescription.
“I don’t want it.”
I shake my head. “But it will help you.”
“I don’t want to give her—I mean him—any chemicals. I’m eating an organic diet, not drinking alcohol, and I stay away from smokers. I’m trying to get plenty of sleep.”
I pause for a moment. Overall, she looks great, and I’m pretty sure that’s my medical opinion. She has a nice glow, and she is in her fourth month, so she’s right that the morning sickness should ease.
“The treatment is safe, but I’m not going to fight you,” I tell her. “I’ll see you next month. You can make an appointment online. And, I guess since we know each other, you should call me Luc when you see me in town.”
“Thank you.” She grabs her bag and practically bolts from the room.
I sit here a minute longer to absorb everything. How could this be?
I pull her chart back up.
Dr. Hutchinson’s notes tell me she’s insisted the date of conception was the beach party, and she doesn’t know the father. He’s made a personal note that I read several times. Given the family issues, she most likely knows the father and doesn’t want to share.
What does that mean?
I walk down to Dr. Hutchinson’s office and tell him about the appointment, leaving out the part that I may be the father of Addison’s baby. I ask him what he meant by the comment in his notes.
“Well, I’m guessing it may be a Paradise.”
I must look confused because he laughs.
“Someone in the Paradise family. The Dempsey and Paradise families go back generations, and they’ve fought for years.
Evie Dempsey has recently kicked things up about twelve notches, so my guess is that the father is a Paradise family member, and Addison’s worried it would add a lot of fuel to the fire. ”
Of course, it would. My cousin Elise is married to a Paradise, and she’s the master vintner for the Paradise Hill Family Estate Vineyard. I’ve heard about the hatred between those families, but I didn’t put that together.
The relief I felt earlier sits wrong now.
I think it’s that because I don’t want the exit. If this is my child, I’m not going to remain absent from his life. I will be present, for him and his mother.
The nurse knocks and tells me my next patient is ready. I fix my coat and step into the hallway, moving on instinct while my head is somewhere else.
Then between appointments, I pull up Addison’s chart again. I don’t like the thought of her handling this alone. She was steady in the exam room. But the way she got out of there so quickly bothers me more than if she’d asked me for something right away.