“What does your sister do?” Georgie asked as the foursome plus Faby made their way up the path through a manicured front yard toward a charming ranch-style home.
“She’s a doctor.”
“No, I’m serious, Brice,” Georgie replied with a chuckle.
“Yeah, so am I. Both my sister and my brother-in-law are doctors.”
“Oh, okay,” Georgie answered with a sheepish expression.
His wife immediately caught his eye and gave him wife eyes for can-you-believe-that. He shrugged and gave her husband eyes for that’s-crazy-I-never-imagined-any-sister-of-Brice-Casey-would-be-allowed-to-prescribe-medicine-for-actual-human-beings.
It was a lot to convey with eyeballs, but when she gave a slight nod, he knew she’d gotten the gist.
Brice opened the front door. “Hey, Beavers! We’re here!” he called.
Beavers?
Well, their family did own a pest control business. He was about to eyeball say this to Georgie when his wife gasped. He followed her gaze and couldn’t believe his eyes.
12
Georgie
“Dr. Beaver?” Georgie exclaimed, wide-eyed.
“Thanks for agreeing to watch Oliver,” the man replied, advancing toward them from the back of the house.
“You’re married to Brice’s sister?” she asked.
“I am.”
She stared at her obstetrician. He wasn’t in his doctor’s coat or wearing a lamp on his head, investigating her lady parts. But here, in Brice Casey’s sister’s house, stood Dr. Beaver. A man who had told her point-blank that he had a husband and two children.
“Are you leading a double life?” she pressed.
“Georgie,” Jordan said under his breath, gesturing to a table dotted with framed photos, but she waved him off.
Dr. Beaver frowned. “I’m not sure that I’m following you.”
She shifted Faby to the crook of her arm and pressed her hand to her chest. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“Georgie,” Jordan tried again, but she shook her head.
She could barely believe that they’d walked in on the type of situation usually reserved for works of fiction.
A man leading a double life.
Two families who never knew the other existed.
She thought of Dr. Beaver’s husband—a man she’d never met but was sure he didn’t deserve this. And what about the kids! Those poor kids. She didn’t know a damn thing about them either, but they sure didn’t deserve a two-timing, sneaky gynecologist for a father.
Despite her trifecta holding up signs with the words stop talking written in bold fictional letters, Georgie couldn’t stop herself.
She narrowed her gaze and lowered her voice. “How do you do it? Do you go back and forth like a thief in the night? Does your wife know? Does your husband know?”
Becca cocked her head to the side. “Georgie, what are you talking about? Are you feeling all right? Is this some weird pregnancy delusion? Because you sound a little cuckoo.”
Georgie glanced around the group, then held her doctor’s gaze. “I’m Georgiana Jensen-Marks, and this is my husband, Jordan Marks. We saw you a few weeks ago for a check-up. You complimented my lady parts. You said I had a lovely uterus and a splendid cervix. Don’t you remember? Or do you have so many secrets to keep that you can’t even remember what you tell your patients—even the ones with great cervixes?”
She frowned at the sound of the word. “Or is it cervi like the plural of cactus is cacti?” She shook her head. “I don’t know the plural of cervix, but you better believe that I’m going to find out.”
She could feel her pregnancy hormones mixing with adrenaline. She was two-parts Wonder Woman and one-part mini pineapple gestater. A pregnant PI! What a discovery! What a baffling coincidence!
She turned to her husband. “How does he not recognize us?”
Jordan bit back a grin. “Because he’s not your doctor.”
What the hell was going on here? Was this some weird twilight zone pregnancy hallucination?
Just then, a woman holding a baby came toward them, sporting a wide grin. “Honey, you have got to tell your brother about this.”
Georgie inspected Dr. Beaver again, taking in his chiseled cheekbones and his camera-ready pearly white smile.
This had to be her doctor.
“You’re his wife?” she asked, and instantly, her heart went out to the new mother.
How would she break the news of her husband’s betrayal? It was better to tell her, right? Better to rip the bandage off quickly and get it out there. She parted her lips to speak, but Brice’s sister spoke first.
“I’m Briana Casey-Beaver, and this is my husband, Thad.”
Heat rose to Georgie’s cheeks. “Thad. Like T-H-A-D?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure it’s not Chad. C-H-A-D?” she questioned.
“My name is Thad, and the plural or cervix is cervixes,” the man—this so-called Thad—answered.
“A-ha!” she cried, pointing at the guy. “See, you are an ob-gyn!”
Thad’s brows drew together. “Because I know the plural form of cervix?”
Brice raised his hand. “I know that one, too. C-E-R-V-I-X-E-S. Cervixes!” he replied as if he were in a spelling bee.
Georgie’s gaze danced between the adults and the baby, all staring at her like she was a lunatic—which, she just might be.
Was she having a moment? Was she losing her mind? And to make matters worse, she was totally craving a giant glass of pineapple juice. The mixed signals coming from her pregnancy brain were enough to make her head explode.
“You must be a patient of my husband’s twin brother. He and his husband moved to Denver with their kids recently,” Briana said, gesturing to a photo on the foyer table with two remarkably similar-looking men dressed in tennis whites.
Twin brothers.
And then it hit her. While clutching a baby doll inside a stranger’s home, she’d accused a man of leading a double life in front of his wife and child. She took a woozy step back.
“Are you all right? Would you like to sit down?” the doctor, who’d never examined her cervix, asked gently.
She steadied herself, then stilled, paralyzed by mortification, and closed her eyes.
Jordan rubbed her back. “Maybe you should sit.”
She shook her head. “Give me a second. I’m hoping the ground will swallow me up, but that doesn’t seem to be happening,” she replied with a wince of a smile before opening her eyes to find that, yes, she’d gone full-on prego-cray-cray in a private residence owned by people she’d never met before.
Her trifecta threw up their hands and shook their fictional heads. She couldn’t fault them. They’d tried to stop her.
Georgie turned to the doctors. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
Briana shared a look with her husband, then chuckled. “You have nothing to worry about. I think an overactive imagination is a symptom of pregnancy. When I was pregnant with Ollie, I had the most vivid dreams.”
“And don’t forget the grocery store incident,” Thad said, tossing his wife a wink.