“Collecting plates is another hobby of mine,” Mrs. Daniels explained when she saw Lauren studying them. “I’ve got some that my great-great-grandmother brought over from England when they immigrated to America, and I’ve made it a point to buy one from every special place I’ve ever visited.”
“They’re very beautiful. My mother used to collect salt and pepper shakers, but she didn’t have nearly this many.”
“Would you prefer lemonade, a soft drink or iced tea? I would offer you coffee, but something is wrong with my coffeepot and I had to make instant for my breakfast. They may have improved the flavor over what it used to be, but as far as I’m concerned, instant coffee is only good if I’m half asleep.”
“But don’t you have a maid or a cook to fix your meals?” Lauren tried to bite back the question, but it slipped out before she could stop it.
“Oh, no. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a cook, but Douglas, my husband, and I don’t entertain that much and I’ve always been a pretty good cook. You see, Douglas is in the oil business and we haven’t always been this well off. When we were young we had a lot of lean years before we could afford this life, and I guess I’m still not used to all the frills and pampering. I do have a lady who comes in once a week to do the heavy cleaning, but I can handle the rest myself.”
“I’ll take iced tea, please,” Lauren replied absently, her mind still on the last part of Mrs. Daniels’s speech. The woman talked so fast and crowded so much into a sentence that it seemed to take Lauren longer to think about it than it did Mrs. Daniels to say it. There was so much more Lauren wanted to know about Jordan and his childhood, and she was really beginning to like Mrs. Daniels. She knew she had already been far too nosy, but a few more questions couldn’t hurt. “Oh, then you haven’t lived here long? Did you say your son had grown up in this house?”
“We moved here about thirty years ago. Jordan was only about three or four then, so this is the only home he remembers. He was quite a handful when he discovered how to slide down the banisters. It used to frighten me to death to see him come flying around the curve, but he was always athletic and he would just hop off at the bottom and give me that angelic smile of his. I guess I should have spanked him, but I never could bring myself to. That’s one of the disadvantages of having only one child. I think I was more prone to spoil him than I would have been if there had been two or three more. Whatever you do, dear, don’t have just one child. You and your husband should have at least one more. Only children get so lonely.”
Lauren started to tell her that there was little chance of this child ever having a brother or sister, but decided there was no reason for Mrs. Daniels to know all those personal details. Instead she commented, “Yes, I know what you mean. I was an only child, and I always wished my parents had had more children. But there are advantages, too. I feel that my parents were able to show me more attention and I’ve always heard that only children often grow up to be more independent and successful than children with several siblings.”
“That may be true, but sometimes a person can be too independent and successful. They get to the point where it’s difficult to share their lives with someone else.”
That gave Lauren food for thought. She didn’t know if Mrs. Daniels was referring to her husband, Douglas, or her son, but it was obvious she was speaking about someone specific.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Daniels, but may I use your powder room? You know how it is when you’re pregnant,” Lauren said.
“It’s been awhile, but I do remember how sick and tired I got of that awful turquoise bathroom we had in our old house. It seemed as if I spent more time in there than anywhere else,” Mrs. Daniels laughed. “But the bathrooms in this house are much nicer, I guarantee. There’s one down the hall and to your right. And please call me Janice.”
Lauren smiled and nodded before leaving the kitchen to find the bathroom. As she was returning, she stopped for a minute to study several dozen framed photographs that hung on the walls of the hallway. There was one of Mr. and Mrs. Daniels, or rather Douglas and Janice, on their wedding day, one with Douglas dressed in a military uniform and one of Janice sitting on a beautiful white horse. Lauren moved farther down the row and saw several photographs of a smiling dark-haired baby. Gradually, the baby grew older, losing his baby fat, but getting the strong, masculine features that made him so handsome today. There were pictures of him riding a bicycle, growling at the camera while dressed in a football uniform, taking a pretty girl to a prom, graduating from high school, and then from college.
But Lauren was most interested in those in which he was a little child. He had been absolutely adorable, his black hair cut straight across the front in what used to be called a Dutch-boy cut. Whether he was holding a fishing pole or posing with a baby chicken for an Easter picture, he was like a typical mischievous boy with Band-Aids on his knees or a gap-toothed grin. Her child might look exactly like that when he or she was the same age, she thought to herself.
Or it might look like the blond-haired, blue-eyed donor she had requested, she reminded herself. Only time would tell. With a last speculative glance at Jordan’s baby pictures, Lauren walked down the hallway and into the kitchen.
Janice was sitting at the round oak table, a glass of iced tea in front of her and one in front of an empty chair, obviously waiting for Lauren who promptly sat down and took a deep drink of the refreshingly cool liquid.
It was over an hour later when she finally waved goodbye to Janice and drove off in her pink van. They had spent much of that time talking about flowers, Houston, babies and, a subject that seemed to be growing more interesting by the moment, Jordan.
Lauren felt a little guilty pumping Janice for information about him without explaining how complicated her connection to Jordan was. She was now convinced that Janice knew nothing about the insemination and thought that Jordan had just happened to walk into Lauren’s shop to buy flowers. It seemed a little sneaky encouraging the woman to talk about her son, but Lauren had been able to find out a lot about the man who could be the father of her child. Of course, a mother’s view would naturally be prejudiced, but even allowing for some exaggeration, Jordan appeared to have accomplished a lot of admirable and incredible things during his career. But Janice had been equally proud of the trophy he had won at a tennis tournament when he was fourteen, the award he had won at the science fair when he twelve and the valentine he had made her from construction paper when he was five. He seemed to be a well-adjusted all-American type of guy.
Then why wasn’t he married and why didn’t he already have children of his own? Janice’s explanation was that he had been so busy building his career that he hadn’t had time to establish a relationship. But she felt certain that once he met the right woman, Jordan would
make
time to start a family.
So all this time he had been spending at her shop lately was just a phase. Soon he would lose interest and go back to his first love—his work. Lauren’s feelings about this were mixed. She knew she should be glad that he would probably drop out of her life and leave her and the baby alone, but now that she had gotten to know more about him and his family, she was almost sorry that the baby wouldn’t have the opportunity to get to know its blood relatives—assuming, of course, that the tests proved him to be the father.
It all came back to that, didn’t it? She truly had no way of knowing what to think. The problem of their mix-up in the lab no longer had a black-and-white solution. There were many gray areas that she hadn’t considered, and growing to like Jordan Daniels was one of them.
She could barely wait until she got back to the shop. Rita was practically hysterical, wondering what had taken her so long, so Lauren quickly ran through the high spots of her conversation with Mrs. Daniels. Then, after Rita left for lunch, Lauren sat behind the counter, nibbling on her own meal and hoping Jordan would drop by. When he didn’t, she actually began to get aggravated at him. She didn’t stop to consider the irony of being angry at this man for
not
coming by when only a couple of weeks ago, she had become very upset at the thought that he
might.
It didn’t make sense, but she had begun to look forward to seeing that ever-present crooked grin and those steady gray eyes. Every afternoon this week, he had stopped by with one excuse or another. Besides ordering that plant for his mother, he had ordered an arrangement to be delivered to one of his friends’ wives who was in the hospital and a bouquet of flowers that he took to one of the nurses who had just had a baby. Even Rita had begun to warm up to him, joking with him that if he kept this up, Pretty Petals could stop spending money on advertising and depend on his word-of-mouth recommendations. Rita no longer seemed to feel obligated to make critical remarks about him and, in fact, had once stated that he was living up to her first impression of him—that he was a handsome hunk and it was too bad he and Lauren hadn’t met at a different time in their lives when they were both ready for an emotional relationship.
By late afternoon, Lauren had considered calling Jordan at the medical center, but she just couldn’t bring herself to dial his number. She was about ready to give up on him when he finally walked through the door several minutes after closing time.
“What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for you for hours,” she exclaimed in thinly veiled exasperation.
“My, my, the lady is glad to see me,” Jordan said, his dark eyebrows arched quizzically.
“Don’t be so egotistical,” she snorted in response. “I just wanted to tell you about my visit with your mother.”
“How did she like the plant? And how did you like her?”
“She loved it and I loved her. She’s a terrific lady, not at all as I expected.”
“What did you expect—a sophisticated society matron with blue hair and diamonds on every finger?”
“Well … sort of,” Lauren admitted a little reluctantly. She wasn’t sure she wanted Jordan to know exactly what she had thought when she had found out his family lived in River Oaks. It did sound pretty snobbish and judgmental. “But she wasn’t like that at all. When I got there she was out in the greenhouse, repotting strawberry plants. Then she invited me inside the house, which I found very impressive by the way, and we drank some iced tea and talked for a while. She makes very good tea, too, not instant.”
“Mother hates instant anything. How about having dinner with me tonight and you can tell me all about your visit?” he offered casually. “If you’re real good, I might even tell you a few things about my childhood.”
“Hah, you’re too late for that!” Lauren said with a smug chuckle. “She told me absolutely
everything
about you, including how you used to like to climb up on the roof of the house and drop golf balls down the gutters.”
“Oh no, she didn’t tell you about that. Boy, did I get into trouble. Dad grounded me for a month and hid all the ladders. Now about dinner …”
“No, I won’t go out to dinner with you tonight. It’s your mother’s birthday, your father is out of town and she’s all alone tonight. If you were any kind of a devoted son, you would go to see her right now and take
her
out to dinner.”
“Whoa, slow down. I didn’t know that Dad was out of town.”
“Well, he is, and I feel sorry for her, sitting home watching reruns all by herself.”
“You’re right, that’s not a very good way to spend your birthday. I was going over there for a visit tomorrow, but I guess I should go tonight instead. How about going with me?” he suggested, waiting hopefully for her answer.
“No,” she said. “Not tonight. This should be something special between you and your mother.” Lauren had been looking at his face and noticed the disappointment that clouded his eyes. Hesitantly, almost shyly, she lowered her gaze and added, “But I don’t have any plans for tomorrow night.”
Chapter Seven
Now what on earth had made her say something like that?
All day Saturday Lauren kept asking herself that question and trying to come up with an acceptable answer to it. Jordan, too, seemed to have been surprised by her statement, and after arranging the details, he had left quickly—before she could change her mind, he had said.
Well, she certainly had changed her mind—about two hundred times since then. But each time, before she could call him and cancel, she had changed it back. She kept thinking of the many reasons why she should have dinner with him. For one, she was tired of all the beating around the bush they had been doing. It was time they talked this problem through. She wanted to know exactly what his plans were now that his emotions had cooled and he had had time to think about the situation more rationally. This time, she hoped they would be able to see both sides of the situation and avoid the threats and harsh words that had gotten them off to such a bad beginning. Because she knew how much her own feelings had fluctuated, she guessed his probably had, too. At least, she hoped they had.
This not knowing was driving her crazy. Patience had never been one of her virtues, even though these last few months had taught her that some things simply couldn’t be hurried—especially babies and paternity tests.
It was a slow day at the shop and she and Rita had time to finish dressing the new stock and marking the prices. There would be another small shipment a few days before Mother’s Day, but this one should suffice until then. As the time to close grew nearer, Lauren’s nervousness increased until even Rita noticed it.
“Here, let me print that price label,” she said, reaching over and taking the labels and marking pen out of Lauren’s shaking fingers. “You’re trembling like a leaf! No wonder you were having trouble with those bows.”
Lauren heaved a flustered sigh. “I know I shouldn’t let this get me so upset, but I feel so silly. I haven’t been on a date in over eleven years. I haven’t even had dinner with a man in more than a year and a half. I’m twenty-nine years old. I’m not a kid anymore, and yet I feel like I’m going out for the first time.”
“That’s just natural,” Rita reassured her. “Every woman goes through this when she goes back into the dating game after losing her husband through a divorce or—well, like you lost Johnny. Unless you want to go through life wrapped up in the past, insulated from the rest of the world, then this is a phase you must pass through. It’s like anything else; it’ll get easier as you go along.”
“I just don’t know if I’m ready for this yet. What would Johnny think if he knew?”
“You can’t let yourself die along with him. He wouldn’t expect that of you. Besides, you’re not eloping, you’re just going on a simple little dinner date with a nice man.”
“I can handle the dinner. I’m just not sure I can handle the man,” Lauren groaned. “Maybe it would be easier if we didn’t have this other matter to deal with; but then, if we didn’t, I would never have agreed to go out with him, anyway.”
“If you’re going to let it bother you this much, why don’t you call it off? In your condition, you don’t need this turmoil.”
It was a sensible suggestion and Lauren wished she knew why she didn’t act on it. She felt guilty, flustered and extremely apprehensive. Canceling the date would have been the obvious solution and the simplest way to take care of those feelings, but some mysterious compulsion urged her to spend more time with Jordan. She refused to believe that it was any sort of personal attraction, but rather a bizarre fascination with a man she didn’t quite understand. He was an enigma whose motivation and objective had her completely baffled.
So, as long as she could view this evening’s plans as a scientific investigation, rather than a social engagement, she could feel more comfortable going through with this.
At seven-thirty when the doorbell rang, she was dressed and sitting tensely on the edge of the couch. Jordan’s warm, but shaky, smile did a lot to put her at ease. After exchanging a few inconsequential words of greeting, it was evident that he was almost as nervous about this evening as she was, which was oddly comforting. She got her purse, locked the door and walked with him down the sidewalk, around the shop and to his car, which was parked at the curb.
After she was seated, he closed her door, then walked around to his side. Sliding behind the steering wheel, he reached under the seat, brought out a wrapped package and handed it to her. Lauren looked at it blankly for a few seconds until he said, “Go ahead and open it. I figured bringing you flowers would be out of the question and candy was not quite appropriate after the way I teased you about your cupcake, so I had to use a little imagination.”
“But you didn’t have to bring me anything,” she protested.
“I’m just trying to impress you with my impeccable manners.” His eyes twinkled merrily as he added, “Is it working? Are you impressed yet?”
“I think you’re crazy,” she answered with a chuckle. Carefully stripping the paper off the present, she said with genuine delight as she flipped through the pages of a book on raising orchids, “This is great. I’ve been hoping that someday I can afford to build a special greenhouse and grow my own. How did you guess?”
“I hoped you didn’t already have one like it. My grandmother recommended it. She said it was the best book of its kind. And it looked like something you would be interested in. I never realized there were so many different kinds of orchids until I flipped through that book.”
“I love books of any kind.” Lauren smiled up at him. “Thanks a lot.”
Jordan shrugged and started the engine. He had wanted to give her something a little different because his feelings for her were so different. The very nature of their relationship promised that it could be a long one. Now their choice was whether or not it would be an amicable one.
As they ate their meal he told her about his visit with his mother last night.
“She really liked you,” Jordan told Lauren. “She even told me that it was too bad I couldn’t meet someone sweet like you and settle down and start a family of my own.”
“Oh?” Lauren asked, her heart suddenly lodged in her throat. “And what did you say to that?”
“It sort of surprised me. Mother has never pushed me about this before. Maybe she’s getting to the point where she’s ready for grandchildren.”
Lauren studied her plate, idly pushing the brown rice into a neat little pile. Jordan had brought up one of the subjects that had bothered her the most. Normally, she would have kept quiet, but tonight she had vowed to bring everything out in the open, so she leveled a questioning look at him and jumped in with both feet. “So why haven’t you?”
“I guess it’s the old story of being too busy with my career. I almost got married once, but we called it off a month before the wedding. The woman couldn’t adjust to my schedule and I wasn’t willing to change it, which made us realize that we weren’t truly in love or we’d have been able to find a happy medium somewhere. I guess I’ve never met anyone for whom I was willing to readjust my lifestyle.”
“But why would you want to bother with this child? Nothing in the world can disrupt a life-style quicker than a baby.”
“I’ve thought about that, but as much as I love my job, I’ve begun to realize that it can’t take the place of everything else. When I first found out about the insemination mix-up, I was furious, but as I thought about the possibility of becoming a father, I began to get excited about it. I noticed, for the first time, that I had been living on only one level. All my waking hours were spent at work or thinking about it. I had no life outside the lab and even the friendships I had made there didn’t carry over outside the medical center. Thinking about sharing a part of my life with a child made me realize just how lonely and single-minded I have been.”
Lauren considered his answer for a moment. She still didn’t believe that he, as a thirty-four-year-old bachelor, had any idea what a huge responsibility a child was. It might sound exciting now, but he would never be able to handle the diapers or the two a.m. feedings, even on a part-time basis—unless his mother helped him or he planned on getting married sometime soon. Both of those ideas scared Lauren to death. She didn’t want her child to have a stepmother or a nanny.
“I think your mother is right,” she commented, trying to hide the desperation in her voice. “Now that you’ve decided it’s time to think about settling down, you should find someone you can fall in love with. Then the two of you can start your own family.”
“In other words, you want me to get my own baby and leave you and yours alone,” he said bluntly.
She hated to hear his bitter tone and see the chill creep back into his eyes, but what he said was true. During the last two weeks, she had grown to like him, even to look forward to seeing him. If he were to suddenly leave her life, she would miss him, but it would be easier to adjust to his absence than to sharing her baby. “I’m just saying that I think it’s better for a child to be raised by both of its natural parents. If you were to get married, then you and your wife could have a whole houseful of kids.”
“But what about you? You’ll be raising that child alone.”
“Yes, but this wasn’t a snap decision for me. It wasn’t thrust on me as a fait accompli, as it was with you. I took time to consider all of the positives and negatives before I went through with it. I have a home and a successful business that can be adjusted to my baby’s schedule. I’m willing to change everything for the good of that child. I don’t feel I’m sacrificing anything, because this baby
is
my life. It’s not likely that I’ll have any more.”
“Me either,” Jordan muttered.
“Oh, come on, making babies is a man’s favorite sport. You have lots of time to get one the good old-fashioned way. No one ever has to know about this possible mix-up if we keep it to ourselves. I certainly don’t expect any sort of financial or emotional support from you. Why, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of men in this city alone who have fathered children that they’ve either not known about or chose to ignore. In most cases, I would say that sort of behavior is despicable, but in our case, it would be an equitable solution.”
Jordan sighed and the muscles in his jaws tensed convulsively as he tried to decide whether or not to tell her about his own reasons for wanting this child. He hated to expose his secrets even to her. However, it was important that she know that his need to be acknowledged as the child’s father was not a frivolous whim. Cautiously glancing around to make certain no one could overhear their conversation, he pushed his plate aside and rested his forearms on the table in front of him.
“I don’t believe you know much about the experiments I have been conducting,” he said, choosing each word carefully.
Lauren viewed this as an attempt to change the subject, but when she uttered a protest, he silenced her by saying, “Please let me finish. This is difficult enough for me to talk about with you, so hear me out.”
She didn’t understand the connection, but the tightness around his mouth and the slight frown lines that creased his forehead told her even more than his words that this wasn’t easy for him to discuss. Nodding her agreement, she shifted in her chair, trying to get into a more comfortable position for what promised to be a long story.
“My scientific specialty is fertility. When I was going to medical school, I really didn’t know what part of the medical field I wanted to go in to. Naturally, my first tendency was to become a general physician and maybe set up a practice in a small town somewhere. I think I had visions of becoming a Marcus Welby-type doctor, making house calls, always carrying a little black bag wherever I went, and knowing the first names of all my patients. After graduation, I had every intention of doing just that, but I was offered a residency at a clinic here in Houston that was specializing in fertility. As I began working with couples who were having trouble conceiving, I felt I had stumbled onto my destiny.
“I don’t know if you realize it,” he continued, “but there have been dramatic advances in the technology of human reproduction in the last ten years. And I was able to get in on the ground floor. The first in vitro, or test tube, baby was born about several years ago, which was a huge step toward helping infertile couples to have babies, but I felt that it was more of a consolation prize than a solution to the problem. Gradually, I began to do research on what causes infertility, and later, after I had given up my practice and begun work at the medical center, I began doing experiments.”
He paused long enough to take a drink of water, clear his throat and work up enough courage to go on with his explanation. “Some people are truly infertile and can’t be helped to conceive naturally, but others just need a little scientific assistance. If it is the woman’s problem, she can sometimes take fertility drugs or have an operation to clear her tubes. But a man’s problems are usually centered around a low sperm count, which can be caused by something as simple as wearing shorts that are too tight or as complicated as genetics, or even something as elusive as tension.”