“We’re a snarly lot.” He shifted upward, propping himself
against the cushions at the far end of the sofa. His hair was mussed again,
Stacy noticed, and had to stop herself from smoothing it into place.
Instead, she rattled off the standard warnings about injuries.
“Avoid anything that might increase the swelling. No hot showers, hot tubs or
alcoholic beverages, as if I needed to remind you. And keep the knee elevated as
much as possible.”
“Maybe I’ll sleep out here,” he said.
“Good idea.” She adjusted the cushion beneath his knee and
lifted a comforter from the back of the sofa. “Did your mother crochet
this?”
“My mother wielded a scalpel like an artist, but I doubt she
had any idea what to do with a crochet hook,” Cole said. “It was a gift from one
of her nurses. Nurses often took pity on me as a child.”
“They still do,” Stacy pointed out as she draped the comforter
over him.
“A familiar behavioral pattern—but different in this case.”
Without pausing to explain what he meant, he continued, “Would you care to watch
a movie with me? I have a DVD in the player.”
“I should be going.” She was curious, though. “What movie is
it?”
“Notting Hill.”
She loved the romantic comedy with Hugh Grant and Julia
Roberts. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine, too.”
“You’re kidding.” She wouldn’t have pictured him enjoying
anything so sentimental.
“The best romantic comedies provide real insight into
male-female relationships,” Cole said. “I also like action movies with crumbling
temples and toppling statues of gods.” He picked up the remote.
Her cue to leave...or stay. “We never ate our ice cream,” Stacy
said.
“And it’s your birthday.”
“Hang on.”
Ice cream and Hugh Grant went together nicely. After they
finished eating, unable to tear herself away, Stacy curled up beside Cole under
the comforter. The movie was longer than she’d remembered, and she was getting
sleepy.
Oh, well, where was the harm? she mused as she drifted off. She
might be lying with her back pressed to Cole’s chest, her bottom nestled against
his groin and his arms around her, but nothing had happened.
Not yet, anyway.
Chapter Four
Cole awoke in the middle of an urgently thrilling
dream. He was making love to Stacy, his body suffused with a delicious tension
as he struggled to prolong the rapture of their contact.
As he blinked into awareness, he felt disoriented. A spring
from the couch dug into his hip, while across the room a low crackling noise
issued from the staticky TV. Most puzzlingly, his nose was buried in a tumble of
lily-scented hair and his hardened member was pressed close against...
What was he doing?
In his sleep...in their sleep...Cole had almost had intercourse
with his nurse. Now what? He doubted very much that this situation was addressed
in any book of etiquette or medical code of conduct.
The longing was almost unbearable. Carefully, he tried to shift
away from her without knocking her off the couch. “Stacy?” he said hoarsely.
“Oh, Lord, don’t stop,” she groaned, and ground her bottom
against him.
That was all it took. In seconds, he’d done away with the thin
fabric barriers between them and buried himself inside her. Her little cries of
passion inspired wrenching moans from him, the likes of which he’d never uttered
before. His need for her was primal and all-encompassing. Fire flashed through
him, erasing everything but their astonishing fusion.
The flames faded, leaving him drenched in sweat. Holding Stacy,
Cole gradually returned to a body he scarcely recognized. And to an ordinary
room that had, briefly, become paradise.
He yearned for more—and knew he shouldn’t have allowed this to
happen in the first place.
She lay very still. “Stacy?” Cole whispered, almost afraid to
break the silence.
“I can’t believe we just did that.” She tried to turn over, and
nearly fell. Cole caught her and they balanced there, until she twisted around
and swung her feet down for support. “This is...”
“Awkward?” He hoped he hadn’t hurt her. “Are you all
right?”
She coughed. “I’d better clean up.”
Cool air replaced her heat. Cole pushed up to a sitting
position until a sharp pain in his knee reminded him of his injury.
His head swam. Yes, there’d been a little alcohol involved. He
couldn’t blame that for his lapse in judgment, though.
In thirty-six years, Cole had committed his share of human
errors. But never until now had he erred on so many levels. Yet he wasn’t sure
he regretted a mistake that had led to such a profound sense of connection.
Stacy returned with her hair tucked behind her ears, her skirt
and blouse on straight and her skin glowing. She wasn’t smiling, though. Or
looking at him.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cole said. “I hope this won’t make
you uncomfortable around me.”
Sitting on a lumpy chair, Stacy clasped her hands in her lap.
“I thought my period was starting, but I guess not.”
“You can take a morning-after pill,” he said.
She flinched. “I wouldn’t feel right about that.”
“Why not?” To him, it seemed an appropriate medical course of
action.
“After all the effort it took for Una to get pregnant, I can’t
do that,” she said, talking to a point on the wall. “I’d never even know
whether...” She stopped.
Cole had obviously missed something. “Who’s Una?”
Stacy blinked. “My recipient in the egg donor program. The
program’s first successful pregnancy.”
“Then she
is
pregnant?”
“She texted me after surgery today,” Stacy said. “It hasn’t
been announced.”
He ventured to ask her something he’d been wondering since he
learned of her involvement in the program. “Why did you decide to become a
donor?”
She didn’t seem to mind the question. “In December, one of my
closest friends died in a car crash. Vicki struggled with alcohol addiction, and
she lost the battle. It made me think about how I’d been in survival mode since
my divorce, and that wasn’t good enough. I wanted to do something lasting,
something meaningful.”
He would have reached for her hands had she been sitting
closer. “And Una’s the lucky mom.”
“We went through a lot together. Now if I’m...well, I can’t
bring myself to take a morning-after pill.”
That made sense. Still, Cole wasn’t sure how to process the
possibility of having a child. “Tell me what you need from me.” They were in
this together, although he wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. His own mother
had deliberately conceived him with a visiting art curator from France, who had
played little part in Cole’s life.
Stacy waved him off. “We only did it once, late in my cycle.
How soon can I tell if I’m pregnant?”
“As a rule, a week to two weeks after conception.” Cole often
presented that answer to patients and their wives. “However...”
“However what?” Stacy appeared to hang on his words.
“Pregnancy tests measure the level of human chorionic
gonadotropin, or hCG, in your body fluids. You know that, right?”
Her head bobbed.
“The hormone can only be detected after implantation, which
occurs six to twelve days following fertilization.” Noting the tension on
Stacy’s face, Cole hurried to the point. “However, since I’m sure you received
an injection of hCG in preparation for harvesting eggs, that could produce a
false positive. Let me find out more. I’m sure Dr. Tartikoff could answer—”
“No!” Her voice rose in horror.
An image of Owen’s sharp features reacting to such a question
troubled Cole, as well. “You’re right. Not him. Maybe one of the other—”
“No.” Stacy was on her feet now. “It’ll be obvious soon enough.
I mean, in a few weeks, right?”
“Certainly.” Despite a throb in his knee, Cole rose also.
“Until then, let’s keep this private.” She rushed on. “If Rod
gets the slightest inkling of what just happened he’ll make our lives
miserable.”
Customarily, Cole paid little attention to the teasing—or more
accurately, needling—that went on in the operating room. But Stacy’s anxiety
touched him. “If he bothers you, let me know. I’ll make
his
life miserable.”
She blinked. “I never saw this side of you before. It’s
almost...macho.”
He felt ready to go into battle for her. “There’s more where
that came from.”
Stacy started to laugh. “How sweet.”
“Wrong adjective,” Cole corrected. “Try
powerful. Manly.
Something along those lines.”
“Okay.” She grinned. “Don’t punch him out. You might hurt your
hands.”
“I’ll strangle him with his own tubing instead.”
Stacy walked into Cole’s arms and he held her close. An urge to
protect her filled him, along with a resolve to keep their secret as long as she
wished. Sharing it brought them closer.
“I’d better go.” She backed away. “I don’t want my roommate to
start asking questions.”
Trying not to limp, Cole escorted Stacy to the door. He’d
rather she didn’t drive home alone at night; it was nearly midnight, according
to his watch. But in his present condition, he couldn’t even walk her down the
stairs. Thank goodness this was a safe town.
“I’ll see you at work Monday.” Stacy touched his cheek. “Have a
good weekend, Doc.”
He leaned forward and kissed her. The contact sent a surge of
electricity through him, and then she drew back.
Cole wanted more. But he had to let her go. “Happy birthday.
For the few minutes that are left.”
“Thanks.”
He watched as she descended the steps, and waited until her car
pulled out of the driveway. Then he straightened the living room. He hesitated
before shaking out the folds in the comforter, though. He didn’t want to dispel
the traces of Stacy’s warmth.
What would they do if she was pregnant?
He supposed he’d find out soon enough.
* * *
I
F
S
TACY
COULD
HAVE
SKIPPED
the party for Una’s
pregnancy, she’d have gladly done so. She’d hoped the event would pass without
any organized event, since both Dr. Tartikoff and the hospital administrator,
Dr. Mark Rayburn, planned to keep the news from the press until the end of the
first trimester. While everyone hoped for the best, the glare of publicity could
only magnify the pain if Una suffered a miscarriage.
However, the small circle of staff aware of the achievement
wanted a party, and Una herself seemed barely able to keep from spreading her
happiness to the world. Stacy, having made no secret of her involvement, could
hardly object.
And so, on the Friday two weeks after her escapade with Dr.
Rattigan, Stacy finished her shift in the late afternoon, changed into a flowery
spring dress and descended to the multipurpose room. Despite the pretense that
this was merely a routine staff gathering, someone—she suspected the public
relations director, Jennifer Martin—had draped the boxy room with bright pink
and blue streamers, put on a recording of
Mozart for
Babies
and stocked a buffet table with veggies, fruit, whole-wheat
crackers and an array of cheeses.
Stacy slipped in, her attention focused on the food. Her
stomach had been bothering her all day, and much as she’d longed to eat snacks,
she couldn’t do that during surgery.
She spotted Cole talking to the egg bank director, Jan Garcia
Sargent, and her husband of five months, Dr. Zack Sargent, who had performed
Stacy and Una’s egg extraction and implantation. Half-turned away from her, Cole
hadn’t seen her yet, and Stacy felt an irrational impulse to flee.
They’d continued to work together three or four times a week.
The hardest part was assisting him with gowning and gloving before surgery.
Pulling the sterile gown over his strong body aroused bittersweet memories.
Easing the gloves over his large, square-tipped fingers reminded her of how
incredible it felt when he touched her.
Each time, she’d covered up her reaction by maintaining a
stream of idle chatter, double-checking special requests for supplies or
equipment and asking questions she didn’t really need answers to. She’d shut up
only when she saw his attention drift away, no doubt to review the steps of the
upcoming procedure.
After the operation, she always kept busy until she was sure
he’d left the surgical suite. Then she hurried off to her next assignment or to
the nurses’ locker room via the most remote elevator. A few times when Cole had
marched purposefully toward her, she’d either ducked down a hallway or started a
conversation with someone nearby.
Cowardly, yes. But how could she tell him what she didn’t know?
As he’d pointed out, her hormone shots would render a pregnancy test inaccurate
until enough time passed. Stacy hoped they also explained her churning stomach,
light-headed moments and bloated sensation. Plus the fact that her period hadn’t
started yet.
She doubted it.
“There you are!” Una’s cry seemed to echo off the walls as the
mom-to-be fluttered toward her.
As usual, Una’s multicolored outfit—a striped blouse and
loosely woven pants—added to her larger-than-life impression. There was no
avoiding the warm hug, or the way she stood there rocking back and forth with
her arms around Stacy. Despite or perhaps because of growing up in foster homes,
Una possessed a tremendous capacity for love.
Some of Stacy’s edginess dissipated.
“I owe you so much,” Una was saying. “You’ve made my dreams
come true.”
Stacy took a step back. “You look radiant.”
“And big for my dates,” Una responded cheerily. “I can’t wait
to find out how many I’m carrying!”
Her husband, a slender fellow with a receding hairline, swung
toward them with their two-year-old daughter, Lynette, riding piggyback on his
shoulders. She clapped her hands merrily. “Go, horsey!”
“Hi, sweetie.” Stacy patted the little girl’s hand.
“She’s thrilled to be having a baby brother or sister.” Jim
jiggled in place to keep the tot entertained. “We didn’t mean to tell her yet,
but she overheard us talking. I’m not sure she fully understands.”
That reminded Stacy of a matter she might soon be facing
herself: how to explain an unplanned pregnancy to Mia and Reggie, to whom she
ought to serve as a role model. All she’d wanted was to help others, to give
something important to another family, and in doing so, to ease her sorrow at
being unable to save Vicki from her demons. Now Stacy might be bringing a child
into a less than ideal situation, with an unprepared mom and dad who were
neither married nor likely to be.
Oh, please let me not be
pregnant.
And yet, as Jan Sargent pulled Una and Jim away to accept
congratulations from others, Stacy felt a surge of empathy. What if she and Una
carried half siblings? Una wouldn’t be the only one with a child in her
arms....
Across the room, Cole caught her gaze and tipped his head
toward a quiet corner. He wanted to talk.
Clearly, he took his role in the situation seriously. But Stacy
had lost her heart once to a man who’d stopped loving her. She’d be very, very
careful before she ran such a risk again.
Two weeks ago, with the thrill of their encounter still fresh,
she’d tried to imagine Cole as a devoted husband like her father was. But
despite the affection between them, their relationship lacked a romantic spark.
No flowers, no tender text messages, no meaningful sidelong glances. The Monday
after their tryst, he’d seemed relieved when she focused strictly on how his
knee was recovering, and on the surgery before them.
She should go talk to him. But first, her stomach demanded a
commando raid on the buffet. Stacy pointed toward the food, and Cole conceded
with a nod.
Her thoughts in a jumble as she crossed the room, she stopped
abruptly to prevent a collision with the director of nursing, Betsy Raditch, who
had the unfortunate distinction of being Stacy’s ex-mother-in-law. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Betsy adjusted the half-glasses perched
on her nose. It was hard to picture the unimposing woman as the mother of a
brawny former college football star. “I was hoping to speak with you.”