Designs on the Doctor

by Victoria Pade

Although between the call that had initially brought her home and getting her that interview with Helen Taka-Hanson today, she had to concede that he hadn’t shown any signs of being bossy or manipulative. In fact, he’d left everything she’d done and considered doing with her mother up to her, even when she knew he couldn’t have been thrilled her options.

  So maybe the bossy, manipulative things weren’t so much major flaws as they were something else?

  Was it possible that her mother was right and it was just that male thing? That Jake had only been playing Mr. Fix-It whether she needed things fixed or not?

  To be fair, she guessed she had needed him to be forceful to get her out here in the first place. She hadn’t known anything was going on with her mother’s health, and Estelle would certainly never have told her. Had Jake not called and insisted that she come to Chicago, it probably would have taken a call from police or a hospital to convince her that she had to drop what she was doing and come home.

  So he’d seen the need and used what force he’d had to solve the problem.

  She supposed she couldn’t fault him for that. And as for manipulative, he hadn’t manipulated anything on that count—he’d been straightforward about what actions she had to take, albeit loudly.

  But this today with Taka Hotels? That hadn’t been so straightforward.

  Of course, all he’d done was get her the interview. He hadn’t accepted the job or put her in a position where damage could be done if she didn’t take it. And she could have refused to talk to Helen Taka-Hanson. She could have nixed the whole plan before it was ever set into motion. So maybe that wasn’t quite as manipulative as it had seemed before.

  And the rest of what he’d presented to her at lunchtime? Okay, she had to admit that the rest had only been suggestions about what could happen if she did take the job and move back here. And what he’d dumped on her today hadn’t only been setting up appointments for her mother’s medical tests, or visiting assisted-living facilities with her. What he’d dumped on her today had been stepping over the line.

  Oh, she knew what her mother would say to that! Estelle would say that it was all right when he played Mr. Fix-It with things she wanted his help on, but she’d condemned him when he did the same for other, more personal things, so how was he supposed to know when it was all right and when it wasn’t?

  Maybe that was when that fight-the-fights thing Estelle had suggested kicked in. Assuming, of course, that anything would ever kick in again between the two of them.

  But actually, she had fought some of that fight today, Ally reasoned. Because certainly Jake had left knowing that she felt he’d gone too far.

  But would he go that far again if he had the chance? she wondered. Because with Sean, she’d fought the fights but it hadn’t mattered—nothing would ever have changed.

  So, what if fighting the fights with Jake didn’t make any difference either?

  But somehow, now that she’d stopped thinking about Jake as bossy and manipulative, and recognized that what he’d been doing all along was trying to help and problem solve the way he’d claimed today, it didn’t seem like something that would be ever present, the way the family issue with Sean had been. And if she was involved with Jake, when problems arose, she would be fair warned that it was his nature to rush in and find a solution, so if she made sure to encourage him to talk over with her whatever he was thinking about, wouldn’t that help? Wouldn’t even Mr. Fix-It be inclined to want to do whatever it took to solve the problem of jumping in too quickly and too forcefully to solve problems?

  It seemed likely.

  Actually, it seemed as if she could use his Mr. Fix-It tendencies to advantage in this.

  “Hmm…” she said, feeling suddenly relieved that she might have just found a way to use what she’d thought was an obstacle—much like finding a way to use a built-in eyesore in a room she was designing.

  But did this mean that she really was considering what Jake had laid out to her today?

  Closing her business in L.A.

  Moving back to Chicago.

  Living within shouting distance of her mother.

  Dealing daily with Estelle, with Estelle’s aging, with Estelle’s health…

  Ally wilted beneath the weight of merely thinking about what all of that would entail.

  And Jake was volunteering to get in on it?

  Maybe he was out of his mind.

  But as overwhelming as it all was to her, considering the situation with Jake in the picture cast an entirely different light on it.

  If closing her business in L.A. and moving back to Chicago meant being with him, it had its own special appeal.

  If living here meant being in a place where she and Jake could spend every night the way they had last night? That possibility gave her a rush that raised goose bumps on her arms.

  And if she wanted to keep her mother out of assisted living, that was aided tremendously by having a second person to help carry the load, to be here when she couldn’t be. And she’d already experienced how—with Jake’s help, support and tempering influence—she could deal with Estelle and make their relationship better. And more than that, even enjoy Estelle the way she had when the three of them had been together for the backyard barbecue, for Nina’s dinner party, for the evening of the Follies at the senior center. Because with Jake around, she actually saw a new side of her mother, a fun side that she liked. So in essence, he’d already begun to help their relationship improve.

  And there was something else that Ally had to admit that her mother had been right about.

  The most important thing Estelle had said.

  Something that, now that Ally’s anger was disappearing, she was coming to realize herself.

  For her, being happy did mean being with Jake.

  She’d already recognized that being with him had had the power to lighten her mood, to make her feel good, to make her laugh even at the worst of times. And now she knew that the reason for that was that he was for her what her father had been for her mother—just the way he’d said earlier. That they could have what her parents had had together.

  And that was worth everything. Worth every change she would have to make, every adjustment, every alteration.

  It was even worth every fight she might have to fight.

  Her mother was right about one other thing, she thought then.

  That she and Jake could be a family. The family Jake had never had, the family he’d always wanted but held out for. The one that she’d wanted, too.

  At least she thought that was what he’d been talking about. She hadn’t let him get far enough to be sure…

  “I made a mess of this,” she groaned, dropping her head to the back of the sofa and closing her eyes.

  Just then there was a knock on her door.

  Startled, her eyes shot open again, and she yanked her head off the cushion.

  She thought it must be her mother, but since she’d installed the intercom, if Estelle wanted or needed her, she’d merely shout into it. Why would she have come all the way outside and up the stairs now?

  Ally got off the couch and went to the door. But when she opened it and saw Jake on the landing, she wasn’t sure how to react.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Your mother called me a few minutes ago and said there was an emergency. But when I got here there was a note on the front door telling me to come to your place…”

  “No wonder the two of you like each other—you both decide what I should do and then go ahead and do it yourselves,” Ally muttered, not appreciating that she was facing him before she’d figured out how to do it with aplomb.

  “There’s no emergency?” Jake demanded, his heartbreakingly handsome features pulled into a worried frown.

  “No, there’s no emergency.” Ally hesitated, mentally stumbling over what to say. “But…I’m glad you’re here.”

  He didn’t respond to that except to raise a questioning eyebrow at her.

  “Wi
ll you come in?” she asked.

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another. But as he stepped inside, it struck Ally that he was someone who had gone through his whole life being abandoned and disappointed by people. He’d clearly learned to be self-protective, and she thought that was what he was doing now—cloaking himself in that I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude.

  But he had rushed over here the minute her mother called him, Ally reminded herself. So he must give a damn…

  She spotted her mother spying out the kitchen window just before she closed the door behind them.

  When she turned around she found that Jake had put some distance between them—he’d moved to the center of her small apartment.

  He was standing with his hands on his hips, his weight on one leg more than the other, looking like the stern, serious Jake he’d been when they’d first met. He still didn’t say anything, though, obviously unwilling to give an inch.

  But it was her mother who had made the bogus emergency call to get him there, so it seemed only right that she be the one to break the ice.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know Mother had called you,” she began. “I told her what happened with us earlier and she thought I should just get over it and patch things up with you—”

  “So she got me over here under false pretenses?”

  “I guess so. I didn’t know she was doing anything—I left her in the house…I needed some time alone to think,” she added haltingly. “I didn’t even hear her over the intercom. Although I don’t know how she made a phone call without my hearing it, I’ve heard every other one she’s made…”

  “Apparently she’s well enough now to be wily,” he said, but with a hint of sarcasm that let Ally know he didn’t entirely believe that.

  What did he think, that she’d been in on some plot with her mother to get him here?

  But at that moment that was probably the lesser issue, she told herself, letting go of it to get to what was more important.

  “It’s good that you came, though,” she reiterated. “It saved me having to go out and find you.”

  Jake waited, encouraging nothing.

  “I’m not saying that I appreciate what you did with the whole Taka Hotels thing or that I’m okay—or would or will ever be okay—with you making decisions that include me without talking to me about them first,” she said. “But I might have reacted differently if you had handled it differently.”

  She wasn’t going to concede more than that because she didn’t want to send the message that he could ever do that again.

  “Anyway, it’s Mother’s opinion,” she concluded, “that you really were only trying to be helpful and after thinking about it, I decided that might be true.”

  “Which is what I told you myself,” he pointed out. But his tone wasn’t quite as stilted or angry.

  “Jake, regardless of what your intentions were, your method was what caused the problem,” she said. “And I don’t want to be told how everything is going to be without having any say in it.”

  “You’re right,” he said, surprising her when she’d expected him to yell back at her. “I just got so caught up in what I wanted and how I thought I could make it work, that I didn’t stop to think about anything but presenting you with a flawless plan you couldn’t refuse.”

  “So it wasn’t only that you were trying to help and solve my problems.”

  “There was that, too. For your sake and for Estelle’s. But I’m only human, Ally. I saw what I wanted—you—and I did what I thought would get it for me. If I was too gung ho it was because I didn’t want there to be any holes you could slip through. I guess all I succeeded at was making you feel trapped.”

  “Maybe a little,” she agreed. “But you succeeded at more than that.” She went on to tell him about her meeting with Helen Taka-Hanson and the job offer. And the fact that she thought she was going to accept it.

  “It really is a solution,” she admitted. “And I have to say it’s an incredible opportunity. But only one of them.”

  “Okay,” he said, sounding confused.

  “The rest of them are up to you.”

  “Okay,” he repeated.

  “The biggest one is that you have to promise me that you won’t ever leave me out of the decision-making process again. That I have a say in how the problems are solved.”

  “Done.”

  Said like a true problem solver.

  Ally had to fight a smile.

  “The rest involves the things you suggested earlier—building a place of our own here, lending a hand with Mother so I can do the traveling I’ll need to…that stuff.”

  Jake took two steps forward, putting him nearer to her. “The stuff like marrying me?”

  “I never heard that particular solution,” she pointed out, a thrill slowly spreading through her.

  “Maybe because I was planning to ask you that after I’d shown you how it could work out. But you didn’t give me the chance.”

  “I’m giving it to you now,” she said.

  “Gee, thanks,” he answered, smiling.

  But he took another step, coming close enough to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her to him.

  “Ally Rogers,” he said solemnly then. “Will you marry me?”

  “Let me get this straight,” she said instead of giving him a simple yes. “You’re not only willing to marry me, but you’re also okay with living in a house hooked onto my mother’s, and living with your mother-in-law, who would happen to be the cantankerous and difficult Estelle Rogers?”

  “Sounds like heaven to me,” he said with a half grin.

  “Having this family might change your mind about how great it is to be a part of one,” she warned.

  “I still want it. For better or worse. I want you. I want kids with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “Then yes—even though I have reason to doubt your sanity—I will marry you.”

  Jake’s half grin broadened into a full one that reminded Ally of a kid on Christmas morning. Then he kissed her. A deep, deep kiss that melted her insides.

  Her arms went around him as his lips parted over hers, as hers parted in answer and welcomed his tongue with glee.

  Oh, how she loved this man!

  Only in that moment did she fully accept just how much and know that no matter what, she would have had to knock down whatever obstacles had separated them because she loved him too much to lose him.

  As if he knew what was going through her mind, he ended that kiss and said, “I love you, Ally. More than I thought it was possible to love anyone.”

  “I love you, too—that’s what I was just thinking.”

  “I’ll tell you what else I was thinking,” he added then, his dark coal-colored eyes casting a glance in the direction of her bed.

  Ally groaned. “As much as I would like that…I just saw Mother peeking out the kitchen window when I let you in. She could come up here any minute to make sure I’m doing what she wants. And I don’t think that—” she nodded toward the bed “—is what she wants. She already knows you spent last night and it didn’t get her stamp of approval.”

  “How does she know I spent last night?”

  “I guess she got up to get a drink and we both slept through it. She saw your car.”

  “We’re going to have to check those intercoms.”

  “But for now…”

  Jake smiled slyly. “You don’t want her seeing more than my car.”

  “Do you?”

  He laughed. “Not particularly. So here’s what we’ll do—we’ll go down—”

  “You’re telling me?”

  “Sorry.” He rephrased. “How about if we go down, tell her the good news, take her out to a celebratory dinner—”

  “Asking is so much better than telling,” Ally commended him. “But what if Mother has another coupon? Remember the last dinner to celebrate that she wasn’t seriously ill…”

  Jake laughed. “I’ll put
my foot down—no coupons or buffets no matter how much free coffee she gets. This will be our engagement dinner. And if it’s an engagement dinner that gives us the excuse to ply her with a lot of champagne so she comes home and sleeps like a baby.”

  “You really do have some good ideas,” Ally said, grinning herself now.

  “Here’s another one—maybe after we’ve softened Estelle up with a little liquor we’ll let her know that even before we can actually tie the knot, I’m going to be living here with you…”

  “I’ll let you go ahead and tell her that,” Ally said with a laugh, just imagining her mother’s reaction.

  Jake kissed her again—another, even better kiss that very nearly put Ally far enough over the edge of wanting him to be willing to run the risk of her mother walking in on them making love.

  Until, just in the nick of time, Jake ended that kiss, too.

  “Later,” he said in a passion-raspy voice that let her know he was teetering on the edge himself.

  But instead of letting go of her so they could leave the apartment—and temptation—behind, Jake pulled her tight against him, holding her head to his chest with one big hand cupped to the back of it.

  “I do love you, Ally,” he said again.

  “I love you, Jake,” she said.

  “It’s you and me forever, you know?” he whispered into her hair.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said quietly.

  And she meant it.

  Because with Jake by her side, she felt as if she could handle anything.

  And if ever something came up that she couldn’t handle?

  She knew he would be right there to help her. Or support her. Or comfort her. Or distract her.

  For better or worse.

  But as she stood there drinking in the feel of those powerful arms around her, she somehow just knew that it would always be for better.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2045-8

  DESIGNS ON THE DOCTOR

  Copyright © 2008 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.