by Linda Warren
To Jack, this encounter was both disconcerting and disconnected. His mother had traveled thousands of miles for this, yet her fidgety body language implied an eagerness to leave.
Achingly, he realized he’d hoped for much more—that, as a mature adult, he could finally perceive the deep well of love that he’d missed when he was younger. At some level, he’d believed his mother’s drive and dedication had torn her away from him but that the delight of meeting her granddaughter would reveal how much she cared.
He should have known better. Anger flared at himself for being gullible.
Mamie cleared her throat. “Do you have a nanny lined up?”
Anya gave a start. “No, we aren’t...not yet.”
“Don’t wait till the last minute. I hear good nannies are hard to find,” his mother advised.
“Thanks for the tip.” Was Anya being ironic? Jack couldn’t tell. And he had to rely on her, of all people, to keep the conversational ball rolling while he collected his thoughts. To his gratitude, she did. “That’s a gorgeous dress.”
Mamie whirled, showing off the striking design. “It’s from Haiti, of course. So are the sandals.” She lifted her feet to reveal strappy shoes that, to Jack, appeared to have soles shaped from recycled tires. “I only buy clothes made by the poor. They’re so desperate! You should see the conditions they live under. As a mother, your heart would break for their children.”
“I’m sure it would,” Anya agreed.
“That reminds me. I brought a gift for the baby.” From her shopping bag she pulled a large, angular metal construction. It was a lizard with a blue head and tail, orange legs and a green and yellow pattern on its body. “I’d have wrapped it, but they’d never have let it through airport security.”
Anya waved her hand. “Just more paper to put in the recycle bin.”
“Exactly!” Mamie beamed. “It’s made out of old oil drums. Isn’t it gorgeous? Look at the artistry. It’s a gecko, by the way.”
“Very cheerful,” Anya said. “It’ll be stunning on the wall.”
That was diplomatic of her, considering that she planned to give up the baby. He’d relayed that to his mother when he’d phoned to discuss her visit, but apparently the information hadn’t sunk in. Or she’d chosen to ignore it. The conversation had been a little strained, as if she were trying to say the right things but wasn’t sure what those were. Jack had tried to be encouraging, despite his qualms.
“I suppose it is a bit large to put in the crib.” Mamie held the gecko at arm’s length, studying it. “You might hang it overhead, though, to stimulate Lenore’s imagination.”
With those sharp edges and possibly toxic paints? Clearly his mother hadn’t wrapped her head around the idea of a baby. But she’d meant well.
“Jack, how about some screen shots of, uh, Lenore?” Anya prompted. “I’ll bet your mother would like to take one with her.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll show them off to my friends in Haiti.” Returning the sculpture to the bag, Mamie rubbed her hands together. “They’re thrilled that I’m going to be a grandmother.”
As Jack adjusted the paddle and clicked to save a picture, he processed the fact that Mamie had spread the word about her grandchild despite his warning that they were considering putting her up for adoption. If Mamie were a doting grandma, it might be understandable, but he had the troubling sense that the baby appealed to her primarily as a way to show off to her friends.
Don’t be judgmental. But he was still trying to absorb the statement that she hadn’t been thrilled about her own pregnancy, about having him.
As he worked, Anya asked about the press conference, and Mamie waxed eloquent. “We must attract more businesses to revitalize the economy. Did you know Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? Unemployment is sixty to eighty percent. Just a few years ago, the island was devastated by an earthquake. Two years later, half a million people were still living in tents.”
She cited shocking statistics about diseases and further damage from a hurricane. Passion blazed from Mamie’s face.
Jack felt guilty. The work she was doing mattered to a lot of people. Still, she was the only mother he’d ever have. And today she’d reopened a wound that ran soul-deep.
With a knock, Rod returned to tell them that it was time to leave for the airport. Jack was sure that news came as a relief to everyone.
When Rod and Mamie were gone, the room suddenly felt peaceful. “Huh,” Anya said.
After switching off the machine, Jack wiped the gel from her stomach. “My mother’s an original, isn’t she?”
“Are you okay?” She watched him sympathetically.
He nearly answered with an automatic yes, but that wasn’t true. “I felt like we were actors in a stage play,” he said as he helped Anya sit up. “Everything about that scene with my mother rang false. What did I miss? Am I that out of touch?”
Outside in the hallway, voices murmured as Ned escorted a patient past. “We should go somewhere else,” Anya said.
“Good idea.” Jack’s phone hummed in his pocket. “Excuse me.” Plucking it out, he read an unfamiliar number. Cautiously, he answered. “Dr. Ryder.”
“Jack? Are you still at the hospital?” It was a man’s voice.
“Right next door,” he said.
“It’s Zack Sargent. Thank goodness I caught you.”
Jack was glad to deal with a professional matter. “What’s up?”
“I’m scheduled to perform an embryo transplant but I must have caught my daughter’s stomach flu because I just threw up.” Zack did sound shaky. “I can’t expose the patient to this. The embryos are already thawed. Owen thought you might still be on the premises.”
“Yes. I’d be happy to step in.” A potential conflict occurred to Jack. “Who’s the patient?”
“It’s Melissa Everhart,” Zack told him. “I know you’re acquainted with her personally but I’ve cleared it with her.”
“In that case, how quickly do you need me there?” Given that the embryos were thawed, it was important to proceed at once, but Jack hoped he could spend a few minutes with Anya first, to clarify his feelings about Mamie.
“She’s prepped now.”
After getting the details about where to report, Jack signed off.
“Emergency?” asked Anya, who’d dressed while he was talking.
Although Melissa would no doubt fill her in later, that was the patient’s choice. So Jack merely said, “I’m afraid so. But I’d like to meet you later.” Another problem occurred to him. “And I still have to shop for dinner. I suppose I could throw together some kind of pasta dish.”
“I could do the shopping,” Anya said. “What’s on the menu?”
“I was going to spring for salmon if my mother decided to delay her flight.” What an optimistic idiot he’d been to imagine her doing such a thing. “I have a favorite recipe I got from a medical school colleague.”
“Tell me what to buy.” Anya raised a finger. “Wait. There’s no reason for you to cook for my housemates tonight. We could eat at your place.”
“Great idea.” And that would make the salmon more affordable, too. “Save the bill and I’ll pay you back. No arguments.” From memory, Jack listed the ingredients for the meal and gave her a key from his ring. “I don’t want you standing outside with the groceries.”
“I’ll be alone in your apartment?” She grinned mischievously. “Could I leave a rubber spider in Rod’s bed?”
“How will you know which room’s his?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Honestly. You guys do smell different.”
“Too much information.” He assumed she was kidding about the spider anyway.
“I’ll put the equipment away.” She indicated the rolling cart beneath the sonograph machine, which Ned Norwalk had fetched earlier from a hall closet.
“Thanks. See you soon.”
Heading out, Jack fixed his mind on the procedure ahead, reviewing the n
ecessary steps. No surgery was required; for the patient, an embryo transfer felt much like a Pap smear.
The procedure involved the use of ultrasound to aid his manipulation of the catheter loaded with the embryos. The angle of the catheter was vital, both for the patient’s safety and for proper placement.
Before he knew it, he was climbing the stairs to the second floor. For now, everything that had happened—seeing his daughter, encountering his mother, striving to understand his mixed emotions—could remain safely tucked away.
* * *
HOLDING THE GROCERY sack in one arm, Anya let herself into Jack’s apartment. From outside, she lifted Mamie’s gift bag and set it beneath a small table, atop which she placed the key.
Despite having lived around the corner from Jack for a year, she’d never ventured into his apartment until now. The living room was about the same size as the one she and Zora had shared, although the kitchen and hallway layouts were flipped. The place smelled of lemon oil and cleanser—a cleaning service must have visited recently—and the furniture included a cherrywood entertainment center and a tan curved sofa. Because Anya had expected a pair of bachelors on tight budgets to buy minimalist gear, she wondered if Rod’s ex-wife had left these behind.
She was laying out her purchases on the kitchen counter when she heard the front door swing open. Instantly she recognized Jack’s footsteps.
“Hi.” His mood seemed upbeat as he regarded her. Performing the procedure—something to do with fertilization, she gathered—must have invigorated him. “Find everything okay?”
“I hope I got the right kind of apricot preserves.” Anya indicated the jar. “And I bought the refrigerated horseradish. I think it’s stronger than the other kind.”
“Sounds perfect.” He whipped a pair of aprons from a drawer, brushing past her with a rush of lime scent mixed with disinfectant. “You mind fixing the salad?”
“My specialty.”
The kitchen was organized with surgical precision, with none of the messy jumbles that Anya recalled from the few other bachelor pads she’d visited over the years. As they cooked side by side, they kept the conversation light, instinctively delaying the emotional topics that thrummed beneath the surface.
Jack reported that the procedure had gone smoothly without providing details. And Anya explained that she’d texted Karen, who’d assured her the household could assemble dinner from the leftovers cramming the fridge.
“Cooking for everybody was a big job. You were astonishing,” she told Jack as she sliced tomatoes.
“I’ve enjoyed it.”
Now that she’d raised the topic, Anya braced for him to mention the reason for his cooking. She could hardly refuse him custody of the baby after all this. That meant she’d have to leave Safe Harbor, and him, and her friends, unless she planned to be intimately involved in raising her child. At the prospect, the light seemed to drain from the room. What a bleak prospect: losing this family of friends and especially Jack. How was she going to bear that? Thinking about a future without him was much too painful.
“Did you buy a plastic spider?”
“What?” The question jerked Anya back to the moment.
“For Rod’s bed.”
Grateful for the interruption, she arrayed the tomatoes around the salad bowl. “On further reflection, it struck me as childish.”
“We’re talking about my uncle here,” Jack teased. “I have my own score to settle with that rogue. Although maybe driving my mom is punishment enough.”
“The Friday night traffic coming back from LAX must be awful.” She hoped Rod wouldn’t arrive until after their meal.
“He called to say he’ll eat dinner in L.A. to miss the worst of it.” Jack gazed down at the baking dish. “I’m supposed to marinate the fish in lime juice for a couple of hours. But it should taste fantastic anyway. Too bad I don’t have Myrna’s number so I can ask her.”
“Myrna?”
“Fellow med student.” With a half smile, he added, “I assure you, she’s happily married and not at all interested in me.”
“Doesn’t matter. If this salmon is as good as you say, I can forgive you anything.”
And it was. The fish melted in Anya’s mouth. With crusty French bread and salad, the meal proved memorable. Jack served it on his best china, a flowered set that he confirmed had once belonged to his aunt.
Anya nearly blurted that they had to give up the baby because she couldn’t bear to move away from him. Only she kept picturing Junior-ette as she’d appeared on the sonograph screen, tumbling happily in the utter safety of...
Of me. Her mom.
“I could use your help.” Jack set down his fork, and Anya realized that she wasn’t the only one in anguish.
Yanked from her reverie, she took a deep breath. “You want to talk about it now?”
“You heard what my mother said.” A muscle worked in Jack’s jaw. “She never wanted me.”
“She didn’t say that, exactly.”
“She might as well have.” He scowled. “My whole childhood, I blamed myself for her absence. I was too much trouble, too hard to take care of. Now I find out I never had a chance.”
“She does care about you, on some level,” Anya noted. “Why else did she come today?”
“Because Rod shamed her into it.” Bitterness darkened his words. “When I was a kid, she used to blow into town with an armload of presents, charming everyone. I adored her and always thought someday we’d be close. Now I know we never will.”
“What she said today hurt you.” Overwhelming as Anya’s family could be, she’d never had reason to doubt their love.
“I’m not just hurt, I’m angry.” His hands clenched into fists. “I’ve been a damn fool for clinging to her all these years when she barely makes a show of doing the right thing. Her only reaction to the ultrasound was to wonder if the baby was a boy after all. And that sculpture she brought—how could any sane person consider putting it in a crib?”
From her seat around the corner of the table, Anya cupped one of his fists with her hand. “I think she was genuinely trying to behave the way she should. But her instincts were all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
She wasn’t sure how she understood this, but it was the only way her impressions of Mamie made sense. “Some people are tone deaf or color blind. And others have a hard time sensing emotions and gauging reactions. It’s like she had to rehearse, and she kept watching us for clues about how she should act.”
“She had to fake being a grandmother?” Jack’s forehead furrowed.
“Something like that,” Anya said. “I’m not excusing her because it’s unfair that you had to grow up the way you did. I’m guessing your grandparents weren’t real champs in the hugs and kisses department either.”
“You’re right about that.” His wrist turned and his hand clasped hers. “How could she not experience how miraculous it was to see the baby?”
“How can some people bliss out on a symphony that others find boring?” Anya mused. “There are women who just don’t have the maternal instinct, no matter how hard they try to fit into others’ expectations.”
He went very still. “Are you talking about yourself and our baby?”
Tell the truth, Anya. “No.” Tears filled her eyes. “No, she is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Warmth and tenderness blazed as he lifted her hand and kissed it. “For me, too.”
Today they’d shared the most intimate connection of Anya’s life, even more than when they’d conceived the baby. And she longed to be closer still.
When Jack pulled her up into a hug, she tossed her napkin on the table and tilted her face for a kiss. A long, loving kiss that blossomed through her entire body.
This time, as they made their way to his bedroom, she didn’t pretend it was a momentary indulgence or anything less than the chance to claim Jack as she’d been yearning to do all along.
And never mind the consequen
ces.
Chapter Sixteen
To Jack, Anya had always been beautiful. Tonight, in the room that too often echoed with solitude, she was radiant.
Touching her aroused him at every level. She held their baby inside this exquisite, velvety body; in her parted lips and questioning gaze he read an openness he’d never sensed in her before. And she understood him, understood his life, had just solved a fundamental mystery and identified an issue he hadn’t even grasped until today.
Treasuring her sweet natural scent, he eased off her shirt and jeans. No need for words; she never seemed to have much use for them, and for once, neither did he. Brushing her hair back from her heart-shaped face, he trailed kisses across her full mouth and ran his thumbs down her swelling breasts.
Her eager groan hardened him. When she pulled down his jeans, Jack aided her eagerly. Then he collected her onto his lap, sitting on the edge of the bed, drawing her hips down against his hardness and entering her slowly.
As they merged, he gasped from the intensity. The self-protective instincts he’d honed over a lifetime dissolved. Anya of the silent watchfulness, Anya of distances, Anya of sudden, unpredictable moods—he loved her. Wildly, despite the risk, despite the way she’d always retreated when he needed her. Now they were one.
Jack shifted his hips, and Anya eased up and down along his shaft, her dark hair screening them with a private cloud. What a joy to run his palms down her back and trace the swell of her derriere.
Ecstasy seized him. After a brief, vain struggle to resist, he let the thrill take him. He luxuriated in Anya’s moaning as they veered fast, faster, into a zone of brilliant light. Colors exploded; heat flooded him.
After an eon of pleasure, Jack wrapped his arms around Anya. “Let’s stay here forever.”
She laughed softly and rested her cheek against his neck. “Okay.”
“Or we could wait until we catch a second wind.”
“Okay.”
A chuckle welled up in him. “You’re agreeable tonight.”
Her palm caressed his cheek, rough with a day’s growth of beard. “Don’t take this personally, but you’re the sexiest man I’ve ever met.”