by Laurie Paige
She wondered if he would return and tried to decide if she wanted him to. Well, she did, but for what purpose?
Pressing a hand to her chest, she went very still. Hunger pinged through her, making her aware of her body in ways she hadn’t even thought of in ages. She’d liked the brush of his body against hers as he came to her aid. She’d liked the way he’d been concerned for her and the baby. The man was attractive in many ways….
She tried to think logically about all this. Should a woman, a five-months-pregnant woman, be feeling this way?
Thirty minutes later, she heard a sharp rap on the door knocker. Dr. Eric Thompson was indeed a man of his word.
With a groan, she picked up her purse and went to answer the door.
* * *
Eric’s mind buzzed with half-formed thoughts and impressions as he drove Jenna to the clinic. Her doctor was the same one he and his wife had used.
So?
The appointment had nothing to do with him. Jenna was a friend he was helping out. That was the extent of his involvement. He didn’t have to worry about her or take responsibility for her health or that of the baby.
He continued in this logical defense of his actions during the short trip to the medical building. After parking, he got out and went around to help her to her feet. Although she didn’t complain, he noticed the slight grimace each time she moved.
She was also a bit distant and introspective. She was probably irritated with him for insisting on driving her to the clinic. Tough.
Her moods were changeable, a thing that was common for pregnant women, he reminded himself when she tried to pull her arm away from his clasp. He held on and she acceded to his determined help.
After she signed in, they sat on a small sofa and each looked through a magazine. Her name was called ten minutes later. He escorted her to the examining room where a medical technician was setting up the equipment.
“Hi,” the man said cheerfully. “Ready for a picture of the papoose?”
Eric felt like socking the guy for reasons he couldn’t define.
“You don’t have to stay,” Jenna said.
“I want to make sure the baby is okay.” He wasn’t leaving the room until he was positive of it.
The technician looked from one to the other. “Did something happen? Did she fall?”
“She was knocked down by a kid on a skateboard,” Eric explained.
“You okay?” the man asked Jenna.
She nodded.
Eric stared out the window while she was hooked up to the machine. The doctor came in, glanced at him in surprise, then at Jenna. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
When she didn’t elaborate, Eric filled the obstetrician in on the details of the accident.
“Kids,” the doctor said. “A woman in Texas was killed not too long ago. Same thing. Three kids were racing down a hill on their skateboards and hit her.”
Jenna looked stricken. “That’s terrible.”
Eric wanted to strangle the doctor for mentioning the case. Jenna didn’t need to be upset over some unfortunate woman a thousand miles away.
“Well, what have we here?” the doctor said, peering at the monitor and moving the sonogram wand over her tummy.
“Oh,” Jenna said, her face filled with wonder and delight as she glanced at Eric.
She held her hand out. He had no choice but to let her grasp his hand while they stared at the image on the screen.
“Eric, a boy,” she said, her eyes bright with tears. “A darling little boy.”
He held on to her hand as the floor shifted under his feet. He felt as if he was standing in quicksand and sinking fast. He looked from the baby to her, then back to the baby. He could see the beat of the infant’s heart, the cord that gave it life and nourishment from its mother’s body and the tiny penis that proclaimed it a male child.
A giant, invisible hand squeezed his heart into a tight ball. He was sinking…sinking… Unable to stop, he bent forward and kissed Jenna on her soft, trembling lips.
Passionately. Tenderly. Endlessly.
He had no idea what made him do it.
CHAPTER 4
The telephone was ringing when Jenna opened the door to the condo. She tossed her purse on the sofa and groaned, then lifted the portable phone and groaned, and settled into her favorite chair and groaned.
“Jenna? Is that you?”
“Yes,” she replied to Rachel. Rachel was a couple of months farther along in her pregnancy than Jenna. “You sound excited. What’s up?”
“That’s what I want to know. What’s going on with you and Eric Thompson?”
Jenna was instantly wary of the question. She’d known word would get out about them going to the clinic together, but this was unusually fast. “Not a thing that I know of.”
“The new girl in the lab is dating a guy in Security. She said that he said that Dr. Thompson called in last night and said you’d been hurt and that he was taking you home and for them to keep an eye on your car. Are you okay?”
While the city might be large, the medical community was rather small, Jenna reflected. She should have known word of her mishap would soon be the latest news.
“Yes, I’m fine. In fact, I just got back from my sonogram and guess what? It’s a boy!”
“A boy? Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”
“I think so, too. Poor Eric, I just couldn’t stop talking about it the whole way home, or rather, to the hospital so I could get my car—”
“Wait a minute,” Rachel interrupted. “Are we talking about the same person? Are we speaking of silent-as-the-grave Dr. Eric Thompson, trauma specialist and head of E.R. at our own dear Portland General? That is the Eric to whom you so intimately refer and who accompanied you to the clinic for the sonogram?”
Jenna had to laugh at her friend’s disbelief. She laid a hand on her abdomen. “Don’t make me laugh,” she pleaded. “It makes me hurt.” She explained about the skateboard accident and Eric insisting on driving her home and then staying in case she had a problem.
“He what?” Rachel broke in.
“Spent the night. On the sofa,” Jenna added. “Then he went home to shower and change clothes and came back to drive me to the clinic. I nearly had to throw a tantrum to get him to let me drive my car home. Even then, he followed to make sure I arrived safely. I walked in the door just as you called.”
“Wow, wait until I tell Lily.”
“Really, there’s nothing to tell. The incident is over and all can go back to normal. I did agree to take tonight off, though, when he insisted. He said I might endanger a patient if I couldn’t function normally. Since I’m sore all over, I decided to take his advice.”
“Good thinking,” Rachel told her. “So Eric spent the night at your place and took care of you. Interesting.”
Jenna could hear the speculation in her friend’s voice at this piece of news. She was glad to be back on friendly terms with her two oldest and dearest friends, but she was still a bit wary in her dealings with them. Being trapped in the middle of their quarrel had been awkward, so she’d withdrawn from both of them.
Although they had apparently found their soul mates, Lily with Jake Stone and Rachel with Bryce Armstrong, Jenna was leery of speaking of men and relationships in case the specter of the ex-fiancé returned to haunt them.
“Poor man,” Jenna said again. “He was so anxious to be rid of me, he practically threatened to send me home in chains if I showed up in the E.R. this afternoon.”
“He’s probably afraid you’ll have the baby during an emergency,” Rachel said, laughing with her, “and he’ll have to deliver it.”
After they dissected and laughed over the incident once more, Rachel had to go. Jenna bade her goodbye and hung up.
The smile disappeared as she propped her feet on a hassock and mulled over the strange events of the past twelve or so hours. Everything was explainable until she came to the p
art about going to the clinic, having the sonogram and then, the kiss.
She thought of it in capital letters—THE KISS—like the title on a theater marquee. Running a finger over her lips, she wondered what had prompted his action.
Thinking of it caused her lips to tingle and burn as if an electric switch had been turned on. She put both hands over her face and groaned in dismay as she thought of her response. She’d returned the kiss with a passion that had matched his.
Had it been an impulse of the moment? Simply a reflection of her excitement and need to share the precious moment with someone? Or had it been the memory of his wife and a happier time between them?
Whatever had prompted the kiss on his part, she couldn’t deny that she had responded with wholehearted, unrestrained, wild and wanton passion.
He’d known it, too.
Who didn’t? The air in the examining room had sizzled as the kiss had deepened unbearably. Her heartbeat on the monitor had nearly gone off the scale while her blood pressure had zoomed twenty points on the high side.
The sonogram doctor and the technician had both laughed out loud, and that was the only thing that had brought her out of the whirling enchantment of his kiss.
She moaned in wretched humiliation. She didn’t want to return to her job. How could she ever face him in the E.R. and pretend nothing had happened?
* * *
Eric was aware of the sly glances cast his way by the staff in the E.R. He ignored them and signed off on the multitude of forms that accompanied any admission to the hospital.
Insurance. Medicare. City Services questionnaires in triplicate for those on welfare. As a newly fledged physician, he’d been impatient with the red tape, but after thirteen years, he’d gotten used to whipping through the forms and getting the job done without wasting energy on resentment and impatience.
Finished, he put the last piece of paper in the outgoing mail stack and the copies in the to-be-filed box on his desk.
Leaning back in the comfortable executive chair, he closed his eyes. Things were slow for a Saturday night. He’d rather be busy. The time went faster.
And he wouldn’t have to keep thinking about Jenna Cooper. Or how insane he’d been that morning.
Heat flushed through him like hot water from a tap. What had he been thinking? Where had his brain gone? Why had he given in to that crazy impulse?
He’d tried for hours to explain it, excuse it or at least make some sense of it. He couldn’t. It wasn’t like him. He wasn’t an impulsive sort. Yet it had happened.
He muttered a curse. “Go back to sleep,” he told his raging libido.
It ignored the command. His body was hard and demanding. He could taste her lips and feel their softness under his. She’d opened to him, and he had delved inside, taking the honey of her mouth in a kiss that went deeper with her than with any woman that he could recall.
He’d tried dating a couple of friends he’d known for years, one widowed like him, the other divorced. It hadn’t worked. He’d spent the night with the widow, but his heart hadn’t been in it. The morning after had been awkward. They both had admitted they weren’t ready for a new relationship at present.
He still wasn’t. He didn’t want the responsibility of another person’s happiness. He was preoccupied with his work. His steady in medical school had broken off with him because of inattention. His wife had accused him of forgetting she existed. That’s what their final quarrel had been about. He didn’t know how to please women—
The pager vibrated against his side. E.R. was calling. He’d planned to go home at four that afternoon, but here it was, after six, and he was still there. As usual.
He had to tell one of the nurses to help him with the scrub jacket and gloves before he could assist the duty doctor with the patient. Jenna would have had them ready when he walked into the E.R. cubicle.
“O.R.,” he said after checking the accident victim. “Who’s on duty in there? We need a neurosurgeon for this one,” he told the floor nurse while she checked the on-call roster. “Tell them to alert the resident, then call Dr. Morgan. He’s the best. This case is going to need it.”
For the next six hours, he assisted the specialist in the operation to save the sixteen-year-old. The boy hadn’t been wearing a seat belt and had been thrown from the pickup truck onto the pavement.
“Okay, that’s all we can do for now,” the neurosurgeon said. “We’ll have to treat the symptoms from here on and pray we can keep ahead of them. Are the parents here?”
“In the first waiting room,” one of the O.R. nurses said.
Eric and the surgeon exchanged glances. Dealing with relatives was one of the most difficult tasks for a doctor.
“I’ll go talk to them,” the surgeon said, his face drawn with fatigue.
Eric stripped the surgical garb off and washed up. Heading down the corridor, he saw it was midnight. He’d meant to go by Jenna’s one more time to be sure she was still feeling okay. She was an independent type and might not decide to call for help until it was too late if she had cramps or something.
Again the sensation of a giant hand squeezing his heart assailed him. He would never forget her face or her smile as they’d looked at the child growing inside her.
The glow…that’s what had made him kiss her. Her joy had been contagious. For a second, it seemed as if the child had been theirs. His and hers.
It wasn’t, and he’d better get his head screwed on straight before he saw her again. He drove home, the residential streets nearly deserted at this hour. His neighbors were safe in bed.
He parked in the garage and went into the silent house, remembering to punch in the burglar alarm code before it went off and summoned the police to his door. He’d done that once last year. The cops hadn’t appreciated it.
The house had been under construction two years ago when his wife and child had died. It was a home for a family, one with a big yard and lots of trees to climb and a creek running through the back edge of the property.
He’d moved into it because their smaller house had been sold, so he’d had to get out. Besides, there were no memories of either quarrels or laughter here.
After kicking off his shoes and leaving them in the laundry room between the garage and kitchen, he went to the refrigerator and reached for a beer. He hesitated, thought better of it and decided on a glass of milk instead.
Jenna would be proud of him, he thought wryly as he went into the den and flicked on the TV. He was still wound up after the grueling surgery. He’d catch one of the late-night shows or a movie. Those always put him to sleep.
An hour later, he strode out the patio doors to the pool, threw off his clothes and dove in. He swam twenty-five laps, climbed out, showered off in cold water and headed for bed. Thirty minutes later, he was still awake.
He swore, but that didn’t help, either. He hadn’t had this problem since he’d been a teenager and hot for the lead cheerleader in the senior class.
The lack of control over his wayward body annoyed him. He believed in mind over matter, or whatever. Tonight nothing seemed to be listening to his mental orders.
At last he headed back for the shower. He was off tomorrow, but if he was called in on an emergency, he had to be alert and able to function at his best. He turned the cold water on full blast closed his eyes and reviewed his day. Slowly, thoughts of Jenna began to subside.
When he returned to the empty bed, he fell asleep in less than a minute.
CHAPTER 5
Jenna was watering the flower pots on the porch when she spotted a familiar vehicle pulling into a guest parking space. It was her rescuer. Or keeper, however one wanted to view the situation. He was coming to check on her, no doubt.
She put a curb on her tongue and smiled brightly at him when he came up the walkway and stopped at the bottom of the steps, his eyes checking her out. In the medical sense.
“Good morning,” she said.
He nodded. “How are you feeling?”
> “Fine, actually. You were right. Staying off my feet yesterday helped a lot. Other than my shoulder, which I must have fallen on, I’m not achy this morning.”
“Did you sleep okay?”
“Yes. Did you?”
A wry smile flitted over his lips. “Yeah,” he said.
She set the empty watering can in its usual place behind the fig tree. “Uh, would you like a cup of coffee? Or breakfast? I can fix—”
“I’ve eaten. Coffee would be fine.”
“Have a seat,” she invited, gesturing to one of the two chairs on the porch.
“I’ll get it. You sit down.”
To her surprise, she did as ordered. It was rather nice to be taken care of. “I’m used to being the care-giver,” she told him when he brought out two steaming mugs, handed one to her and took the other patio chair.
His dark eyes went to her tummy. “You need to take care of yourself now. The baby will need a healthy mother.”
“I know. Usually I’m very careful. I was thinking of the sonogram and wondering about the baby’s gender. That’s why the boy on the skateboard took me by surprise.”
“I see,” he said.
He smiled again, and her heart thumped really hard. She tried not to stare at him. This morning, he wore tennis togs and looked good enough for an ad in GQ. His hair gleamed like finely polished ebony. He was tanned and muscular and incredibly handsome in white shorts and a yellow knit shirt.
The hum of sexual interest buzzed through her. She turned her gaze from him to the sweep of lawn that ran down to the duck pond. “Are you playing tennis this morning?”
“Yes. One of the surgeons and I try to get in a game once or twice a week.”
“That’s good,” she told him. “Most people don’t keep up an exercise program, then all of a sudden, they’re forty and overweight, their blood sugar is high and they’re in danger of diabetes and/or a heart attack. Then they wonder what happened to their youthful energy and health.”
He started laughing.
Jenna smiled self-consciously at her sermonizing—after all, he was a doctor—then she forgot it and was simply enchanted with the sound coming from him. He had the most wonderful laugh, low-toned and coming from deep in his chest, like the bass notes of an organ underscoring the higher notes of a melody, adding drama and a certain masculine beauty to the musical theme.