Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Do Not Disturb.

  Or in two: Passing Ships.

  He wasn’t complaining. Exactly. Sure he had to do that ghoulish crack-o’-dawn thing, but otherwise he had all the free time he could ask for.

  And after all, it wasn’t as if they were real newlyweds, crazy in love and hot to hop in bed and dying to talk with each other for hours.

  Aside from the bed-hopping part, he didn’t want to be married. Not for real. Not forever.

  But a little personal contact with Melinda would be nice.

  Only not the kind he’d caught himself making this morning.

  He’d gone in as usual. Set down the coffee as usual. Whispered her name, but she’d just smiled in her sleep and wiggled that enticing body under the bedclothes. She’d looked so…vulnerable. So tired.

  So damned beautiful.

  Without thinking, he’d reached down and smoothed her hair off her face. God! Those chocolate strands felt as soft and silky as they looked.

  She still hadn’t stirred and before he could stop himself, he’d bent and brushed his lips against her temple.

  He’d wanted—like he’d never wanted with any woman before—to crawl into bed with her and wake her up the old-fashioned way.

  Instead, he’d dialed the radio to some hideous rap music, cranked the volume to deafening and parachuted out of there.

  Jack circled back to the den and headed for the framed pictures cluttering the shelves of the built-in bookcases.

  He liked looking at them. At Melinda as a child. Adorable in a little dance costume. Proudly posing on a beach in shorts that revealed the promise of long legs to come. His favorite was an exuberantly grinning Mel on a bike with training wheels, pulling a younger kid in a wagon. Her brother, he supposed.

  Were any of those facets of her still there under the dedicated-doc disguise? They should be. And Jack’s personal experience told him that Melinda should remodel her lifestyle to make room for them again.

  With a sigh that came from his toes, Jack reslumped in the recliner. It was up to him to convince her of that wisdom before she burned out on doctoring the way he had on stock trading. But how?

  Not by touching and kissing her while she slept.

  Turning to a sitcom so old it was in black and white, Jack worked through the logic. Carefully, although it was pretty straight-line when you laid it out.

  Melinda Burke fascinated him.

  Because—only because he didn’t know her well enough to get past that gorgeous face, sweet smile and sexier-than-sin body and see her as an ordinary person.

  Therefore, to overcome Melinda’s allure, he must spend time with her.

  Once he did, he’d have no trouble giving her brotherly advice—or controlling her riveting effect on his male anatomy.

  Perfect. The only stumbling block was the time-together thing.

  And there, he mused as the laugh track roared at marginally funny antics, his pal Lenny might prove useful after all.

  As promised, he wouldn’t wait up; he’d just…go on the offensive. Drop in at the hospital. An in-the-neighborhood kind of thing. As long as he’s there…Take Mel out to dinner. Not on a date or anything. Just to eat.

  Inspired, Halloran, Jack congratulated himself just before he spotted the weak link: Mel’s boss.

  That Bowen guy ought to be reported to Amnesty International—the jerk detained her till all hours.

  Not that Jack accosted her in the kitchen anymore, but he sure as hell didn’t go to sleep until he heard her coming upstairs.

  “I’ve gotta do something about that, too,” Jack muttered as the sitcom doofus’d its way through the predictable plot.

  Tess, no doubt, would call him bossy and interfering; Sherry’d likely go with her usual sneer about the evils of caretaking.

  But Jack figured he’d been nominated by marriage, so…Leaping from the chair, he jabbed the remote to cut off the TV. “What’s the point of wasting time?”

  Yeah. Action. That’s what he needed.

  And any excuse besides grocery shopping to get out of the house!

  6

  MEL DROPPED HER GLOVES into the disposal bin while Bowen continued reviewing Dan Blabbermouth’s performance. Not very flatteringly.

  Unlooping the mask she’d worn and pulling off the papery gown that covered her scrubs, Mel dropped them, too, into the bin. It would be her turn next.

  The only good thing about getting reamed out now, she reflected as she exited the surgical suite behind the others, was that she was too damned tired to care.

  They’d just finished seven hours of surgery. At this moment, all she wanted to do was flop on a gurney and be fed intravenously.

  In front of her, Bowen and Dan turned left. A civilian peeled himself off the wall opposite the double doors. Nice-looking man, Mel thought, but the family waiting area was one corridor over.

  Wait. That’s no nice-looking civilian, that’s— “Jack?”

  He came forward. Smiling warmly. At her. “Hi, Melinda!”

  Mel’s flagging energy quit flagging. Had to, with all the endocrine activity going on internally. Her temp flashed skyward, heading rapidly for the delirium zone.

  If a smile could do that, what would actual contact cause? An embolism?

  “Friend of yours, Dr. Burke?” Bowen dropped ol’ Dan like a used surgical sponge and spun around; without a second’s hesitation, the cowardly gossipmonger sped away. “Perhaps you’d care to introduce us.”

  Perhaps she’d care to leap off a highway overpass at rush hour, too.

  “Uh, sure. Dr. Bowen, Jack Halloran. Jack, Dr. Leo Bowen.”

  The two men shook hands as briefly as possible. Jack, Mel noticed smugly, towered over her boss by a good eight or ten inches.

  “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Bowen.” Ha! Jack didn’t sound very pleased.

  “Pleasure’s mutual, Mr. Halloran.” Bowen’s declaration didn’t resonate convincingly, either. “I take it you’re the new husband?”

  Jack nodded while Mel smothered a smile at the idiocy of her own shocked reaction to the term. Only a she-geek would keep thinking of a man this commanding, this masculine as a wife. Self-defense, she pleaded silently. If Jack was the husband, that made her the wife. The nerdy Melinda Burke would be clueless about that role—or about how to handle having a husband like Halloran.

  Shoot, she didn’t even know how to handle him showing up at work.

  “What, what are you doing here, Jack?” Mel asked, then realized she should have herded him away first. Damn her interpersonal ineptitude!

  “Waiting for you, Burke,” Bowen said, grimacing at having to explain the obvious to her. “The question is why?”

  Jack blinked those dark blue eyes at her, then at her boss.

  “I thought we could grab some dinner,” he said finally, letting his gaze return to settle on Mel’s face. “You hungry?”

  For the warm concern floating in those incredible sapphire eyes and the erotic touch of that deep, husky voice? Hell, yes. She was starving.

  “According to the lady out front, y’all were in there a long time.”

  Bowen shouldered Mel aside to stand toe-to-toe with Jack. “Surgical procedures take as long as they take,” the program chief snapped. “We’re not paid by the hour, you know.”

  Oh-oh. Jack’s jaw was jutting. Not used to Bowen’s hostility, Mel realized.

  “Neither is Jack,” she said in a rush. “He’s a stockbroker. At least, he was. Now, he’s…well, he’s—”

  Dammit. She couldn’t recall the name of that test he was studying for. Some kind of financing…. “He’s—”

  An arm as hard as the titanium plates they’d screwed onto the skateboarding teen’s shattered femur clamped around her waist. “I’m a lonely husband who’s here to rescue his wife.”

  “Rescue, Mr. Halloran?”

  Mel cringed. She’d heard Bowen called every name in the book, but nobody’d ever accused him of being slow on the uptake.

  “From—?”r />
  Without thinking, Mel wrapped her arms around Jack. Wow, what a great fit, the unoccupied part of her brain thought.

  “From malnutrition,” she supplied quickly, while that other brain part became feverishly occupied imagining how they’d fit together making love. “Jack thinks I don’t eat right when I’m working and I guess he’s all freaky ’cuz the stove doesn’t work. But the microwave does, so there’s really no reas—”

  “Melinda’s too dedicated for her own good,” Jack said, mercifully cutting off her babbling. “These outrageous hours she works, skipping meals…. It’s appalling the way she comes home dead on her—”

  Now it was Mel’s turn to disrupt the flow of babble. “Isn’t he sweet?” She laughed brightly. “Being so concerned about my welfare.” Weird, Bowen looked startled. Then…embarrassed?

  Nah. She must be hallucinating.

  “Somebody ought to be,” Jack insisted. “Any fool knows that your own health and well-being affect your job performance. And it’s not like you’re rotating tires here, you’re patching up people.”

  Uh-oh. Bowen looked ready to stroke out. Intervene, Burke—now!

  “Oh, ’fess up, honey.” Acting like some ditzy car-show bimbo, Mel poked her cutie’s six-pack abdomen playfully. “You’re the one who’s tired of frozen dinners, right? Hungry for something with real taste?”

  Jack’s hand captured hers, pressed it against the warm, hard flesh beneath his starched cotton shirt. His eyes darkened, which Mel hadn’t even realized was possible. “Damned right I am,” he growled softly. His head bent toward hers.

  “Now that you mention it, I could use some refueling, too,” Bowen piped up just as their lips met.

  Jack lifted his head, breaking physical contact, but kept his gaze on Mel’s mouth.

  Which felt exactly the way it had after the ceremony, when he’d actually kissed her. Hot and tingly, spreading delicious aching need through her interior like seismic waves.

  After a moment as charged as one of those Russian delivery rockets lifting off for the International Space Station, Jack turned his attention to Dr. Bowen. “Then don’t let us keep you,” he said with a faint smile.

  When Bowen’s eyebrows reached for his hairline, Mel wanted to groan, then just…slip into a nice coma or something. But after a second, he gave a little shrug.

  “Tomorrow, Burke,” he said, and walked away without another word.

  Jack turned her in the opposite direction. “I’m surprised he took the hint,” he muttered. His arm still around her waist, he guided her down the sterile, nausea-green hallway under the harsh fluorescent lights.

  Mmm, what a romantic place for a stroll, Mel thought dreamily.

  No. That wasn’t right.

  Carefully detaching herself from Jack’s embrace, Mel stalked onward, shaking herself mentally.

  She was losing it! This morning, she’d awakened dreaming of being kissed—but lightly, on the temple. Wasting good dreamtime on chaste, preteen swoony stuff. And now, here she was getting all mushy about walking arm-in-arm with Jack down a hospital corridor.

  What next, Burke? Ask him to the prom?

  Nuts. She was too close to achieving her dream for such nonsense. She couldn’t afford to start missing things she’d given up years ago. Like a social life. Physical intimacy. All that male-female stuff.

  Mel knew that one false step could prove fatal at this point.

  She doubted Bowen would take offense at tonight’s rebuff, but rhino-skinned or not, the man delighted in his program’s high dropout rate. He’d exploit any weakness he found to test his residents’ dedication.

  As the corridor ended in a T and she automatically turned right, Mel reminded herself that she’d have the rest of her life to make up for lost time. Years ahead of her to get out and meet people. Maybe get married for real someday, have a child…even learn how to tell for herself when a stove didn’t work.

  But for now, she needed to stay focused. Undistracted by navy eyes, a breathtakingly masculine body or concern for her welfare.

  “I can see you’re hungry,” Jack said, catching up and letting his arm steal around her again. Damn, the man’s touch drained all her willpower and determination. “But what for?”

  The answer wasn’t Chinese or Cajun or mac ’n’ cheese.

  The answer was a little human kindness. And a certain man’s touch, his smile, some nonmedical conversation.

  Mel looked at her watch. She had thirty minutes. Why not?

  “If we hurry, we can get to the cafeteria before they quit serving supper entrées.” For the next half hour, she could have her Jack and eat dinner, too.

  “Cafeteria?” Jack halted his forward progress. And Mel’s. “I was thinking more like one of the new places in Uptown. Or maybe the Enclave.”

  Someplace way more intimate, relaxing and upscale than some freaking hospital cafeteria.

  The Enclave, of course, topped his list since it offered the greatest potential return on investment. As in, dancing. He figured a little vertical touching, twining and twisting might cure his obsession with the horizontal version.

  Mel chuckled. “Good luck getting a table at one of those trendy places without a reservation.” Moving onward, she turned left at the next hallway intersection.

  Jack stared after her in dismay. She was right, dammit. How the hell had he forgotten that? Maybe he was exposing his brain cells—at least the ones that remembered how to date—to too many strong cleaning chemicals.

  “And I’m due back in Recovery in thirty, anyway.”

  “What?” He hurried to catch up. It’s not a date, he reminded himself. It’s getting over his strange obsessive fascination with this woman. That’s why a leisurely dinner in a conducive atmosphere was so important.

  Mel pushed through a metal door and began descending stairs. Jack clattered behind her. “You have to go back to work? Tonight?” Unbelievable.

  Unacceptable, too. If she didn’t know the cost of this kind of work schedule, he did.

  Without waiting for her answer, Jack double-clattered past her, then stopped at the next landing. Mel halted one step above it.

  Looking straight into the soft green depths of her eyes, Jack recognized the irony of what he was about to say, but made a note to appreciate it on tape-delay. Right now, he had to make this woman who’d accepted—no, actively solicited—his caretaking understand just how much she needed it.

  “Sweetheart…” Manfully he uttered The Phrase. The phrase normally delivered by females, the four words guaranteed to strike terror in the hearts of unsuspecting males. “We have to talk.”

  “Okay.” She pushed past him. “But we’ve got three minutes to do it over dinner. Otherwise, we’ll have to ingest our protein as eggs and theirs are runny.”

  Well, who was he not to be swayed by such a persuasive argument?

  “Right. Lead on, babe.”

  THEY AVOIDED the runny ovoids with a minute-nineteen to spare, but—Jack examined the contents of his tray while the cashier rang it up—he wasn’t so sure they’d gained much.

  Mystery meat under glutinous white gravy. Green gelatin cubes. Corn bread so dry it crumbled when he lifted its plate from the service table.

  Mel’s selections looked equally unappetizing.

  After paying for the “food,” he threaded his way through a sea of mostly empty tables to join Melinda. Who nodded but remained silent as he offloaded his dishes and she doctored her salad with dressing packet glops.

  Okay, Halloran. This was your idea, start your pitch.

  “So that’s your boss?”

  Good choice, buddy. As an opening gambit, it only earned him another nod.

  “Does he diss everybody who works for him or just you?”

  Well, that got her attention.

  Mel’s head jerked up, sending her dark hair sliding back over her shoulder like a stream of chocolate syrup. “He was actually pretty civil back there,” she insisted.

  Jack hardly heard her ri
diculous claim. Too caught up in speculating how that shoulder would feel, naked beneath his fingertips. As silky as her hair? As smooth and creamy as the enticing curves of her back had looked?

  Lifting and lowering the shoulder in question, Mel went on, “His concern is increasing our proficiency, not projecting joviality.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Jack said as he tried to cut through the breading on the mystery meat. “Your boss has the personality of pond scum.”

  Mel gave him one of her high-beam smiles. “Can’t argue with you on that.”

  “But why do you have to go to wherever-that-was in a few minutes instead of coming home?” He wasn’t whining, just implementing his brilliant plan to get to know the woman he’d married so he’d get over being attracted to or interested in her. Sort of like real spouses.

  “After surgery, patients go to Recovery. It’s an area near the OR suites, where they’re monitored while they come out of the anesthetic.”

  Jack gave up sawing on the impenetrable breading. “I watch TV,” he informed her. “What I meant was—why you?”

  “Huh?”

  Her soft, full lips almost distracted him from the dark circles under her eyes and the lousy food. Almost.

  “Why isn’t Bowen doing the monitoring?” Jack spelled it out slowly. “Or that other guy who came out with you? Why are you the one staying late, and coincidentally the one shoving down this ghastly stuff?” His fork encompassed every item on the table. Even the iced tea tasted bitter and powdery.

  “I volunteered.”

  “You what?” Jack pushed aside his plate. “Come on, Melinda! Look, if it’s me…if I’m the reason you stay here night and day, just tell me what I’m doing wrong. I’m not pestering you. I’ve got the bills caught up. I’m doing my best as far as the housework goes….”

  Okay, he’d been studying some, too, but that was part of the agreement. “I can do better,” he admitted. Quit napping, for one thing. Cut back on the cooking shows. And limit the old geezers to fifteen minutes when they dropped by, instead of putting on a pot of coffee and letting them yak while they snacked him out of house and home.