Mail Order Stepbrother

by Ward, Kira

  “I don’t know,” Tess finally said. “I don’t know. I don’t see anything.”

  “Listen to me, Tess,” Melanie said as calmly as she could. “Take Eli to the hospital. Go straight up to the pediatric floor. I’ll call and arrange to have Dr. Jonas meet you there, okay?”

  “Dr. Jonas?”

  “It’s okay. I’m on my way, I’ll be there by this afternoon.”

  “Thank you,” Tess sighed, the relief in her voice overwhelming.

  Melanie turned and found everyone staring at her. She held up the cellphone as though it explained everything. “I have to go. A patient needs me.”

  She didn’t wait for their response. She rushed toward the stairs, but their voices followed her.

  “You’re a doctor?” -Nash.

  “She’s a pediatric cardiac surgeon.” -Her mother.

  “You see. You don’t know anything about each other. How could you possibly imagine you could build a relationship on lies?” -Burton.

  Chapter 8

  Melanie stared at the x-rays, her eyes expertly seeking out the source of the infection. Tanya was standing at her elbow, explaining the tests Dr. Jonas had ordered and what he had done since Eli was brought into the hospital, which wasn’t much. Dr. Jonas was a good doctor, but he was overly cautious.

  “I’m going to go talk to Tess.”

  Tanya touched her arm lightly. “She’s a wreck, Melanie.”

  She just nodded as she headed down the hall. Tess was in one of the patient rooms, crying as she leaned over the railing of the oversized crib that held her son and all the tubes and wires that were monitoring his condition. Eli was sleeping, the medication Dr. Jonas ordered for him doing its job.

  “Tess?”

  She immediately straightened, but paused to wipe the tears from her face before she faced her. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said as she approached Melanie, her hands outstretched. “I was so afraid…”

  “I know.” Melanie hugged her lightly, rubbing her arm in an awkward attempt to offer consolation. When Tess pulled back, she took a deep breath before she began to speak. “It appears that Eli has developed some sort of infection. We can’t see anything on the x-rays, so I want to do an MRI.”

  “And when you find it?”

  “We might have to operate again, to clear away the infected tissue.”

  Tess pressed her hand to her mouth to cover a gasp. Melanie touched her arm again.

  “That’s worst case scenario. I really won’t know until we see the MRI.”

  “And the MRI will show—“

  “It’ll show the doctor anything that might be causing the problem,” Jack said as he stepped through the door behind Melanie.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Melanie said, gesturing to Tanya where she stood just outside the door. “We can call security.”

  “No,” Tess said. “I called him.”

  Melanie tilted her head slightly, a debate going on inside her head. But it really wasn’t her place to dictate to a patient’s mother who she could and could not lean on in a time of stress. And Jack was the child’s father.

  “If you cause any problems with Eli’s care—“

  Jack held up his hands. “I come in peace, Dr. Spence.”

  Still she hesitated, but then she nodded and moved around him.

  “Someone will be here soon to take Eli to radiology.”

  ***

  The MRI showed a pocket of fluid behind Eli’s tiny heart. Melanie rushed him up to surgery, draining the pocket and searching for any other signs of infection. It happened sometimes. It was an invasion to open up a child’s chest and move around inside of it, even with sterile equipment. A quarter of Melanie’s patients experienced some kind of infection within a few days of surgery. It didn’t usually happen quite like this, but she had a feeling that Eli was going to be quite unique in everything he did.

  She took her time stitching him up and made sure his vital signs were strong before she left him with the NICU nurses and went to find Tess. She was in the surgical waiting room, just like before. But this time, Jack was holding her hand and whispering words of support in her ear.

  “The surgery went well,” Melanie said. “We drained the pocket of infection and started him on some pretty serious antibiotics. With any luck, he will be feeling much better in the morning. However, we’ll need to keep him here for a week, maybe longer, just to make sure we got it all.”

  Tess nodded, taking Melanie’s hand in her own. “Thank you.”

  Melanie was halfway up the hall toward the NICU when Jack grabbed her arm. Melanie pulled away as she faced him, her eyes moving to the security guard who was leaning casually against the nurse’s desk.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Jack hissed. “I just…”

  “What do you want?”

  “I know you think I’m a terrible father. And, maybe I am. But I just…when she kicked me out, I thought it didn’t matter. I never wanted a family, anyway. I never expected to miss them, especially Eli.”

  “He’s a sweet baby.”

  “He is. I never let myself see it before because I didn’t want to be the father of a broken kid, you know?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He shook his head. “No, someone like you wouldn’t understand. To you, it’s all black and white. But the real world isn’t like that. In the real world, there’s color in everything and sometimes it complicates things.”

  Melanie crossed her arms over her chest as she studied him. “So now you’ve changed your mind?”

  “Now I want to know if my kid is going to live.”

  She bit her lip as she glanced behind her at the door to the NICU.

  “He’s strong,” she said softly. “If he responds to the antibiotics, he’ll be fine.”

  “If not?”

  Melanie saw the fear in Jack’s eyes and softened the anger she still harbored toward him. She touched his arm just like she had done his wife’s earlier in the day.

  “He will.”

  ***

  Melanie stayed by Eli’s isolette most of the night, constantly monitoring the machines that reported his temperature, his blood pressure, and his heart rate. He slept the whole night, the medications they used during the surgery taking longer than they should have to wear off. It wasn’t unusual, but it worried Melanie coupled with the fact that his temperature only dropped a few degrees as the night progressed.

  Melanie drifted to sleep sitting up in a plastic chair, an iPad resting in her lap. A nurse touched her shoulder and smiled.

  “He’s trying to get your attention.”

  Melanie looked over the edge of the isolette and found Eli smiling up at her, his little fists waving in the air like it was a normal day and he’d just woken from a long nap. She ran her hand over his little face and laughed.

  “Good morning, little man.”

  She would probably have bruises on the back of her neck from the hug Tess gave her, but it was worth it to see her hold the baby once they moved him back to his regular room. Jack didn’t say anything, but everything he could have said was on his face when he lifted Eli from his mother’s arms.

  They were finally becoming a family.

  Melanie drove home and walked blindly into her apartment, not sure what time it was and not sure she really cared. She dropped her luggage on the living room floor and crossed the bedroom, her only thought being the soft mattress waiting for her there. She almost ignored the knock on her door, convinced it was her neighbor coming to complain about something or another. But that polite side of her that could rarely tell a salesman no wouldn’t let her ignore it.

  “Do you stay out all night often?”

  Melanie stared at Nash. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk. I’ve been parked across the street most of the night. Do you realize that it’s after noon? Where have you been?”

  “The hospital,” she said, gesturing at the scrubs she was still wearing. “I had a patient who�
�wait, you were parked across the street and you didn’t help me carry all this luggage up here?”

  A bit of a sheepish expression filled Nash’s face. “I kind of fell asleep.”

  Melanie shook her head. “Some gentleman you are.”

  She stepped back and gestured for him to come inside, too tired to remember they weren’t supposed to be together anymore. She missed a step and nearly fell over. He was instantly there, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her into the bedroom.

  “You’ve got to take better care of yourself,” he said. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you that?”

  “No time,” she whispered as she drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  Melanie didn’t open her eyes right away. She was too comfortable, wrapped in the cocoon of her down comforter, the scent of something delicious drifting to her from the kitchen. She wanted to lie there for a while, to pretend that this entire weekend simply hadn’t happened. But the closer her consciousness came to full awareness, the more reality insisted on being acknowledged.

  Reluctantly, she climbed out of bed. Nash had undressed her, leaving her with just her panties. She pulled on a bathrobe, trying not to imagine his hands moving over her skin while she lay there asleep and vulnerable.

  “Homemade chili,” Nash said as she walked into the living room.

  “What time is it?”

  He tugged his cellphone out of his pocket and glanced at it. “A little before ten.”

  Melanie groaned as she grabbed her own cellphone and called the hospital to check on Eli. She could feel Nash’s eyes on her, but she turned away, needing to concentrate on something other than the fact that he was there, so dark, handsome and forbidden.

  When she hung up, she stood at the counter and watched him season his boiling pot of deliciousness.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  He set his spoon down and turned, leaning back against the counter in a casual stance that belied the emotion that darkened his eyes. “I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”

  “Nash—“

  “It’s not like we’re related by blood.”

  “No. But your dad is married to my mom.”

  “And it’s not like we were raised together.”

  “But you can’t change the reality—“

  “My reality is that I love you, and I’m not willing to give you up, no matter what my father threatens to do.” Nash crossed the narrow kitchen and stole her hands before she could move them from the counter. “My father is an intensely ambitious man who sacrificed everything to build his personal empire. If it would have benefitted him in any way, I think he probably would have auctioned off my sister and me to the highest bidder.”

  He squeezed her hands, his eyes moving from her palms to her face. “I’m not like him. I’m not going to let the media force me to abandon the one good thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “He has a point, though, Nash. His reputation becomes yours when he’s gone. What will you do when the press crucifies you for this, for our relationship?”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “And your relationship with your dad? Your sister?”

  “I adore my sister, and I would do just about anything for her.” He looked at Melanie, anger playing over his features for a second. “I’ve already done more for her than she will ever know. But there has to come a time when I’m allowed to live my own life the way I want to live it.”

  “She told me you took off when your mother died, but your dad tracked you down and talked you into coming home.”

  He inclined his head. “He did. He told me if I didn’t come home and resume the helm of Merchand, he was going to fire Robert from his job at the production company. Robert is…he’s something of a never do-…well who lost more jobs than most people gain in a lifetime. Dad hired him to keep him from draining Alyssa’s trust fund when they got married. But he never liked Robert. I have no doubt he would have fired him and left him and Alyssa to their own devices…”

  Nash shook his head as he again squeezed Melanie’s hand. “He likes to think he can control everyone around him. It’s not enough to tell his thousands of employees when they can take a break, when they can go on vacation, when they can earn a living wage. He has to control the people he’s supposed to care about. He dictated where Alyssa and I went to school, the friends we were allowed to bring home, the careers we were to pursue. He would have picked Alyssa’s husband if she would have let him. I think her choice of Robert was her way of rebelling against him.

  “I won’t let him do that to me anymore.”

  “Is that what I am, then?” Melanie asked. “Your rebellion against your father?”

  “No.” He touched her face lightly. “You’re my safe place, my escape from that world. You are my muse, my inspiration, my courage. If you hadn’t come along, I might have spent the rest of my life bending to my father’s rule. But now…there is so much I need to tell you.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “I know I screwed up by lying to you for as long as I did,” Nash said softly. “Let me take you on this little trip we talked about before everything exploded. Let me show you everything I had planned, and then you decide what you want to do. If you want to walk away…” He brushed his lips against hers, his breath warm and spicy as it washed over her.

  “I just hope you won’t.”

  Chapter 9

  A month later.

  Melanie stared at the dual windows on the stick, waiting for the chemical reaction that would tell her if she was pregnant or not to finish. She knew she was supposed to calmly set it on the countertop and wait the prescribed ninety seconds but she couldn’t. She was beginning to realize that she’d never really been a patient woman.

  “Hey,” Nash said, knocking on the closed door, “you okay in there?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be out in a sec.”

  She grabbed a wad of toilet paper to hide the stick in, biting her lip as she was finally able to read the results. Without pause, she dropped it into the wastebasket, making sure it was covered well enough that he wouldn’t notice.

  She stepped out of the bathroom and was greeted by the magnificent sight of Nash standing by the floor to ceiling windows that graced the far side of their hotel room. He was dressed in a tuxedo, the shirt only partially buttoned and the tie hanging loose around his neck.

  “How did you ever get ready for these things before me?” she asked as she crossed to him and began fastening the studs that held the front of his shirt closed.

  “I usually had my assistant or sister come over and do it.”

  “That’s real convenient.”

  He shrugged even as he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her up against him. “No, this is convenient. That was just a nuisance.”

  She smiled, but her hands were shaking and she was having trouble fixing his shirt. She dropped her hands after a minute and shook them out at her sides.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, coming out at your father’s movie premiere…He’s going to hit the roof.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “But Nash—“

  “The press will be so focused on the movie. They won’t even catch on until it’s old news.” He lifted her chin gently. “I did learn a few things from running Merchand the last ten years.”

  She nodded again. “I just…my mom thinks we should do it one-on-one. And she’s been a therapist for a long time…”

  “Trust me, Melanie. I know my father. And I know the media. This will work.”

  He kissed her gently, whispering, “I love you,” against her lips.

  “I love you, too. I just don’t want to be the reason why you and your father never speak to each other again.”

  Nash groaned. “My father and I had a complicated relationship before you came along, darlin’, and we will continue to have one long into the future. This is just another blip
on the radar, nothing more.” He pushed her back, his eyes moving appreciatively over the black gown she was wearing. “Or maybe we could just trash the whole thing and stay in for the night.”

  Melanie smiled, a blush burning her cheeks despite their growing history together. “And you call me insatiable.”

  “I’m addicted, babe.” He kissed her once more before pulling away and lifting his jacket off the back of the chair he had lain it over. “But I guess we better go.”

  A limo was waiting for them in front of the hotel. Paparazzi waited across the street—held back, thank goodness, by hotel security—their screaming questions background noise as they climbed into the car. There was a bottle of champagne waiting in the small bar and a note from Burton that said “Enjoy”.

  “Nice of him,” Nash said, filling two thin flutes.

  Melanie waved it away when he offered her one. “I’m too nervous.”

  “Maybe it’ll help with that.”

  She shook her head, turning to stare out the side window. She had been to Los Angeles a few times, but she had never seen this side of it. The glamorous side. The number of luxury cars on the road around her were overwhelming. She even spotted multiple other limos speeding around them, headed to luxury hotels and five star restaurants. This world…it was hard to get used to the idea that it was now a part of her reality.

  It made her miss her little apartment in Dallas.

  Not that she lived there anymore.

  Nash took her hand and slid closer to her. “Don’t be nervous. Just stay close to me and let me deal with the press.”

  “Oh, I was planning on it.”

  He chuckled even as he caressed her bare arm, causing a group of goose bumps to make an appearance.

  They arrived at the theater sooner than Melanie would have liked. Thankfully there was a long line of cars ahead of them. They waited nearly twenty minutes, twenty minutes to allow the butterflies to grow bigger and stronger in her belly. It wasn’t really the press and the stars and the screaming fans that worried her. It was the announcement Nash planned to make that was essentially laughing in his father’s face.