Found: A Mother for His Son

by Dianne Drake

  “I appreciate your generosity,” she said to Irene and Frank, “but I really did have other plans for the evening, and I can’t stay.”

  “You’re not comfortable with us,” Irene said.

  “Not entirely. I don’t do well in family situations.” That much was true, she didn’t. “And, I, um…I really think it’s best if I go.”

  “You are welcome here,” Irene said, a warm, sincere smile wrinkling her face, “but I do understand. I’m not entirely comfortable with Frank’s family, and they’re actually family.” She teased her husband with a wink. “But, please, know that you’re welcome here anytime.”

  After saying her goodbyes, Jenna was all the way down the front walk and halfway across the street when Dermott caught up with her. “Damn,” he said, falling into step. “You sure do move fast.”

  “What are you doing?” she muttered. “You should have stayed.”

  “And Irene and Frank thought I should go, so they kicked me out.”

  “They didn’t kick you out.”

  “OK, they strongly suggested that I come after you.”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “Yes, they did. They didn’t think you should be alone, and they felt bad for creating a situation that made you uncomfortable, so…” He shrugged.

  She stopped to face him. “But you didn’t have to do this for me, Dermott. I’m fine by myself.”

  “I did it for me, JJ. I mean, they’re good people but sometimes I have to cut myself loose from them.” He shook his head. “That probably doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “It makes a lot of sense, actually. And I think you’re better than almost anybody I’ve ever known in the way you deal with an awkward situation. What I do when it isn’t comfortable for me is walk away, and I admire that you’ve stuck it out.”

  “Because they didn’t do anything, and don’t deserve to be hurt. So, how about we go back and get the truck?”

  “Then?”

  “We could play the truck driver and the hitchhiker?” he asked, giving his eyebrows a wicked wiggle.

  She liked him when he was incorrigible. Maybe that’s when she liked him best. “Only if the truck driver takes the hitchhiker to the diner for a burger, because this hitchhiker is starved.”

  “I had another scenario in mind,” he teased, feigning disappointment.

  “Is it the one where the hitchhiker turns down the truck driver’s offer of a ride and walks to the diner alone?”

  “You’re no fun, JJ,” he moaned, turning around and heading back for the truck.

  “I might be if I can have some french fries with that burger,” she called after him. “And a vanilla milkshake.”

  The diner was lively when they walked in. Lots of people crammed into the booths and around the tables, lots of chatter, lots of laughter. They stood outside at the door for a minute, just looking in.

  “Chocolate milkshake,” he warned. “That’s the only true way to do it.”

  “Then I’m not sure I want to be seen with you, Doctor, because you seem to have a particularly closed mind, and I like to think of myself as an open-minded kind of a girl.”

  “Guilt by association, Nurse Lawson. You’ve already been seen with me.” He pointed to the several faces smiling at them. “The secret’s out.”

  She laughed. “Will it shock their sensibilities when they see you out with someone other than Max?”

  “Probably. About half the people in there have nominated me to sainthood, which I believe dooms me to a celibate life, or something like it.”

  “I think they’d take back that nomination if they’d seen you wrapped up in that blanket with me. Nothing celibate going on there.”

  “Not fair reminding me in a place where I can’t do anything about it.”

  “About what?”

  “I believe the correct medical terminology is—”

  Jenna pinched his arm to shut him up. “Not here,” she hissed. “Someone might hear you, then…”

  “Then what?”

  “Then they’d know what we did.” She glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

  “People do it, Jenna. Surely, that was one of the lessons they taught you in nursing school. You know, it’s one of those natural acts, been going on for years now.”

  “Very funny,” she whispered, trying to fight the blush threatening to overtake her. How was it that everything with Dermott turned into something so sexy, like this had all of a sudden? “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “I believe it started with a burger and fries.” He bent down to whisper in her ear. “And an erection.”

  This time she slapped him on the arm, and walked on ahead of him as the waitress led her to a booth near the rear.

  Heads turned, of course, as Dermott followed on behind. And about half the people quit talking as Dermott and Jenna walked by them. But amazingly, after the first rush of gawks and whispers were over, things returned to normal and by the time they were seated, people weren’t paying much attention to them at all.

  “It’s like a martyr walking to his doom,” Dermott muttered, as he took his seat across from her.

  “In your imagination. So, why didn’t Max come?”

  “Grandma’s chocolate cake has a lot of persuasive power. And I did ask him if he wanted to come with us.”

  “Grandma’s chocolate cake…” Jenna licked her lips, then sighed. “I don’t blame him. My grandmother made the most wonderful buttermilk cake.” Fond memories of better days. She hadn’t thought of one of her grandmother’s cakes in years, and now she craved it.

  “What kind of icing?”

  “White.”

  “You mean vanilla. As in a vanilla milkshake?”

  “Because vanilla’s best.” Her grandmother’s vanilla icing had been, anyway. “If you’re not too set in your chocolate ways to give it a try.”

  “Chocolate,” he said. One word, and one word only in that argument.

  The diner was a cozy place, and it was nice that the people working there were beginning to recognize her as a regular customer. She’d never been a regular anything to anybody before, and this recognition, as slight as it was, did give her a sense of belonging. Just a little. “I’ve had at least one meal a day here since I’ve arrived,” she said, “and I’ve never ordered a chocolate anything.”

  “Then you don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Or maybe I do! Which is why I prefer vanilla.”

  “There’s nothing easy about you, JJ. I knew that back then, and I know it more than ever now. You’re stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.”

  “Because we disagree on which flavor is best?” This was fun. Dermott was fun. Sometimes it was nice being silly over nothing—just putting the important things aside for a while and existing in the moment. She didn’t do that so often…hardly ever…no, never. But she was enjoying it now, like she had on the riverbank, especially since she was doing it with Dermott.

  “We wouldn’t disagree if you’d admit I’m right.”

  “Can I help you?” the waitress asked.

  “I’d like a burger with everything on it, fries and a chocolate milkshake,” Dermott said, snapping shut his menu and handing it back to the waitress.

  “Same for me, except make my milkshake vanilla.”

  “The lady would also like a chocolate milkshake,” Dermott added, keeping a straight face.

  “And the gentleman would also like a vanilla milkshake,” Jenna added, her face also straight.

  “Two milkshakes each?” the waitress asked, without so much as a lift of a speculative eyebrow.

  “For a total of four,” Jenna confirmed.

  Dermott let out a low whistle as the waitress walked away. “You are stubborn, JJ. In fact, I think you’ve perfected it to an art form.”

  “Does that threaten you?”

  A slow, sexy grin spread across his face as he relaxed back into the booth. “I wouldn’t define it as threatening. I’d
say it’s more like admiration. A woman who would actually go through with ordering two milkshakes for herself just to prove her point has my attention and my admiration. That is, if she drinks both those milkshakes.”

  “You think I won’t? Or I can’t?”

  “You know what, JJ? I think you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  It was nice having someone express that kind of confidence in her, even if it was only over a milkshake or two. The only problem was, she didn’t have that same confidence. Not in her life. Not in her desires. Not even in her ability to drink two milkshakes. And it always got back to that, even in the nice moments like these. “I think I’m going to go find that waitress,” she said, scooting to the edge of the booth, “and change my order.”

  Dermott leaned across the table and grabbed her wrist before she stood. “It starts with the big leaps, Jenna. One milkshake is a baby step, two turns it into a big leap.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Trusting yourself. Believing that you can do what you set out to do, have what you set out to have. Taking the leap that’s big enough to make a difference in some way. And it doesn’t matter what kind of leap it is so long as you can prove to yourself that you can do it.”

  “You’re assuming I want to leap,” she snapped.

  He let go of her wrist, but didn’t say another word. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest and simply stared at Jenna. It was a stare that went right through her, made her feel naked and vulnerable, because it was a stare that told her he knew her so well. In ways, better than she knew herself.

  So, the next step was up to her. She could cancel the second milkshake, which was the same old predictable Jenna Lawson, or she could go for it. All the way. “OK, so maybe you’re right about me and my baby steps,” she admitted, sliding back into the booth. “But do you really think I’m going to be able to move, let alone leap, after I drink two milkshakes?”

  “You’ve already leaped,” he said, reaching across the table and taking hold of her hand.

  She had, hadn’t she? One big leap in such a small, insignificant thing. She felt good. Probably much better than she would feel at the end of the meal, she thought as the waitress plonked two huge milkshakes down in front of her. “Better to leap now than after I drink these,” she said, pulling the chocolate one over to her.

  The burgers were perfect, but Dermott hardly noticed because Jenna had his undivided attention. She didn’t have to do anything other than dip her french fry in ketchup to capture him, and he was definitely captured. Body, soul…heart. Totally in love. Oh, he’d been toying with it all along. Admitting it, taking it back, admitting it again, taking it back again. Now, though, there was no more taking it back, and that made his problem even bigger. Protecting Max, trying to hide all the ugly truths from Nancy’s parents, and trying to find out how Jenna fit into all this…it was an insane juggling act, and he hated being a juggler. What he wanted was stability. A calm life.

  But he loved Jenna and, in some absurd way, he was pretty sure she loved him too. Or else why would she have stayed here, in the middle of all this uncertainty? For sure, she could have a better professional life just about anywhere. And she really didn’t have any kind of a social life. So something was holding her and he hoped it was her feelings for him, and even for Max. Or maybe he was being sloppy and sentimental over something that simply wasn’t there. Jenna landed, stayed a while, then flew away, and maybe that was in her ticket for what she had in mind to do here.

  Damn that uncertainty creeping in again.

  Still, he’d loved her at first sight the first time. The hell of it was, he’d loved her at first sight the second time too, that day in the elevator. Even when he’d known better. But no matter how bad it got, Jenna made it better, made it seem like all his other problems weren’t beating him down. So what was wrong with living in the moment…living in Jenna’s moment? “Want to know when I first knew that we were going to get involved?” he asked, trying to push aside his doubts and live in this moment.

  She shoved aside both milkshakes. “We were putting a halo on that patient with a broken neck.”

  He shook his head. “It was that day you stood up to Dr. McNichol.”

  “I was a registered nurse, and he wanted me to fetch him coffee. I had ten patients to see, charts to take care of, phone calls to make, doctors’ orders to fulfill, and the man wanted me to stop in the middle of everything, drop what I was doing and go get him a cup of coffee. What was I supposed to have done?”

  “He was the chief of service. Most people would have done what he asked.”

  “And I was a floor nurse who was doing the work of three. Fetching coffee wasn’t what I got two college degrees to do, it wasn’t in my job description, and he didn’t have the right to make that request of me, not when he was capable of walking across the hall to the lounge and getting his own coffee. And I filed a complaint over it when he yelled at me, in case you never heard about that.”

  “He yelled at you because you marched over to the lounge and brought him the whole pot of coffee. It was an industrialsized pot, Jenna. Held fifty cups.”

  She laughed. “He got his coffee, didn’t he? And he never asked me for anything outside the job I was paid to do again. No one else did, either.”

  “That was the first time I ever saw you, and you were breathing fire, carrying that big coffeemaker down the hall, its cord dragging behind. People were running to get out of your way.” Sexy as hell, determined. He’d known then she was a woman to be reckoned with. Fierce to the bone in defense of something or someone she believed in. That hadn’t changed. She still was, and he wondered what it would have been like for Max to have a mother who so ferociously defended him rather than…No! He wasn’t going to think about that now. He had the dark hours to deal with the bitter recoil of those feelings. Now was for pleasant thoughts.

  “Do you think that’s the reason they transferred me to another department the next week?”

  “As I recall, you were transferred a few times in the next few weeks.” Her eyes fairly sparked with mischief now, and he loved that. Hadn’t seen it so much since she’d come to live in Fort Dyott and that was a pity.

  “I was young and foolish.”

  “Never foolish, Jenna.” He paused while the waitress cleared away their plates, then scampered away. “You always had some kind of a purpose or mission, and you let people know what it was, but it was never foolish.”

  “All I ever wanted to do was give good patient care. People always got in the way of that, paperwork became more important than the patients. Hospital policies impinged on common-sense procedure. It got to be a maze, Dermott. One you couldn’t find your way through, and I got frustrated.” She smiled. “More than once. And with frustration came my transfers, then job changes, because I couldn’t hold my tongue, or I wouldn’t do the paperwork when the patient needed real care. I don’t suppose I was meant to fit into the system.” She laughed. “Or maybe I was meant to devise the system. I don’t know. But however it was, I did sort of have this pattern of behavior, didn’t I?” She signaled for the waitress to take away the milkshakes. She’d tried both, had had as much as she could manage. “I still have it, and I guess it’s probably not going to change. Like my preference for vanilla.”

  Which was what scared him. Jenna was Jenna, and expecting her to be anything else was tantamount to a crime. He’d learned that years ago, and had thought about it so much since she’d come here. Jenna, being Jenna, was what he liked. Even with all her complications.

  “Well, some of your patterns are very nice,” he admitted, shoving away his vanilla milkshake. “But you’re right. Some things probably won’t change.” No matter how much he wanted them to. And he did want them to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HER phone was ringing. Or was that the doorbell downstairs?

  Jenna turned over in bed and squinted at the clock. Three-fifteen! She’d been sleeping like a baby for hours, pleas
ant dreams of ice-cream parlors and handsome boyfriends, and the shrill of the phone snapped her out of it as surely as a pail of ice cold water on her face would have. She bolted up in bed and lunged for her phone. “Hello,” she gasped into the receiver.

  “Miss Lawson, this is Alisa Charney.” The voice on the other end was frail, wobbly. Crying. “It’s my husband. He’s awfully sick…needs help. I can’t get him out of bed.”

  “Symptoms?” Jenna asked, scooting to the edge of the bed, getting ready to toss on the first clothes she could find.

  “Short of breath, chest pains…Maybe he’s sick to his stomach. I can’t tell for sure.”

  All kinds of things went through her mind, none of them good. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Jenna said. “Dr. Callahan and myself. In the meantime, try to get your husband to sit up a little, or at least recline back on his pillows so he’s not lying flat. And keep an eye on his breathing.”

  “Please, hurry,” the woman cried, not even protesting that Dermott was going to be making this house call, too. That meant Ron had to be awfully sick. Or dying.

  “I couldn’t get a good sense of the symptoms,” she explained to Dermott, who had answered his door still groggy, and looking so sexy in his low-riding pajama bottoms and mussed hair. “But it could be a heart attack, maybe acid indigestion…”

  He turned away from the door and ran to dress while she went to Max’s room to rouse him from sleep. Beautiful little boy, she thought as she scooped him up in her arms. He looked like Dermott, only with blond hair.

  “We going for a ride?” Max asked, barely opening his eyes at her.

  “Your daddy has to go see somebody who’s sick, and—”

  “No!” he cried, squirming out of her arms. He hit the floor with a thud, then curled up right where he fell, on the oval crocheted throw rug, and went right back to sleep.

  “What’s going on?” Dermott called from the other room.

  “Max doesn’t want to get out of bed.” And she couldn’t blame him.