“Dr. Carmichael,” he rasped.
“It’s George Farajian. Sorry to wake you, Doctor.” The obstetrician’s voice had the overly bright tone of a man who’s been awake too long. “Spring has sprung and the babies are arriving in droves. You did offer emergency backup, you’ll recall.”
Jason checked the clock. Two in the morning. He stifled a groan. “I’ll be right there.”
He swung off the bed and stepped on something soft. It let out a yip.
“Frodo! I’m sorry.” He hoped the pup wasn’t hurt, and also that it hadn’t awakened a neighbor who might complain to the manager. “Poor baby.”
Despite the need to soothe the puppy and to make himself presentable, Jason managed to arrive at Doctors Circle in half an hour. By contrast with the silent streets and empty courtyard, the first-floor Labor and Delivery area of the Birthing Center bustled with activity.
Dr. Farajian, who specialized in high-risk pregnancies, had taken the most difficult delivery for himself. Two other doctors were busy with more routine cases, while a Caesarian patient was being prepped for Jason.
Performing surgery was both a learned skill and an inherent ability. The delicate task had always fascinated Jason, whose painstaking care resulted in a low rate of complications. He was glad George had trusted him with the patient.
Despite the risk, the procedure went smoothly. The little boy wailed lustily after emerging and weighed nearly five pounds despite being six weeks premature.
“That’s a good sign,” said the neonatologist, Dr. Quentin Ladd. “Hey, little fellow, let’s check you out.”
Jason finished sewing up the patient, a young woman whose husband had grown so pale during the first incision that one of the nurses had suggested he step outside. He’d recovered, however, and was regaling his wife with a description of every twitch their son made.
“He’s got a great pitching arm,” the father said. “Wouldn’t you say, Dr. Ladd?”
“Absolutely. Your only problem will be deciding which major league team he should play for.” Quent maintained a deadpan expression.
It was nearly 4:00 a.m. by the time Jason stripped off his gown, mask and gloves. “Any more deliveries?” he asked the charge nurse.
She shook her head. “They always wait until the doctors are sound asleep. You should know that.”
“I hoped it was different in California,” Jason joked.
“Want to grab some breakfast?” Quent asked.
“You bet.” Since it was Sunday, he didn’t have to worry about trying to snatch a few hours of sleep before office hours. The cafeteria, located across the way, remained dark, Jason noticed. “What’s the closest allnighter?”
“The Coffee King,” the young man said. “It’s a block away. You can follow me from the parking garage.”
“Will do.”
A few minutes later, the two men took seats in a booth near a window. Set on a bluff, the coffee shop overlooked a broad section of Serene Beach.
Below and to Jason’s right lay the beach area, mostly dark at this hour. To his left spread the harbor, where lights showed a sleepy array of yachts and sailboats.
“You don’t happen to own a boat, do you?” Jason asked.
“No, but the Barrs do,” Quent said. “Sooner or later, you’ll be invited to a party on their yacht. It’s a lot of fun.”
“It sounds like it.” From what Jason had heard, Patrick hosted several gatherings a year for the staff. He wasn’t used to partying with his colleagues, although he could see how it would build morale. “Is that where he holds the famous Christmas reception I’ve heard so much about?”
“No, that’s at his mansion,” Quent said. “Sometimes he also loans out his cabin in the mountains as a prize in employee promotions, or so I hear. I’ve never been there.” He explained that it was located at a mountain ski resort a two-hour drive from Serene Beach.
A cabin in the mountains. That would make a splendid getaway place, Jason thought, and wondered whether Heather liked to ski.
A waitress stopped to fill their coffee cups. After scanning the menu, Quent said, “I’ll have the cholesterol special.”
“That sounds good to me, too,” Jason said.
The waitress didn’t bat an eye at their unconventional terminology. She must get a lot of medical personnel as clients. “Two bacon-and-egg combos, coming up.”
After she left, Quent showed him photos of the niece and nephew he and his wife Amy had adopted. The two of them had married in order to gain custody, the neonatologist explained, but had quickly fallen in love as well.
“Now we’re ready to have a new baby,” he said. “The kids are excited, and Amy and I can’t wait.”
Jason had never allowed himself to dwell on the possibility of having kids. The new father’s excitement this morning had been contagious, though. It would be fun to have a little boy to share ball games and romps with the dog. Or a girl, a cute one who looked like Heather. She might like ball games and romps with the dog, too.
“How did you know Amy was the right woman?” The whole subject of love baffled him. It seemed immensely complicated and full of room for error.
“I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her,” Quent said. “Wherever she is, I feel at home. It’s that simple.”
Was it? As far as Jason was concerned, his home was wherever he paid the rent.
Their orders arrived, along with coffee refills. Despite being a relative newcomer, Quent proved a fount of knowledge about people at Doctors Circle. It occurred to Jason that he might be able to answer the one question bothering him.
“Your wife is a good friend of Dr. Rourke’s,” he said. “Did she mention why Heather took leave last fall?”
Quent made a wry face. “Sorry. I’m sworn to silence.”
“You mean there’s a deep dark secret?” It irked Jason that this fellow sitting across the table knew more about Heather than he did.
“I don’t know if you’d call it that. It was personal, and Heather values her privacy,” Quent said.
Jason swallowed the impulse to push harder. He supposed he had no right to snoop into Heather’s private life. But what on earth could she be hiding?
The other doctor continued talking, distracting him with stories about other staff members at Doctor’s Circle. The funniest one concerned Dr. Barr and his wife, Natalie, who was his longtime secretary.
They’d had a brief affair, then decided to let things cool off. Even after she got pregnant, it had taken Patrick a while to realize the baby belonged to him and not to Natalie’s ex-husband, with whom he’d wrongly believed she was reconciled.
“So here was Patrick blissfully unaware that his secretary was carrying his baby while she got bigger and bigger right in front of him.” Quent laughed at the memory.
“Why didn’t she tell him?”
“I’ve never been clear about that,” he admitted. “Some female thing, I guess.”
“Some female thing? Is that a medical term?”
“Don’t ask me,” his companion parried. “I take care of the babies, not the mothers. You’re the obstetrician.”
“I never claimed to understand women,” Jason said. “Not beyond the strictly medical sense.”
“I guess not.” Realizing his comment might be taken as an insult, Quent said, “It’s just that my wife tells me you and Heather rub each other the wrong way. I’m sure it’s no big deal.”
“We have misunderstandings every now and then. It’s nothing that World War III couldn’t settle.”
As they paid the check and left, Jason reflected back over the conversation, especially the way Quent had clammed up about the subject of Heather’s leave.
What kind of secret would make a woman disappear for two months without explanation? Could it be a health problem? If so, Jason wanted to help.
He wished Heather weren’t out of town for the wedding. Maybe he should drop by her town house and sound out her niece, who probably knew the truth.
At this time of the morning, though, he’d probably wake her up and set the baby to crying.
Jason was driving home, his subconscious mind churning full-tilt, when the pieces started fitting together. One fact in particular struck him: If his mental calculations were correct, Heather had taken leave about the time Ginger must have been born.
He’d noticed more than once that something seemed odd about the situation. Heather took considerably more interest in Ginger than he would have expected of a great-aunt. And the baby resembled her a lot more than it resembled Olive.
Patrick had had no idea Natalie was pregnant with his child, in spite of the fact that they’d made love. Was it possible that history was repeating itself at Doctors Circle?
At the gym, Jason had joked about not realizing mothers got nights off. He could almost swear that when Heather answered, she’d used the pronoun we in referring to mothers.
But Heather wasn’t a mother. Or was she?
Jason gripped the steering wheel hard. He was struck again by the memory of kissing that butterfly on Heather’s stomach. If they had made love, Ginger might be the result.
He halted the car in his garage. As he sat behind the wheel, his mind ran through the numbers just to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.
They’d met in Atlanta about fifteen months ago. Ginger must be close to six months old. And Heather had gone on a two-month leave about four weeks before her birth.
He could hear his heart pounding in the silence. Was it possible he had a daughter?
Surely the staff at a maternity hospital would have noticed if one of the obstetricians were pregnant. Yet every woman carried her baby differently. With her large bust, the aid of a white coat and the complicity of her nurse, Heather might have pulled it off.
It must have been difficult. Jason wished he’d been there to help and to watch Ginger grow. He’d felt plenty of unborn babies move, listened to their heartbeats and examined them on sonograms. But his own daughter…
The scientific side of Jason’s mind warned that he should take this slowly. There could be a flaw in his reasoning.
In his heart, though, he knew he was right. He had a child, and Heather was the mother. Maybe that’s why he’d felt so strongly drawn to her since he arrived. That was why he found Ginger so bright and charming.
The time had come to talk to Heather. Sitting in his car, Jason rapid-dialed her number.
WHO COULD BE calling this early on her cell phone? Fortunately, Heather was already awake, happily feeding Ginger a morning bottle as they both lounged in her queen-size hotel bed.
She fumbled the phone, one-handed, to her ear. “Dr. Rourke.”
“It’s Jason.”
Well, of course. Who else would have the nerve? On the other hand, maybe he was calling about the medical center. “Does this concern one of my patients?”
“No,” he said. “It’s personal.”
“Anything wrong at my town house?” Perhaps he’d seen someone trying to break in, Heather thought with a spurt of worry.
“It’s about Atlanta.”
Her first reaction was relief that nothing had gone wrong. It was replaced by grumpiness. Why was he dragging this up again, and at this hour? “Give me a break!” she sputtered. “What did you do, lie awake all night figuring out ways to pester me? It’s six o’clock on Sunday morning!”
“I thought it was an hour later there.”
“No, it isn’t!”
“Sorry.” Jason sounded apologetic, which mollified Heather slightly. “I was up early with a C-section.”
“Did everything go all right?” Heather felt a flick of sympathy for the man, who must have had a tough night.
“Fine,” he said.
“I’m sorry you lost sleep,” Heather told him. “But getting called in for surgery doesn’t give you the right to bother me on vacation.”
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“No.” She decided not to offer an explanation of why she wasn’t sleeping. Ginger, however, took the initiative by disengaging from the bottle and issuing a loud burp.
“What was that?” Jason said.
“What did it sound like?”
“It sounded like someone burped in the background.” He paused before saying, “Are you alone?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I’m not.”
For one delicious instant, she figured she’d trumped him with the presence of an imaginary male companion. Then he said, “That didn’t sound like a guy burp. That sounded like a baby burp.”
“That was a baby burp,” she admitted. “I’m feeding Ginger. Her mother’s busy.”
“Her mother seems to be busy frequently. Where’s her father?”
“None of your business.” Why was he probing into Olive’s private life?
Heather supposed she could clear up her reason for babysitting by explaining about the wedding and honeymoon without having to reveal that she was a grandmother instead of a great-aunt. Right now, however, she was in no mood to satisfy Jason’s idle curiosity.
“I think you owe me an explanation,” said the incredibly presumptuous man at the other end of the call.
Was he out of his mind, or simply the victim of a runaway ego? “I don’t owe you anything,” Heather said. “You have a lot of nerve. First you move into my town home development, then you join my health club, now you call and demand information that doesn’t concern you. What I do when I’m away from work is—”
“—none of my business,” he concluded. “Listen, I didn’t mean to upset you. Can’t we have a calm, rational conversation like two adults?”
“This is a rational conversation,” Heather said. “I have never been more rational in my life. What I also am, in case you hadn’t noticed, is ticked off!”
With that, she punched End. It was the first time she ever recalled hanging up on a conversation.
Maybe it wasn’t the most politic thing to do to her supervisor, Heather supposed. On the other hand, he was way out of line.
The man apparently enjoyed provoking her, like an adolescent with a crush, except that she didn’t kid herself into thinking it was anything of the sort. She supposed she’d opened herself to this kind of nonsense when she got involved with Jason in the first place, but for heaven’s sake, they weren’t involved anymore.
She looked down at her granddaughter. “Baba?” Ginger said.
Heather’s irritation melted. “You’re the sweetest little thing in the world.”
“Da,” came the cheerful response.
“I suppose his attention is kind of flattering,” Heather told the infant. “Lots of people think Jason is gorgeous. Okay, he is gorgeous. He’s just not my type.”
The baby reached for her bottle. Heather angled her into a more comfortable position.
“I don’t have a type,” she added, for good measure. “But if I did, Jason Carmichael wouldn’t be it.”
She was certain Ginger agreed.
CALLING HEATHER at such an early hour hadn’t been a good idea, Jason conceded as he got out of the car. Although the thought made him want to pound his fist into the dashboard, he should have considered the possibility that she might be in bed with another man.
Thank goodness she wasn’t. Nevertheless, hearing that she was giving Ginger her morning feeding confirmed his suspicions. He’d never heard of a great-aunt getting that involved with an infant.
A father! The possibility was exhilarating. Jason barely restrained himself from skipping along the walkway like a boy.
Confronting Heather had backfired, however. Not only hadn’t she opened up to him, she’d performed the digital-age version of slamming down the phone.
What they needed was time alone away from the job. If they could unwind gradually, she might admit of her own accord that they had been lovers, and that Jason was Ginger’s father.
Quent’s mention of a cabin in the mountains gave Jason an idea. More than an idea: He already had the beginnings of a plan.
Chapter
Nine
Heather came to work early on Monday to check on the progress of her nurse’s pregnancy. Cynthia had insisted on being treated by her and no one else, and it suited them both to conduct the examination away from the pressure of regular hours.
“It looks as if you may be able to carry to term, which is a blessing with twins,” Heather said after she finished. “However, you must be uncomfortable standing on your feet all day. The center offers generous maternity leave. Although I’d really miss your help, you should take advantage of it.”
Cynthia’s dark hair swung from side to side, registering a negative. “I’m saving as much time as possible to spend with them after they’re born.”
“Get dressed and let’s talk in my office.”
The young woman checked her watch. “It’s getting late.”
“We’ll be fine.”
A few minutes later, Cynthia joined her. Although the office was small, Heather chose a chair beside her nurse rather than putting a desk between them. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to handle things. For one, we’ll rearrange your schedule after you give birth. You’ll need flexibility.”
“Please, no special privileges for me,” Cynthia said. “I got myself into this mess and I can handle it.”
The mess involved her ex-boyfriend, who had turned out not only to be married but to have three children. He and his wife, whom he’d kept in the dark, were moving to Alaska. He’d promised to send money, but how likely was a liar and a cheat to keep his word?
“I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.” With Olive gone on her honeymoon, Heather was learning firsthand how hard it was to care for a child alone.
That morning, she’d awakened an hour early to feed and dress Ginger, and still had barely managed to arrive at the day-care home on schedule. The very idea of supervising twins made her heart go out to the young woman.
Uneasily, she recalled what Jason had said about their patients deserving the best. He wasn’t going to tolerate frequent absences by her nurse, and she had to admit she could see his point of view.
“I know it’s going to be complicated, but that’s my problem, not yours,” Cynthia said.
Prognosis: A Baby? Maybe Page 10
