Prognosis: A Baby? Maybe

by Jacqueline Diamond

  “What is really important?” Heather scarcely dared to breathe.

  “I guess I need to explain, since I haven’t prepared you for this very well,” Jason said. “You see, something was holding me back from accepting Dr. Cocteau’s offer. I didn’t realize what it was until I read this morning’s newspaper.”

  Had he accepted the offer or hadn’t he? Heather tried to speak, and found her throat too clogged. Please let him say the right thing. Please don’t let this be his way of buying me off.

  “I came across a story about an old mentor of mine,” Jason continued. “He died in his sleep at the age of eighty-five.”

  She mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

  “I always wanted to be as much like him as possible,” he said. “As I read the article, I kept thinking that my accomplishments would never measure up to his. Then I reached the bottom. It said he’d been divorced twice and left no surviving family.”

  “How sad.” Heather hoped the man had had close friends.

  Jason reached out to touch her arm. “I kept wondering who was at his bedside. I realized I don’t want to end up alone without you, no matter how much glory I reap along the way. I want us to be a family.”

  A family? Did he mean that?

  “A lot of things came together all at once.” Jason said. “I couldn’t believe I hadn’t grasped it earlier. Being with the woman I love, working surrounded by people I care about, is just as important as changing the world. Because, in a way, this is the world. This is my world.”

  “Mine, too,” Heather whispered.

  “Once I understood that, I couldn’t bear to wait another day,” he said. “I kept remembering how much you wanted roses and this idea popped into my head.”

  “About buying a house?” she managed to ask.

  “Not just the house…” A quizzical look replaced his cheerfulness. “Did I leave something out?”

  “I don’t know. Did you?”

  He gave a brief wave of the hand as if impatient with himself. “Let’s back up. I can’t believe I omitted the most important part.”

  “Should I go out in the hall and come in again?” Heather asked, only half kidding.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Jason made a small embarrassed noise in his throat. “The point I’ve been trying to make in my clumsy way is that I love you. Heather, will you marry me?”

  The joy inside her was too pure, too precious to savor all at once. With what remained of her self-possession, she said, “I’ve always imagined that when a man proposed to me, he would kneel.”

  Jason’s green eyes sparkled at her. Why had she ever thought them icy? “Is it one knee or both knees?”

  “Either way.”

  With more grace than she’d expected, he lowered himself to one knee. In his tuxedo, he put her in mind of an English lord, proposing to his lady in a rose garden.

  “Will you marry me and make your home with me, Heather?” he asked. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m ready to put down roots and I hope you’ll show me how.”

  Tears stung her eyes. How could her dream be coming true, when she’d long ago given up on dreams?

  “I thought I was going to lose you. I figured you wanted to talk to me privately to tell me you’d accepted Dr. Cocteau’s invitation,” she confessed.

  “I gave him my polite regrets. I hope you’re not about to do the same.”

  Heather couldn’t believe the arrogant, hard-driving Jason Carmichael was speaking like this. As she studied his face, so full of hope, she knew that whatever she decided right now would determine the course of their lives. Either she retreated into a protective shell or she risked her heart by giving it without reserve.

  “No.” Seeing his expression cloud, she hurried to explain, “I mean, no, I’m not about to give you my regrets. The answer is yes. I love you, too. I have for a long time.”

  In a flash, Jason regained his feet and pulled her to his chest. “Say that again.”

  “I love you.…”

  She didn’t get to finish. His kiss drove the words away.

  There was a new sweetness to their embrace. When he stroked her hair and touched her cheek, Heather experienced a joy that swept away all the sorrows and doubts of the past.

  She realized that having a house and roses no longer mattered so much. With Jason, Heather had come home, and with him, she was going to stay there.

  THEY MADE LOVE in the bed she’d bought for herself and never before shared with a man. This, she mused as they lay together afterward, was what the bond between a man and a woman was meant to be.

  It had certainly been a night to remember. Doctors Circle had raised thirty million dollars to ensure its future. Its nursery was filled with healthy babies. And Heather had found the one thing that had been missing despite all the other wonderful parts of her life.

  She nestled against Jason’s shoulder, inhaling the tangy essence of him, trusting at last that he would always be there. “I want to hear my favorite part again,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The part where you tell me you love me.” He brushed a kiss across her hair.

  “That’s my favorite part, too. I mean, when you tell me.”

  “Let’s do it together. I’ll count one, two, three…”

  “Jason!” Heather couldn’t believe he was acting silly at a time like this.

  He laughed. “I love you, Heather.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “That felt good,” he said. “You know, I wasn’t sure how you’d react to my proposal.”

  “You must have had some clue,” she pointed out, drawing the covers around them. “Otherwise you took quite a risk, stocking my office with roses.”

  “It was worth looking like a fool,” Jason murmured. “I’d have been a bigger fool if I didn’t try. As a matter of fact, I had no intention of giving up easily. By now, you must know how tenacious I can be.”

  “I can picture you running around all day, buying roses, setting them up, figuring out that business with the key,” she said. “It was quite a production.”

  Jason chuckled. “The hardest part was going to be luring you away from the ceremony. Natalie’s labor turned out to be very convenient.”

  “It wouldn’t have been so convenient if I’d had to stay at the Birthing Center all night!”

  “I’d have waited,” he said.

  “But you hate wasting time,” Heather blurted, sitting up straight so she could look at him.

  “It wouldn’t have been wasted.” In his eyes, she saw a new maturity and a new devotion. “It would be the most worthwhile time I ever spent.”

  Moisture blurred her vision. “I’m so glad you didn’t let me discourage you.” Mischievously, she added, “Does this mean I can expect you to be patient from now on?”

  “Actually, no,” Jason said. “To begin with, I don’t believe in long engagements. How does a June wedding sound to you?”

  A month wasn’t much time to find her ideal dress and arrange for a church full of flowers. But those things didn’t matter as much as they used to, now that Heather had won the man she loved. “It sounds terrific.”

  The next thing she knew, Jason was kissing her again. It seemed a shame to stop there, so they didn’t.

  Two months later

  “THIS IS the one,” Heather said the minute she stepped onto the patio.

  “You haven’t seen the upper floor yet,” the real estate agent pointed out.

  “I guess she doesn’t need to,” Jason said.

  Wordlessly, Heather gestured at the slope behind the house, enjoying the sparkle of her diamond wedding ring in the July sunlight. She’d known all along what she wanted, and now she’d found it.

  They’d visited several homes in this new hillside tract, each charming in its own way, but the small yards, mostly taken up by steep rear banks, hadn’t offered her much scope for gardening. This one was different. Terraced, the slope offered row after row of poss
ibilities, although at the moment there was nothing but bare dirt and a few weeds.

  Heather pictured tiers of roses, much like the magical effect Jason had created in her office. The bushes, which had been perfuming her town house’s courtyard for several months now, would fit perfectly here.

  The real estate agent didn’t argue. “Just to fill you in, there are three more bedrooms and two baths upstairs. Do you have children?”

  “No, but we have a grandchild.” Jason kept his expression deadpan. It was typical of him to let the woman try to figure out for herself how that was possible.

  They’d seen Ginger last month when she, Olive and John had flown into town for the wedding. The little girl was crawling already, and she’d obviously missed her grandma.

  They’d been married at the Serenity Fellowship Church next door to Doctors Circle, in a ceremony attended by Jason and Heather’s immediate families along with a crowd of their fellow staffers. Afterward, they’d all enjoyed dinner and dancing at a hotel near the beach.

  Heather didn’t remember ever attending a party with so many babies. Natalie had brought little Melissa, Rita had attended with her triplets and Loretta with her twin girls. Cynthia had sat with them, treasuring the infants she’d relinquished while discussing her plans to enroll in a master’s degree program.

  There were lots more babies to come among the patients at the Infertility Clinic, with new success stories every day. The furthest along was Eva LoBianco, now in her fourth month and already decorating her nursery.

  Amy, too, was experiencing a healthy pregnancy. Although Heather missed being able to care for her friend, since she no longer handled non-infertility patients, she knew Rob Sentinel was doing a fine job.

  With so much going on, she and Jason had taken only a brief honeymoon in San Francisco. However, they planned a two-week trip to Europe in the fall.

  “Spend as much time looking around as you like,” the Realtor said. “If you decide to make an offer…”

  “Give us a minute, will you?” Jason asked.

  “Sure thing.” The woman went inside.

  Heather couldn’t wait to make her case. “It’s fenced, so Frodo can have room to stretch his paws.” The puppy had grown in the past few months and was becoming rambunctious, although Jason trained him diligently.

  “I can see why you love the place.” He reached out to ruffle her hair. Heather loved when Jason touched her in small ways, which he did often. “It suits me, too. Let’s go for it.”

  Gazing at the grounds of their future home, she nodded agreement. During the past two months, she and Jason had grown closer in a thousand ways. They worked together and played together and, on Sundays, he fixed her breakfast in bed. Now they’d found their house, too.

  There was just one thing missing. But not for long.

  “We haven’t looked into the school district yet,” Heather said.

  “The school district?” Jason asked.

  “I suppose a man who expected Ginger to attend kindergarten at a middle school wouldn’t pay attention to such things, but I prefer to look at the teacher-to-student ratio and the curriculum,” Heather said. “We want our child to get the best start possible.”

  “Our child.” He repeated the words reverently. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

  She’d barely managed not to shout the news the previous day after administering her own pregnancy test. “I was saving it for the right moment. This seems to be it.”

  “You mean you’re…we’re going to have…Wow!” With a shout, Jason grabbed Heather and swung her in a circle, then lowered her with a worried expression. “Did I hurt you? Do you feel all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She laughed. “As a doctor, you know a little excitement isn’t going to hurt me.”

  “It’s different when it’s my own wife,” he admitted. “I guess I’m going to be one of those husbands who shares the whole pregnancy.”

  “That should be quite an experience!” Heather laughed. “And just think. We didn’t even need a petri dish.”

  Jason gathered her gently against him. “We must be the two luckiest people in the world.”

  For once, she didn’t argue.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-6873-2

  PROGNOSIS: A BABY? MAYBE

  Copyright © 2003 by Jackie Hyman.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com

  *The Babies of Doctors Circle