Jake's Love (Courthouse Connections, #7)

by Ann Jacobs

  Jake’s Love

  A Courthouse Connections Series Extra (#7)

  by

  Ann Jacobs

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Jake's Love (Courthouse Connections, #7)

  Works by Ann Jacobs

  Prologue

  Chapter One

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  Chapter Two

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  Chapter Three

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  Chapter Four

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  Chapter Five

  About the Courthouse Connections Series

  Ann Jacobs

  Published by Ann Jacobs

  Copyright 2015 by Ann Jacobs

  Cover design by Syneca Featherstone, Original Syn

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright holder and publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Works by Ann Jacobs

  Contemporary Romances

  The San Antonio Connection Series

  Men of Calder County—Ryan

  A Very Special Favor

  Steadfast (Coming soon)

  The Oil Barons Series

  Capture Me (novella)

  The Closer We Get

  Promises Lost (Coming soon, novella)

  Rescuing an Angel (Coming soon)

  Courthouse Connections

  More Than Lust (coming soon)

  The Defenders Boxed Set

  In His Own Defense

  Bittersweet Homecoming

  The Prosecutors Boxed Set

  Mastered (novella)

  Gettin’ It On

  Eye of the Storm (novella)

  Jake’s Love (series extra)

  Paranormal Romances

  Bliss House

  Blood Gift (short story)

  Historical Romances

  The Best Gift (short story)

  Contemporary Erotic Romances (revised)

  Roped, Hitched & Lassoed Boxed Set

  Nonfiction Books

  Self Editing for Writers: Tips for Taking Your Book from Rough Draft to Polished Final

  For a full list of all of Ann’s books, visit her website:

  http://annjacobs.net

  Prologue

  It had been another eighteen hour day, and chief surgical fellow Jake Levinson rubbed his aching head as he studied the chart of four year old Jocelyn Bryant, whose condition was deteriorating by the day. The child’s father was dead, and her mother didn’t look promising as a potential liver donor, from the test results that had come back so far. He raised an eyebrow when he read her attending surgeon’s terse note. According to Dr. Kramer, the only other possible living donors would be Jocelyn’s maternal grandparents.

  If the mother wasn’t a good match, it was likely that neither of her parents would be, either. Jake said a silent prayer for a cadaver donor to surface for the little girl before it was too late. Setting the chart down, he sighed and hesitated for a minute outside the child’s ICU cubicle.

  It didn’t take four years of medical school and four more of residency for Jake to tell at a glance that Jocelyn Bryant was critically ill. Her skin was jaundiced despite her having had the usual choleretics, phototherapy, and antibiotic infusions. Maury Kramer had done a Kasai procedure two years ago to buy her time, so now a transplant was their her option.

  Jake shifted his gaze to the young woman sitting in a recliner beside Jocelyn’s bed and holding her hand. The small, diamond-studded Star of David suspended on a chain around her neck caught his eye. She had on scrubs that should have disguised her slim figure but didn’t. Their greenish color, designed to make the healthiest person look sick, instead emphasized her tear-filled blue-green eyes. His fingers itched to touch her light-brown hair—hair that looked completely natural.

  “Mrs. Bryant?” He spoke softly as he stepped into the cubicle.

  She blinked, then managed a small smile. “Yes?”

  “I’m Dr. Levinson, chief surgical fellow in the transplant unit. I’ll be assisting Dr. Kramer and his team. Do you mind if I take a look at Jocelyn?”

  “Of course not. Would you like for me to leave the room?”

  “That’s not necessary. Dr. Kramer asked for another opinion, and I don’t like to render one without visiting the patient as well as reviewing her chart.”

  He moved over to the opposite side of the bed and did a cursory examination. The lab and ultrasound results in the chart didn’t lie. Jocelyn Bryant had to have a liver transplant within days if not hours, or she was going to die.

  “Dr. Levinson?” The child’s mother spoke barely above a whisper. “How is she?”

  “Jocelyn needs a transplant. But you knew that, didn’t you?” Jake wished he could reassure the child’s mother, but he dared not give her false hope.

  Drawn inexplicably to the pretty, distraught woman who seemed terribly alone, he moved toward her when she stood and held out a hand. “Don’t give up hope, now. Miracles happen every now and then.”

  When she shuddered, he took her in his arms. “We’re doing our best to locate a cadaver donor.”

  “But I thought I was going to give Joci part of my liver. Dr. Kramer said...”

  “You’re not a good tissue match for your daughter, even though you share the same blood type.”

  “What about my parents?”

  “We’ll bring them in to test, but I’m sure Dr. Kramer must have explained that if you’re not a good match, your biological parents aren’t likely to be, either. I realize your husband is dead, but his parents would be more likely to—”

  She gripped his shoulders. “Not possible. They have no interest in my daughter.” Tears ran down her cheeks, and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms fully and offer comfort.

  “I’m sorry. We’ll do everything we can to find a donor. Meanwhile, we’ll continue the tests until we’re positive that we can’t transplant part of your liver to Jocelyn. Shouldn’t you go home and get some rest?”

  “There’s nothing there for me. I felt for sure that I’d be staying here and having the surgery along with Joci. I-I even took Tigerlily to my mom—that’s Joci’s kitten.”

  Jake would have stayed with this woman who drew him so strongly, but if he did he was afraid his actions would go beyond professional concern. “You shouldn’t be alone. Would you like for me to call the hospital chaplain to come sit with you? Or your rabbi?”

  “N-no. I’ll be all right. Thank you for your concern, Doctor. I appreciate it.”

  Meghan silently uttered eve
ry prayer she’d ever heard as she sat by Joci’s bed. She couldn’t make herself pray that another child would die, so she simply prayed that they’d re-do those tests and find she was a good enough match for Joci that she could be her donor. Finally she dropped off to sleep. It could have been an hour or two days when Dr. Levinson walked back in Joci’s room and touched her shoulder.

  “I’m glad to see you finally got a little bit of rest,” he said, his drawl more southern than she recalled.

  She blinked, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her brain. “How long have I been sleeping? Joci...”

  “Jocelyn’s going to be okay. It’s been thirty hours since I saw you. The nurses say you’ve hardly moved from this chair in all that time. Dr. Kramer wanted you to hear the news, so he sent me along to tell you.”

  “W-what news?”

  “We have a donor for your daughter. A six year old boy came in to this hospital early this morning, critically injured in a car accident. He’s practically a perfect match for your daughter, and his parents have given permission for us to harvest all usable organs.”

  What should Meghan say? She wanted to rail at the cruel God who’d let Joci develop this incurable liver disease, the same God who had let some other mother’s healthy child be killed in a tragic accident. She knew all about unfair, because two months before Joci’s birth, her father had drunk one too many and wrapped his motorcycle around a tree. “Selfishly, I’m happy that Joci will have a chance to get well, but it’s hard to rejoice when I know another child had to die for her to get a new liver.”

  “His father told me that since his son had to die, he was glad that his organs could help more children to live. That the knowledge that his death wasn’t for nothing would help and his wife cope with their loss.” He spoke quietly, but with a sincerity Meghan couldn’t doubt.

  Her gaze went to Jocelyn, so tiny and weakened from fighting her dying liver that Meghan had worried for months that one day she’d go to check her baby and find her gone. “W-when will you do it?” she asked.

  “Tonight. As soon as the transplant teams can get prepared. We’ll do Jocelyn’s liver and a kidney transplant here, and coordinate with the heart transplant team at Tampa General to harvest the heart and deliver it there. The other kidney will go to Miami. The corneas will go to the cornea bank so another person may regain sight.” He paused. “Even skin can sometimes be harvested to graft onto severe burn victims, although I’ve never seen it done.”

  When Dr. Levinson put it that way, harvesting organs didn’t seem so ghoulish. The poor boy’s father had been right, saying that part of his son could live on in the bodies of others whose lives would be saved or made better for his gifts.

  Tonight one child had died, but several others would have a chance to live—including Joci. Tears streamed from Meghan’s eyes as she looked at her little girl, not only for Joci and herself but also for the parents of the boy whose liver was going into Joci’s body—and other children who would live because of that child’s death.

  Tears of sorrow, gratitude and hope that had been all to scarce lately. Meghan met Dr. Levinson’s concerned gaze, wondered how she could ever thank him and the rest of Dr. Kramer’s transplant team for keeping Joci alive until they found a donor.

  Chapter One

  A little more than a year later

  “You know you want me. Take me.” She looked up at him with passion-darkened eyes that reminded him of a stormy sea as she pulled him down on her with surprising strength for such a small, delicate woman. Bracing himself on his elbows, he plunged inside her welcoming heat.

  Jake woke in a cold sweat, hard as stone from the incredibly erotic, recurring dream that had been disturbing his sleep practically every night since he first saw Meghan Bryant over a year ago.

  He’d prayed for months after meeting her that this obsession with her would go away. It hadn’t. He was done with trying to tell himself she wasn’t for him. Finished with reminding himself about his duty toward his family and his heritage.

  So what if she wasn’t the virgin he was expected to marry? Who cared if she’d meet with his domineering mother’s approval? Meghan was the only woman who’d ever robbed him of his sleep whenever she wasn’t haunting his dreams.

  All I have to do is find the perfect excuse to get together with her for some reason other than at her daughter’s checkups.

  When he left for his office that morning, a small, black and white puppy was staying out of the rain under the stairs to his second-floor Harbour Island condo. After checking around the complex and not finding its owner, he named the puppy Patches and took her to a nearby vet for a checkup and a bath. That evening when he came home, he played with the pup, who seemed gentle and lovable enough to give a five year old child.

  “You’re the excuse I needed to contact my dream girls,” he told Patches as he picked up his phone and dialed Meghan’s number.

  ● ● ●

  “Is Doctor Jake really coming here and bringing me a puppy?” Joci’s bright blue eyes lit up. That didn’t surprise Meghan, because her daughter loved animals almost as much as she loved Dr. Levinson and the others on the transplant team who’d taken care of her and made her “all better.”

  Yesterday Dr. Levinson had called Meghan, gently coercing her to let him give the pup to Joci. “Patches found me,” he’d told her, explaining how he had found the black-and-white puppy shivering and abandoned, underneath the stairway to his condo. “It isn’t fair for me to keep the puppy, with me being away from home such long hours every day.” Meghan loved the sound of his deep, reassuring voice. A sexy voice that made her think of bedrooms and slow loving, now that she thought about it. Not that she wasn’t petrified every time one of the team members called her that something bad was going on with Joci.

  Meghan loved dogs as much as Joci did, and it had touched her that Dr. Levinson remembered how crazy her daughter was about animals. “Yes, Joci, he’s really bringing you a puppy. You’d better find Tigerlily and put her in her carrier. We’ll need to be careful and introduce her gradually to Patches. That’s the puppy’s name.”

  The crunch of tires on her gravel driveway was as good as a barking dog to announce that they had a visitor. Meghan smoothed her hair as she stepped onto the porch and waved. No wonder her daughter had fallen in love with the tall, dark-haired surgeon. If she hadn’t been totally focused on Joci during her hospitalization, Meghan would undoubtedly have been attracted to the hot young doctor whose team had saved her daughter’s life.

  Even when her mind had been fully focused on worrying about Joci, she’d noticed how handsome he was, even wearing those scary, green scrubs she associated with her daughter’s illness. He’d registered on her radar then, when the last thing on her mind had been a man. Today Meghan rated Jake Levinson as a bona fide chick magnet. His smile lit up the shady yard as he got out of a silver BMW convertible wearing khaki shorts and a dark-green golf shirt, and coaxed the small, wiggly pup to follow him. Joci burst outside, stopped in front of the dog and held out her hand in greeting. “I love him, Dr. Jake.”

  For a moment Meghan was tongue-tied. She was too old to be calling him Dr. Jake the way his little patients did, but it seemed too formal to be calling him Dr. Levinson now, when he was here not as a doctor but as Joci’s friend. “I think they’re going to be soulmates,” she commented, thinking when she smiled up into his dark eyes that this was not just a caring doctor but a man she wanted very much to know better.

  He grinned. “From the way Patches is wiggling, I think he likes both of you.” Bending, he picked up the excited pup and lifted him onto the porch. “How about it, Mom? May he stay?”

  “I think so. Let’s take him inside and see if he and Tigerlily will get along. Once we get inside, Joci, you can bring her out to meet Patches.”

  Meghan hoped the two animals would bond with each other. Tigerlily had lived with a dog friend when she was a kitten, but when Joci had become so sick, Meghan had given the chocolate Lab to her
sister up in Brooksville. It had been over two years since the yellow tabby had seen a dog up close. She watched while the two animals approached each other, very carefully, each sizing up the other. When Joci talked to Tigerlily, urging her in a serious tone to be nice to their new puppy, Meghan and Dr. Levinson exchanged amused glances. Pretty soon the growls and hisses stopped and the cat and pup settled down, both apparently glad to have four-legged company.

  “Looks to me as if they’re going to get along just fine. I thought, since I was out here already, I’d see if I could talk you two ladies into joining me for a pizza. I know a great place not far from the University.” The doctor ruffled Joci’s auburn curls then shot Meghan a hundred-watt grin.

  “We’d love to go, wouldn’t we, Mommy?” Joci met Meghan’s gaze, a pleading look in her big blue eyes.

  What could a mother say? “Yes, we would, if Dr. Levinson’s serious.” She couldn’t help wondering—hoping—if Joci’s doctor might be as interested in her as in her little girl.

  “Dead serious. I’m off call until tomorrow night, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than enjoy a pizza with two beautiful women.” The way he looked at Meghan made her cheeks grow warm, her heart beat faster. She’d pretty much given up on men after the way Bruce had dumped her in favor of bimbos and booze as soon as her pregnancy had become obvious, but most of that pain had subsided in the years since he’d died.

  She might not be quite ready to dive head-first into the social fish pond, but an evening out with her daughter and the young surgeon who’d saved her life—well, she could handle that. The more time she spent with him, the more she thought she might just plunge right in—if he gave her half a chance.

  ● ● ●

  The family-owned Italian restaurant was filled with students as well as a few young families. Joci was drawn as soon as she finished eating toward a playroom of mazes and swings and some games where players could win small prizes. While Joci played, Jake chatted with Meghan. Not that the little girl didn’t interest him. She did. Not half as much as her pretty mother, though. He’d been wanting to be with Meghan ever since that day at the hospital when he’d wiped her tears after informing her Joci had to have a liver transplant immediately. She’d been alone, one small young woman with nowhere but inward to turn for strength. It wouldn’t have been at all professional for him to have tried to hit on her then, but now...