When Lewis entered the room, Scarlet motioned for him to be quiet and come to stand beside her.
So engrossed in her task, Jessie didn’t notice his arrival as she made an exaggerated honking noise that sent the little girls into a pile of gigglers.
Lewis watched his daughter, his face a mix of awe and disbelief.
“Jessie holds ‘story time’ around four o’clock every afternoon,” she whispered. “The moms meet up for a few precious minutes of adult conversation, while your daughter gives each of their children some special attention.” Scarlet looked up at him. “She’s really something special.”
Jessie finished one book and, with a big smile on her face, accepted a kiss on the cheek from the girl in her lap. Then the circle shifted, the next little girl climbed in her lap and she began to read again.
“I can’t believe it,” Lewis whispered, his eyes locked on Jessie. “She’s actually smiling.”
“She has a beautiful smile,” Scarlet pointed out.
Lewis turned to her. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen it.”
“Dad,” Jessie walked up beside them. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Lewis said. “I came up to check on the baby born in the ER yesterday, and the secretary at the desk told me I’d find Scarlet in here.”
Good man, very convincing.
Jessie stood defiant, ready to do battle. “If you’re going to yell at me please do it outside. I don’t want to upset the girls.” Who sat watching Jessie, still in a circle, awaiting her return.
Lewis went rigid. “Why do you think I’m going to yell?”
“Because you always yell.”
Lewis looked close to lashing out so Scarlet touched his arm to stop him. “Always is one of those words you need to use carefully,” Scarlet cautioned Jessie. “It’s rare someone always does something.”
“You don’t know my dad,” Jessie replied with an eye roll, and Scarlet couldn’t keep from smiling.
“If I was going to say anything,” Lewis said. “It’d be how nice it was to see you smiling for a change, and how proud I am to know you’re spending your time helping out here.”
Jessie looked stunned.
One of the moms came over. “Is this your dad?” she asked Jessie who nodded hesitantly as if embarrassed.
The woman put her arm around Jessie’s shoulders. “You have a gem of a daughter.” She looked in the direction of Lewis’s name badge and added, “Dr. Jackson. You’ve done a wonderful job with her.”
Lewis answered, “Thank you.” Then he turned to look at Jessie. “I wish I could take the credit, but it was all her mother.”
Jessie ran from the room.
Lewis and Scarlet caught up with her by the elevators and she turned on her father. “Why are you being so nice?” Jessie asked her voice full of accusation. “You hated my mom, and you hate me.”
A couple exited the elevator, avoiding eye contact as they passed by.
“Honey, I have never hated your mother, and I don’t hate you,” Lewis said, impressing Scarlet with his calm. “I let my anger and disappointment at having to pick you up at the police station get the better of me yesterday, and I am deeply sorry for what I said.”
Jessie stood there, her arms crossed tightly over her mid-section, looking down at the ground.
“Now that I know where you’re spending your afternoons, I can stop worrying,” Lewis said quietly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Jessie offered, still not looking up.
It was a start. But with the Memorial Day weekend of doom fast approaching, was it enough to get Lewis and Jessie talking about what they needed to talk about? Probably not. Which meant Scarlet had to figure out a way to intercede without Jessie finding out.
Later that night, after spending more time thinking about Lewis and his daughter than sleeping, Scarlet settled on what she’d do. Of course it’d taken until well after midnight to finally make up her mind—the reason she sat in the far corner of the mostly deserted hospital cafeteria hours before her lunch break, waiting for Lewis.
He walked in and went directly to the coffee dispensers, giving Scarlet time to play voyeur, watching from afar, admiring his long legs, short hair, and good looks. The man made basic green scrubs look like upscale attire. Clean and neatly pressed. And dare she add, pleasingly filled out.
No wonder she’d heard his name bandied about by so many of her single co-workers.
She skimmed up his legs, to his narrow waist and wide chest, to his smiling face, to his eyes staring straight at her.
Busted.
She smiled back and waved.
He paid the cashier and headed toward her. “You like what you see?” he asked with the cocky smile of a man who knew he looked good, pulling out the chair across from her at the small, two-person table along the wall.
“Actually,” she took a sip of coffee, playing it cool. “Just pondering the age old question of boxers or briefs.”
He leaned in close.
She added straight white teeth, clean shaven, and a hint of expensive cologne to his growing list of unsettlingly pleasing attributes.
“Use your imagination,” he whispered.
Oh he did not want her to go there. Too late. She closed her eyes and pretended to imagine his naked form with various undergarments. Okay. So she didn’t totally pretend. When she opened her eyes to find him studying her, she flashed her sweetest smile and said, “Commando it is.”
He laughed out loud.
“Suffice it to say, I no longer owe you a slap across the face.” She blew out a breath and fanned herself. “We are now even.” Come to find out he had a beautiful smile, so much like Jessie’s.
“You make me forget I’m the father of an impressionable teenage girl.”
“You know being a parent does not sentence you to a life of celibacy. Why don’t you pull up your date book and call one of your five star babes to take the edge off. It’ll calm you down. I’m happy to take Jess to dinner and a movie.” She smiled back. “Your treat, of course.”
He rested his elbows on the table and leaned in close. “Why is it we never met before Jessie came into my life?”
Oh that was easy. “Probably because I don’t dress to attract male attention, my boobs don’t enter a room before I do, and I’ve never gone to O’Malley’s after work intent on finding a sexy doctor to go home with.” And she had a brain and self-respect and stayed away from men who didn’t put any effort into getting to know a woman before making a play to get her into bed.
His smile grew even bigger. “You think I’m sexy?”
And full of himself. “Based on your reputation, I think it’s safe to say certain women find you sexy. Or else they simply put up with you in a desperate attempt to snag themselves a doctor husband.” She shrugged. “It’s a discussion for another day.” She looked at her watch. “Unless you’d like to continue rather than talk about Jessie, who is the reason I asked you to meet me here. Your choice. I’ve got rounds with the neonatologist in fifteen minutes.”
That knocked the cocky grin from his lips.
Good.
“What can you tell me about Jessie’s mom?” she asked, hoping to get him to figure out Jessie’s issues on his own, so she could avoid having to come right out and tell him.
He took a sip of coffee before answering. “There’s not much to tell. She was a barista at a coffee shop around the corner from my medical school. We dated a few times, and by dated,” he looked at her pointedly without apology or regret, “I really mean got together for sex. When she put pressure on me to spend more time with her, we fought. She became a distraction so I broke it off,” he said matter-of-factly. “I needed to focus on my studies. So I found another coffee shop and she, according to a ranting message left on my answering machine, found a man who appreciated her—likely one more easily manipulated by her histrionics. After that I never saw, spoke with, or to be honest, thought about her
again until I received a call from her attorney nine months ago informing me she’d died and I had a twelve-year-old daughter.”
The news of his situation had spread through the hospital like pink eye in a room full of toddlers. “That must have come as quite a shock.”
“You have no idea.”
At age sixteen she’d found out she was pregnant and had no recollection of having sex. At seventeen she’d given birth only to wake up to find her baby gone. She had some idea.
“Well this entire Lake George vacation mess could have been avoided if you’d taken the time to get to know Jessie’s mother before you slept with her.”
“Trust me,” he said. “If I’d have taken the time to get to know her, I would not have slept with her.”
For some reason that struck her as funny.
“Enjoying this are you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Okay. Maybe a little. But moving on.” Since plan A didn’t work, time to move on to plan B. “Let’s play doctor.”
He looked around then leaned in and whispered. “To do the game justice we’ll need some privacy.”
“You are unbelievable,” Scarlet reprimanded him. “I am trying to clue you in to Jessie’s fears about Lake George. But maybe it’s not as important to you as I’d thought. And since there are plenty of more important things I could be doing.” She pushed back her chair.
“Wait.” He grabbed her hand to stop her from standing. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “I can’t help it. There’s something about you.” He studied her as if trying to figure out what. “I’ll behave. I promise.” He held up his right hand, as if that made his words more believable.
“Okay, then.” Scarlet slid her chair back under the table. “You’re the doctor. I’m going to tell you a hypothetical situation and you’re going to tell me what you think.”
“Hypothetical,” he clarified with a tilt of his head and one raised eyebrow.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Purely hypothetical.”
“Got it.”
“A woman has a near-death drowning experience as a little girl and grows up with a crippling fear of the water. She has a daughter. The daughter grows up under the mother’s watchful eye, never allowed in the ocean, a lake or a swimming pool, and therefore never given the opportunity to learn how to swim. Do you think it’s reasonable to assume the daughter may also develop a fear of water?”
He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “And all this time I’ve been playing up how much fun she’d have at the lake, jumping off the dock in the backyard,” he said. “Boating. Tubing. Riding wave runners. I’ve no doubt traumatized her. Why didn’t she tell me?” He looked at Scarlet for the answer.
“It’s been seventeen years since I’ve spent any time in a thirteen-year-old’s mixed up mind, but maybe she’s embarrassed. Or she doesn’t want you to blame her mom. Or she somehow thinks you’ll belittle her fear or force her to deal with it. I honestly don’t know.”
Lewis sat there, staring at the table.
“What are you going to do now that you’ve taken the time to really put some thought into why Jessie doesn’t want to go to Lake George and you’ve come up with the possibility she may be scared of the water,” Scarlet asked. “And might I say good job of coming up with it totally on your own and without the help of anyone else.”
Determined eyes met hers. “When we get home tonight I’m going to sit Jessie down and we’re going to discuss her exact reasons for not wanting to go to Lake George. And if she doesn’t bring up a fear of water or an inability to swim, I will find a way to work it into the conversation.”
Finally. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
The words weren’t fully out of her mouth when someone came to stand beside their table. Scarlet looked up to see Linda from the NICU, looking down at where Lewis still held her hand in his.
“Well what have we here?” Linda asked with a gleam in her gossip-mongering, match-making eyes.
Not good.
“Must I spend my Saturday afternoon in this touristy hell that is Times Square?” Scarlet complained as they maneuvered along the crowded sidewalk. Lewis kept an eye on Jessie who stopped to look at scarves laid out on a street vendor’s table.
“Stop being a cynical New Yorker,” he chided delighted to be away from the hospital and his condo, to be outside on a beautiful sun-shiny spring day on his first fun New York City excursion with his daughter. And having Scarlet along upped the enjoyment factor significantly.
“Technically I’m a Jersey girl.”
Maybe so, but she looked the part of a chic New York City woman in her wedge-heeled open toed sandals, which displayed some perfectly manicured bright red toe nails, a pair of trendy knee-length cargo shorts that sat low on her hips, and a clingy red tank that accentuated her flat abdomen and small—although not too small—breasts. An over-sized red leather bag slung over her shoulder, a sleek ponytail fastened with a fancy silver clip, and silver hoop earrings finished off her very fashionable, very appealing look.
“Remind me again why I’m here?” she asked.
Jessie didn’t buy a scarf, but she did purchase a pretzel. He watched her count her change like he’d told her and put the money into her front pocket. “Because you told Jessie she could call you anytime for any reason.”
Scarlet snapped her fingers. “Right. And she wanted me to take her shopping for a bathing suit and some new vacation clothes.”
After his conversation with Scarlet, Lewis had carefully, patiently and tactfully worked to pry the truth out of Jessie. And once she’d opened up to him, months of accumulated fears, concerns and tears had come pouring out. They’d talked for hours, and before bed Jessie had actually said, “Thanks, dad.” His first amiable ‘dad’ followed by his very first hug and kiss good night from his daughter. A moment he would never forget. And though he’d never admit it to anyone, he’d teared up after she’d left the room, overwhelmed with relief. And hope.
“Yet somehow we wound up in Times Square. If I’m the one taking her to lunch and shopping,” Scarlet peered up at him from the corners of her eyes, “Why are you here again?”
“Because I’m financing this little clothes shopping expedition, so I get the right of final approval.”
Scarlet’s smile did something tingly to his insides. “Oh you think so?” she asked.
He was the father. He knew so.
In an attempt to avoid a very persistent man trying to hand her a leaflet of some sort, Scarlet bumped into him and tripped. Lewis caught her around her narrow waste. “We’re not interested,” he said firmly and the man retreated.
“Why’s that guy out in public in his underwear?” Jessie went up on her tiptoes and strained her neck to see around a group that’d gathered on the sidewalk. “And a cowboy hat and boots? And why are people taking their picture with him?”
“Let’s keep walking,” Lewis said, steering Jessie and Scarlet away.
“He does it to attract attention to himself so he can make some money by charging people who want to take a picture with him,” Scarlet explained. “Tourists spend money on the craziest things.”
Lewis watched the huge jumbotron on the side of a building to find the spot where the cameras were aimed. “Hold on.” He turned Jessie. “Look up.”
She did. “Hey.” She waved both arms over her head and jumped up and down. “That’s me.”
“And me,” Scarlet said with a big smile as she jumped and waved, too.
Lewis bent to talk into Scarlet’s ear, noticing she smelled as good as she looked. “How touristy of you.”
She stuck out her tongue at him then looped her arm through Jessie’s. “Come on. This store has some great clothes.”
As much as Lewis hated Jessie’s baggie black garb—that’d turned to be hand-me-downs from a neighbor since her mom had been too sick to work and couldn’t afford new clothes—Lewis was not at all a fan of Jessie’s revealing, burgeoning-figure-hugging choices. “
No,” he said again and Jessie stormed back to the dressing room. Unfortunately it seemed last night’s parental epiphany did not mean smooth sailing from then on.
“You know you’re going to have to give a little,” Scarlet said, remaining by his side instead of following Jessie.
“That shirt was too tight.” He swallowed. “Do you think she needs a…” God he hated this. Daughters should not have breasts for boys who will soon be men to look at. Suddenly baggie black attire didn’t seem all that bad.
Scarlet smiled, enjoying his angst a little too much. “Bra?” she asked. “Do I think your daughter needs a bra?” she teased.
“Ssshhh,” he said. “Keep your voice down.”
She didn’t. “Tell you what I’m gonna do,” she said like some cheesy salesman trying to sweeten the deal. “If you let Jessie get three outfits and two bathing suits of her choice, I will accompany her to Macy’s.” She cupped her hands at the sides of her mouth and whispered, “For some bras.”
“No V-neck shirts and no bikinis,” Lewis clarified.
“If you get stipulations then so do I. I’m thinking I’ll suggest she get padded bras to double her bust size.”
Witch. “Okay. She can pick from the last batch of stuff she tried on.” Which thankfully didn’t contain any of the hideously trampy items of clothing Jessie had tried to convince him to consider at the onset of this shopping nightmare.
“Deal.” She held out her hand.
He shook it.
“You’ll get through this,” she said. “Tight shirts and bras are nothing.” She waved a flippant hand. “Just wait until she gets her period.”
Lewis thought he might throw up right there by the girls denim shorts rack. As a pediatrician he didn’t hesitate to discuss breast development, menstruation, and birth control with his patients and/or their nervous parents. But the role of father caring for a developing teenage daughter had taken him into new territory. Had Jessie already gotten her period? Doubtful since he didn’t have any feminine supplies in the house and she hadn’t asked him to buy any. Had anyone had ‘the talk’ with her? Did she know what to expect? And what about safe sex? And sexually transmitted diseases?
NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet Page 4
