After months of ups and downs riding the ‘I want a baby’ ‘I don’t have time for a baby’ teeter-totter, compounded by hours spent obsessing over her finances, living situation, and work schedule, Scarlet had done it. She’d taken action, the first step. True, frequent sex until she got pregnant would have been significantly more enjoyable than page after page of paperwork, but hopefully her early morning meeting with Joey’s social worker would lead to the same outcome. Motherhood.
Granted her chances of becoming a foster parent and later adopting Joey would be better if she were part of a married couple, but Joey needed a mom and Scarlet wanted a daughter, and if she didn’t try she’d have no chance at all.
Scarlet reached up to push on the door to the changing area at the same time someone from inside must have yanked it open because her hands met air. Forward momentum sent her stumbling into a hard male chest.
How embarrassing. She’d been so preoccupied she’d tried to enter the men’s changing area.
Wait a minute. She glanced at the sign on the door: Women Only.
Whew.
“I’m sorry,” a male voice said. She looked up to see a man she now recognized as Dr. Alex Rodriguez. “I shouldn’t have…” he mumbled, releasing her without looking at her. “I didn’t plan to… Damn it.” He hurried off.
Scarlet entered cautiously, not sure what she’d find. A beautiful blonde woman, her fashionable attire covered by a white lab coat, sat on a bench, staring at a locker, looking dazed, running two fingers back and forth across her lips.
This was none of Scarlet’s business. She walked to her locker and worked the combination lock, already running late.
The woman sniffled and Scarlet couldn’t ignore her. “Are you okay?” she asked, walking over to where the woman sat.
The woman must not have noticed Scarlet’s presence because she jumped.
“I’m sorry,” Scarlet said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I shouldn’t be in here,” the woman said with a sweet southern twang, looking sad.
“It’s not like your presence is disturbing anyone.” Scarlet scanned the otherwise empty room. “I’m Scarlet Miller.” She held out her hand. “I work in the NICU.”
The woman looked up and with a small smile she shook Scarlet’s hand. “I’m Layla Woods, new head of pediatrics.”
“I’ve heard about you,” Scarlet said.
Layla gasped and brought her hand to her heart. “Already?” She looked about to cry.
“Good things. All good things,” Scarlet hurried to add. “From Dr. Donaldson, a neonatologist who works on my unit. He said he was on your interview committee.”
Layla seemed to relax.
“He thinks you’re perfect for the position.”
“I wanted it so badly.” Layla’s blue eyes locked on hers. “It was supposed to be my chance for a new start. But I had no idea…” She stopped.
“This is about Dr. Rodriguez.”
Layla let out a breath. “It’s already spread around the hospital. I can’t do this.” She stood and reached for her purse. “Not again. I have to—”
“Wait.” Scarlet stepped in front of her. “I mentioned Dr. Rodriguez because he nearly knocked me to the ground in his hurry to leave the locker room. The women’s locker room, might I add.”
“We had an argument,” Layla said quietly, sitting back down. “He followed me in.” She touched her lips again. “Five years,” she whispered. “And nothing has changed.”
This was like piecing together a puzzle on a game show. Scarlet sat down beside Layla. “I’ve got a few minutes if you want to talk about it,” she lied. Because she didn’t have a few minutes, she needed to get up to her unit to evaluate two new overnight admissions, a critically ill newborn with congenital diaphragmatic hernia and a struggling little boy born at twenty-nine weeks to a heroine addicted mother, now suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Luckily her staff, comprised of some of the highest skilled clinicians in the country, functioned competently and independently. And they knew how to reach her if they needed her. “Maybe it’d help me to understand if you started from the beginning.”
Layla nodded. “Alex and I used to work together. We had a…thing.” She looked away as if embarrassed.
“It happens,” Scarlet said. Not to her, but to plenty of her co-workers, working long hours in stressful situations, experiencing instances of wretched loss and sorrow interspersed with jubilant miracles of recovery, men and woman needing to share solace and unadulterated joy in the arms of others who understood the constant demands of the medical profession.
“A little boy died,” Layla said. “He was our patient. His parents sued the hospital and Alex.” She looked down at the ground. “My name got dragged into the case since I was the one who requested Alex as consult. Our relationship got called into question and now people at this hospital have found out. I can’t escape it.”
“I’m guessing you both were cleared of any wrongdoing if you and Dr. Rodriguez both made it through the rigorous hiring process here at Angels’.”
“Innocence doesn’t matter to the gossips,” Layla insisted. “Being found guilty in the court of public opinion can be just as damaging to one’s professional reputation as an actual ‘guilty of malpractice’ verdict in the courts.”
“Not here,” Scarlet told her. “The residents of New York City and the surrounding areas trust this hospital and its administration to employ top quality medical personnel. Hundreds of physicians apply for jobs here every year. Only a very small percentage of them make it past the first stage of the interview process.”
“But—”
Scarlet didn’t let her finish. “People are going to talk. Don’t let a bunch of gossipers determine your future. Administration would not have chosen you if you weren’t the best person available to head up Pediatrics. If this is your fresh start, if this is the job you want, don’t be so quick to give it up.”
Layla reached out to take her hand. “Thank you.”
They sat there in silence until Layla said, “He kissed me.” She ran her fingers over her bottom lip, again, mindlessly. “We had a bad break.” She looked at Scarlet. “How is it possible that one kiss can erase five years apart like they never happened? How can one kiss make me want a man who is totally wrong for me?”
Scarlet had spent the night pondering the exact same thing. “You still care for him.”
“I don’t want to,” Layla said quietly.
Scarlet’s cell phone rang. She stood, “I’ve got to get back to work,” and held out her hand. “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Layla Woods.” When Layla shook her hand Scarlet added. “On behalf of the NICU staff, welcome to Angel’s. We’re happy to have you here.”
Layla smiled. “Thank you.”
Finally up on the NICU Scarlet retrieved her stack of messages and found her charge nurse, Deb, at the rear nurses’ station. “I’m here,” she said, pulling out a chair to sit beside her. “What can I do?”
“Our transport team is en route to St. Vincent’s Hospital to pick up a twenty-six weeker. Estimated return at ten o’clock. Labor and delivery reported a mom at thirty-three weeks with severe pre-eclampsia is on her way to the OR for an emergency C-section. And we have another pre-term multiple birth scheduled for eleven o’clock. That’s five new admissions and we only have three incubators available.”
“Contact discharge planning and find out where they’re at with the coordination of home care nursing visits and durable medical equipment for Simms in twenty-two and Berg in twelve,” Scarlet said. “We have two more scheduled for discharge today. I’ll see what I can do to move things along. Anything else I need to know?”
Deb smiled. “I took care of baby Joey’s morning feeding, like you asked, and she took a few sucks on the nipple. She’s getting there.”
Scarlet’s day brightened considerably.
Deb looked around then leaned in and whispered, “Did you do it?”
> Scarlet nodded. So far, Deb and the social worker assigned to Joey’s case were the only people to know about Scarlet’s application to become a foster/adoptive parent.
“She’s a lucky little girl,” Deb said.
“If things work out, I’ll be the lucky one.” To finally have a daughter to take care of and love, after all these years of wanting, a chance to be a mom, and she’d help an abandoned infant in the process. God willing, someone had done the same for her daughter.
“What are your chances?” Deb asked.
“They’d be better if there was a Mr. Miller and I didn’t work such long hours,” Scarlet scanned through her messages to see if any were urgent. “But Joey will likely go home requiring some level of specialized care that I am more than qualified to provide. I put down I’d take a six week maternity leave, like any new mom would get, to stay at home to care for her. So if nothing else, they may give her to me for the six weeks during which time I will figure out a doable work schedule to convince the decision-makers that permanent placement with me is what’s in Joey’s best interest.” Exactly what Holly would have wanted. What Scarlet wanted.
Deb shook her head.
“What?”
“Six weeks,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how we’ll survive without you.”
“I’ve budgeted for an assistant head nurse but never filled the position because up until now I haven’t needed to.” She looked at Deb pointedly, hoping to relay the message she was the only person Scarlet would accept for the job. “Maybe it’s time I started taking applications.”
Deb, quick on the uptake as usual, asked, “You think I’m ready?”
More than ready. “Yes. Let’s see how things work out with Joey. Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“Oh I will,” Deb said.
With a “Thanks for holding things together until I got here,” Scarlet left to say a quick good morning to her precious baby girl, before she got to work.
Hours passed like minutes, but Scarlet found the time to feed and cuddle Joey once and rush down to the cafeteria to meet Jessie for their standing three o’clock cafeteria date.
“Hey,” Scarlet said, placing her orange tray down on the table opposite Jessie’s. “You all ready for your trip?” She pulled out a chair and sat down.
Jessie picked up her apple and wiped it with a napkin. “Yup.”
“You feeling better about the lake and the swimming and boating?” Scarlet felt terrible that she’d missed meeting up with Jess on Tuesday so they hadn’t done much girl-talking since their Saturday outing.
Jessie chewed her bite of apple. “Grandpa Richard said everyone on the boat has to wear a life jacket—they keep you afloat if you should wind up in the water—even him and grandma.” She took a sip of milk. “And Grandma’s going to take the girls to the craft store so he can teach me to swim without interruption.”
Scarlet loved how Jessie now spoke excitedly about the trip she’d been dreading for months.
“Grandpa thinks I’m big and strong and smart enough that I should be swimming by myself by the end of the trip.”
“That’s great.”
“Then I won’t ever have to be scared of the water again.”
Scarlet hoped Grandpa Richard came through as promised.
After another bite of apple Jess turned serious. “Will you do something for me?”
Scarlet swallowed down a spoonful of yogurt. “Of course.”
“I’m worried about my dad.”
Who Scarlet hadn’t seen or heard from since their kiss.
“He’s been real quiet. And he hasn’t been eating much. I think maybe he’s getting sick.” She slid a key and a piece of paper across the table. “I’m going to call him every day. But if he doesn’t answer I’ll need someone to make sure he’s okay.”
“Jess.” Scarlet reached out to touch her hand. “I’m sure your dad will be fine. Maybe he’s sad about you leaving.”
“He’s all I have now,” she said. “What if something happens to him while I’m gone?”
Jessie didn’t say it but Scarlet heard, “What will happen to me?”
“I promise, if you need me to check on your dad, I will,” Scarlet said.
“I wrote down his telephone number so you could call him, too.” She shrugged. “If you want. And our address.” She pointed to the piece of paper under the key. “I told the man at the desk in our building that you have permission to go right up because you’re my friend.”
Scarlet smiled. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
Jessie smiled back. “Me, too.”
“I don’t want you to worry about your dad. Go on your trip and have fun. I’ll call him every day, so if you get busy and forget it’s no big deal.”
Jessie lunged out of her seat, around the table, and into Scarlet’s arms. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing Scarlet tight. “I’m going to miss you.”
“You’re most welcome,” Scarlet said, squeezing her back. “You’ll only be gone for four days, but I’m going to miss you, too.”
In the slightly more than twenty-four hours since Jessie had given her the key to Lewis’s condo, Scarlet hadn’t spent one second thinking she’d actually have to use it. Well…except for the dream where she’d snuck into his home late at night…under cover of darkness…into his bedroom…into his bed…naked.
Whoa. She shifted her bags and fanned herself, the motion futile in the stuffy elevator taking her up to the twenty-first floor of Lewis’s posh upper-east-side building. That’d been a hot one.
But since it had nothing to do with a well-being check, it didn’t count.
The elevator pinged its arrival and the doors opened to a décor of opulent elegance that mimicked the lobby. Two antique chairs upholstered in a floral maroon fabric with magnificently carved, dark-stained wooden arms and legs sat at an angle on either side of a small matching table and below a large ornate gold-trimmed mirror. Quiet and the smell of wealth greeted her.
It reminded Scarlet of her youth. The memories were not pleasant ones.
Each door she passed looked the same. Pristine. Just like the bland textured walls that surrounded them.
The hallway, the lobby, the entire building, while lovely, lacked personality. Where were the signs of life, the feeling of warmth and welcome? Scarlet loved her New Jersey apartment, for her crazy boisterous neighbors and the smells of their varied meal menus, as much as its proximity to New York City.
She found Lewis’s door and stopped. What if he was in there with someone? What if the reason she and Jessie couldn’t reach him was he’d turned off his phone so as not to be disturbed during his four days of debauchery.
“Please, Scarlet. You have to go. What if he’s lying on the floor dying and there’s no one to help him?” Boy Jessie had a vivid imagination.
She lifted her hand to knock. Stopped.
What if he answered the door partially dressed and reeking of sex? She swallowed down a lump of regret-coated disappointment—which made no sense since they’d only known each other for two weeks and could barely even qualify as friends.
But that kiss.
She shook her head to dislodge the memory. Not that it’d worked any of the other five dozen or so times she’d tried.
Best to just get it done and be gone. With a fortifying breath she knocked.
And waited.
She knocked harder.
Nothing.
She slid her hand into the front pocket of her jeans, closed her fingers around his key, and prayed she didn’t have to use it.
“Lewis,” she yelled, knocking even harder. “It’s Scarlet. Open up.” She pressed her ear to the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside.
Nothing.
Scarlet removed the key from her pocket, and trying to ignore an overwhelming feeling of dread, inserted it into the lock.
Lewis stood under the spray of hot water hoping to wash away his funk. He missed his old life, but it turned out, not as much as
he missed Jessie. Talk about a totally unexpected twist. And since he’d dropped her off at his parents’ house the night before, he’d spent a large chunk of his ‘I’m finally free to do whatever I want’ time thinking of her, wondering what she was doing, regretting not going to Lake George, wishing he could be the one to teach his daughter to swim, to help her overcome her fear of the water, bemoaning the missed opportunity to reinforce the tenuous bond that’d formed between them over the past week.
But if he suddenly barged in on her vacation Jessie would know he’d lied about having to work, to get rid of her, exactly as she’d suspected.
Tenuous bond severed.
Served him right for lying in the first place.
More than once he’d picked up the phone to call Scarlet, to fill the quiet. To cheer him up and make him smile. But at some point in their conversation she’d undoubtedly bring up his request that she help him with Jessie’s room and look to make arrangements to get together. And even though it’d been three days since he’d changed his mind about having her over, he had yet to tell her. He wasn’t ready to put an end to the possibility. And she’d no doubt want to know why—women always wanted to know why, and he had no idea how to answer.
“I want to have sex with you so bad I don’t trust myself to be alone with you without a thirteen-year-old chaperone?”
What if the stars aligned and she admitted, “I want you, too.” Because after their kiss, he could tell she did.
What then?
They’d pack a lifetime’s worth of sex into the next seventy-two hours and it’d be great—Lewis would make sure of it. But she’d want more. They always wanted more, more of his time, his attention, his lifestyle, and money.
Things Lewis was not prepared to give.
And he couldn’t risk hurting Scarlet’s feelings or making her angry. Not with her close relationship to Jessie which she could easily use to turn his daughter against him. A woman scorned and all.
So what if Scarlet didn’t seem the type?
You never could tell. His mother had managed to hide her true self from teachers and neighbors. Lewis wouldn’t risk it.
NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet Page 7
