by Laurie Paige
Revisit a fan favorite novella by USA TODAY bestselling author Laurie Page—on its own for the first time!
After enduring unimaginable tragedy, prickly Dr. Eric Thompson has built walls to rival Fort Know around his emotions. But he has a soft spot for pregnant women and when he sees nurse Jenna Cooper in a moment of distress, he rushes to help. The next thing he knows, he’s driving her to doctor’s appointments and helping to plan a shower. But Jenna wants all of him, not just his time, but his heart. And unless Eric can open up, she’ll be having her baby—without him!
Originally published in 2004 as part of Mother by Design
JENNA’S HAVING A BABY
Laurie Paige
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
CHAPTER 1
Jenna Cooper glanced at the clock. Time for her dinner break. Actually it was two hours past time, but who noticed the little things when one was having fun? Fun, as in a wreck on the freeway during rush hour, a shoot-out between neighbors over a cat using a flower bed as a litter box—a flesh wound, but it could have been much worse—and a fist fight between two teenage brothers that had resulted in their mother getting a black eye and a scratch on her cornea when she stepped in to break it up.
The boys were contrite and shaken by the incident. As they should be.
What was with people this weekend? It was only the second Friday of May. The Oregon weather was balmy; it wasn’t like July, when tempers frayed due to the heat.
The facetious streak evaporated as she thought of the victims of the car accident. Luckily only two vehicles and three people were involved in the mishap. The drivers had escaped with minor injuries, but the two-year-old girl who had been in one of the cars was now in critical care in the pediatrics wing of Portland General.
Jenna hated for children to be hurt. Adults were supposed to protect the little ones, not tailgate each other on the interstate highway at seventy miles per hour.
Frowning with disapproval, she closed up the Emergency Room report on the toddler, placed it in the stack to be filed, then stood, yawned and stretched. Using the tips of her fingers, she massaged her lower spine.
Had anyone mentioned that pregnancy was hard on the back in those baby books she’d been ardently reading of late? Now in her fifth month, she was beginning to burst out all over, one might say.
“I’m going to eat,” she told the E.R. receptionist.
“Got your pager on?” the woman asked.
Jenna checked to be sure. “Sure have.”
Last night the E.R. doctor had been irked with her when she couldn’t be reached because she’d accidentally hit the off button. However, she hadn’t been goofing off.
As the senior nurse on her shift, it was part of her job to make sure the emergency medical supplies had been replenished from the main stockroom, and that’s what she’d been doing when the next case, a heart attack patient, had come in. Dr. Thompson had been coldly, but politely, furious when she’d returned, innocently unaware of a problem.
There were other nurses in the E.R. besides her, she’d felt like telling him. Instead she’d checked the pager, apologized and continued her duties as if her feelings weren’t smarting at the reprimand, the first she’d ever gotten from him.
Oh, well. She shrugged philosophically and stopped in the bathroom to freshen up before going to the cafeteria.
Frowning at herself in the mirror, she noted the fact that she’d forgotten mascara so that her eyes looked like two chips of lapis lazuli surrounded by barely discernible light-brown fringes. Her string-straight hair hung like limp curtains at each side of her face when she removed the band that held it out of the way.
At least the hair was naturally blond. That was the only good thing she could find to say about it at present.
After combing, then refastening the fine strands into a ponytail, she splashed water on her face, dried off, put on lipstick so she didn’t quite look as if she should be laid out on a gurney bound for the morgue and hurried out.
She retrieved her food from the refrigerator in the E.R. supply room and walked briskly along the corridor. It seemed to be a slow night in the rest of the hospital.
Dr. Thompson, head of E.R., was at the table reserved for medical personnel in the cafeteria. A surprise, that. He was sort of gruff, taciturn and aloof from the rest of the staff. But very handsome.
He was thirty-eight to her thirty-four, four or five inches taller than her five-eight height and had black hair and brown eyes. While he was invariably civil, his thoughts and emotions were as inviolate as a sphinx.
Since there wasn’t another soul in the staff area, she plunked her home-prepared food down at the round table where he was reading the paper. A muffin and a cup of coffee were in front of him.
“Is that your dinner?” she asked, setting a pint of milk on the table, then opening the containers that held her own nutritious meal.
He glanced at her, at the plastic dishes filled with good things, then the muffin. “It’s enough,” he said.
“Huh,” she said in disagreement.
He glanced her way again. She expected a frown, but he smiled slightly.
“Wow,” she said softly, “you’re incredibly good-looking when you do that.”
The thick eyebrows rose fractionally. His eyebrows and lashes were jet black like his hair. She envied him that.
“When I do what?” he asked.
“Smile.” She wrinkled her nose at him, then grinned.
He was technically her boss, so she probably shouldn’t be teasing him. Her smart mouth was her besetting sin…well, the main one, at any rate.
“I’ll share if you will,” she told him.
Before he could object, she went to the counter and grabbed a paper plate, along with a plastic fork and knife. She returned to the table and divided her bowl of chicken salad, which was crammed with almonds, apples and raisins as well as white chicken cubes, into two even portions. She did the same with the fruit salad, baby carrots and whole wheat, low-fat, low-sodium crackers.
“Here,” she said and pushed the plate toward him with one hand while she confiscated the unwrapped muffin with the other. She opened it, cut it in half and kept one for herself. “There,” she said in satisfaction, giving his part back to him. “There’s nonfat milk in the fridge.”
“Aren’t you going to bring it to me?” His tone was dry, but it did contain a shred of amusement.
“Why? You got a broken leg?” She silently groaned after the wisecrack slipped out. She waited for him to put her in her place. Politely, of course.
His smile broadened a tiny bit as he went to fetch his own drink. He wasn’t given to throwing pleasantries around, she’d noticed in the years they’d worked together.
Two months ago, he’d assumed total charge of the Emergency Room after the old doctor who’d been there about a hundred years finally retired. She wondered if she should mention her plan for when the baby came. She was going to take six months off, thanks to her split of the $500,000 lottery she and Lily and Rachel had won last year.
The other two were her best friends from high school days. The three had gone through nurses’ training together at the University of Oregon. They had also agreed to have babies via artificial insemination when they reached thirty-four, assuming three Mr. Rights hadn’t come along by then.
The ideal man hadn’t materialized for any of them, so they’d put their plan in action after winning the money, which they’d taken as a good omen.
They’d needed the change in fortune, Jenna mused. Lily had been left at the altar on her wedding day a year ago last June. The three had won the lottery that same day.
That’s when they’d decided to heck with men, they would have children without ’em!
Well, not exactly. They’d gone to a clinic for a little help in that department. Later, tired of Lily pining over her lost love, Rachel had admitted she’d had a one-night stand with the former fiancé, not knowing at the time that he was Lily’s mysterious Mr. X, the man she’d been dating in secret while his divorce came through.
Mr. Louse was a better description, Jenna mentally corrected. He’d caused a terrible breach in the women’s friendship, and Jenna had been caught in the middle between the other two. They’d only recently started speaking to each other again. It had been a difficult year—
“What is it?” her companion asked.
Jenna was shaken out of her introspection. “What?”
“You’re frowning,” he told her.
“Oh.” She opened her mouth, then closed it. The three pregnancies had already caused the gossip mill to grind overtime in their community. She wasn’t going to add to it by airing her feelings.
“Are you doing okay?” He gestured vaguely toward her.
“Yes. I’ve had no problems since I got past that dreadful first three months.”
He nodded solemnly.
She felt heat creep into her face. Everyone in the E.R. had been aware of her distress. She had never had trouble with nausea in her life, but during those early days she’d dashed to the rest room frequently while her body adjusted to the pregnancy. The other nurses had thought the situation was hilarious.
Right. Ha-ha.
Glancing his way, she saw his eyes locked on her, his gaze starkly intense as he studied the portion of her body visible above the table. She was sure his mind wasn’t on her, but on the past.
His wife and unborn child had died in an accident two years ago when her car had been struck by a drunken driver. For months afterward, looking into his eyes had been like looking into twin pits of hell. Everyone knew he blamed himself. The couple had quarreled and his wife had driven off in a fury.
Since Jenna had become noticeably pregnant, she’d found his gaze on her at odd moments in this same manner, as if all were dark and hurting inside him, as if she reminded him of that painful time in his life.
She lowered her gaze and concentrated on finishing every bite of her dinner. She needed the energy to make it until ten o’clock. She’d opted to work four ten-hour shifts, Wednesday through Saturday, since the pregnancy, thinking she’d get more done on refinishing the baby furniture her father had brought up after she’d told him the news.
“Now you’re smiling,” the doctor said. “Your moods are as changeable as the weather.”
“I’m refinishing my old baby furniture. I’ve never tried anything like that, so it’s been an interesting learning experience.”
“I’ve found most learning experiences result from some disaster or another,” he said wryly.
She had to laugh. “Yes. I’ve discovered you can’t mix water-based paint with oil-based. Actually, I knew that, but I was so excited to be doing something for the baby, I forgot to check the labels when I poured the new paint into the roller tray over the remains of the first can.” She sighed loudly. “One can recover, though. It’s a matter of patience and persistence.”
His eyes seemed fathoms deep as he observed her over the edge of the milk carton. When he set the empty carton aside, he murmured, “There are some things beyond recovery.”
Her heart went out to him. He hadn’t forgiven himself for his part in his family’s tragedy. Just as her pregnancy signaled a new turn in her life, she thought the competent, workaholic doctor needed a new turn in his.
He also needed something to focus on besides the hospital and the trauma cases he treated. There had to be more to life than other people’s tragedies. Thank goodness she had something special to look forward to.
She laid a hand on her side where the baby was kicking as if practicing for a soccer game. She was aware of her own blessings and grateful that she’d decided to have this child, that she had a dependable career and could afford to take care of it.
“Maybe,” she said gently in answer to his statement. “But most are, I think.”
His expression hardened and his gaze became cynical. “Not all.”
There didn’t seem to be much to add to that. After polishing off her half of the banana-nut muffin, she rose. “I think I’ll get back.”
At that moment, the pager on her belt vibrated. She jerked, startled.
Eric Thompson looked at his pager. “Emergency,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Together they hurried down the hall to meet the new crisis.
CHAPTER 2
Two hours later, Eric threw the wrinkled E.R. scrubs into the laundry bin, then washed his hands and face. After drying off on paper towels, he used an alcohol gel on his hands as a final precaution.
Heading for the parking lot, he wondered why he was so careful. Habit, he supposed. He’d tried not to bring germs home to his family. Now, he no longer had anyone at home to be careful for.
Pushing the dark thoughts into the back corner of his mind, he hurried across the parking lot. After unlocking his car, he paused before climbing in and frowned as a boy on a skateboard, who looked around thirteen or fourteen years old, hurtled down the slope of the E.R. driveway. If the kid couldn’t stop in time and shot across the sidewalk into the street, there could be a serious accident.
He glanced toward the hedge that divided the parking area from the street. No vehicles in sight, thank God.
Every nerve in his body jerked when he spotted someone on the other side of the hedge, a person with smooth blond hair. Jenna! She’d left the hospital by the side door and was on the sidewalk, heading that way.
The kid, making no attempt to slow down, whizzed toward the spot where the hospital driveway and the sidewalk crossed. Jenna, looking down, hurried on her way toward the same spot. Eric shouted and sprinted toward the pair.
He saw the surprise on her face as she paused by a car parked at the curb, and glanced toward the E.R. entrance to make sure no ambulance was about to pull out.
The boy, looking equally startled, was headed directly at her. She leaped back.
Eric’s heart gave a painful lurch as he witnessed the kid’s shoulder swipe Jenna. The boy swept past her at full tilt and disappeared down the street, obviously wanting to get away from the scene and the possible repercussions.
The pregnant E.R. nurse careened off the fender of the parked car, then hit the sidewalk. Fear crawled over his skin like a thousand millipedes leaping onto his back. He muttered a curse as he finally reached Jenna, who struggled to a sitting position.
“Don’t move,” he advised, kneeling beside her and visually examining her for injury. At least she wasn’t bleeding anywhere that he could see.
“Can’t,” she gasped.
He realized she’d had the breath knocked out of her. “Arms over your head,” he said and helped her lift them. “Now compress.”
He gently coaxed her to bend forward to push air out of her lungs until her diaphragm began working once more. He heard her breath catch, then she inhaled fully. Supporting her as she leaned into him, he let her get her breath back before slipping his hands around her and palpating her abdomen to assess any possible damage.
“I’m okay,” she said. “A bit bruised but not broken. Help me up.”
He did so, but kept an arm around her waist as she stood. He could feel tremors running through her body.
“Let’s go inside. You’ll need to stay overnight—”
“I want to go home.”
He frowned as she pushed away from him and, hand shaking badly, tried to fit the key into the lock of her car she’d crashed into.
“You could have been seriously injured,” he scolded. “You need
to pay attention to what’s going on around you. Surely you heard the noise from the skateboard and realized it was close.”
“I’ll listen more carefully next time.”
Spunky, he thought, a tug of admiration surprising him. But foolish. “You live alone, don’t you?”
“Yes, in a condo on Burney.” She opened the door.
“You’re in no shape to drive.”
Her hair band was gone, and the wind blew the long gossamer fine strands around her face. Without thinking, he tucked it behind her ears when she tried to get it out of her eyes with a toss of her head.
For a second, he let his fingers linger in the silky warmth. The fragrance of flowers came to him from her body, heated from the accident.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said in a low voice, as if she didn’t want anyone to overhear her admit to weakness.
As she turned and bent forward, he moved with her, cupping his body behind hers and putting his hands on her abdomen and forehead as her body reacted to the trauma with dry heaves. After a few seconds, she brought the spasms under control and leaned against the car, her forehead resting on her arm, hiding her face from him.
“Jenna?”
“I’m all right,” she assured him.
Eric didn’t move away or release his hold around her waist. With his free hand, he rubbed her shoulders until he felt her relax. Now that the emergency was over, other sensations came to the forefront of his mind.
He noticed her breasts brushed his arm with each long, shuddering breath she took. He sternly curbed an urge to turn his hand just enough to cup the alluring weight, and tease her nipple into attention.
Next, he became aware that his feet were planted on each side of hers so that her hips fit snugly against his groin. When she shifted her weight, he felt the movement in an intimate manner. To his shock and more than a little consternation, his body reacted with a strong surge of blood in the nether regions. Hunger pulsed through him, causing a wave of need so strong he almost groaned aloud.
