Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  “It’s not you, Jack.”

  Man, he loved the sound of his name on her lips. He loved his lips on hers. He’d love his lips on…her.

  Moron! What happened to his aversion-therapy program?

  So far, it wasn’t working worth squat.

  “I intend to be the best pediatric surgeon Bowen has ever trained,” Mel said quietly, but even he could hear the determination. “That means taking every opportunity to gain experience, to learn, to practice what I’ve learned.”

  “How much are you learning when you’re asleep on your feet?”

  Mel narrowed her eyes at him as she sat up straighter. “I’m not tired.”

  Somebody else might have bought it, but Jack knew better from personal experience. “Bull-oney. You’re so exhausted you don’t even feel it anymore.”

  One side of Mel’s mouth quirked up. “Oh, I feel it,” she assured him. “I just can’t pander to it.” She spread her hands palms up. “This is just part of the price you pay to be a doctor.”

  Jack sat back, crossed his arms over his chest. Mostly to keep from reaching for her. Plucking her out of her seat and carrying her off someplace private—especially if it contained something, anything resembling a bed big enough for two.

  “Well, it’s too high a price,” he declared.

  Mel shook her head. “No, it’s not. No price is too high if I can save the lives of kids like Harry.”

  Her head stilled; her eyes met his. “Jack, try to understand. My dad’s in the oil exploration business, so we moved around. A lot. Lived in towns one block long, in campers—once we spent months in a tent in the middle of nowhere, North Africa. Maybe that’s why my little brother and I were so close.” She gazed past him at something only she could see.

  “Just before he turned six, Harry got…sickly. We were in a little town on the Alabama coast then. The only doctor available couldn’t figure out what was wrong.”

  Jack could see she was fighting back tears; he ached to gather her into his arms. To hold her. Even his desire to help his sister past her grieving couldn’t hold a candle to how he felt about taking care of Melinda. Protecting her from all this pain and discomfort, from any hint of sorrow.

  “So, didn’t your parents take him to a bigger town? Another doctor?”

  A tear spilled from each of those brimming green eyes and rolled unchecked down her cheeks. “Not soon enough. And the guy was a specialist, but not in pediatrics. Children aren’t just small adults, you know. He operated on Harry, but…

  “When they came out and told us he’d died on the table, I vowed then and there to do something useful with my life, so his wasn’t wasted.” Wadding up her paper napkin, Mel blotted the errant tears, then dropped it atop her barely eaten meal. “And that’s what I’m doing. That’s why I married you. Not to talk me into slacking off just as I’m about to achieve that goal.”

  The woman had a great sense of timing, Jack admitted ruefully as he watched her move around the table in preparation for stalking off.

  But if she expected to make such a dramatic speech and exit stage left without a peep out of him, then she bought that whole Easter Bunny thing, too.

  In one move, Jack rose and stepped in front of her, leaving less than a centimeter between them. “You’re seriously mistaken, Melinda,” he purred, his hands curling around the shoulders made for them. “I’m not trying to discourage you. I’m trying to help. You need a more balanced life.”

  He stared down at Melinda. They were so close, almost touching. He could feel her breath on his neck, just above his collarbone.

  He’d have to plead insanity for what came next. His fingers were kneading those soft, yielding shoulders. She made a low sound in her throat as her chocolate hair swept over his hands like satin fire.

  He kissed her. Down to her tonsils. Right there in the deserted hospital cafeteria.

  And if her pager hadn’t gone off, he might have followed up with one of those movie moves: sweeping dishes off the table and laying her back, coming down over her….

  But the pager buzzed. And either Jack let her go or Mel wrenched herself free.

  Whatever, she took off like a jet-fueled dragster. Heading for the recovery room, he assumed.

  Jack staggered off to recover, too. Melinda Burke might need some instruction on attaining balance in her life.

  But she could give master classes on kissing. And sign me up for a few. As in, a few thousand.

  Yeah, a few thousand of those kisses and he’d have Melinda right out of her clothes—

  Jack shook his head to clear it. No, no kisses. No clothing removal. What he ought to be trying to get Melinda out of was his system.

  Good luck, pal. There wasn’t a shower icy enough to cool down the feverish desire she generated in him.

  His usual practice of loving and leaving by mutual consent had hit a road bump, Jack realized as he wandered the rabbit warren of anonymous corridors in search of one leading to the hospital’s parking garage.

  Melinda was a whole new country. In her case, absence didn’t make abstinence any easier. But intercourse required interaction. And why would Mel interact with a guy who tried to jump her bones almost every time he got near her?

  So now he not only had to pry her away from her damned surgery fellowship, he had to reassure her he wasn’t Jack the Ripper.

  Only one sure way to accomplish that: the courtship thing.

  Funny, the idea didn’t seem as unpalatable as it always had in the past. In fact, he could picture himself and Mel as a couple.

  Well, he could picture them coupling….

  FORGET EVERYTHING that just happened, Mel advised herself as she stormed down to Recovery. The guy was well-meaning but misguided; his advice irrelevant. And his kiss—

  Whew! Jack Halloran’s kisses turned her to mush. Unfortunately, right now she was a doctor on duty, not a woman. She’d have to save the mushy business for later.

  Mel flat-handed the gray metal door and walked into Postop.

  One of the two nurses working there looked up from adjusting an IV drip. “You checking on Bowen’s kid?”

  “Yes. How’s he doing?”

  Dammit, she could practically hear Jack whispering, See? Even the nurses think of him as Bowen’s case. So why isn’t Bowen here monitoring his patient’s post-op progress?

  “BP’s good and he’s breathing well.”

  “Is he coming around yet?” Mel asked, crossing the room to reach the unconscious teen, taking his wrist to check his pulse. Strong and steady.

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” the nurse answered as he checked another patient. “Who did the anesthetic?”

  “Kronsky.”

  Both nurses laughed. “Grab a magazine,” the one who’d hailed her advised. “Kronsky puts ’em under deep. Thinks she’s doing the surgeons a favor.”

  Maybe she was, while they were in the operating room. But now…Mel looked at the big clock above the desk in the corner. Already after ten.

  She’d be pulling her Cinderella act again. A yawn cracked her jaw. Jack was right about her putting in outrageous hours.

  Not Bowen. He’s probably home by now. Asleep.

  Well, maybe she could sleep in one day soon. Weekends were generally a little slower. No morning rounds on Saturday, for one thing.

  In fact, Mel realized suddenly as she tucked the boy’s blanket around him, some Saturdays she didn’t see Bowen until late afternoon.

  The nurse turned around. “Dr. B.’s orders for the kid are in his chart.”

  “Brian,” Mel said softly, looking down at the still-unconscious boy. “His name is Brian.”

  Picking up the chart, Mel flipped it open to scan the orders. No surprises. Monitor and update vitals. Report condition to family.

  As she closed the chart, the nurse working the other side of the room said, “Oh! As he was leaving, Dr. Bowen said to tell you he wants someone—meaning one of you doctors, not a lowly nurse—to check the kid again at 7:00 a.m.”
r />   Mel clenched her pager, cursing silently. “Were those his exact words?” she asked. “Have someone check on Brian tomorrow morning?”

  The male RN grinned and nodded. “Uh-huh, but he didn’t use the boy’s name.”

  The order-reciting nurse made a rude noise. “Because he didn’t know it,” she contributed. “Bowen never bothers with unimportant details like that.”

  “What do you mean?” Mel asked, before any inopportune professional etiquette discouraging gossip about colleagues could rear its ugly head.

  “Leo Bowen’s one of those old-fashioned surgeons,” explained the male nurse, whose name tag read Jesse Ordonez. “You know, the kind who don’t think of their patients as human beings.”

  “Yeah, they’re just procedures to perform,” the other nurse—Mary Chan—agreed as she came over and patted Mel on the shoulder. “Bowen doesn’t remember his residents are humans, either. You have to remind him.”

  Nurse Ordonez laughed. “Right, but don’t do it tomorrow. I heard he’s scheduled to play golf with some neurosurgeons. I made the mistake of paging him once when I first started here. He was on the tenth hole. Putting. I almost lost my job.” He shuddered in mock horror at the memory.

  The two nurses went back to checking vital signs, joking about other doctoral quirks they’d observed over the years.

  Mel stood there, looking down at Brian, the teenage skateboarder with more bravado than sense.

  A sudden fury swept over her. She’d been killing herself—never letting up. Working 24/7 to keep up with her reading, to write precise, thorough and exhaustive reports, fill out the endless parade of hospital forms, do patient follow-up…while Bowen played golf!

  She owed Jack an apology.

  After checking Brian again, Mel went over to the wall phone, snatched up the receiver and paged ol’ Blabbermouth. She owed him something, too.

  As for herself…

  Jack was gonna find a little note on the coffeemaker when he came down in the morning.

  The doctor would be sleeping in. Maybe even as late as six o’clock.

  The sheer rebelliousness of the decision made her dizzy. Or was that fatigue? Or the lingering aftereffects of a kiss so astonishing, so incapacitating, it made an F-5 tornado feel like a soft spring breeze?

  JACK RAKED HIS HAIR. Glared viciously at the clock, then back at the note.

  That was the real problem with 4:30, he reflected. There was nobody else awake if you needed to vent.

  Nice that Mel had seen the light after their discussion last night, but an extra hour in the sack wouldn’t give her the balanced life she needed.

  Too restless to go back to bed, too sleepy for TV, Jack parked at the breakfast table.

  He tried to focus on Mel’s imbalanced life and what he could do about it for her, but he could swear he heard tapping. Now what? he wondered. Aural hallucinations, or another appliance getting ready to give up the ghost?

  No, that was definitely tapping. At the kitchen door.

  Jack strode over and wrenched it open. Felt his jaw sag.

  “Bob?”

  The old man from across the street grinned apologetically. “I know. It’s too early for a social call, but…I saw your light on. ’Severything okay over here?”

  “Oh, yeah. Just fine, thanks.” Jack smothered a sigh and started to close the door. When the oldster’s face fell, he reversed the motion, inviting Bob in. “Want some coffee?” he asked. Might as well shoot the breeze with the senior till it was time to rouse Mel. Better than sitting here confused, frustrated and…frustrated.

  Within minutes, Bob was happily slurping coffee and accepting Jack’s offer to pop a frozen waffle in the toaster, since he’d finally learned how to not turn the rectangles into charcoal briquettes.

  “Got a partiality for blueberry muffins,” geezer Bob said a minute later, while he drowned the waffle in syrup and dug in.

  “I’ll make a note of that,” Jack promised dryly. “In case the repairman ever returns to fix the blankety-blank range.”

  He’d swear the old man’s ears actually perked up. “Say what? Your stove still don’t work?”

  Anything to break his obsession with Mel. Jack spilled the whole sorry Lenny story.

  “Told you ’bout those sanctimonious service guys, didn’t I?” Bob crowed, then jabbed his fork in Jack’s direction. “Joe Donaldson’s the man you oughta call,” he said as seriously as an SEC regulator. “He retired from Big D’s Appliance World. Likes to keep his hand in. Wouldn’t charge you an arm and a leg, neither.”

  Taking a small notepad and ballpoint from his shirt-pocket, ol’ Bob scribbled down a phone number, ripped off the sheet and handed it to Jack. “Joe lives a block over. He’ll be glad to come over ’n see what he can do—his wife’s always wanting him out from underfoot.”

  Repocketing his writing tools, the oldster mopped up syrup with the last piece of waffle. “It ain’t easy on us old coots, just sitting around. A man likes to feel useful, ya know?”

  Jack nodded absently. Yeah, he knew. He looked at the scrawled number. What the heck. If Joe wasn’t the genius Bob thought he was, Lenny could fix whatever the retiree messed up—if he ever showed up.

  Meanwhile, the term “asset reallocation” floated through Jack’s head. Less time on the house equaled more time to solve the Mel-balance problem, right?

  “Any of you ‘old coots’ work on pool pumps?” He’d detected the reason for the green water, but after the Lenny experience had hesitated cold-calling a phone book listing.

  Ol’ Bob nodded happily. “Right next door. Preston St. Clair. Used to own a pool company. An’ if you want some help takin’ the dead limbs off that tree out front, Charlie Rodriguez’s your man.”

  “Give me their numbers, too,” Jack said as he got up to refill Bob’s coffee. Was the whole neighborhood retired and hot to do odd jobs? Why didn’t they play golf? Or cruise around in RVs or whatever old people did?

  Well, if they showed up and got the job done… “How much do you guys charge?” he asked. Couldn’t be more than Lenny.

  “Why? You need to check this out with the little lady first?” Bob asked with a funny expression. Oh, he was eyeing the toaster.

  Jack snorted as he heated another waffle. “The little lady—I mean, Mel—doesn’t care what I do or how I do it.”

  “She said that?” At Jack’s nod, it was Bob’s turn to snort. “And you believed her? You are new at this, aren’t ya?”

  Well, yes, he was. “So what? I’m the houseperson around here. I don’t have to ask her permission,” Jack warned the self-proclaimed old coot.

  “Heck no,” Bob agreed. “But women don’t think the way we do. That’s why ya gotta be…subtle, ya know? Best way to handle ’em is to make ’em think whatever it is, it’s their idea.”

  “What? Aw, come o—”

  The geezer cut Jack off. “Come on yourself, son. You ever told your woman somethin’ she didn’t want to hear? Did she listen? Hell no.” He answered his own questions.

  “Women’re wired different, son. So we gotta learn different ways t’deal with ’em.”

  After a third waffle and the rest of the coffee, the wizened know-it-all finally went home.

  Thoughtfully, Jack made a new pot of coffee.

  Bob’s view of females sounded a tad outdated, but…

  The direct approach to Mel and her brutal work schedule had been about as successful as fortifying cereal with baloney.

  So maybe Bob had a point. Think different.

  A brilliant plan leaped fully formed into Jack’s brain. A genius of a plan. He smiled at this latest proof of restored creativity. Quitting work to stay home was the smartest move he’d made in years.

  “Oh! I didn’t know you were up.” Mel’s cloud-soft voice came from the doorway.

  She’d tied her hair back in a ponytail, but the robe she wore dipped low enough in front to taunt him with the cleavage it revealed that it concealed. His hands ached to slo-owly push aside
that soft peach material…to stroke those smooth creamy breasts…to take their weight in his palms…to rub his thumbs over Mel’s nipples and feel them grow as taut with arousal as he already was.

  Jack wrenched his gaze from Melinda and looked at the clock. Just after 5:30.

  “It’s too early to be up,” he said, taking a deep breath. Trying to think, not imagine. No luck. Before the oxygen reached his brain, he blurted, “Where we need to be, Mel, is back in bed.”

  7

  “TOGETHER?” Oh, that sounded good…!

  No, it didn’t. Mentally, Mel ka-whammed herself upside the head. Where were these wild thoughts coming from?

  “Of course not.”

  Jack’s quick answer confirmed her ka-wham.

  “Of course not,” Mel echoed. No doubt she was the only one around here interested in something more. Like consensual conjugal congress.

  And she’d better get over it. Quick. Unless she wanted to scare off the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  Clean underwear. That’s what she meant. Not a great-looking, genuinely caring male whose physical presence seemed to rev her female hormones into high gear.

  “I need some coffee,” she declared, aiming herself at the cabinet holding the mugs instead of the man she wanted to hold her. Touch her the same intense way he kissed her.

  Whoa. Jack was right. Working so much was affecting her. Like being frightened affected the adrenal system.

  “What you need is a day off,” Jack corrected her as if he could read her mind while he shouldered her aside to grab the mug and fill it with freshly brewed java.

  Maybe he was right about that, too. A little time off to clear her head of these crazy ideas about him and her.

  “Do something different,” he suggested. “Get some fresh air. It’ll give you a whole new perspective.”

  Talk about sounding good….

  Reality crashed in. “Can’t.” Blabbering Dan hadn’t answered his page, so she had to do the follow-up Dr. Bowen had ordered on Brian. While he plays golf.

  Jack is right, she realized as hot caffeine slid down her throat. Everybody else is finding a way to have a life. Even Bowen.

  “At least…not today.”