Daddy By Design? & Her Perfect Wife

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  While she ate her egg taco—were those reddish-brown specks cinnamon?—Mel wondered if she should change. Her clothes, that is. Too late to change her personality. But what did one wear to a giant flea market?

  After breakfast, Mel fled upstairs to brush her teeth, fighting a losing battle against the nervous anticipation that filled her insides.

  She could cut open a child’s chest and repair his or her heart, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say to her husband…wife…whatever during the twenty-minute trip to Tess’s apartment.

  At least Jack’s sister appeared to be ready to enjoy herself. She sat in the back of the Jeep trading stories with him about their misspent youth. Stories that revealed as much mutual affection as mischief.

  Mel simply listened, breathed non-hospital air and watched the scenery and the other traffic—gambling buses headed for Shreveport, NAFTA trucks and… “Why are there so many boats being towed?” she asked.

  “Lots of lakes around here,” Jack replied as he passed a van packed with kids. They waved, Mel waved back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack wave, too.

  For some undoubtedly foolish reason, warmth rippled through her at his gesture. The heat loosened her tongue and she took a stab at prolonging the conversation.

  “Are they fishing lakes or waterskiing?”

  “Mostly fishing, I think,” Jack said.

  Tess added, “You know skiers though—they’ll try it anywhere.”

  If “it” involved Jack’s mostly bare body covered with glistening water droplets, Mel thought, she’d sign up with the skiers. Chill, Burke. This was a G-rated outing, remember.

  “We, ah, we used to go fishing,” she blurted. “My dad, my brother and me.”

  They’d had fun, too.

  “Your mother didn’t fish?” Jack asked, nodding as Tess tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the exit sign.

  Mel laughed. “No, she’d stay home and read or do needlepoint. She said the only good way to catch a fish was on a plate brought by a waiter.”

  There was a moment of silence at that boring bit of information. Lame-O! Mel berated herself. She’d never get this conversation thing.

  “Jerk,” Jack muttered to a semi barreling past. Then as he signaled and changed lanes, he said, “Those pillows in the formal living room—your mom made those?”

  Ten minutes later, as Jack followed the signs from the interstate to a huge and already highly packed gravel parking area, they were still talking.

  We’re having a real conversation! Mel grinned at her ridiculous sense of accomplishment. She and Jack were actually chatting about something other than laundry and broken appliances.

  “Y’ALL READY?” Jack asked as they piled out of the car. They joined the crowd of people streaming toward a huge open-air pavilion area containing what seemed to Mel to be hundreds of booths selling everything from hand-painted duster coats to “miracle” cleaning products to homemade candy to eight-track tapes.

  In addition to a second large outdoor area, they discovered, there were two buildings, too, that contained sales booths. “And don’t miss the civic center,” someone advised when they’d made their first rest stop. “That’s where the antiques and such are.”

  And apparently, there were more acres of unofficial flea market on the north edge of town.

  “Let’s check out the rest of this place first,” Jack suggested as they wandered through the second pavilion.

  Mel nodded politely, continuing to feign curiosity. Her feigning had begun the minute they’d entered the first Trade Days Pavilion and Jack had put his arm around her. She’d been so busy reveling in his touch, she’d lost all interest in the merchandise and the crowd surrounding them.

  And not one person had pointed and jeered. Or snatched them apart and ordered her back into her normal role as dedicated Loner Doc/Bowen’s Bashee.

  Today she was just another woman strolling with her man through bright May sunshine, along row after row of merchandise, most of which seemed destined for future individual garage sales.

  “Thank you, Jack,” she said, halting between a T-shirt display and a fresh-squeezed lemonade stand. She knew she ought to explain her gratitude, but his dark blue eyes were gazing into hers and words…words just failed her.

  Jack’s mouth curved in a gentle, sexy smile that seemed to say he understood all she couldn’t express verbally. He pulled her closer.

  “Tess! Is that you?” Mel heard a male voice say somewhere in the haze beyond her and Jack.

  She found herself teetering, her balance upset by Jack’s abrupt removal—of his embrace and his attention. She grabbed at the nearest stationary object. Unfortunately, it was a plastic bucket perched on the corner of the lemonade wagon. A bucket filled with lemons.

  Reflexes and her trauma-rotation training came into play: Mel managed to catch three of the lemons in midair. As she scrambled after the rest of the rolling citrus, Jack—who’d dropped her like last year’s boy band the second Tess’s name had been called—joined the salvage efforts. Physically, at least.

  Squatting, he scooped up yellow fruit without taking his eyes off his sister and the guy who’d hailed her, a tall, dark-haired man accompanied by a young girl.

  Mel apologized to the lemonade vendor and continued collecting the escaping citric inventory.

  Real smooth, Burke, she told herself. She guessed she could add klutz to her list of reasons why Jack seemed more interested in acting like a Doberman on his sister’s behalf than in kissing the woman he’d married. Obviously, Jack remembered she was no ordinary woman. And no wife. No way.

  As a wake-up call, it ought to help her remember why losing her focus on her professional goals—throwing away all those years of hard work for a possible broken heart—would be a totally boneheaded move.

  Tess, meanwhile, was looking puzzled, then surprised, then pleased.

  “Dale? Dale Reilly?” Absently handing Mel a recaptured lemon, she stepped around her brother to greet the man who’d called her name. “Oh my gosh!”

  Mel was standing close enough to Jack to hear him growl when his sister hugged the other man. She also saw the little girl with the newcomer raise her eyebrows, then grimace.

  Tess introduced the man as an old friend she’d lost track of; then commenced the reconnection dance. Where are you living now? What are you doing job-wise?

  Inevitably, the subject of spouses arose. Dale was divorced.

  “What about you?” he asked Tess.

  Jack’s growl became louder. Mel put a hand on his arm; he shook it off. Gave her a “you don’t understand” look and opened his mouth to deflect the man’s nosy, insensitive question.

  “Oh, be quiet, Jack,” Tess said sweetly before telling Dale that she was a widow.

  I’m gonna rip his head off, Jack thought when the jerk asked for details. He cleared his throat as menacingly as possible. “She’d rather not talk about it,” he informed Doofus Dale.

  Tess turned on him. “No, you’d rather I don’t talk about it. You can’t grasp that I loved Pete too much to pretend he never happened.”

  “I’m trying to spare you painful memories,” Jack retorted while Mel and Dale looked uncomfortable but stood their ground. Dammit. He appealed to Melinda, “I swear, I don’t get it, do you? If losing him hurts so much for so long, why fall in love in the first place?”

  They were beginning to draw a crowd. Jack didn’t care. He planted his fists on his hips and glowered at…somebody. Anybody. Everybody.

  His crazy sister just looked at him. Sorrowfully? “You really don’t get it, do you? I thought…when I saw you and Mel at your wedding, I thought you’d finally understand.” Tess shook her head. “It isn’t love that hurts, Jack, it’s life. Life is painful sometimes. Love is what makes the pain bearable.”

  The bystanders drifted away, losing interest when the shouting stopped.

  Jack remained perplexed, but gave up on discussing the subject—whatever it was—here and now.
/>
  Dale’s kid tugged on her father’s sleeve. “Dad? You promised.”

  “Okay, honey,” the guy told his daughter, but his eyeballs still targeted Tess. So did his next sentence. “I promised Carrie she could spend her birthday money here, but what she wants to buy…”

  “All my friends have one,” the kid insisted.

  Shyly, but immediately, Tess offered to mediate. Smiling at Dale the whole time, like some preteen getting goofy over the latest boy band.

  Look, he was glad his sister was acting interested in something, okay, someone other than her late husband, but an insensitive jerk like Dale wasn’t what he’d had in mind.

  “I don’t think—” Jack began.

  “Darling!” Mel cried, dragging him away to a deserted area behind an unoccupied booth before a fistfight broke out.

  “Hey, I was just try—” Jack didn’t get another syllable out.

  Desperate to distract him, Mel obliterated the rest of his sentence with a kiss that halted all higher brain function involving distant relatives.

  He started to pull away, but Mel’s lips moved beneath his. Her tongue penetrated his mouth and began contra-dancing with his. Jack’s mental activities suddenly descended to pure primitive level. Melinda…taste her.

  Reluctantly parting company with hers, his tongue found her ear and flicked erotically over its delicate whorls. From there, he nuzzled his way past her velvety lobe, down the side of her neck, then traced the little hollow above her breastbone.

  Touch her.

  “Ja—”

  Get the damned clothes off….

  His fingers worked buttons free, then slipped along the lacy edge of her bra, then inside. The smooth roundness of one perfect breast filled his palm. Mmm. Made for each other….

  Then he was stroking, kneading, kissing her breasts, his mouth wetting the nipples, his warm breath shivering over her sensitive skin as he sighed, “Ah, Mel, you’re perfect.”

  “Jack.”

  Who cares name…?

  Mel moaned softly.

  Jack stilled, then gently drew back his hand.

  “’Sokay,” she whispered. “We’re alone here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jack stammered, slowly coming to his senses. “I…I didn’t mean to get so carried away.” This wasn’t some casual pick up. This was Mel. His wife. A woman he respected.

  Jack looked down at Mel’s blouse, half-unbuttoned. Her lips were pink and puffy. A tiny pulse beat rapidly in her neck.

  Better cool it. No sense making things awkward between us.

  He turned away to give Mel time to pull herself together while they both recovered from…whatever had just happened.

  Mel had dragged him into this private little oasis and kissed him, that’s what. Man, had she kissed him!

  What was it with him and her? One touch of her lips to his, one caress of her beautiful, satiny breasts and he torched like C-5 explosive detonating an oil refinery. No woman had ever aroused him so fast, so hard, so often—not even when he was seventeen and the very letters s-e-x could set him off.

  “No, I’m the one who should apologize,” Mel said, softly adding, “probably,” as she slid the last button into place and turned to leave.

  “Wait! Where’s Tess?” he demanded as Mel began walking away. Some caretaker he was. He’d misplaced his own sister!

  “I’m sure she’ll be along in a minute,” Mel said calmly over her shoulder. She looked as cool as she sounded. Cool, contained and completely unaffected by what had just transpired between them.

  He didn’t know whether to accept the inherent challenge or breathe a sigh of relief at his close escape from that kiss taking him and Mel to a deeper level.

  Tess’s earlier statement echoed through his head. “Love is what makes pain bearable.” But love involved commitment. Real commitment. Long-term commitment. And that was what made you vulnerable to the kind of pain his sister now suffered.

  He didn’t want to go there, did he? Jack wasn’t sure…except of one thing: Melinda was the only woman who’d ever made it look tempting.

  “I’m starving,” Mel announced stiffly as she led the way down the narrow alleyway between two booths and back into the open, public area, where a minute later, Tess joined them. “Let’s get something to eat and then I want to buy a souvenir.”

  The two women linked arms and headed for the nearest food-vending area, on the hunt for gummy nachos. Jack followed, mentally reconstructing himself, down-playing the effect Melinda Burke had on his male physiology.

  But she did affect him. And one of these days, he decided, they should explore the full extent of that effect. Taste, touch and take each other. Listen to their hearts beat in rhythm. Feel their bodies melt together.

  But not before he had this whole commitment, love, pain thing worked out in his head.

  8

  MEL BOUGHT a pair of peanut shell earrings, hand decorated with bluebonnets, then shellacked to a high shine. A silly souvenir for a silly day.

  That’s all it was.

  That’s what she told herself, anyway. Trying to be sensible, objective, logical.

  Failing spectacularly. Face it, she wanted Jack—all of him. Maybe she hadn’t dated half the population of Plano, but even she knew that few kisses—few kissers—actually shorted out the kissee’s neural activity.

  Jack’s kiss did. Not to mention what his touch did to her. And not just physically.

  It was the other ways Jack affected her—when he wasn’t even present—that concerned her. Difficulty concentrating—never on patients, but some of her billing sheets got kicked back these days.

  Occasional irritability, too. Especially during the week following their day in Canton. Because, aside from that toe-sizzling interlude behind the booths, Jack had pointed out a hundred different hobbies and interests turned into part-time businesses.

  Mel got his point: there were lots of ways to spend your time. And that, even if one could, maybe it wasn’t good to work at life-and-death stress levels all the time.

  She’d concede that seeking balance was as desirable as more caresses from her spouse.

  But Mel knew one thing about balance: it couldn’t be found anywhere under Bowen’s supervision. The two short—fourteen-hour—days she’d worked while he conferenced in Belize—the meetings must have been held outdoors, judging by his sunburn—she’d nearly caught up on her reading and her casework.

  Only to be dumped on again the minute Bowen returned. She pulled a thirty-six. Followed by another.

  Before Jack, she’d thrived on the heavy workload. Before Jack, she hadn’t thought about anything but surgery. Saving lives.

  Now she found herself thinking about the quality of the lives she was saving. And about the quality of her life.

  It’s pretty rank, Burke. Pretty lonely, too.

  Which was pretty silly. She had a spouse at home—a spouse who might not be interested in true love or a real marriage, but whose body seemed interested enough.

  In what, though? Her? Or generic sex? And did she want to find out? If so, how could she if she was stuck here at the damned hospital?

  She was still pondering possible answers on Friday night, a week after the trip to Canton, as the residents gathered around a video monitor to view a surgical tape.

  Dobson and Svoboda had performed a cleft palate repair; now Bowen had the whole group reviewing their performance. Dissecting every slice and suture. Puhleeze.

  “Well, Burke? Care to join the discussion?” Bowen snapped.

  “Not really,” Mel snapped back. No, she just snapped. In a going-postal kind of way. “I’d rather go home and get some rest, so I can be fresh tomorrow.”

  “This is a training program, Burke,” Bowen shot back. Mel had heard it before. More than often enough.

  “Supposed to be,” she agreed, “but we’re not discussing surgical techniques here. We’re just second-guessing the surgeons. Why? They’re good doctors. They had to make decisions on the fly—and
they did.

  “So I might have done one or two things differently—so what? The girl’s palate is fixed, her condition is stable. End of story.”

  You could cut the tension in the room with a dull scalpel. None of the other residents would even look at her.

  Bunch of cowards, Mel thought as she waited for Bowen to go ballistic.

  He looked at his watch first. Then, after a longish—geologic-era longish—pause, the program chief said, “You’re right. It is late. Good night, everyone.”

  Like zombies, the shocked residents filed silently out of the room. Except they moved a whole lot faster than movie zombies, Mel thought as she started to follow the last one out.

  “Burke.” Dr. Bowen halted her exit. “A word with you.”

  Since it wasn’t a request, Mel simply turned around and waited. Interesting that he’d restrained himself until the others left. Public humiliation was Bowen’s usual method.

  “I know I work you residents hard.”

  And since that wasn’t an apology or a question, Mel just nodded.

  “I’m trying to prepare you not only technically, but for life as a pediatric surgeon. It’s not just tonsillectomies and fat fees, you know.”

  Bowen stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I screen my residents for dedication as well as skill. My approach is designed to let you know what you’re getting into, the sacrifices you’ll be required to make….”

  He’d made those perfectly clear, thank you. But he was right, too, so Mel bit her tongue before she snarled herself out of the program.

  “I have two sons,” Bowen said, scowling at the shiny linoleum floor. A scowl, Mel realized as he went on, not of anger, but of guilt. “And an ex-wife. All of whom blame me for the breakup of our family.”

  Was that why he drove them all like slaves building Pharaoh’s pyramid? Not so much obsessed with surgical perfection, but defending his own imperfections?

  Nah. Couldn’t be.

  Bowen looked up at her. His facial muscles spasmed—no, that was a smile. “I don’t think their complaint is valid, of course. But maybe I’d better make sure I don’t get the blame for your marriage crumbling, too.