Читать книгу The Fertility Factor - Jennifer Mikels - Страница 10

E ven when Lara was in an annoyed mood, Manhattan Multiple’s warm blue interior calmed her. Hot from her walk to the center, she welcomed the coolness in the air-conditioned center’s reception area.

Josie sat on a chair behind the front desk. At Lara’s entrance, she signaled to her. “I wanted to tell you more at lunch,” she whispered. “But I didn’t want to say anything in front of Carrie and be a source of gossip.” She looked up as a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair passed by.

Along with Josie, Lara said hello.

“A new doctor. A perinatologist, like Dr. Cross.” Josie glanced away to smile when another employee, Allison Baker, also passed by them. In her mid-twenties, she was thin, with chin-length auburn-colored hair. Lara thought of her as rather sweet, maybe a touch too prim. Josie, who stood several inches shorter than Allison, had become a good friend of hers in a short amount of time. “She’s in love,” Josie said.

Lara smiled. “She told you?”

“No, you can tell,” Josie said, nodding her head. Overhead lights highlighted the blond streaks threaded through brown strands. “She met someone last month. That’s what you need.”

“What do I need?” Lara asked.

“A handsome stranger.”

Lara knew a man who suited her just fine. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“No.” Josie hunched forward. “Eloise received e-mail from the mayor. She was really upset. I mean really.”

Lara assumed Josie heard that from Allison Baker, Eloise’s personal assistant.

“No one knows what he wrote, but Eloise is usually so calm and sweet. Whatever he said disturbed her.”

Mentally Lara shook her head. She found it hard to believe that Mayor Bill Harper was going out of his way to make Eloise’s life miserable. Lara liked the mayor, believed he was an honest, straightforward man.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Josie asked.

“Could be.” Lara refrained from saying more when she didn’t know all the facts. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Getting time to do anything became an impossibility. Busy all day, Lara ushered one of the last patients of the day to the door. “Won’t be long now,” she said to the woman, who carried a burden that made her every step slow and labored. But the woman was fortunate. For someone carrying multiple babies, she’d had a relatively normal pregnancy—no morning sickness, no gestation diabetes.

The woman released a short laugh. “I’m looking forward to seeing my feet. I suppose everyone says that.”

Lara nodded. Most pregnant women made a similar complaint. She would love to have the problem. If she ever got pregnant, she’d relish every single moment, including the ones that made her feel lousy. Because she was still troubled about Gena’s news, she’d struggled with smiles all day. Though she had a dozen things to do after work, including laundry, she decided to relax with a book and a glass of wine after she got home.

The workday stretched longer than she’d expected. Everyone had left long ago, and she was still there. So was Derek. The woman in the examining room had complained about heavy discharge since her babies’ birth. An erosion of the cervix, an occasional problem following delivery, had required an in-office procedure. Derek had cauterized the cervical area with no discomfort to the woman. While the patient dressed to leave, Lara enjoyed spending the time with the woman’s twins.

“They’re staying even.” Lara commented to the woman when she emerged from the examining room to leave.

“They’ve both gained another pound. Devin is a half inch bigger than Ian.”

“He’s the oldest, isn’t he?” Lara said.

“Born one minute and fifty-five seconds before his brother.”

“He’ll probably never let him forget that,” Derek said, coming up behind them in the outer office.

“I expect that’s true,” the mother said.

“You’re going on vacation, aren’t you?” Lara asked her as Derek left them to return to his office.

“Yes.” She checked on her babies in the blue-plaid baby carriage. “It’s a family holiday at Martha’s Vineyard. Dr. Cross said he vacationed there as a child.”

“I’m sure it’s nice.”

And a place for the affluent. Unlike his family, hers originally resided in New York’s Little Italy.

Lara saw the woman out to the waiting room, then wandered into the staff lounge. It was late. She knew security had escorted the woman and her babies to a taxi. Thunder rumbled angrily and lightning flashed, casting the offices in an eerie glow.

Uneasy about the lateness more than the weather, she moved quickly. With another flash of lightning, she hurried to her locker and snatched up her umbrella, then grabbed her shoulder bag. Her footsteps echoed on the floor before she hit the carpeted hallway. From a distance, she heard the elevator doors open and ran the rest of the way. A few lab technicians were still in the building. She’d rather ride down with them than be alone. Nearing the elevator, she saw the doors stood open, waiting for her.

Just inside, Derek grinned. “Want to ride down together?”

Winded, her heart pounding, Lara pressed a hand to her chest. “Yes.” She stood only inches from him. With his lengthy look, she struggled for conversation. “I always liked storms.” Since coming in this morning, neither of them had said anything about their meeting in the park. She’d felt closer to him there. But except for this brief conversation, they were back to all business. Of course, they’d been busy all day. But he’d acted as if those moments had never happened.

Nervous in the quiet elevator with him, she went into her survival mode. She talked. Talked about the patients, about lunch at the exquisite restaurant, about his son. “He’s really cute, Dr. Cross.”

“Lara, away from the office, don’t you think you should call me Derek?”

Okeydokey. “Derek.” She took a deep breath. “Wasn’t there a doctors’ staff meeting this morning? Have you heard more about the feud between Eloise and the mayor?” She wondered if he knew more than the rest of the staff about the situation between Eloise and the mayor. “Do you think Manhattan Multiples might close?”

“If Bill Harper is serious about stopping funding, that could happen.”

Lara frowned. “Some of the staff are concerned they might lose their jobs.”

“You shouldn’t worry. You’re an excellent nurse. You’d never have a problem finding a new job.”

He looked down at his watch, frowned. He had somewhere to go, someone waiting for him. She wasn’t surprised. He was considered quite a catch by co-workers. Because she was taken with him, Lara always kept her thoughts about him to herself, not wanting to reveal the crush she had on him.

“I’m going to be in trouble tonight.”

Someone special was waiting for him. I don’t want to hear this, she thought.

“I promised to cook sloppy joes.”

“You eat sloppy joe sandwiches?” she asked about the messy hamburger mix on a bun. She couldn’t visualize a butler serving that.

He laughed. “I brush my teeth, too.”

She felt heat sweep over her face.

“I’m sorry.” He flashed a smile that nearly buckled her knees. “I couldn’t resist teasing.”

“I’m just surprised that you cook.” Especially something appropriate for eating on a TV tray. The man came from money. Wasn’t he accustomed to servants?

“Only sloppy joes. Dorothy cooks the rest of our meals. You know who I mean. You’ve talked to her.”

“Yes.” She’d had brief conversations with his housekeeper-nanny. While he withdrew his cell phone, she stepped back to give him privacy, but it wasn’t difficult to hear.

“Dorothy, I’m leaving now and—what the…” The elevator jerked, then stopped. He caught Lara’s wrist to steady her. “Are you okay?”

Sensation stirred deep within her. He had to be kidding? He was touching her. She couldn’t think about anything else.

“Dorothy, I’m going to be a little late, I think.” Repeatedly he pushed at the alarm button. Nothing happened. “Damn. No medical emergency….” he explained to Dorothy. “A sick elevator. It stalled. I’ll call you back.”

As he swung a look at Lara, she gave him a faint smile. She was stuck in an elevator with him. They could be there for hours. Overnight. What should she talk about? Maybe she shouldn’t say anything. Lord, she didn’t want to act like a ninny.

“Are you claustrophobic?”

No, that wasn’t her problem. “No.”

He grinned at her. “Fearless, aren’t you?”

Lara wasn’t sure what he meant.

“You like storms, don’t panic being stuck in an elevator. Fearless.”

“I don’t think about where we are. Being stuck in an elevator between floors could be unnerving, but it won’t be if you don’t think about it.” How simple she made that sound, how calm she appeared. Far from it. She drew a deep breath. It was insane to be so uneasy. She talked to him every day. So what if they were in a closet-size space? So what if there was no one around to act as a buffer?

“You did a good job with Mrs. Benson. She was stressing until you reassured her. I’m glad you were here for her this evening. You seem to know the right thing to say,” Derek said.

Business. Okay, that would be best. They’d discuss business. “Thank you.”

He gave her a look of compassion. “Lara, could you use a sympathetic shoulder?”

“Why would you think that?” She hadn’t thought anyone had noticed her blue mood, especially him.

He stared long and hard at her as if trying to see inside her. “You didn’t bubble today.”

“Bubble?” He thought she bubbled? Her laugh slipped out.

“You usually bubble. You’re the sunniest, most smiley person I’ve ever met. But you looked as if you were working at those smiles today.”

Deliberately she feigned a bright one.

“It’s not working.”

Lara heard the teasing lilt in his voice and found herself smiling. “It’s not?”

“No. You said that you’re not worried about the center closing. Do you have a different work problem?”

“No, I don’t.” She hesitated then realized she could have talked to co-workers about this at lunch. Why hadn’t she? Why did she feel like sharing her heartache for a friend with him? “I received a call from a high-school friend this morning and—” Her words remained unfinished as the elevator moved a few inches, then jerked to a stop again.

“Hello,” a male voice yelled down to them. “Anyone there?”

“Yeah, Frank,” Derek called back.

Lara was touched that he knew the name of the building’s security man, a retired police detective.

“It’s Derek Cross and Lara Mancini.”

Lara mentally groaned. The gossips would have fun tomorrow with that news. She could imagine the whispered words. Guess who was stuck in the elevator? Alone. For hours.

“Dr. Cross, I’ll get maintenance right on it,” Frank yelled. “You two will be out in a jiffy.”

“Thanks, Frank,” Derek called back. Swinging a look at her, he shrugged. “We’re stuck. He’ll get maintenance—”

“Right on it,” she finished for him. Now what? “Looks as if we’ll have plenty of time.”

“Finish telling me about your friend.”

As long as she didn’t think too much about them, about the excitement that tingled her skin whenever he was near, she’d make sense. “She’s the same age as me.” When Gena had called, panic had rushed through Lara. Gena’s problem could easily be her own. “She has endometrioses.”

“She’s been to a specialist?”

“Yes. The doctor told Gena she might need a hysterectomy.”

“No kids?” Derek asked, leaning against the back wall of the elevator.

“No, she doesn’t have any. Learning about Gena has made me aware that time is getting away from me.”

“You have time.”

“Not really.” If he’d kiss her, just once, maybe she’d stop thinking about it. “I’m thirty-eight.”

“I assume you mean the biological clock is ticking.”

Lara nodded. “Having children matters to me. A lot. I can’t wait any longer.”

“I didn’t know there was someone special in your life.”

This wasn’t something she wanted to admit to him. “There isn’t.”

“Are you talking about artificial—”

Oh, this was too much. Embarrassing. She sounded as if she was a charity case, couldn’t attract a man. “No, no,” Lara cut in. “I won’t do that. But I’ve made a decision.” She might as well level with him, tell him what he’d probably learn via the center’s gossip grapevine. “Within the next six months, I’ll make every effort to find Mr. Right, to get married. So within the year, I’ll get pregnant.”

“You make that sound easy.”

She nearly laughed. “It isn’t or I wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“You’ll forget about love and orange blossoms and whatever else?” He smiled again. She realized she loved the way his lips curved in a slow-forming smile. “Are you thinking about a sperm bank?”

Lara rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t go to a sperm bank or do in-vitro fertilization.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t. I come from an Italian-American family that believes motherhood is sacred. They’d never understand if I had a baby any way but by the traditional way.”

“So you’re looking for—”

Why had she revealed so much to him? “Mr. Right,” she finished for him. “You sound skeptical. Don’t you believe there is a Mr. Right?”

“Could be fantasy.”

“You’re a skeptic about love?”

“For me.” He frowned as if he was surprised he’d told her that. “No man is perfect, Lara.”

“No, but someone could be perfect for me.”

He arched a brow. “I guess that’s realistic. What will you do? Look for someone you have a lot in common with?”

“That would probably be best. I have a few annoying traits.”

The tease was in his eyes again. “You do?”

“My family claims I talk too much.” He probably thought so, too. But she rambled when nervous or excited.

“But you’re interesting.”

Interesting. Her pulse thudded. “And I laugh a lot.”

“Cheerful.”

To say she wasn’t pleased by his take on her would have been a blatant lie. “I drive some people crazy because it takes me a while to finish jobs. I have good intentions, but no one ever said you couldn’t enjoy yourself while doing chores. Right?”

He shrugged. “I’m from the do-it-and-get-it-done school.”

He wouldn’t understand. Someone like him would think she was silly.

“What do you mean when you say it takes you a while? Why does it?”

She had no choice now except to be honest with him. “I like to sing and dance. What my family will never let me live down is the time I was in the kitchen singing ‘What’s Love Got To Do with It,’ while I was supposed to be drying dishes.”

Puzzlement veed his brows.

“I was standing on a kitchen chair with a turkey baster in my hand.”

“A turkey baster?”

“It was my microphone.”

He laughed, a deep rumbling laugh.

Enjoying herself, she went on, “Since then, the running joke in my family is—expect Lara to take an hour to do a ten-minute task.”

“Love them, don’t you?”

Was she imagining that he sounded envious? “Immensely. And I know they love me. If they’re enjoying themselves, I can be the brunt of their tease.”

“What kind of questions will you ask to find out if some guy is Mr. Right?”

“I…I never gave that a lot of thought. He’d have to be caring.” She was a people person who’d take a walk on the weekend just to talk to neighbors. “I suppose I’ll ask what kind of music he likes. I like fifties and sixties hits the most, but will listen to almost any other kind of music. What do you listen to?”

“Classical. Opera.”

Lara nodded, not surprised. He probably went to the symphony before he was three. An exaggeration, she knew. But this man had led a life a world apart from hers. “I might ask my Mr. Right candidate what the last movie was that he saw.”

“That might not tell you anything about him.”

“Why not?”

He chuckled in private amusement. “Because the last movie I saw had a big mouse and raccoon in it.”

“Oh, I saw that, too. Cute, wasn’t it?”

“I saw it because of my son. Why did you?”

With a turn of his head, the light overhead illuminated the strong lines of his face. She’d like to touch it, run her fingers over his cheek, his jaw. “Nieces and nephews,” she answered.

“I guess it would be important for Mr. Right to like Italian food.”

He was perceptive. “I had it before baby formula.” A man who didn’t like Italian food would hate holidays with her family, any meal. Regardless of what was served, pork loin or ham or turkey, her mother always served a side of spaghetti or ravioli. And she would be insulted if the man didn’t at least sample everything on her table. “I’d like it if he skied.”

“You ski?”

Lara shook her head. “I don’t, but I’d like to.”

“So anyone who skis gets points?”

She laughed at how silly that sounded. “Yes, I guess so.”

“What else?”

Was he, too, trying to keep conversation going? Never had they shared so much personal information with each other. “I like lazing around on days off, having breakfast in bed while I read the newspaper. Do you?”

“I get up at five to run in the park. Who serves you breakfast in bed?”

“No one.” She knew what she was going to say would sound dumb. “I get up, make breakfast, bring it on a tray to the bed and pretend it was served. Sounds silly, huh?”

“No. You must have a great imagination.”

Excitement stormed her as she watched his eyes briefly fall upon her lips. “I acted for a while.”

“I know you did.” He slid a hand into his slacks pocket. “Why the career change? Actress to nurse?”

“I had a calling.” She assumed only another person in medicine would understand. “How far do you run?” She could probably manage a block or two.

“Three miles.”

Lara mentally groaned at the thought of so much exercise. “Every morning?”

“Every morning.”

He was disgustingly disciplined.

Looking down again, he gestured at the knitting needles sticking out of her shoulder bag. “What are you making?”

Feverishly she’d knit during every minute of her spare time. “It’s an afghan. For a cousin’s baby. Due in another month.”

“A boy?” he asked, gesturing toward the blue yarn.

“Yes, he—” The elevator dropped. Two, maybe three inches. No more. Suddenly they stood in darkness. “Oh my God, Derek.” She reached out, groped for him.

“I’m here.” His hand caught hers and tugged her to him.

The back beneath her palms was solid, broad, muscular. Pulse pounding, she leaned away to see his face.

“Come on.” He drew her even closer. “Sit on the floor with me. That would be smarter than standing.”

He meant in case the elevator dropped, didn’t he?

Despite his words, he wasn’t moving, wasn’t letting her go. She knew why. They stood breast to chest, thigh to thigh. Warmth radiated between them.

“It’s nice,” he said suddenly.

She thought the moment was wonderful. But possibly they weren’t thinking about the same thing. “What is?”

“Your perfume. I never smelled it before.”

He’d never been this close before. Every morning she dabbed a touch of perfume behind her ears to make her feel feminine while wearing scrubs. With the turn of his head, his breath heated her face. Even in the dark, she knew his mouth was closer to hers. Or was she imagining everything?

Lightly his lips brushed hers like a subtle caress.

Oh, Lord. She wasn’t imagining anything. Her eyes fluttered, her lips parted for his. Slowly, almost savoringly he deepened the pressure. Gently his lips moved over hers. Wanting to feel more, she leaned closer, pressed her breasts into him to absorb the heat, the solidness of his body.

His kiss was everything she’d imagined. No. It was more. A long, pleasurable shiver swept through her. Eyes closed, she savored the sweet firmness of his mouth, the beat of his heart, the warmth of his body. With a kiss, he was making her feel more than she’d expected. In that instant, she knew this wouldn’t be enough. She’d want more with him. Much more.

As she clung, he seemed to loosen his embrace. A touch dazed, she took a moment before she realized that he was pulling back. Why was he? Don’t stop. Keep kissing me.

“Damn,” he murmured in a voice that sounded huskier than usual.

Lara forced herself to open her eyes, heard his pager then. Kiss me again, she wanted to yell.