Читать книгу The Doctor's Pregnant Bride? / The Texas Billionaire's Baby - Susan Crosby, Karen Rose Smith - Страница 13

Ted considered patience his strongest asset, and his ability to concentrate a close second. He could spend hours doing one thing, and only one thing, not even taking time to eat. Patience intact, he got to Sara Beth’s house a few minutes early, hoping that parking spaces would open up along the crowded street of homes on Saturday morning as people went off for the day.

He didn’t have to wait at all, a car pulling out just as he got there. He parked but stayed in the car, knowing she would be watching for him, sure of that much about her.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. She was surprisingly stubborn for someone known at the institute as a nurturer. He hadn’t seen evidence of any nurturing toward himself.…

Which was fine with him. He’d never liked women who hovered. Not only did Sara Beth not hover, she kept a good distance—except for that night at his parents’ house, and technically, he’d closed that gap several times. Having her working in the lab had been fine, unless she came to him with a question, her lemony scent breaking his concentration even before she talked.

He wasn’t used to having his concentration broken so easily. It should annoy him, he supposed, but instead he was comfortable. He’d felt comfortable with a number of women, but not ones he’d had interest in touching.

He wanted to touch Sara Beth.

The front door of her building opened. She came out wearing jeans and a beige jacket that came to midthigh. She was pulling on gloves. Her hair was down and tucked into her jacket. Her warm breath misted around her in the cold morning air. Something caught her attention overhead, and she stopped, shading her eyes, then smiled. A bird, probably.

He tried to remember the last time he had stopped to watch a bird.

All work and no play—Was he that dull?

He climbed out of his car, leaned on the top. “You’re prompt.”

“So are you.”

“You say that as if it surprises you.”

“I had a fleeting thought that you may get involved in something and forget me.”

“Not a chance.” Not a chance in hell, he thought, as she got into his car.

He climbed in, too, then held out a cup of coffee with cream, which he’d noticed was how she took it, and a chocolate doughnut with chocolate frosting. “Good morning,” he said.

She yanked off her gloves, tucked them in her lap, then accepted his offering. She toasted him with the coffee cup. “It is now.”

Her eyes sparkled above the rim. Something shifted inside him, not uncomfortably, exactly, although not completely identifiable.

Ted started the engine and pulled away, but caught her eyeing him. “What?”

“Do you even own a pair of jeans?”

“Of course I do. Why?”

“You’re always so dressed up, that’s all. This is Saturday. Play day.”

“I play fine in these clothes.” But it got him thinking. If clothes made the man, did that mean he never played? This would take some thought, he decided.

The trip to his loft didn’t take long and was mostly silent as he spent the time wondering if she saw him as being uptight, while she enjoyed the coffee and doughnut during the drive. He ate when he was hungry, didn’t much care what it was. It refueled him, which was the purpose of eating. But watching her savor the chocolate frosting by licking it off the doughnut—

He looked away and just drove. Hadn’t he been the one to chastise Chance for his dalliances in the past? In the end, it didn’t matter if you were innocent of making unwanted advances. If people perceived otherwise, you were dead in the water.

He pulled into his underground parking space, almost commenting about how quiet she’d been, then decided not to. She didn’t seem bothered by their lack of conversation. Her smile was as bright as usual. There was no stiffness in her shoulders, if she was holding back anything.

“Nice to have permanent parking,” she commented as he punched in the security code to his private elevator that would take them to the top floor of the converted warehouse. “My mom does, too. It’s great having a car available at times. Makes it easy to take weekend getaways.”

“Having lived in San Francisco for so long, easy access to parking was on my list of requirements.”

“Along with what else?” Sara Beth asked.

“A view of the Charles. Although I don’t know why, since I’m hardly here to enjoy it. Lots of open space. I don’t like small rooms. They make me feel hemmed in.”

“Are you claustrophobic?”

“I just don’t like walls.” The elevator stopped. The door opened to a large, although not massive space, with cherrywood floors, exposed ductwork, brick walls and floor-to-ceiling windows facing an amazing view of the Charles River.

“This is stunning,” Sara Beth said, slipping off her shoes as he did, moving into the loft, shrugging off her jacket as she went. “I can see your dilemma about decorating it. You need to create rooms without using walls, so everything has to flow from one space to the next.” She eyed him. “Are you sure you don’t want to use a professional? I don’t know that I’m up to the challenge, given that my education in decorating comes from watching the Home and Garden channel.”

“Let’s give it a shot. If you still feel the same at the end of today, I’ll do something else.” The truth was, he wanted to spend the day with her. He hadn’t spent a day with a woman since he’d moved back, and now he found himself relaxed, work not pounding his brain, a rare occurrence. He needed a little R & R, then could return to work refreshed.

“Okay,” she said, wandering into the kitchen, a newly renovated contemporary space with dark wood-and-glass cabinets, glass-tile backsplashes, stainless-steel appliances and black, brown and gold granite countertops.

A folding camp chair sat in eerie loneliness by the front window, an upside down cardboard box placed next to it to use as an end table, along with one floor lamp. A flat-screen television was mounted above the fireplace.

“Spartan,” she commented, flashing a quick grin.

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” He gestured toward the rear of the unit. “Bedroom and bath are down this way.”

The bathroom was large, the shower walk-in, the floor porcelain tile and the counters the same granite as in the kitchen. The bedroom space could be closed off by pulling large planks of polished wood attached to an overhead rail, spanning from wall to wall.

She glanced into his huge walk-in closet, where long-sleeved dress shirts lined one side, in blue, white and cream. Slacks in black, brown and charcoal took up the rack below the shirts. A few suits. A tuxedo. Quite a few shoes. A couple of polo shirts. And one pair of jeans, never worn, tags attached.

“How long have you lived here?” Sara Beth asked as they returned to the living room.

“Don’t start.” After a week of her being mostly businesslike, he was enjoying her playfulness now. “Or no more doughnuts.”

She laughed, the sound echoing in his almost-empty space. “You get what you pay for.”

She pulled out a notepad and measuring tape from her purse, and they went to work drawing a floor plan to scale. Then he spread out his artwork along the living room wall.

“Eclectic,” she said, tapping her pencil against her lips as she viewed the minigallery. “No wonder you can’t settle on a style.”

“If I have a gut reaction to a piece, I buy it, whether it costs fifty dollars or five thousand.”

From her purse she pulled out a digital camera and took photos of each piece. He could see her mind whirling with possibilities. He wished he had that kind of spatial vision, to see what could be instead of what was. Chance frequently accused him of having tunnel vision. Ted had come to accept that about himself.

He also knew that same tunnel vision may very well be the reason he would someday find that rare treatment, something reliable, that had eluded researchers forever. A scientist had to be devoted and single-minded. He was both, and unapologetic about it.

Ted heard his name being called. Sara Beth stood in front of him, waving her hands and smiling.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“Sorry.” His defenses went up. So many women had become frustrated with how often he ignored them while delving into his own thoughts.

“Saving the world?” she asked, her smile softening.

She didn’t seem at all upset that he’d tuned her out. Maybe because they were friends, not dating?

“You don’t do that when you drive, do you, Ted?”

“No tickets. No accidents.”

“But how many did you cause?” She laughed as she scooped up her purse and dropped her camera in it. “I’ll use your bathroom, then we can go, if you’re ready.”

“Sure.”

She breezed past him, leaving her fresh scent in her wake. He watched her walk away, her stride purposeful, her shiny hair swinging between her shoulder blades. An image flashed of her naked, straddling him, and bending over, her hair brushing his chest, then his stomach …

His body clenched. He turned away and moved to the window. She hadn’t had a date on Valentine’s Day, nor tonight. So … maybe she wouldn’t mind spending time with him, helping him take a break now and then from his cause. Someone to share dinner with, have a conversation.

Of course, in the meantime, he needed to do something about sex. Or the lack thereof, in this case. As in, not since he’d left San Francisco. He figured that was why he’d reacted so strongly to Sara Beth, the only woman he’d touched in months.

He studied a couple strolling along the river’s edge, hand in hand. Tricia would be a safer bet, he thought. She was home for a month, dedicated to her career, wouldn’t expect the long term from him. They had a history. No complications to speak of. Except … he felt proprietary about Sara Beth. Unreasonably so, probably, but true.

“Ready?”

He turned around. Sara Beth returned his look, a small smile stretching her lips, curiosity in her eyes. He wanted to back her up until her legs hit his bed and she tumbled onto it, and follow her down. He wondered what she tasted like. Did her bra and panties match the brightly colored scrubs she always wore, or was she a pristine-white or invisible-beige lingerie kind of woman? No hint of an answer came from her V-neck black sweater that plunged only far enough to have him wishing for more.

Sara Beth’s smile faltered. “Are you upset about something?”

“No.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, then let go immediately. “I apologize. I was deep in thought.”

She cocked her head. “I wonder what it’s like, living in your mind. It must be fascinating.”

It was the wrong thing for her to say. No one had ever considered his tuning out to be anything but negative. To have her think otherwise made him want to get closer.

“You’d probably find a lot of twists and turns and dead ends,” he said, encouraging her toward the elevator.

“Did anything come from the idea that struck you at my house last week?”

“Yes. Chance and I are working on it.” In fact, he should be in the lab now, but was determined not to feel guilty about taking a day for himself. He wasn’t sure how to find a balance between work and social life.

“What do you think of Derek Armstrong?” Ted asked when they were in the elevator.

“Because Lisa is my best friend, I’ve known him all my life, but we haven’t spent time together in a very long time—he’s so many years older than me. Why?”

They stepped out of the elevator and headed to the car a few feet away. “I’m just trying to get a handle on him. He drops in now and then, asks a few questions. But I report to Paul as chief of staff.”

Ted unlocked the passenger door and opened it for her.

She paused before getting in. “Well, Derek and Paul are twins, but that’s where the resemblance ends. I get the impression you don’t trust Derek.”

How much could he say? Derek seemed much more interested in how the research for the treatment was going than the investigation of what could cause the institute a lot of damage. It should’ve been the opposite at this point.

“I don’t know him,” Ted answered carefully.

“I watched you when Derek stopped by the other day. Your spine stiffened. You never took your eyes off him. And he didn’t ask questions, he interrogated.”

So, he hadn’t been wrong about that. He wasn’t just being defensive. Sara Beth saw it, too. “You didn’t say anything.”

“It wasn’t my place.”

“I value your opinions, Sara Beth.”

“You and I have an unusual relationship,” she said after he’d started the engine. “You’re my boss for part of the day, my coworker most of the day and I guess we’re also friends.”

She’d summed it up perfectly. And she was right, it was unusual but also complicated. “You nailed it.”

“Which means it’s just as confusing to you?”

“I’m not losing sleep over it.”

She laughed. “Okay, then.” She pulled a small stack of papers from her seemingly bottomless purse. “I’ve got a list of furniture stores I think might be suitable.”

“How long did you spend online doing that research?”

She shrugged. “I had fun. I hope your mother likes the results.”

“It only matters what I think.”

“I know, but …”

“No buts, Sara Beth. It’s a fact.”

“And facts matter most to you.”

Yes, most of the time that was true. He liked facts. Good, solid, unchangeable facts made the world go around—his world, anyway.

But he was coming to like the mystery that was Sara Beth O’Connell, too, the woman he could already call a friend, but who also made him want.

Friends with benefits, perhaps?

Now, that was an idea worth getting lost in.