Jacqueline Diamond - A Baby for the Doctor

Anya pushed the down button, which was already lit. Jack searched for a casual opening that might persuade her to turn around. Nothing occurred to him that wasn’t unbearably clunky.

“Got any plans for the weekend?” Rod asked him.

Jack didn’t want to answer such a question in Anya’s presence, even though his schedule was extremely boring. “It’s only Thursday.”

“The lady next door mentioned baking pies with the apples her sister gave her,” Rod continued. “I think she was hinting. With a little encouragement, you could...”

“She’s a real-estate agent,” Jack said between gritted teeth. “She thinks we’re rich doctors and she can sell us a house.”

Anya kept her back to them, but he saw her shoulders hunch. Didn’t Rod realize she could hear every word?

Jack wasn’t trying to put the moves on her. He simply regretted that, for some unknown reason, she’d taken a dislike to him after what he’d considered a thrilling encounter that had left them both deliciously sweaty and breathless. She’d moaned louder than he had, he’d be willing to testify.

Scratch that. No testifying. No public testimonials of any sort.

Anya pressed the button again. This floor didn’t show the lights from all six stories, so they had no idea where the cars were.

“Must be a lunchtime holdup,” Rod remarked. “There’s always a chatterbox who can’t stop gossiping with her coworkers.”

Anya turned, finally. “Why do you assume it’s a she?”

“Women usually have the best gossip,” Rod replied without hesitation. “Heard anything good lately?”

Long dark lashes swept her cheeks as she glanced down. “This is ridiculous. I’m taking the stairs.”

Before she could leave, Jack said, “Why don’t you drop by for dinner tomorrow night? I’m broiling pork chops with an orange-rosemary dressing.”

Rod stared at him, then spread his hands in a what-the-hell-gives? gesture.

“Tempting, but no,” Anya replied, flicking the tiniest of glances at Jack but otherwise keeping her eyes on the ground. “See you around, doctor.”

Off she went, a cute figure in that blue-flowered uniform. Even cuter without it...

Stop that, Jack reprimanded himself and started after her. He caught the heavy door to the stairs before it could close in her wake. “Hold up!”

She halted. “What?”

“I...” Think fast. “I want to apologize if I’ve offended you. I didn’t call you...afterward...because, well, you gave me the impression you wanted to take things slow.”

“That’s right,” she said.

“You’re not mad?”

“No, and thanks for the African violet. Zora and I will give it a suitable burial.” She began her descent.

Jack paced alongside. “You killed it already?”

“Not yet, but the light in our unit is terrible,” Anya said. “Also, I know you don’t usually do laundry on Sunday mornings, so don’t pretend otherwise.”

“I ran into you by accident.” Weak, Jack, weak. “Spilled stuff on my clothes the night before.”

“While cooking?” Beside him, she lifted a dark eyebrow. Much more effective than when Rod did it. He had no quick comeback with her.

But he’d better speak before they reached the bottom, which was coming up fast. “New recipe. Kind of exploded.”

“Sorry I missed the fun.”

“So everything’s normal between us?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” With that nonanswer, she shouldered the exit door.

Although not completely reassured, Jack hoped that in a few days she might reconsider joining him for dinner. He wanted to be alone with her, to have her bright spirit focused solely on him.

One problem: he’d have to get his uncle out of the apartment. Jack supposed he might encourage Rod to go out with their Realtor neighbor or join an internet dating site. One lousy marriage shouldn’t sour the guy on women forever.

“If you’re headed for lunch, we could share a table,” he said to Anya just as a muscular guy in a dark blue nurse’s uniform materialized. He had dark hair, a confident swagger and a couple of tattoos extending from beneath his short sleeves.

The bar pin disclosed the stud’s name as Luke Mendez, RN. Jack had never seen him in surgery or labor and delivery, so most likely he worked in the adjacent office building.

“Hey,” the man said to Anya. “New developments. You won’t want to miss this.”

“Miss what?” Jack asked.

“Nothing important,” Anya told him. “See you around.” Off she went with Nurse Tattoo in the direction of the cafeteria.

Well, damn. Briefly, Jack considered buying lunch at the cafeteria, too. He wouldn’t sit at the nurses’ table, of course; the only doctors who did that were married to nurses, and even then they usually respected each other’s separate social circles. Still, he was curious about what he might overhear.

Don’t be an idiot. She’d said everything was fine between them. Furthermore, having been up since before dawn, he could use a nap. The shortage of office space at Safe Harbor forced newcomers like Jack to see their patients on evenings and weekends in shared quarters. It was after one o’clock now, and he had to return by five.

Why should he care about Anya and her chums? Whatever they were doing, he’d find out soon enough via the hospital grapevine and his uncle. So why did he feel as if he was missing something?

* * *

SO JACK COOKED, Anya mused. It gave him a certain domestic appeal—as if a guy with bright green eyes, thick brown hair and a million-watt smile needed or deserved any further advantages.

As she accompanied Luke—Lucky to his friends—to the cafeteria, Anya felt propelled by her own mental kicks in the butt. Downing two drinks on New Year’s Eve was no excuse for jumping into bed with her handsome neighbor. His clumsy attempts to score a second time—which is what she assumed he was doing, given his reputation—were mildly amusing, but she wasn’t that big a fool.

She had a more pressing problem—her period being three weeks late. The pill was 99.9 percent effective when used properly, which she did. She ought to take a pregnancy test, but she was almost certain it would prove negative. When it did, Anya preferred to have expert advice on hand because there was definitely something wrong with her.

She doubted it was stress. She wasn’t that upset about her stupidity in bedding Jack, nor about her roommate pressuring her to move to a cheaper place rather than renew their lease. So was this a hormonal imbalance? An autoimmune disease? At twenty-six, surely she was too young for early menopause.

She checked her phone. No text from Dr. Cavill-Hunter’s nurse about working her into today’s schedule.

In the cafeteria, Anya studied the posted menu. “What’s the special? I don’t see it.”

“They’re out of it,” Lucky told her. “It’s nearly one-thirty. Just grab a sandwich, will you?”

Anya folded her arms. “What’s the rush?”

“People have to get back to work.”

She hated pressure. It usually inspired her to go even slower, but she was hungry. Also, across the busy room, she spotted a halo of short ginger hair that identified her roommate, Zora Raditch, sitting across from patient financial counselor Karen Wiggins. Karen’s hair color this week: strawberry blond with pink highlights.

The third woman at the table, Melissa Everhart, projected pure gorgeous class with her honey-blond hair in a French twist. Melissa worked with the hospital’s recently opened egg bank as egg donor coordinator.

They weren’t sharing a table by accident, nor from longstanding friendship. They had serious business to discuss, and it included her.

By now, Lucky was jogging in place. Anya chose a pastrami pita sandwich with avocados and sprouts, sweet-potato chips and iced tea. She paid the cashier and followed her impatient companion.