The Baby Jackpot

Chapter Ten



As Stacy approached Nora Franco’s office, Una stepped into the hall, the tag sticking out of her flowered maternity dress. She must have already completed the ultrasound and dressed hurriedly afterward.

Stacy wished she had arrived earlier, but she’d been at home when she received a text saying the eager mom-to-be had arranged to move up her ultrasound by a few days. “How’d it go?”

“I’m having twins!” Una cried, and twirled around in the corridor.

“That’s great! Hang on a sec.” Reaching out, Stacy tucked the tag into the collar. “There you go. Where’s Jim?”

“Hauling a load back from Oregon.” Una’s husband was a long-distance truck driver. “Dr. Franco knew how anxious I was, so her nurse called about a cancellation. Jim gave the okay, and here I am. Jim was ecstatic when I told him the news. Me, too!”

“I wish I’d been there.” Stacy had meant to share as many special moments as possible with her co-mom.

“Don’t feel bad,” Una told her. “Dr. Franco and Harper were almost as excited as I was. I did kind of hope for triplets or quads, though.”

Down the hall, a staff door opened. Stacy expected to see her roommate leaving for the day. Instead, she caught a glimpse of Zora Raditch’s short ginger hair and green uniform. Even after nearly three years, Stacy still felt a blast of resentment toward the woman who’d stolen her husband. At least she had the good grace to duck away in the opposite direction.

Stacy returned her attention to Una. “You don’t really want to be pregnant with more than two. I sure hope I’m not.” She halted, startled by what she’d blurted. If she hadn’t been so distracted by seeing Zora...

“You’re pregnant?” Una’s eyes widened.

“I had a little accident.” Boy, was that an understatement.

“How wonderful!” Her fellow mom gave her a hug. “Our kids will be brothers or sisters. When are you due?”

“February,” Stacy said. “A few weeks after you.”

“We might deliver at the same time,” Una pointed out. “That’s so sweet. The kids can grow up together.”

Stacy raised her hands to stem the flow of words. “I’m planning on adoption.”

Silence fell as the other woman absorbed this information. “Wait! That’s even more perfect. Jim and I will adopt your baby! The more the merrier.”

She would do what? “Una, this town is full of couples with empty arms,” Stacy said with more feeling than she’d intended. “Don’t be...” She nearly said “greedy,” but that would be offensive and just plain mean. “Think of the expense, not to mention the exhaustion.”

“People at my church will help,” Una responded cheerily. “Another congregant had triplets and our women’s group formed a diaper and bottle brigade. I’m sure they’d do the same for me.”

No way was Stacy giving her baby to the Barkers. She resented the assumption that any child of hers automatically belonged to Una.

This is my baby.

For nine months, anyway.

Still, she understood Una’s desire to have a large family. Her co-mom had been a foster child, abandoned by her father and orphaned at her mother’s death. Her few relatives had been indifferent. No wonder she yearned to surround herself with love.

“It isn’t a good idea,” she said more gently.

“Yes, it is.” Una tugged her toward the elevator. “Give the idea a chance to sink in.”

Talking to Una was like swimming against a strong current. “I told you...” Stacy was saying as the doors slid open.

“We’ll adopt however many babies you’re carrying. Once you get used to the idea, you’ll see that I’m right.”

Cole was standing in the elevator, his brown eyes smoldering as he took in Una’s remark and Stacy’s frustrated expression. “Stacy doesn’t like being pressured.”

Una blinked in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“She told you she doesn’t want you to adopt her baby,” Cole said firmly. “That should end the matter.”

Una’s gaze flicked over the name tag on his jacket. “Dr. Rattigan. You’re famous!”

“Infamous would be more accurate.” As Stacy entered the enclosed space, he touched her arm. “Watch your step.”

Una’s eyes widened in understanding. “He’s the dad?”

Oops. “This is private,” Stacy said.

Cole didn’t seem to care. He was too busy glaring at Una like a bulldog guarding its territory.

As the elevator doors closed, the mom-to-be held up her hands in surrender. “My lips are sealed. As for your baby, all I ask is that you keep me in mind if you do go through with an adoption. Oh! I have a great idea.”

Stacy wasn’t sure she could handle any more of Una’s great ideas. “What’s that?”

“I’m tired of keeping a lid on the news about my pregnancy,” the other woman said. “Now that we’ve confirmed twins, I’ll ask the hospital to hold a press conference. I mean, it is a first for the egg bank. That ought to take the heat off you, Dr. Rattigan. Give you both a little peace and privacy.”

“That would be a welcome change,” Cole conceded, his tension ebbing. “Thank you.”

Stacy appreciated Una’s thoughtfulness. As they reached the ground floor, she said, “I’m sorry I was touchy.”

“If anybody understands about mood swings, it’s me.” Una patted her shoulder. “See you soon.”

“You bet.” Stacy was glad to stay on good terms with Una. It saddened her that, although their children would be half brothers or sisters, they’d probably never meet.

Cole walked Stacy to her car. It was becoming a tradition, she mused, and a welcome one. “I appreciate your sticking up for me. Una’s enthusiasm can be hard to take.”

“When I heard something about an ultrasound, I was afraid you’d run into a problem,” he said.

“Una’s, not mine,” she said. “Why’d you think it was me?”

“Ned Norwalk mentioned it.” They stopped beside her sedan. “He came to request my approval to be your roommate.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I guess since I’m the father...”

Stacy didn’t bother to ask how Ned had figured that out. He had a talent for snooping. “I didn’t say he could move in. As a matter of fact, I’ve had several inquiries.”

“Good.” Cole regarded her hesitantly. Strange how he could be so fierce one moment and shy the next. “I warned him off.”

“That wasn’t up to you.” Still, Ned had chosen to consult Cole. And Stacy felt a twinge of appreciation. Having a protector felt kind of nice.

“If you need taking care of, I should be the one to do it,” he said. “This pregnancy is as much my responsibility as yours. I should be your roommate.”

Stacy touched her still-flat abdomen, keenly aware of what lay inside. Part of her longed to lean against Cole and yield to his protective instincts, but she’d learned the hard way to be cautious. “One disastrous mistake per relationship is the legal limit. And we used ours when we made this child.”

“Why would living together be a mistake?” he pressed.

“Because I’m vulnerable,” she said. “Have you ever been in love?”

He frowned. “Define ‘been in love.’”

Oh, for pity’s sake!

“If you had been, you wouldn’t have to ask. It will sweep away everything else like a wildfire.” She recalled her intense early months with Andrew. “You’ll be consumed, delirious. Longing for the person you love. Desperate to spend your life with him or her.”

Cole’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t think that’s in my personality.”

“Neither do I,” Stacy said sadly. “Let’s leave it at that.”

As she got into her car, she wasn’t sure why she felt so let down. She had to stop hoping for more than Cole was capable of giving.

Especially since some foolish part of her still yearned to nestle into his arms and stay there, safe and warm.

* * *

WHEN COLE HAD REALIZED, back in Minneapolis, that he wasn’t capable of committing to his girlfriend, the discovery had bothered him only because it meant distressing Felicia. More accurately, infuriating her. She’d fired off several nasty emails that had emphasized the less-than-lovable side of her personality and made him doubly glad of his escape.

It was different with Stacy. He regretted letting her down, for his own sake as much as for hers. Why couldn’t he be the kind of man who made her heart beat faster?

During the next few days, Cole’s thoughts kept returning to the concept of love as a sort of hemorrhagic illness. He wondered if a modified version might be acceptable to her. Seeing Stacy lifted his spirits. He missed her when a day went by without contact. Yet he supposed the fact that he could consider the situation rationally meant he didn’t meet her definition of being in love. Or, as he feared, he simply wasn’t capable of it.

During surgery on Friday, Cole inquired about the roommate situation. Stacy informed him that Harper was moving out the following day, but had paid for another week’s rent. Stacy hoped to have chosen one of her prime candidates by then.

From the look on her face, he judged that he wasn’t in the running.

On the plus side, Cole wasn’t nearly as worried anymore about how the press would react if they learned of Stacy’s pregnancy, which by now had become common knowledge around the hospital. Una Barker’s press conference, held the previous afternoon, had succeeded in deflecting the spotlight from him.

Owen Tartikoff had spoken enthusiastically about the egg bank’s first pregnancy, and Una and her husband were a sympathetic couple. Although the announcement fell short of being earthshaking, last night’s local newscasts had played up the human-interest angle.

One reporter had tried to relate the case to the alleged Daddy Crisis by asking whether Una’s husband required fertility treatments. Luckily, Jim hadn’t. Cycling home on Friday, Cole hoped they could lay all that nonsense to rest.

Turning into the driveway, he spotted his landlady descending the steps from his apartment, her pink bubble of hair bouncing as she moved. What had she been doing up there? Emergencies aside, she was required to alert him in advance if she needed to enter.

Cole waited for her in the driveway. “Mrs. Linden?”

She gave him a too bright smile. “Hi, there! How’s it going, Doc?”

“Fine. Why were you inside my apartment?”

She tugged on a tight sweater ill-suited to a woman in her late sixties. “I was in the garage and thought I heard a noise, so I went to check.”

Cole didn’t believe her for a second. “What kind of noise?”

“Scurrying,” she said.

“Like a rat?”

“Oh, heavens no!” She sidled toward the house. “More like a squirrel.”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“You scientists certainly ask a lot of questions,” she responded. “I guess that’s what makes you so good at your job. You know, I think I left a pot boiling on the stove. Keep an eye out for squirrels, would you? They can be a real nuisance.”

If he didn’t have a lease, he’d be out of there, Cole thought grumpily as he put his bike away. While her excuse might sound plausible to an outsider, he didn’t buy it.

Upstairs, he fought a growing sense of discomfort as he ate a salad. Although nothing appeared out of place, he felt invaded. While he made a point of password-protecting all his electronics and keeping his financial papers in a lockbox, he shouldn’t have to.

He understood that his landlady might be bored and lonely. Nevertheless, she had no business poking through his possessions, and he didn’t see how he could stay there any longer.

Considering the unpleasantness of the situation, he wished she’d given him a clear-cut reason to break the lease. Instead, if he left, he might end up forking out unaffordable payments—half of Stacy’s rent, as he’d offered, along with the rent on this place and the cost of a new apartment. Despite making a respectable income, he didn’t see how he could manage all that.

Cole fired up his laptop and visited a site featuring the latest bicycle accessories. He’d like to buy a cyclocomputer to track his speed and mileage. On the low end, he found one for only thirty-five bucks, but it paled in comparison to a top-of-the-line competitor that also monitored heart rate and travel time, stored favorite routes and included both map features and GPS. On the downside, it cost over five hundred dollars.

He’d never been concerned about such expenses before. Now, he had to put aside money for Stacy. Just in case.

Out of curiosity, he moved the cursor to the browser window and typed in his landlady’s name, Valerie Linden.

You never knew what you might find on the internet.

A list of references popped up, mostly women who were clearly not her. Then Cole remembered seeing her middle initial on a piece of misdelivered mail. He typed in Valerie Q. Linden and added Safe Harbor for good measure.

The name of a blog jumped out: The Neighborhood Nose. The woman snooped and bragged about it? With disbelief, he read the title of her latest entry. “Dr. Daddy Crisis: An Inside View.”

There was a picture of Cole’s TV set and DVD player. Another image showed his bathroom counter with his shaver and deodorant neatly lined up, followed by a similar shot of his nearly bare kitchen counter. The only thing she hadn’t run were shots inside his bureau drawers and refrigerator—maybe she was saving those for later.

Judging by the date and time, she’d posted these while he was eating dinner. The nerve...

Fury shot through Cole. It took all his restraint not to storm over to her house and order the woman to remove the pictures immediately. He wasn’t sure whether this qualified as a crime, but it certainly constituted grounds for a lawsuit—not that he wanted to get involved in anything so messy.

Besides, threatening a woman could bring down the law on his own head. That was all he needed, headlines about Dr. Daddy Crisis terrorizing his landlady.

Getting a grip on his outrage, Cole read what she’d written. She described how exciting it was to rent an apartment to a famous scientist, and how she’d eagerly followed news reports about him. He found two more entries from earlier in the week, one showing the exterior of the apartment and the other featuring his bicycle, wedged next to gardening implements in the garage. Both cited his orderly habits and how he always seemed lost in thought.

She didn’t stop there. The woman indulged in fantasies about what he might be thinking—how he was going to save the world, a superhero in a white coat awakening mankind to its imminent demise. While he supposed some people might view this as flattering, he found it embarrassing and unprofessional.

Coupled with the press’s overheated accounts, this sort of thing could turn Cole into a laughing stock. His reputation might never live it down.

Needing to see everything she’d written about him, he scanned earlier blogs about neighborhood comings and goings. She’d avoided using names, and didn’t appear to have snooped inside any other houses, confining her photos to front yards, cars and open garages. While Cole doubted the neighbors would be pleased, she didn’t appear to have violated their rights.

But while she didn’t mention him by name, the reference to Dr. Daddy Crisis plainly identified him, and taking pictures inside his apartment was inexcusable. He found the number of the hospital’s attorney, Tony Franco, who had urged the staff to consult him at any time if a matter might reflect negatively on the medical center.

Cole intended to get those pictures taken down—pronto—without risking getting hauled off to jail for verbally assaulting his landlady. Then he was going to move out.

He hoped, into Stacy’s apartment.