The Baby Jackpot

Chapter Four



Cole awoke in the middle of an urgently thrilling dream. He was making love to Stacy, his body suffused with a delicious tension as he struggled to prolong the rapture of their contact.

As he blinked into awareness, he felt disoriented. A spring from the couch dug into his hip, while across the room a low crackling noise issued from the staticky TV. Most puzzlingly, his nose was buried in a tumble of lily-scented hair and his hardened member was pressed close against...

What was he doing?

In his sleep...in their sleep...Cole had almost had intercourse with his nurse. Now what? He doubted very much that this situation was addressed in any book of etiquette or medical code of conduct.

The longing was almost unbearable. Carefully, he tried to shift away from her without knocking her off the couch. “Stacy?” he said hoarsely.

“Oh, Lord, don’t stop,” she groaned, and ground her bottom against him.

That was all it took. In seconds, he’d done away with the thin fabric barriers between them and buried himself inside her. Her little cries of passion inspired wrenching moans from him, the likes of which he’d never uttered before. His need for her was primal and all-encompassing. Fire flashed through him, erasing everything but their astonishing fusion.

The flames faded, leaving him drenched in sweat. Holding Stacy, Cole gradually returned to a body he scarcely recognized. And to an ordinary room that had, briefly, become paradise.

He yearned for more—and knew he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen in the first place.

She lay very still. “Stacy?” Cole whispered, almost afraid to break the silence.

“I can’t believe we just did that.” She tried to turn over, and nearly fell. Cole caught her and they balanced there, until she twisted around and swung her feet down for support. “This is...”

“Awkward?” He hoped he hadn’t hurt her. “Are you all right?”

She coughed. “I’d better clean up.”

Cool air replaced her heat. Cole pushed up to a sitting position until a sharp pain in his knee reminded him of his injury.

His head swam. Yes, there’d been a little alcohol involved. He couldn’t blame that for his lapse in judgment, though.

In thirty-six years, Cole had committed his share of human errors. But never until now had he erred on so many levels. Yet he wasn’t sure he regretted a mistake that had led to such a profound sense of connection.

Stacy returned with her hair tucked behind her ears, her skirt and blouse on straight and her skin glowing. She wasn’t smiling, though. Or looking at him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cole said. “I hope this won’t make you uncomfortable around me.”

Sitting on a lumpy chair, Stacy clasped her hands in her lap. “I thought my period was starting, but I guess not.”

“You can take a morning-after pill,” he said.

She flinched. “I wouldn’t feel right about that.”

“Why not?” To him, it seemed an appropriate medical course of action.

“After all the effort it took for Una to get pregnant, I can’t do that,” she said, talking to a point on the wall. “I’d never even know whether...” She stopped.

Cole had obviously missed something. “Who’s Una?”

Stacy blinked. “My recipient in the egg donor program. The program’s first successful pregnancy.”

“Then she is pregnant?”

“She texted me after surgery today,” Stacy said. “It hasn’t been announced.”

He ventured to ask her something he’d been wondering since he learned of her involvement in the program. “Why did you decide to become a donor?”

She didn’t seem to mind the question. “In December, one of my closest friends died in a car crash. Vicki struggled with alcohol addiction, and she lost the battle. It made me think about how I’d been in survival mode since my divorce, and that wasn’t good enough. I wanted to do something lasting, something meaningful.”

He would have reached for her hands had she been sitting closer. “And Una’s the lucky mom.”

“We went through a lot together. Now if I’m...well, I can’t bring myself to take a morning-after pill.”

That made sense. Still, Cole wasn’t sure how to process the possibility of having a child. “Tell me what you need from me.” They were in this together, although he wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. His own mother had deliberately conceived him with a visiting art curator from France, who had played little part in Cole’s life.

Stacy waved him off. “We only did it once, late in my cycle. How soon can I tell if I’m pregnant?”

“As a rule, a week to two weeks after conception.” Cole often presented that answer to patients and their wives. “However...”

“However what?” Stacy appeared to hang on his words.

“Pregnancy tests measure the level of human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, in your body fluids. You know that, right?”

Her head bobbed.

“The hormone can only be detected after implantation, which occurs six to twelve days following fertilization.” Noting the tension on Stacy’s face, Cole hurried to the point. “However, since I’m sure you received an injection of hCG in preparation for harvesting eggs, that could produce a false positive. Let me find out more. I’m sure Dr. Tartikoff could answer—”

“No!” Her voice rose in horror.

An image of Owen’s sharp features reacting to such a question troubled Cole, as well. “You’re right. Not him. Maybe one of the other—”

“No.” Stacy was on her feet now. “It’ll be obvious soon enough. I mean, in a few weeks, right?”

“Certainly.” Despite a throb in his knee, Cole rose also.

“Until then, let’s keep this private.” She rushed on. “If Rod gets the slightest inkling of what just happened he’ll make our lives miserable.”

Customarily, Cole paid little attention to the teasing—or more accurately, needling—that went on in the operating room. But Stacy’s anxiety touched him. “If he bothers you, let me know. I’ll make his life miserable.”

She blinked. “I never saw this side of you before. It’s almost...macho.”

He felt ready to go into battle for her. “There’s more where that came from.”

Stacy started to laugh. “How sweet.”

“Wrong adjective,” Cole corrected. “Try powerful. Manly. Something along those lines.”

“Okay.” She grinned. “Don’t punch him out. You might hurt your hands.”

“I’ll strangle him with his own tubing instead.”

Stacy walked into Cole’s arms and he held her close. An urge to protect her filled him, along with a resolve to keep their secret as long as she wished. Sharing it brought them closer.

“I’d better go.” She backed away. “I don’t want my roommate to start asking questions.”

Trying not to limp, Cole escorted Stacy to the door. He’d rather she didn’t drive home alone at night; it was nearly midnight, according to his watch. But in his present condition, he couldn’t even walk her down the stairs. Thank goodness this was a safe town.

“I’ll see you at work Monday.” Stacy touched his cheek. “Have a good weekend, Doc.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. The contact sent a surge of electricity through him, and then she drew back.

Cole wanted more. But he had to let her go. “Happy birthday. For the few minutes that are left.”

“Thanks.”

He watched as she descended the steps, and waited until her car pulled out of the driveway. Then he straightened the living room. He hesitated before shaking out the folds in the comforter, though. He didn’t want to dispel the traces of Stacy’s warmth.

What would they do if she was pregnant?

He supposed he’d find out soon enough.

* * *

IF STACY COULD HAVE SKIPPED the party for Una’s pregnancy, she’d have gladly done so. She’d hoped the event would pass without any organized event, since both Dr. Tartikoff and the hospital administrator, Dr. Mark Rayburn, planned to keep the news from the press until the end of the first trimester. While everyone hoped for the best, the glare of publicity could only magnify the pain if Una suffered a miscarriage.

However, the small circle of staff aware of the achievement wanted a party, and Una herself seemed barely able to keep from spreading her happiness to the world. Stacy, having made no secret of her involvement, could hardly object.

And so, on the Friday two weeks after her escapade with Dr. Rattigan, Stacy finished her shift in the late afternoon, changed into a flowery spring dress and descended to the multipurpose room. Despite the pretense that this was merely a routine staff gathering, someone—she suspected the public relations director, Jennifer Martin—had draped the boxy room with bright pink and blue streamers, put on a recording of Mozart for Babies and stocked a buffet table with veggies, fruit, whole-wheat crackers and an array of cheeses.

Stacy slipped in, her attention focused on the food. Her stomach had been bothering her all day, and much as she’d longed to eat snacks, she couldn’t do that during surgery.

She spotted Cole talking to the egg bank director, Jan Garcia Sargent, and her husband of five months, Dr. Zack Sargent, who had performed Stacy and Una’s egg extraction and implantation. Half-turned away from her, Cole hadn’t seen her yet, and Stacy felt an irrational impulse to flee.

They’d continued to work together three or four times a week. The hardest part was assisting him with gowning and gloving before surgery. Pulling the sterile gown over his strong body aroused bittersweet memories. Easing the gloves over his large, square-tipped fingers reminded her of how incredible it felt when he touched her.

Each time, she’d covered up her reaction by maintaining a stream of idle chatter, double-checking special requests for supplies or equipment and asking questions she didn’t really need answers to. She’d shut up only when she saw his attention drift away, no doubt to review the steps of the upcoming procedure.

After the operation, she always kept busy until she was sure he’d left the surgical suite. Then she hurried off to her next assignment or to the nurses’ locker room via the most remote elevator. A few times when Cole had marched purposefully toward her, she’d either ducked down a hallway or started a conversation with someone nearby.

Cowardly, yes. But how could she tell him what she didn’t know? As he’d pointed out, her hormone shots would render a pregnancy test inaccurate until enough time passed. Stacy hoped they also explained her churning stomach, light-headed moments and bloated sensation. Plus the fact that her period hadn’t started yet.

She doubted it.

“There you are!” Una’s cry seemed to echo off the walls as the mom-to-be fluttered toward her.

As usual, Una’s multicolored outfit—a striped blouse and loosely woven pants—added to her larger-than-life impression. There was no avoiding the warm hug, or the way she stood there rocking back and forth with her arms around Stacy. Despite or perhaps because of growing up in foster homes, Una possessed a tremendous capacity for love.

Some of Stacy’s edginess dissipated.

“I owe you so much,” Una was saying. “You’ve made my dreams come true.”

Stacy took a step back. “You look radiant.”

“And big for my dates,” Una responded cheerily. “I can’t wait to find out how many I’m carrying!”

Her husband, a slender fellow with a receding hairline, swung toward them with their two-year-old daughter, Lynette, riding piggyback on his shoulders. She clapped her hands merrily. “Go, horsey!”

“Hi, sweetie.” Stacy patted the little girl’s hand.

“She’s thrilled to be having a baby brother or sister.” Jim jiggled in place to keep the tot entertained. “We didn’t mean to tell her yet, but she overheard us talking. I’m not sure she fully understands.”

That reminded Stacy of a matter she might soon be facing herself: how to explain an unplanned pregnancy to Mia and Reggie, to whom she ought to serve as a role model. All she’d wanted was to help others, to give something important to another family, and in doing so, to ease her sorrow at being unable to save Vicki from her demons. Now Stacy might be bringing a child into a less than ideal situation, with an unprepared mom and dad who were neither married nor likely to be.

Oh, please let me not be pregnant.

And yet, as Jan Sargent pulled Una and Jim away to accept congratulations from others, Stacy felt a surge of empathy. What if she and Una carried half siblings? Una wouldn’t be the only one with a child in her arms....

Across the room, Cole caught her gaze and tipped his head toward a quiet corner. He wanted to talk.

Clearly, he took his role in the situation seriously. But Stacy had lost her heart once to a man who’d stopped loving her. She’d be very, very careful before she ran such a risk again.

Two weeks ago, with the thrill of their encounter still fresh, she’d tried to imagine Cole as a devoted husband like her father was. But despite the affection between them, their relationship lacked a romantic spark. No flowers, no tender text messages, no meaningful sidelong glances. The Monday after their tryst, he’d seemed relieved when she focused strictly on how his knee was recovering, and on the surgery before them.

She should go talk to him. But first, her stomach demanded a commando raid on the buffet. Stacy pointed toward the food, and Cole conceded with a nod.

Her thoughts in a jumble as she crossed the room, she stopped abruptly to prevent a collision with the director of nursing, Betsy Raditch, who had the unfortunate distinction of being Stacy’s ex-mother-in-law. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Betsy adjusted the half-glasses perched on her nose. It was hard to picture the unimposing woman as the mother of a brawny former college football star. “I was hoping to speak with you.”

“About my schedule?” Scrub nurses were shifted around as needed, Stacy in particular, who assisted several surgeons and had no family obligations to limit her flexibility. Betsy could have made her life tough, but the nursing director had been fair despite the divorce.

“Is that the only thing we ever talk about?” Betsy sounded apologetic. “We used to have such interesting discussions.”

“We did, didn’t we?” During her marriage, Stacy had been thankful for their friendship. Later, she’d felt betrayed, realizing that Betsy must have been aware of her son’s renewed relationship with his high school sweetheart before Andrew had informed Stacy of it. Perhaps Betsy also had a lingering fondness for Zora, who—to add insult to injury—worked as an ultrasound technician for some of the hospital’s doctors.

“I admire what you’ve done for the Barkers,” Betsy told her. “You always give so much of yourself.”

“Thanks.” She wasn’t sure what to make of that remark.

“You look hungry.”

“Famished.”

“I’ll let you go eat.” As the older woman moved on, Stacy sneaked a look at Cole. Dr. Tartikoff had claimed his attention. She was safe, for the moment.

She hurried to get in line at the refreshment table. If those two tall women ahead of her would finish heaping their plates, she could finally eat.

One of them shifted position. It was, she realized, Harper, who noticed her at the same instant. “Stacy!” As if it were impossible to talk and serve oneself at the same time, she stood with a ladle of fruit salad in the air. “There you are!”

Nora Franco peered around her. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks, both of you.”

Please keep moving.

“I’m so excited!” Harper said.

“Really? Why?”

Her roommate gestured at the throng of staff members surrounding Una. “Until now, your donation seemed kind of theoretical. It’s finally sinking in that there’s actually going to be a baby, or several.”

“So there are.”

Maybe more than you think.

Stacy took a deep breath to tame her protesting stomach. How long could her roommate stand with a ladle in midair?

“I’d like to be a donor.”

Harper couldn’t be thinking straight. “It’s a rigorous procedure and you have Mia to take care of,” she pointed out.

“I’m sure she’d understand.” Her friend was getting wound up in her enthusiasm. Although sensible, Harper could also be impulsive. “I have no desire to remarry and I certainly don’t want a second child on my own. But I dream about having a little boy, and it would be such a gift to give to a childless family. Well, I don’t have to tell you! And then there’s the money. I’d put it toward Mia’s college savings.”

“Five thousand dollars isn’t that much, and you don’t get it until they harvest the eggs.” Stacy’s stomach gave a lurch. It was about to embarrass her in public.

Setting down her empty plate, she made a dash for the exit. Thank goodness Dr. Tartikoff chose that moment to take the microphone and begin his welcome speech, drawing everyone’s attention.

“This is a significant occasion for all of us....” His words boomed after her into the corridor.

From the corner of her eye she saw someone follow her. Cole. He waited in the corridor as she flew into the ladies’ room.

He’d implied that he meant to stand by her. That resolve, she feared, was about to be put to the test.