NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet (9 page)

In an attempt to distract himself from his body’s demands, he picked up the pile of pictures she’d brought with her and sifted through the ones he hadn’t yet looked at, amazed at the amount of time she’d obviously put into the task of creating the perfect teenage escape for his daughter. More than bedding and matching accessories, she’d researched page after page of jewelry display thingies, shelves, fancy hooks, and even some contraption called a Bubble Chair that hung from the ceiling.

A lighted makeup mirror. He let that one fall to the counter. Jessie was too young to wear makeup.

A purple lap desk. A funky silver floor lamp. A back-of-the-door mirror.

All in addition to the time she’d spent shopping for posters of Jessie’s favorite bands and picking out paint swatches.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d changed his mind about her helping him after she’d already put in so much effort. And since the main reason for his change of mind was so they wouldn’t be alone together, and here they were, alone together, he may as well accept all she was willing to offer.

Whoa.

He came to a picture of a crib and changing table set. He moved on to the next page, a baby bath, and the next, an infant car seat, followed by an ad for huge pink butterfly wall decals. He held them up to her. “I’m thinking these were intended for someone else?”

Scarlet hurried over and grabbed them from his hand. “They’re mine.”

So defensive. “Why are you carrying around pictures of baby items?” Please say because you’re helping a friend. Please don’t be one of those baby-obsessed
women who yammer on about their nonsensical biological clock.

“We’re wasting time.” She carefully folded the papers in half and shoved them into her backpack. “Go get dressed. The paint store closes at seven.”

Lewis looked at the clock on the microwave. Five thirty-seven. How long could it possibly take her to answer one simple question?

“I can go myself,” she threatened, picking up her pocketbook and reaching for the door knob.

“Hold on,” he said. “Give me a minute.” He turned and headed toward his bedroom. But this conversation was not over.

At ten o’clock that night Lewis and Scarlet finally returned to his condo. Lewis dropped the cumbersome bags of bedding and miscellaneous girlie junk he’d carried for what seemed like miles as they’d trudged through at least a dozen stores.

“Having the paint and painting supplies delivered was a good call,” he told Scarlet, looking at where the doorman had neatly arranged the items to the side of his entry way.

She carefully unloaded their more delicate purchases, which she’d insisted on carrying. “I can’t believe we got all the shopping done in one night.” She pushed some flyaway hairs away from her flushed face.

They’d done more shopping in four hours than Lewis typically did in a month. Heck, in three months. He should be cranky and exhausted and looking forward to pouring a beer then pouring himself into his recliner. And yet he felt energized. Scarlet’s enthusiasm for her task, her determination to find the exact item she
sought, and her excitement when she did, made every minute of their expedition fun.

So what if she was trying to re-create the bedroom of her teenage dreams. Jessie was one lucky girl to be on the receiving end of all Scarlet’s creative ideas and planning.

She covered her mouth and yawned. “Sorry,” she said. “I was up at six.”

Lewis remembered that while he’d moped around in his bathrobe, missing Jessie, bemoaning the loss of the man he was pre-fatherhood, trying to envision his future—a vision Scarlet kept popping up in, she’d put in a full shift at work.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asked.

“That’d be great.” She took out her cell phone, walked across his living room, and with her back to him, made a call.

“Hey,” she said to someone on the other end of the call. “Can you pick me up at the bus stop later tonight?”

Lewis set the filter in the coffeemaker and measured out enough coffee for four cups.

“No. Thanks anyway. Have fun,” she said.

“Problem?” he asked.

“I live six blocks from my bus stop,” she said absent-mindedly as she scrolled through information on her phone. “It’s bad enough I have to navigate Penn Station and ride the bus back to Jersey with the Friday night drunks. I’d rather not have to walk home, alone, in the dark with one of them following me.”

She shuddered as if it’d happened before. The thought of Scarlet, hurrying home, in fear, with some intoxicated miscreant in pursuit set off a surge of protectiveness he’d only ever felt for Jessie.

“How did you plan to get home after girls’ night out?” he asked.

She looked up from her phone. “I sleep at my friend’s apartment downtown, so I don’t have to make the trek home late at night.”

“If you’d already planned to stay in the city, you can stay here,” he blurted out.

She gave him the ‘yeah right’ look. “Nice try.” She pressed the screen on her phone, lifted it to her ear, and turned her back to him, again.

Lewis added water, replaced the carafe, and flipped on the coffeemaker.

Scarlet spoke into her phone. “Hey. It’s about a quarter after ten on Friday night. If you get this message in the next few minutes and can give me a ride home from the bus stop tonight, call me back.”

Lewis waited for her to end the call and said, “You’re being silly. I think I’ve proven myself a close-to-perfect gentleman. You can sleep in Jessie’s room. I’ll put fresh sheets on the bed,” he held up his right hand, “I give you my word—”

“Stop with the raising the right hand bit,” she said. “I thought we talked about that.”

“A carryover from Boy Scouts,” he admitted. Then, keeping his right hand raised he bent his pinky, held it in place with his thumb to make the scout sign, and recited the oath. “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

She smiled and nodded. “Very impressive.”

Standing at full attention he added, “On my honor I will not step one foot on the stairway leading up to the
loft while you’re up there.” He decided it best to keep the ‘unless you invite me up’ part to himself.

She seemed to mull it over. “Then we could prep for painting tonight and get started first thing tomorrow.”

“Exactly.” Although not his first choice of things to do during their time alone together, that’d work. “I’ve still got stuff I need to move out of there.” Luckily he’d spent part of his afternoon, sorting junk, boxing up his books and journals, and removing the artwork and pictures from the walls.

“I can help with that,” she offered.

So far today she’d cancelled plans with her friends to come check on him, only let him treat her to a slice of pizza and a bottle of water for dinner, carried almost as many bags as he had, without one complaint, and now she was offering to help him move boxes and furniture. “Except for your good looks and fantastic figure,” which he took a moment to peruse, “you are not at all like the women I used to date.”

She gave him a big smile. “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He’d meant it as one.

“I like my coffee light with one teaspoon of sugar if you have it.” She walked to the kitchen. While he poured she said, “If I stay over tonight, and that’s still a big if, I need to know you won’t tell anyone at work. Or Jessie. Especially Jessie. I don’t want anyone to think…”

“There’s something going on between us,” he finished for her as he placed her mug of coffee within reach.

She pulled out a stool and sat down. “Yeah.”

Most women loved to brag about dating him. But he was fast learning Scarlet was not most women.

He held up the scout’s sign again and said, “Scout’s honor.”

She smiled. “How long were you in the Boy Scouts?”

“Through Eagle Scout,” he said. The highest, most prestigious level.

“That’s quite an accomplishment.”

Yes it was.

“But you don’t seem the camping, outdoorsy type.”

He wasn’t, but his father had made Eagle Scout, and Boy Scouts had been the one father son activity his dad had made time for. “I grew up in Northern Westchester. I didn’t migrate down to the city until I got accepted at NYU.”

She blew on her coffee then took a sip.

With the brief lapse in conversation that followed, Lewis took the opportunity to fulfill his promise to Jessie. “When I spoke to Jessie earlier, she made it clear that if something should happen to me, she’d much rather go to live with you than with my sister. I told her you’re not family and it’s not your responsibility to take her in. I don’t expect you to say yes, so don’t feel in any way pressured. But she made me promise to ask you if you’d be willing, so I’m asking.” He leaned back against the counter and lifted his coffee mug. There. He’d done what he’d promised to do. Now he waited for the backlash. He took a sip. How dare he put Scarlet in such a difficult position? How dare he expect her to take on the role of parent to a child who wasn’t hers? How dare he set her up to be a bad person by saying no when Lewis, Jessie’s father, should have been the one to tell her no when she’d first mentioned the idea.

But Scarlet looked up at him with an expression that was anything but angry and said, “If it doesn’t cause a problem within your family, I’d love to.”

What? “You’d…”

She smiled. “I’d be happy to have Jessie come live with me.”

He stood there, speechless.

“She’s a great kid, Lewis. Don’t look so shocked.”

“You’d have to change your life around.” Like he had.

“If something’s important, you find a way to make it work,” she said. “Jessie is important to me. So I’d find a way to make it work. Not that I’ll ever have to because you’re young and healthy. But if Jessie needs me, I’ll be there for her.”

As simple as that.

Lewis walked to the counter opposite Scarlet and looked down into her eyes. “Someday you’re going to be an exceptional mom to some very lucky children.” And an outstanding wife to one extremely lucky man. For the first time in years, the idea of marriage, as in marriage to someone exactly like Scarlet, did not make him feel like he was buried under a ten foot high pile of cinderblocks.

She looked down into her coffee cup and quietly said, “Hopefully sooner rather than later.”

Which brought to mind her pictures of baby paraphernalia and Lewis got a heavy feeling in his gut. “Sooner as in that’s why you’re carrying around pictures of baby furniture and supplies?” Was she already pregnant? Was she trying to get pregnant?

She looked up at him with the same excited expression she’d had when they’d found the purple lava lamp. “Since you’ve already agreed to keep my sleeping over a secret, can I trust you with one more?”

He nodded, no longer certain he wanted to know.

“I’m in the process of trying to adopt Joey.”

L
EWIS DIDN
’
T IMMEDIATELY
respond. Understandable. Scarlet took a sip of her coffee and waited for him to process what she’d told him, figuring his reaction would likely be indicative of what she’d face when she shared the news with the rest of her colleagues.

After a minute or two of deep concentration, Lewis carried his mug around the counter, pulled out the stool beside her and sat down, immediately swiveling to look at her. In a low, calm, almost placating tone he said, “A dying mother’s final plea for you to take good care of her baby and make sure to find her a good home does not make you responsible to adopt the baby.”

“I know that,” Scarlet snapped. Her reasons for wanting to adopt Joey had turned into so much more.

“You and Holly clicked. I get it,” he said. “You saw your teenage self in her. You see the baby you lost in Joey.”

Very perceptive of him, surprising since she’d thought him to be so superficial when it came to women.

“But those memories are clouding your judgment.”

“They most certainly are not.” She didn’t appreciate him talking to her like she was an unstable patient in need of coddling.

“I’m sure you’ve dealt with thousands of infants
through your work at Angel’s. Dozens maybe hundreds who were abandoned or taken from their drug addicted mothers. Have you ever considered adopting any of them?”

No, she hadn’t.

“I see the answer in your face,” he said like he’d caught her trying to hide something. “So why now? What makes Joey so special? Help me to understand.”

“You know what?” Scarlet stood. “You don’t have to understand. I’m doing what I want to do, what I think is the right thing to do, for reasons that are important to me.” She jabbed her index finger at her chest—a little too hard. Ouch. “Maybe it’s the timing, where I happen to be in my life. Maybe it’s that I was close enough to Holly to hear her pleas, or that I held Joey in my arms as her mother died, or that my deciding I’d like to have a baby coincided nicely with Joey needing a mother.”

“Think about it,” Lewis said. “Really think about it. You don’t know Holly’s family or medical history. What if there’s a history of mental illness? Addiction? Or autosomal dominant disease?”

“If Joey exhibits any signs or symptoms, I’ll get her the best medical and/or psychological treatment available.” Like any good parent would do.

He let out a frustrated breath. “Eighteen years, Scarlet. Do you really want to take responsibility for someone else’s daughter for eighteen long, dramatic, exhausting years?”

“Be careful,” she cautioned, with a glare. “Your pessimistic view of fatherhood is showing.”

“It’s not pessimistic,” he insisted “It’s realistic. And Jessie is my own flesh and blood. Do you honestly think you’ll be able to love another woman’s baby?”

His thoughtless words slapped the calm right out of
her. “I can’t believe this,” Scarlet yelled. “Not fifteen minutes ago you asked me to consider taking in Jessie if something were to happen to you. Did you not think, that in your absence, I would nurture her and love her and raise her as if she were my very own daughter? Newsflash, Lewis, a woman doesn’t have to give birth to a baby to be a loving mother. And the responsibilities of parenthood don’t magically disappear when a child turns eighteen.” Well, except for her parents they did.

“I know that. I’m sorry,” he said. So. Damn. Calm. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Too late. “Well you did. Giving a baby up for adoption, whether willingly or unwillingly, is not an easy thing. On the days I’m convinced my baby lived, I pray she was adopted by a woman who loves her as much as if she were her very own biological child, a woman who makes her feel special and wanted every single day of her life.”

Scarlet felt tears start to gather in her eyes. “My personal experience aside, I have to believe that woman exists. With Joey I have the chance to actually be that woman for a baby who needs me, to allow Holly to rest in peace because her daughter will be well cared for, to do for Joey what I pray to God another woman has done for my baby.”

Do not cry. Don’t you dare cry
.

“What do you mean by your personal experience aside?” he asked.

She did not want to talk about this. But the shift from lamenting to loathing worked to keep her tears from falling. “I was adopted as an infant to complete the happy family picture on the annual Miller Christmas card. Their no muss no fuss approach to gaining parenthood status. Mom didn’t have to give up her
daily cocktails and dad didn’t have to deal with mom’s less malleable nature when sober. No changes to mom’s figure, no disruption to dad’s work schedule. The ideal solution. Only they hadn’t anticipated the imperfect daughter I turned out to be.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be. I had everything a girl could wish for—as long as she didn’t wish for a mom and/or dad who cared anything for her beyond maintaining appearances.” She gave a flippant wave of her hand. “Blah, blah, blah. Poor little rich girl. My childhood could have been a lot worse, and I know it.”

“Did you ever try to locate your birth parents?”

Hard to do when her birth was purported to be a home birth and an address that turned out to be in a strip mall was listed as the place of birth on her birth certificate. Knowing her dad’s scheming nature, she couldn’t even be sure the date of birth listed was correct. So why waste her time? “My purpose for sharing that I was adopted was to show that people become foster parents and adoptive parents for a variety of reasons, some of them self-serving. I can’t save every baby born into a bad situation, but I can, and will, do my very best to save Joey.”

She picked up her phone and brought up Joey’s picture. “She’s a real sweetheart, loves to cuddle.” She smiled at the memory of holding her before she’d left the hospital that afternoon and the contented little noises she’d made. “When the nurses can’t get her to quiet down they come get me. It’s like she can sense my presence before I even open the incubator and she stops fussing and waits for me to pick her up. She knows me. She’s bonded with me.” And Scarlet had bonded right back.

“Can I see?” Lewis asked, motioning to the phone.

Scarlet turned the screen in his direction.

“She’s a cutie that’s for sure.”

“My cutie,” Scarlet said. Her soon to be daughter. Oh how she loved the sound of that.

“What about Holly’s family?” he asked. The annoying voice of reason. “Or the father’s family?”

“I talk with the NICU social worker daily. The police still have not been able to identify Holly. In the meantime, Joey’s started to take the bottle, she’s gaining weight, and if all continues to go well, Dr. Donaldson plans to discontinue the NG tube on Tuesday or Wednesday. She may be ready for discharge as early as a week after that, and I’m trying my hardest to make sure she’ll be able to come home with me.”

“So soon? I thought it takes months to adopt a baby.”

“Since Joey may still require an apnea monitor and strict intake monitoring to assure she’s getting adequate nutrition at home, the social worker is trying to push through approval for me to be her foster parent first. I’ve already had my personal interview and I have a home visit scheduled for Wednesday morning.”

“What about your job?”

Scarlet leaned her hips against the island counter and reached for her mug. “I’ll take some time off when she first comes home, like any new mom.” She took a sip. “Then I have an old nursing friend lined up to take care of her until she’s big enough and healthy enough to start at the hospital daycare. I already have her on the waiting list, just in case.”

“Sounds like you have it all figured out,” he said, taking her free hand into his. “I hope everything goes the way you want it to.”

“It will,” Scarlet said. It had to. “I can feel it in my heart.” Because Joey had worked her way in there.

“Joey’s a lucky little girl to have you looking out for her,” Lewis said.

“No” Scarlet squeezed his hand. “I’m the lucky one.” She set down her mug as a wave of tiredness crashed over her, making her yawn. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth. “Excuse me.”

“You’re exhausted. Go get ready for bed,” Lewis suggested. “Guest bathroom is over there.” He pointed to a hallway to the right of the kitchen. “I’ll run upstairs to make up Jessie’s bed for you.”

“But I’d hoped—”

“Tomorrow,” he said, walking to the front door. He picked up her backpack and her canvas overnight bag and carried them to her. “I’ll do what I can do alone to night.”

Considering she was usually in bed before ten and it was fast approaching eleven, going to sleep sounded pretty good. She stood and took her things. “Thank you.”

“No,” he said. “Thank
you
.” He stared down into her eyes. “For giving up your plans with your friends to put Jessie’s mind at ease that I was okay, for going shopping with me after you’d worked a full day, and for finding the time to help me with Jessie’s room, when you have so much going on.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, appreciating his sincere appreciation. He looked about to kiss her, and since Scarlet knew where that would lead, she stepped around him and went to wash up for bed.

Scarlet opened her eyes to shadowed darkness and looked over to her clock to check the time. Only it
wasn’t there. The sheets smelled different. The air felt cool on her face, but the buzz of her old window a/c unit was noticeably absent. She turned to the other side and noted the time. One thirty-seven.

A dim light from the floor below lit the room enough for her to recognize Jessie’s loft bedroom.

Her stomach growled.

She should have let Lewis buy her that second slice of pizza. No sense trying to sleep when her body required sustenance, so she threw off the covers, got out of bed, and quietly went in search of food. At the bottom of the stairs she heard a noise to her right and stopped. In the dark she could just make out a person on their hands and knees inside of Lewis’s coat closet. With a flashlight.

Doing what?

A cold fear crept up her back, settling into a disturbing chilly tingle at the base of her skull.

Did Lewis keep a safe in there? Was he being robbed? Was she standing three feet from a gun-carrying criminal?

The person moved.

Scarlet swallowed a scream.

She looked down the dark hallway to where Lewis lay in peaceful slumber, totally unaware. She needed to wake him. She needed to get help.

A male grunt from the closet made her jump.

It was a man. He moved again, and oh my God, started a backwards crawl out of the closet.

Doing the first thing that came to mind, Scarlet set her bare foot to the burglar’s backside, pushed as hard as she could, shoving him back inside the closet, and slammed the door shut behind him. “Lewis,” she screamed as loud as she could over her shoulder. Please
don’t let him be a heavy sleeper. “Wake up. There’s a man in the closet.” She pushed her back against the door, straightened her legs for leverage, and used all one hundred twenty-one of her pounds to hold him off. “You’re being robbed,” she yelled. “Wake up, Lewis. Call 911. I need help.”

Someone knocked.

From inside the closet.

“Scarlet,” a muffled male voice said.

Holy cow. He knew her name.

“Scarlet, it’s Lewis,” the man in the closet said, oh so calm.

That’s when she noticed he wasn’t making any attempt at escape. “What are you doing in the closet?” she asked.

“Some crazy woman pushed me in here and closed the door.”

Ah yes, the crazy woman, that would be her, but better safe than sorry.

“If you’re really Lewis,” and chances were good he was since there was no activity in the vicinity of Lewis’s bedroom and she’d yelled loud enough that if he was in there, he’d have heard her, “what did we have for dinner?”

“Pizza,” he answered correctly.

Alrighty then. Scarlet moved toward the entryway, felt around until she found the light switch and flipped it on.

The closet doorknob turned and Lewis emerged, squinting against the bright overhead light.

“Well look at that,” she said, trying to lighten things up. “Dr. Lewis Jackson coming out of the closet.” Dressed in nothing but a pair of skin tight black bike shorts that hugged every curve, every bulge… Oh she
would definitely be re-creating this moment over and over for years to come.

“Ha. Ha,” he said without humor, probably with some type of scowl on his face, but she was too busy ogling his scantily clad body, from his bare shoulders down, to notice.

He put his hands on his hips. “You like what you see?” he asked.

Oh, yes, very much.

“No need to answer,” he said. “Your body’s doing it for you.”

She looked down at her chest and sure enough, her nipples had transformed into hard little male hormone sensors beneath the thin cotton of her tank. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, crossing her arms so the girls could react to their environment in private. “It’s freezing in here.” It wasn’t, but she ran with that line of reasoning anyway, lowering her eyes to stare at his groin. “Which would explain the, uh,” she cleared her throat, “shrinkage.”

Then, right before her eyes, his member did the exact opposite of shrink. And suddenly Lewis’s condo started to feel rather warm.

It’d been so long since Lewis had had a beautiful, sensual woman so close. Scarlet looked so damn good standing there in her tight little pink tank top and short pink boxer shorts, with her long, smooth legs and shapely curves exposed to him for the first time. He wanted her so much that her eyes focusing in on the part of him that wanted her the most worked as effectively as if she’d put her mouth on him.

She shifted her gaze. “So what were you doing in the closet?” she asked.

“Why are you out of bed?” he countered. Dare he hope she’d been on her way to his bedroom for a little naked companionship?

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “Is there some house rule that says overnight guests need to remain in bed until morning?”

“Only when they’re in
my
bed.”

She fidgeted with a gold outline of a heart dangling from a delicate chain around her neck. And if he wasn’t mistaken, her skin took on a slight flushed appearance.