The Doctor's Pregnant Bride? (8 page)

She was aware of everything about him—his strength, his heat, the promise of satisfaction for the building need inside her—but also that they worked together. That he was a doctor. That he came from old Boston money, had a place in a level of society she didn’t know.

That a woman like Tricia Trahearn was much more suitable for him.

“Your friendship has come to mean a lot to me
already,” he said, his breath disturbing her hair. He stepped back, his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you.”

Friendship
. The word righted her world again, put her in her place. She smiled brightly, probably too brightly. “You’re welcome.”

He went down the stairs and was gone, leaving her body aching and unsatisfied—and grateful. She was ready for marriage, a family.

She didn’t need the complication of Dr. Ted Bonner.

Ted spotted Sara Beth standing in front window, watching him. He raised a hand toward her then got into his car without waiting for a return wave. He drove off in a burst of speed.

Why the hell had he hugged her like that? Let his hand drift down to the tempting curve of her rear? He’d been wanting to touch her since he’d come up to her bending in front of his refrigerator earlier, then later on when she’d helped him make his bed after the furniture men had left. She’d leaned over to smooth his sheets. He’d almost cupped that fine rear, had been stopped by her standing up, banging into him, a habit they’d gotten into, being clumsy around each other.

Friends with benefits
. He’d been thinking about it all day, as she’d frequently gotten into his space, brushing against him to get a better look at something, smiling at him or pursing her lips as she studied a piece. She had a quick, easy laugh, light and joyful, and a slow, smoldering heat that appeared less often, but did appear, although he had to catch her off guard to see it.

And then there was the hug. He’d taken her into his arms without thinking, prepared to just give her a good-night hug, a thanks-for-everything short embrace. Then it had become something else. Even she had felt it. She’d moved closer to him instead of away. Her breath turned shaky. She’d gone up on tiptoe, which had aligned their hips. He’d pulled back before she could feel his reaction to her, had seen her nipples pressing against her T-shirt, an invitation he wished he could accept.

Friends with benefits
. He needed to give that more thought. Sure, he wanted marriage—but not yet, not even anything close to it. If he took a break now and then from his work, it needed to be for fun, for pleasure, not with an eye toward the future, no matter how much he wanted otherwise.

For pleasure
. The thought settled, a hazy fantasy that lingered as he parked and went up to his loft. He admired the newly decorated space for a minute, then decided to take a shower. His answering machine caught his eye, and he remembered the message from Tricia earlier, a call he’d ignored while Sara Beth was there.

Friends with benefits. Tricia would fit the bill, at least the benefits part, and without complications. She’d invited him to dinner next Sunday for his birthday. He had no doubt they’d end up in bed, if that was what he wanted.

And he wanted. But not Tricia.

He wanted Sara Beth O’Connell. Exclusively.

A
few days later Sara Beth peered into Lisa’s office. “You texted?”

Lisa gestured her in. “Shut the door, please.”

She was looking more stressed each day, her mouth set, a furrow between her brows. It was hard for Sara Beth to see her this way.

“How about we go out tonight?” Sara Beth asked, sitting. “It’s hump day. Half-price drinks at Shots. Free fries with the burgers.” The always-crowded pub and grill was nestled in the center of the Cambridge medical community.

“I can’t. I really wish I could.” Wisps of Lisa’s long hair had fallen around her face, a slight messiness that was rare for her, and it was only eight o’clock in the morning.

Sara Beth leaned toward her. “I miss you. And I’m worried about you. You’ve lost weight. You can’t afford to lose weight.”

“I’ll be fine.” She sat back, all business. “I need an update on your investigation, please.”

Sara Beth frowned at the change of subject. “It’s moving along. We’ve gone back five years so far. The statistics haven’t been analyzed yet, and I think Ted wants to take it back further before we do. To uncover patterns, if there are any, before he comes to any conclusions. He wants a once-and-for-all conclusion. Don’t you?”

“Of course. So, let’s do this. I want you to free up more time, as much as you can manage. We need to get to the bottom of this
now
.” Her hands were clenched, her knuckles white.

Sara Beth studied her, the way she wouldn’t make eye contact, the lack of a smile. “What’s going on? There’s more than just what Ted and I are trying to learn, which is bad, but not enough to stress you out to this degree.”

“There are some money issues….” Lisa put her hands over her eyes and groaned. “Oh, God. I didn’t mean to say that. Sara Beth, you can’t say a word to anyone. No one.”

“I won’t. You know I won’t.” Fear whipped through her—about the institute, her job, her future. Everyone’s future. They’d helped so many people to have babies. That couldn’t end.

And then there was Ted, so close to making that dream a reality for even more people.

“Do you need me to tell Ted that I’m increasing your hours?” Lisa asked.

“I will. He’ll be glad.” She wished she could confide in her best friend, tell her about last Saturday and get her opinion. Tell her that Ted was on her mind all the time. All the time. Maybe the distraction would be good for Lisa, too. “Please come to Shots with me, Lisa. You need a break.”

“Not tonight.” Her phone rang, and Lisa picked it up, signaling the end of their conversation.

Sara Beth headed to the lab, urgency in her step, worried for Lisa, fearful for the institute…and anxious for the opportunity to get into the vault much sooner than she’d anticipated. Through the lab window she saw Ted and Chance in an intense discussion, not arguing, just extraordinarily serious. Chance didn’t smile once.

She hesitated, then finally opened the door and stuck her head in. “Is this a bad time? Should I come back later?”

“That’d be good. Give us ten minutes, please,” Chance said.

Ted turned and looked at her but didn’t seem to register her.

She backed out, letting the door shut on its own, and leaned against the wall beside it. It seemed everyone was having some kind of crisis. And secrets.

Annoyed at being left out of the loop, she wandered away, deciding to get a cup of coffee from the break room. As soon as she’d poured a cup, she got a text message from her mother:

Which reminded Sara Beth that her mother had never sent an itinerary. She’d said that she wouldn’t be out of cell-phone communication range, so what more did they need?

Which possibly meant her mother wasn’t where she’d said she was going. Maybe she was with a man. More secrets.

She typed Have fun in the text box and sent it to her mother, not asking the questions she wanted to, not calling her, either, figuring it would go to voice mail.

Sara Beth sipped her coffee. Her life had gone from routine to unpredictable. She’d wanted to recapture some adventure, but the fun-and-games kind, not all this serious stuff.

After ten minutes, she returned to the lab, dumping her mostly full coffee cup, since food and drink weren’t allowed. Ted and Chance were standing next to the centrifuge. Chance elbowed Ted, as if trying to get him to laugh, so Sara Beth felt free to go inside.

“Thanks for waiting,” Chance said.

“No problem. Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Ted answered, still looking serious, but not grim—or somber, or whatever that was she’d seen on his face before. “Good morning, Sara Beth.”

“Hi. I have good news.” She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she slipped them into her pockets. “I’ve been cleared to give you a lot more time so that we can finish up as soon as possible.”

“That’s great,” Ted said.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to normal
myself,” Chance said. “Carrie’s doing an admirable job of filling in for you, Sara Beth, but she’s not you.”

She smiled at the compliment. They did work well as a team. She respected him as a doctor. He was particularly good with the husbands, often counseling them separately through the in vitro process, knowing that most of the attention so often focused on the wives and their emotions. Sara Beth liked that he went the extra mile.

“So,” she said, anticipation making her stomach do flip-flops. “I finished the latest box of files yesterday. Should I go to the vault and get more?”

“I already did,” Ted said, pointing to the box next to her desk, which she hadn’t paid attention to, thinking it was the old box. “I hadn’t realized before, but I found out you’re not authorized.”

Not authorized? She could never go into the vault? Never find her mother’s file? She grabbed her stomach, the pain so intense that nausea rose. She swallowed hard.

“Hey.” Ted grabbed her as she swayed. “Sit down.”

Chance rolled a chair behind her. She sank into it.

“What’s wrong?” Ted asked, crouching in front of her, putting a hand on her forehead. “Are you sick?”

She waded through the agony in her mind to find an answer for him. “I…had cereal this morning. Maybe the milk was bad,” she said, knowing it was lame, unable to think of anything else.

Chance had his fingers on her wrist. Ted was lifting her eyelids, checking each eye.

“Do you need to throw up?” he asked.

The absurdity of the situation struck her. Here she was being tended to by two doctors, all because she’d been denied access to information she had no legal right to have, anyway. How guilty would she have felt if she
had
gone into the vault and gotten that information? What would she have done with it? She couldn’t contact the man after all these years, could she?

No, it was better this way.

And maybe at some point, she would actually believe that…

“I’m okay. Really.” She gently pushed their hands away. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m all right now and ready to get to work.”

“Just sit there for a while,” Ted said.

She would rather go somewhere and cry, get it out of her system, but she was sure they wouldn’t let her out of their sight until they were satisfied she wasn’t going to pass out. “Okay,” she said.

The timer on the centrifuge went off. As Ted reluctantly left her, Chance whispered, “Are you pregnant?”

Shocked, she met his concerned gaze, her face heating up. “No!”

“Sure?”

“Yes. Positive.”

He patted her shoulder, then joined Ted. Only a few words of their discussion reached her.
Experiment. Risk. Won’t know until
…

Were they on the brink of success, then? Did they have something ready to try? Wouldn’t there be all sorts of hoops to jump through for the government first?

She used her feet to push her chair to her desk and opened the box, pulling out a few folders, then turning on her computer, trying to accept defeat by reminding herself that when push came to shove, she may not even have followed through on her plan. She just wasn’t sure she could live with doing something so unethical.

Sometime later Sara Beth felt herself in motion. Ted was pushing her chair to the lab door.

“What? Hey! What’re you doing?” she asked, holding her feet up as they went.

“You’re taking a break. You didn’t hear me call your name five times. I think I’ve rubbed off on you.”

Not yet, you haven’t, but there’s hope
. The thought made her smile, as did his taking care of her, worrying about her.

“Go fuel yourself,” he said as she stood. “I don’t want to see you for at least a half hour.”

“Breaks are fifteen minutes.”

“Are you arguing with your boss?”

“No, sir. I just don’t know how to take a half-hour break. I can do an hour for lunch, but a break? Can’t.”

He didn’t roll his eyes, but he might as well have. “Whatever.”

She laughed. “May I ask,” she said, getting serious, “if you and Chance have discovered something new? Something exciting? I couldn’t help but notice that you both seemed so intense.”

“Maybe. That’s all I can say at this point.”

The look in his eyes gave a different answer. “You
did
.” She squeezed his hand. “I won’t say anything, I
promise.” Yet another secret to keep. She grinned at his caution-filled expression then she left the room, knowing he hadn’t shut the door yet and was watching her.

Her heart was lighter. Even though she’d hoped so much to see her mother’s folder, she knew it would have weighed on her, too.

It was better this way.

Ted waited until Sara Beth was out of sight then he grabbed his cell phone and made the call he’d wanted to make for years.

“Hey, Ted. How’s it going?” came the voice on the other end.

Caller ID had taken the element of surprise from phone calls, Ted thought. “Good. They’re going really good.”

A few beats passed. “Are you saying—”

“Nothing definite, you understand. But more hopeful than ever. Want to meet and talk about it?”

“You have to ask?”

Ted kept his gaze on the door, in case Sara Beth—or Derek—approached. Derek would be the last one Ted and Chance would tell.

“How risky is it, Ted?”

“If nothing else, it might actually make you healthier.”

A quick, deep laugh came across the phone. “Not a chance. I’ve been preparing for this, following every detail of the regimen you put me on months ago. Vitamins, lots of sleep, eating well, exercise, no hot tub. I’m so healthy I should be the poster boy for it. Hell, Ted, I’m even doing yoga.”

“Good. All those things help. But I don’t want you to worry about risk. The compound is all natural—vitamins, minerals, protein enzymes, amino acids.”

“Seems too easy.”

“I know. Guess we’ll find out in a few months.”

“Okay. Man. Okay. Thanks, Ted. You don’t know—”

“I do. Want to meet for dinner?”

“Yeah. How about six o’clock at Shots?”

Ted frowned. “Why there?”

“Noisy, anonymous.”

“We could meet at my place. I even have some furniture now.”

“Humor me.”

Ted was confused but agreed. He wouldn’t mind going out for dinner instead of having takeout. And he’d heard that Shots was the place to go. “You got it. See you then.”

He hung up then dialed Chance. “Six o’clock at Shots.”

“I’d prefer the Coach House. It’s much quieter.”

“His choice. He
wants
noise.”

Ted slid his cell phone into his pocket. Now that they’d come this far, he wanted instant results.

So much for patience being his strongest asset.

“This is good,” Lisa yelled into Sara Beth’s ear. “Thanks for dragging me away.”

“Purely selfish of me,” Sara Beth replied, a partial truth, since she really believed Lisa needed a break, but so had Sara Beth after the day she had. Shots was the answer.

They’d shouldered their way into the fray of happy customers, found a small table and landed there. Sara
Beth had ordered a margarita in honor of her mother. Lisa was nursing a peach mojito. Burgers and fries would be up soon.

Sara Beth leaned back and surveyed the room. She always changed into street clothes before she went home, but plenty of people were wearing scrubs or at least the comfortable shoes they all tended to wear.

“We got a lot of work done today,” Sara Beth said, leaning close to her friend. “I can see an end to the investigation.”

“That’s great. I hope that’ll be it, and Chance and Ted can relax.” She hesitated. “Well. Look who just walked in.”

Sara Beth followed Lisa’s gaze, spotted Ted and Chance with a man she didn’t recognize. “Who’s that with them?”

“I don’t know. Attractive, though.”

Sara Beth studied the man. He was about the same age as Ted and Chance, not quite as tall, but
attractive
wasn’t a word she would use to describe him. Powerful and intense, yes. Alpha, yes. But, simply attractive? “They all seem really out of place. Doctors don’t tend to hang out here.” In particular, Ted didn’t fit, Sara Beth thought, wondering if he would notice her and what would happen because of it.

But the crowd was dense, and they found their own table as a couple got up to leave. The only one facing Lisa and Sara Beth was Attractive Guy, and he was only looking at Ted and Chance, at least until the waitress went up to take their order. Then he looked around, his
gaze landing on her and Lisa and holding for a few long seconds, long enough to make Sara Beth squirm.

“Intense conversation going on there,” Lisa said as their burgers and fries arrived. They each took a big bite, nodded their heads at how good and juicy the burgers were, then Lisa picked up the conversation.

“So, what’s new with you?” she asked.

“I’m falling for Ted.” She hadn’t meant to say it like that. She’d meant to dance around the topic, get some general advice. But she and Lisa were best friends. There wasn’t much they didn’t share.

“Ted? Him, Ted?”

Sara Beth nodded and bit into a hot, salty French fry.

Lisa sat back, looking stunned, then she smiled. “Wow.”