She was a tigress.
That much was clear. You could see it in the way her cat’s eyes ensnared you in their hazel/green gaze, as if measuring how tasty a morsel you might be. You saw it in the slender graceful lines of her body, a predator’s ease of motion. It was as if the song “Maneater” should automatically begin to play the moment she stepped into the room, as a warning to unsuspecting and susceptible men. Even though she held a crying child in each arm and one more clutched at her leg, the impression remained.
Matthew Peterson swallowed. For although she looked at him with an expression of relief and yearning, it wasn’t his skill as a man that she wanted. He’d been on his way out the door for a late night run when she’d called him twenty minutes ago to tell him one of her charges was sick. For not entirely unselfish reasons, he’d volunteered to make the only house call of his medical career.
Her delicious red mouth stretched into a smile. “Thank God you’re here.”
She stepped back, allowing him to enter. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. “Which one is the culprit?”
“This one.” She nodded to the lone boy of the group. “Justin. He started crying an hour ago. The others chimed in out of sympathy. I took his temperature with the ear thingie. It’s one hundred and four.”
She’d told him as much on the phone. He set down his bag and took the infant from her. As he did so, the back of his hand grazed the curve of her breast. “Excuse me,” he said with little contrition.
She stepped away from him, clutching the other baby more tightly to her chest. A sardonic smile tilted one corner of her mouth. “Not a problem.”
He couldn’t gauge if she’d felt the electrical jolt of that simple contact between them, but he knew she knew he had. Well, he wasn’t here to play footsie, anyway, much as he wished that was the purpose of his visit. “Is there somewhere I can examine him?”
“Oh, of course. How about the changing table in the bedroom?”
“That’s fine.” She led the way down a long hall that had offshoots for a living room and kitchen. He knew that at one time, her brother had lived in this apartment, but once he’d married the woman who owned the building, they’d converted it to a family play area. The large bedroom still held two cribs, a toddler bed and a dresser and a large changing table.
Matthew laid the boy down on the table. After checking the infant’s eyes, nose and throat and retaking his temperature, he made his diagnosis. “He’s got a cold.”
She blinked and her brow furrowed. “A cold with that high a fever?”
“It’s not uncommon in infants this young. How old is he? Three months?”
“Two and a half.”
“Their internal temperature regulation systems aren’t fully developed yet. But we do need to get his fever down. Can you bring me a large bowl of lukewarm water and a washcloth?”
“Sure. Let me put Arianna down.” The baby in her arms had fretted herself to sleep. She laid her in the crib and covered her with a blanket.
The toddler, Emily, tugged at her skirt. “Justie be okay?”
“Justin will be fine, sweetheart.” She took the little girl’s hand. “Dr. Peterson is going to make Justin all better, but he needs us to help him. Can you do that?”
Emily nodded.
“Come on, then.”
As she led the little girl toward the bathroom, Nina glanced back at him. He saw concern in her hazel eyes, but also the faith that he would make things right. He offered her a smile of encouragement. She gave back a wan one before turning and leaving the room with Emily in tow.
When she’d gone, he stripped the baby down to his diaper. Justin Thorne fought him all the way, balling his little fists and stiffening his body. He hadn’t cared much for Matthew’s examination and sought to preserve himself from further indignities. He cradled the baby in the crook of his arm. “Relax, slugger, ” he crooned to the baby, not quite baby talk but not adult speak either. “We’ll have you feeling better in no time.”
The baby’s response was to sneeze right in his face.
Matthew took his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. “Thanks a lot, buddy. See if I make another house call for you.”
“Making threats to babies? Isn’t that against the Hippocratic Oath?”
“Not if they’ve sneezed on you.”
“I see.” She lifted the basin she carried a fraction of an inch. “What do you want me to do with this?”
He motioned for her to set the water down on one end of the table. He laid the baby at other end. Deprived of his source of comfort, the baby began to cry again. “You’re going to like this even less,” Matthew warned the infant. He took the washcloth from her and dipped it into the water with one hand, then squeezed off the excess. The instant the cool water touched his skin, the infant’s cries intensified and his body stiffened. His little body shook in anger and from the shock of the cool water on his heated skin.
“You’re not kidding, he doesn’t like it.”
His gaze slid to Nina, who hovered next to him. He noted the expression on her face, a mixture of concern for the baby and outrage on his behalf. She was a second away from asking him if this were truly necessary or perhaps snatching the baby from the table herself. To forestall a mutiny, he said, “He’s cold, mad and wet, but other than that, he’ll be fine.”
She cast him a look full of skepticism. “If you say so.”
“I do. He’ll need a change of clothes.” He added the last to give her something to do. In the few minutes it took her to find a new diaper and new stretchie outfit, his ministrations with the washcloth had worked. The baby’s temperature was noticeably cooler. His heartbeat was a little rapid due to the crying and the cold, but once he was dry and warm and once the liquid Tylenol he managed to get the baby to swallow started to work, that should settle down, too.
When she came back, he asked her, “Do you want to do the honors?”
“Why?”
“He’s a little too free in sharing his bodily fluids with me. If you don’t mind, I’d rather tuck Emily in bed.” While the adults were busy, Emily sat on her bed sucking her index and middle fingers.
She nodded toward the bed. “Be my guest.”
He went over to the little girl and squatted down beside her. At one time, he had been her pediatrician. The first time he’d met Nina was in the hospital after Emily had contracted a case of viral meningitis. But the girl clearly didn’t remember him. “Hi sweetheart.”
She popped her fingers out of her mouth long enough to ask, “Justie be okay?”
“Justin will be fine. Now it’s time for you to go to bed.”
She nodded sleepily. He helped her settle under the covers. Instinctively he placed a kiss on her forehead. “Good night,” sweetheart.
She grabbed his face with her wet saliva fingers and kissed his most prominent feature, his nose. “G’night.”
Smiling, Matthew stood. Her affectionate gesture was the mark of a child who was well loved and loved others in return. He turned to Nina. She had her back to him, still changing the baby. Now that his attention focused on her, he realized she sang to the baby in a low, off-key voice. That surprised him, considering that her brother was Nathan Ward, an internationally known singer. It also charmed him, as she wasn’t inhibited about displaying her lack of talent in order to soothe the baby.
She stopped singing abruptly and picked up the baby, cradling him in her arms. “There now, isn’t that better?”
“How is our guy doing?”
She turned to face him. “Much better. Thank youch!” She stared down at the baby, a surprised expression on her face. “The little cannibal bit me.”
“He’s hungry.” Matthew understood the feeling, though it wasn’t nutritional sustenance that he lacked. “Jenny breastfeeds doesn’t she?”
“Well, cut that out. There’s nothing in there for you.” She lifted the baby to her shoulder. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
Matthew turned out the light and followed her to the kitchen. As he walked behind her, he noticed a slight hitch in her walk, as if she favored one leg. It was nearly midnight. Maybe she was just tired, but he wanted to make sure she was all right before he left.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I want to. I want to make sure my patient is well-fed and sound asleep before I go.”
She looked as if she might protest, but she sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. He warmed a bottle from the refrigerator in the microwave and shook it. Otherwise pockets of hot milk could burn the baby’s sensitive mouth. All the while, he watched Nina lavish her affection on the baby. She ran her hand over his delicate scalp, tickled his tummy, and cooed to him in a soothing voice. He suspected that one of these days, this tigress would be one hell of a mother to her own children.
He couldn’t stand there forever watching her. He came to stand beside her and extended the bottle toward her. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.” She offered the bottle to the baby, who sucked greedily.
Although he hadn’t been invited, he slid into the seat next to her. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get roped into watching three kids at once?”
“Actually, I’ve got four. Andrew fell asleep watching T.V. in the other room and hasn’t been heard from since. My cousin Yasmin punked out on me at the last minute. Something about a party for some firemen who have this calendar out.”
“So she left you in the lurch.”
“In a toss-up between gorgeous hunks and me with a bunch of crying babies, the gorgeous hunks won.” She shrugged. “To be honest, I only invited Yasmin along for companionship. Well babies I can handle. Sick babies freak me out.”
“That’s understandable.” He could tell her horror stories of parents who telephoned him in the dead of night, hysterical over more minor complaints than hers. “I’m glad you called.”
“I think our friend here is asleep.” She placed the bottle on the table. “I’ll be right back.” That’s what she said, but when she tried to rise, she winced in pain.
He remembered the stiffness he’d noticed in her gait. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d hurt yourself? What happened?”
“It’s nothing. I banged my hip on the doorway earlier.”
“Do you want me to have a look at it?”
She fastened a green-eyed glare on him. “Why Doctor, are you trying to play doctor with me?”
Her voice held a note of arrogance. She knew he was attracted to her. She expected him to be attracted to her. She wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t so needy that he had to trick unsuspecting women into showing him their goodies, either. “You’re a beautiful woman, Nina.”
“Thank you.”
“But there are enough beautiful women in the world that I don’t have to waste my time on one who isn’t interested.”
The skepticism disappeared from her gaze, replaced by a look that said she wasn’t sure if she should be insulted or not.
“Funny thing about us doctors,” he continued. “We like to examine injured people to make sure they haven’t done permanent damage to themselves.”
“All right.”
He took the baby from her. ‘I’ll put him in bed, then you can show me what happened.”
When he returned to the kitchen he helped her to her feet. Both of them recognized the problem at once: Pantyhose.
“Close your eyes. I’d go in the other room, but it hurts too much to walk.”
He sat and did as she asked, but all the while he imagined her sliding those stockings over smooth, shapely legs. He doubted reality could be much better than what his imagination conjured up.
“Okay,” she said finally.
He didn’t know where she’d hidden the pantyhose and he didn’t care. “Show me where you injured yourself. “
She took a sideways step toward him then lifted her skirt enough to show him a reddened patch of skin at her hip.
“Ouch.”
“Exactly.”
“Tell me if this hurts.” He probed the edge of the area with his fingertips.
“Ouch.”
He circled inward. The skin at the center was swollen and had already darkened somewhat from the rupturing of capillaries just under her skin.
“Ouch,” she said more forcefully. “I thought you wanted me to tell you if it hurt?”
“I do. I never said I was going to stop.” He moved upward about a half inch to press against her hip bone. “How about here?”
“No.”
So it was only muscle that was affected. A bone injury could be painful for months, but a muscle bruise might be ugly but it would only be a nuisance for a few days. He went back to the bruise, that had purpled even more just from his inspection. “You’re probably going to have one hell of a bruise tomorrow.”
She stepped away from him but made no move toward her seat. “I kinda figured out that part for myself.”
“If you can, I want you to lay down and get something warm on that hip, a compress or a heating pad if you have one.”
“We’ll see what the babies have to say about that. Anything else?”
“Keep Justin away from the other children if possible. No sense in all three of them getting sick.”
She nodded.
“I’d better go.” Since she didn’t protest, he stood and picked up his medical bag.
“I really do thank you for coming.”
“You haven’t seen my bill yet.” Since she didn’t so much as crack a smile, he had to assume she thought he’d actually do such a thing. He’d stuck his own neck out purely out of a desire to see her. He certainly wouldn’t charge her for that.
He headed toward the door. He paused to let her open it for him. She leaned against the door frame with her hand on the knob. “Thanks again.”
Matthew swallowed. He wondered if she knew how provocative she looked with her hair tussled, her shirt in disarray and bare-legged. He guessed she didn’t. She’d already shown him her disinterest and she wasn’t trying to tempt him. Temptation pulled at him anyway–the desire to pull her into his arms, not only in a sexual way, but to comfort her. Coping with a sick child was hairy for veteran parents. Although she’d been concerned for the baby’s health, she hadn’t gotten hysterical on him as some of his patients’ mothers would have.
After bidding her goodnight, he went down to his car and started the engine. Nina Ward was both a tigress in need of taming and, he believed after watching her with the children, a woman of strong maternal instincts. With a twinge of regret that he wouldn’t be the one to help her out on either level, he pulled away from the curb and headed for home.
###
The following Monday, Nina Ward walked into her office building off Bleeker Street in lower Manhattan just after eight o’clock in the morning. Or more appropriately, their office. She shared space and a receptionist/secretary with two other women, one an accountant, the other a book publicist. Aside from the savings on the exorbitant Manhattan rent, the arrangement afforded them opportunity to refer their clients to one another, as the needs for their services often overlapped.
Kim, the receptionist, wouldn’t be in until almost nine o’clock. Nina headed strait for her office. Monday mornings were reserved for sending rejection letters to those writers whom she would not take on as clients, the part of her job she liked the least. Ninety percent of the manuscripts she received were either unpubishable or were not quite right for her vision of the Nina Ward Literary Agency.
She preferred to handle contemporary mystery, romantic suspense and mainstream fiction that dealt with realistic issues. That’s what she read and felt comfortable representing to editors. Yet folks insisted on sending her science fiction, which she didn’t begin to understand or appreciate; so-called erotica, that read like a string of letters from the front of Penthouse magazine; long historical sagas on the order of Gone With the Wind without the charm, Southern or otherwise. Worst of all were the unabashedly autobiographical novels. Apparently most people thought their own lives were much more fascinating than anyone else did.
Yet writers, especially those just starting out had delicate egos. It took courage for a writer, even a veteran, to send their work to an agent or editor they didn’t know. Unlike most other agents, Nina didn’t use form rejection letters. That was like salting a fresh wound to her mind. She answered each writer personally.
The only letter she looked forward to writing was to a young woman whose story line, imagery and characterizations had intrigued her. Yet the woman’s prose was rife with grammatical errors and misspellings. Nina suggested she take a course in basic grammar, re-edit her manuscript and resubmit. If the woman took her advice, Nina wouldn’t have any problem representing her.
Nina wrapped up her letter writing a little before noon. Her phone rang. She answered it herself, as she usually did unless she was with a client. “Nina Ward.”
“Hello, Nina. It’s me. I’m in New York.”
A mixture of surprise, warmth and relief flooded through her hearing Ronald Carter’s voice on the line. Her long-distance lover had been particularly distant of late. “Ron! You bastard. I don’t hear from you for six months and you just show up?”
“I need to see you.”
She ignored the dispassionate quality of his voice. “I need to see you, too. The usual place? Two o’clock?”
She thought she detected a slight hesitation before he said, “That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”
Nina smiled as she hung up the phone. There were advantages to being your own boss, like being able to pack it in for the day whenever you wanted. She hadn’t scheduled much for the afternoon, anyway, beside curling up in bed and reading a few manuscripts. She still intended to curl up in bed, but with a man, not a book.
She packed her things in her briefcase and headed for the door. She stopped briefly at the receptionist’s desk. “I’ll be out for the rest of the day. I won’t be home until later, so if anything urgent comes up, call my cell.”
The receptionist winked. “Have a good time.”
Shaking her head, Nina snorted. Kim had worked for her long enough to know that Nina never hightailed it out of the office without an appointment or an explanation of where she was going–not unless Ron called. He called and she came running. Something about that arrangement had always disturbed her, but she pushed it out of her mind as she turned and headed out of the office. She still had time to pick up a bottle of champagne and a quick stop at Victoria’s Secret on 57th. She’d pick up some pricey confection that would last all of five minutes before Ron divested her of it. A thrill ran up her spine in anticipation of the lovemaking to follow.
The only chink in her otherwise perfect set-up was the fact that Ron wanted more. In the last year or so, he’d begun to press her to marry him. She didn’t doubt he’d ask her again this time. Part of her suspected the reason for his long absence was to prove to her that she missed him. She had, but that didn’t change anything. A continent still separated his home in California from hers in New York, her agency was just taking off, and she didn’t want to sidetrack her career with marriage and babies just yet. And most of all, she simply didn’t love him, not the way a woman expects to love the man she plans to marry.
She didn’t know if she were even capable of that kind of affection. Having grown up watching her mother, her grandmother and her aunts, she almost hoped she wasn’t. Maybe some sort of curse hung over the women of the Ward family, but every one of them had married young, only to have their man disappear, a victim of one of the three Ds: death, divorce or desertion. Her own father had flown the coop when she was only two months old. She didn’t intend to end up one of them, a woman left alone to pine for a man who couldn’t go the long haul. She’d rather be alone than go through that.
The only problem was, she wanted children. Her role as frequent baby sitter for the Ward clan wasn’t entirely without selfish motives. Having none of her own to pamper, she craved the occasional kid fix with her brother’s children. She imagined she could always go the sperm-in-a-can route, but when it came to children she wanted them the old-fashioned way: with a husband. Kids needed a father, someone to look up to, to be there for them, to share their lives. Having felt the lack of one in her own life, she would never bring a child into the world without at least the prospect of a father. But if she couldn’t find a man she loved or trusted enough to stick around . . .
The circle went round and round without any resolution.
Nina arrived at the Plaza Hotel forty-five minutes after she’d left her office. She paid for a suite on the fourth floor and made arrangements for Ron to be able to pick up a key at the desk. Once inside the suite, she took a brief shower, dabbed on a little bit of the perfume she kept in her handbag for just such an emergency, donned her new black teddy and waited beneath the covers. She hadn’t heard from him in six months, but it had been even longer since she’d seen him. She wasn’t ashamed to admit her need to be with him.
After a few moments, she checked her watch. T minus two minutes and counting. The sound of the outer door opening reached her. Anticipation stirred in her belly and every feminine part of her body. She fluffed her hair; then took a sip of the champagne she’d set out in glasses on the table beside the bed. When she looked back, Ron leaned against the jamb, filling the doorway to her room.
“Hello, Nina,” he said.
Immediately, she knew something was wrong. Usually, by the time he got to the bedroom, he was down to his trousers and perhaps his socks. This time, he still had on his trench coat. Nina swallowed, despite the sudden tension in her throat. “What’s wrong?”
He sighed, looking down at his shoes a moment. Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
He looked back at her with a beseeching expression on his handsome face. What did he want her to do? Understand? Forgive? Make it easy on him? “Just spit it out.”
“I got married last month.” He held up his hand to display a simple gold wedding ring.
For a moment she simply stared at the band of gold around his finger. Ron was married! It hadn’t even occurred to her that he might be seeing someone else. She couldn’t even be angry with him for that since she’d never demanded exclusivity from him. It seemed impractical given the distance between them and the infrequency of their time together. It had never occurred to her that he would want to see anyone else, given his constant pleas for her to reconsider her view on marriage.
Nor had it occurred to her that faced with losing him, such a pervasive feeling of emptiness would sweep through her, swamping her. Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked to banish them. She’d never cried in front of any man and she wouldn’t start now. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I see.”
“You have to believe I didn’t intend for this to happen.” His lips curved in a rueful smile and his gaze became pensive. “I had resigned myself to waiting you out. I figured sooner or later you’d realize you needed me.”
Nina bit her lip considering his choice of words. He expected her to realize she needed him, not loved him or wanted to be with him. That said something about their relationship, about her, but she wasn’t sure what. “What changed your mind?”
“I met my wife–at Bouchercon. She’s a mystery writer also. Something with us just clicked right away.”
Did he intend to tell her all the gory details? She didn’t think she could handle that. “Are you happy?”
With a sigh he pushed off the door frame and came to sit beside her on the bed. She drew herself in tighter, feeling naked and vulnerable in her skimpy outfit while he remained fully clothed. He stroked her cheek with the back of his knuckles. She turned her head away from him, not wanting the contact or the tenderness in the caress. She wanted him to leave so she could assess the internal damage his revelation had caused, and maybe down three quarters of the contents of the champagne bottle.
He withdrew his hand and placed it on the mattress beside her. ‘I’m sorry, Nina. I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us. I didn’t realize it before, but I was being unfair to both of us. You made it clear to me that you didn’t want marriage, but I was determined to change your mind. You were content to spend weekends at the Plaza when I needed more than that. I needed a life.”
She knew he was right. They had both been stringing each other along, he waiting for things to change, her hoping they’d remain the same. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”
“I know I should have told you sooner. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t, except maybe I figured I wouldn’t be able to break free.” He laced his fingers with hers. “You have this hold on me, Nina, a stranglehold on my heart. I could imagine myself ninety years old, still coming here and you still refusing to settle down. I couldn’t go on like that.”
He released her fingers. “It’s different with us, my wife and I. I don’t love her the way I love you. I don’t think I could ever feel about another woman the way I feel about you. But it’s enough.”
With a finger under her chin, he tilted her face up to his. “Good bye, Nina.”
When his lips touched hers, she fought the urge to wrap her arms around him and draw him to her. She didn’t doubt she could still get him to succumb to her, but this was another woman’s husband and she was nobody’s whore. She allowed the kiss to be what it was, a brief, bittersweet moment of connection before separating forever.
He pulled back, sifting a strand of her hair through his fingers. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Then he was gone, closing the bedroom door behind him.
Nina covered her face with her hands. Never had she imagined the day would come when Ron would walk out on her. He’d told her she had a hold on his heart. She’d always known that, but she ‘d thought it was strong enough to keep him coming back.
She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh at her own foolhardiness or cry over it. She reached for her champagne glass. Maybe she’d solve her quandary by getting good and drunk over it. She brought the glass to her lips then changed her mind. Losing herself in alcohol wouldn’t change anything. More angry than hurt, she hurled the glass at the closed bedroom door, shattering it and spraying champagne against the walls. Even that didn’t make her feel any better.
She slumped onto her side and curled up into a little ball. What the hell was she going to do now?
