Mail Order Stepbrother (7 page)

He slid off of her after a minute, tugging her back against his chest as his breathing slowly returned to normal. After a minute, Melanie turned into him and buried her face against his chest, taking a deep breath of his scent. She wanted to remember this, wanted to remember everything about him.

She wanted to remember the moment she fell in love.

Chapter 5

“Someone had a good night last night.”

Melanie blushed even though she knew Tanya was just teasing her. But it was true and she was pretty sure every moment of it was written on her face. Nash stayed the entire night. After that first time, they could afford to be a little more patient, a little less frenzied. And they were, exploring each other like archeologists exploring newly discovered ruins.

“You have a birthmark,”
Nash told her at one point, his fingers moving over a dark spot on the back of her thigh.
“A beauty mark on your ass.”

It went on like that for hours. It never occurred to Melanie that they should be getting some rest,that he should go home and sleep in his own bed as she might have thought with anyone else. She’d had a lover who stayed past his welcome. But it didn’t feel that way with Nash.

To wake up and find him aroused just by the sight of her naked body stretched out beside his was more exciting than waking on Christmas morning and discovering that Santa had brought her the new bike she’d asked for.

“A little,” she admitted as she reached over the counter and lifted the iPad that displayed patient charts.

“More than a little, I’d guess.” Tanya winked at her. “I remember how I looked after the first night I spent with my husband. You have that same look on your face.”

“Do I?”

Melanie blushed, but it did little to dim the smile that slipped over her lips each time she thought of Nash. She didn’t think anything could diminish that smile.

She flipped through the night nurse’s notes on each of her patients. She had four at the moment, not including Eli. They’d all done well. But a note on Eli’s chart was a little concerning.

She walked down the hall to the small room where Eli should have been resting before his surgery. When she opened the door, however, she was immediately overwhelmed by the sounds of his cries.

“What’s going on?” she asked, walking over to the crib where the baby was lying, his mother trying in vain to still his cries.

Melanie gently lifted him, careful of the IV line that was supplying fluids to his small body.

“I didn’t think we could handle him,” Tess said, her voice breaking as a couple of tears began to slip down her cheeks. “I was afraid of pulling out the IV.”

“You just have to be mindful of it.” Melanie cradled the baby against her chest for a long moment, loving the feel of his little body settling there as his cries stopped, but he continued to be wracked with hiccup-like sobs. “We would never discourage you from holding your baby. I’m sorry the nurses didn’t explain that to you a little better.”

Tess nodded, reaching up to brush away her tears.

“So,” Melanie said as she—somewhat reluctantly—moved the baby into his mother’s arms, “the night nurse said that you and Jack had a fight last night?”

Tess nodded. “He thinks Eli should wait to have this surgery.”

“What do you think?”

Tess was quiet a moment as she ran her hand lovingly up and down the length of Eli’s tiny back. When she looked at Melanie, there were tears in her eyes again. “I want my baby to be healthy and live a long life.”

It wasn’t the first time Melanie had heard that wish from the parents of one of her patients. Everyone wants a healthy child. And they wanted Melanie to guarantee that after this surgery or that treatment, they would be. But it didn’t really work that way.

Melanie touched Tess’ arm, rubbing it similarly to the way she was stroking her child. “I know. And this surgery will help. But you must realize that Eli will face difficulties his entire life.”

“I do.” Tess bit the inside of her cheek hard enough that Melanie could see the pain flash in her eyes. She looked down at the baby, a couple of tears dropping into his fine blond hair. “Jack has told me all the dark things he will face. Jack wants to put him up for adoption, to give him to a family that is better suited to caring for him. But…he’s my baby…”

“I know.”

Melanie glanced toward the glass door through which she could see nurses, patients, and parents wandering the busy hallway. Visitor’s hours. She wanted to be out there, to hide behind her clinical façade instead of consoling the woman married to a man she once lusted after.

How could she have once lusted after a man like Jack?

“Listen to me,” Melanie finally said, taking Tess’s hand between both hers. “This is the best course of action for Eli. He needs this hole repaired and waiting does nothing but allow it to grow larger and cause his symptoms to grow. But if you want to consult another surgeon—“

“No, of course not. I trust you, Dr. Spence.”

Melanie nodded, guilt forcing her eyes away from Tess’ face. “It’s not about me, Tess. It’s about making you feel confident in what is happening. He is your child and the choice is ultimately yours.”

“I want this,” Tess said, her voice strong.

“What about Jack?”

She shook her head, her attention dropping to the infant sleeping comfortably now in her arms. “Jack is filing for divorce. He gave me an ultimatum last night, and I chose Eli.”

Anger bloomed in the center of Melanie’s chest, but she simply nodded. “Well then, we’ll proceed as planned. The nurses will transfer Eli to pre-op. Then the anesthesiologist should drop by to discuss the medications he’ll be using during the procedure to keep Eli comfortable. And then I’ll stop by, make sure everything’s okay before we get started.”

Tess nodded.

Melanie squeezed her hand before letting go. “If you have any questions, just ask the nurses to page me.”

“Thank you, Dr. Spence.”

Melanie grabbed the iPad from where she’d dropped it in the seat of a chair and nodded as she glanced back at Tess. When she first learned that Jack was married, she imagined a mouse of a woman who had no idea that her husband was stepping out on her. But now… she couldn’t help but admire Tess for her strength. She wasn’t sure she could face the future Tess was staring at all on her own.

Tess reminded Melanie a little of her mother. She suddenly had a deep desire to speak to her mom, but waited until she had checked on her other patients before she slipped into the nurses’ break room.

“What’s the matter?” her mother said in way of greeting.

“What makes you think something is wrong?”

“Because you rarely ever call me just to talk.”

Melanie wanted to deny it, but she knew it was true. She lived a busy life, had a busy career, and she didn’t make her mother a priority in her life.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s not right.”

“What’s going on, Mel?”

She reached up and dragged her fingers through her hair. “Nothing. Just a long day already.” She sighed, her thoughts jumping from Tess to Eli to the surgery that was coming up. “How’s the party planning coming?”

“Beautifully. I got your package with the sailboats…they’re perfect, just what I wanted.”

“Good. Did you go over the guest list I sent back to you? I added a couple of names.”

“Yes. I can’t believe I forgot Kurt,” she said, mentioning the name of the man who ran the community center she volunteered at, the place where she met Burton. “Thank you for fixing that.”

“No problem. What else can I do?”

“Oh, darling, there’s not much else. Not until you get here, of course. Are you still coming early?”

“I’ll try. Depends on how crazy things are with my patients that weekend.”

“Please try. I miss you, darling. And I can really use your help. This is the first big thing I’m doing as Burton’s wife and I want to make sure everything is perfect.”

More guilt.

“I’ll do my best.” Melanie ran her fingers through her hair again, thinking about the cases she had coming up in the next few weeks, trying to decide if she could postpone any of them. And then she realized that now wasn’t the time. “I love you, mom,” she said quietly into the phone. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“Then I’ll see you in a few weeks.

***

Melanie walked into the surgery waiting room, the fresh scrubs she’d quickly pulled on rubbing uncomfortably against the back of her neck. She reached up to adjust them when Tess spotted her, her eyes filling with tears before a single word came out of Melanie’s mouth.

“He’s fine,” she said, reaching for the smaller woman. “The surgery went very well. We repaired the hole and looked around to make sure there wasn’t anything else that didn’t show up on the tests. There were no surprises.”

“He’s going to be okay?”

“He is,” Melanie said, rubbing Tess’s arms. “You can go sit with him in a few minutes. They’re just getting him get settled in the NICU. There are going to be a lot of wires and tubes, like I explained earlier. But with any luck we should be able to remove those fairly quickly.”

“Thank you.” Tess threw her arms around Melanie and hugged her tightly, her fresh tears wetting the shoulder of Melanie’s scrubs.

Melanie didn’t really mind.

***

“When you said you cooked, I imagined lots of cans and boxes.”

Nash laughed as he lifted the lid of a pot bubbling on Melanie’s stove and stirred its contents. “And when you said you couldn’t make toast, I thought you were exaggerating.”

Melanie tossed a piece of onion at him—a piece that was still a little too thick despite his patient tutorial on the art of dicing vegetables. She could wield a scalpel like an artist, but she apparently couldn’t do the same with a kitchen knife. Nash ducked the onion but then moved up behind her and pulled her hard against his chest, brushing his lips against her temple.

He showed up at her door an hour ago, a bag of groceries in his hands and a smile. “
You sounded hungry in your text,”
he’d said.

She wasn’t sure how one could sound hungry over a text, but she was happier than she should have been to see him.

They sat down to eat a few minutes later, an amazing steak with this incredible risotto and a badly cut salad. She had to take credit for the salad, of course, but the rest was perfect…better than a restaurant meal.

“Your mother must have been an awesome cook to teach you how to do this.”

“My mother was awesome on many levels.” He picked up his wine glass and studied its depths for a second. “I was the baby, coming along at a time when my father’s career was pretty solid and she had time to stay at home, to spend some one on one time with me. So we were very close.”

“You have older siblings?”

“A sister. She’s six years older than me.”

Melanie sat back and tucked her foot underneath her, getting comfortable for what she hoped would be a long, informative conversation. He didn’t often talk about himself.

“I always wanted siblings.”

“You didn’t miss anything.” He smiled despite the venom in his words. “My sister was like a second mother, always telling me what to do even when it wasn’t really necessary. She’s still doing it.”

Melanie half nodded. “I get that. I’m still trying to convince my mother she doesn’t have to mother me anymore.”

“Oh, they never stop.” Nash reached over and took her hand. “My mother would have adored you though.”

“Would have?”

A sadness came into his blue eyes, making them darker than the dim light in her tiny dining room had already done. “She died several years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “She’d been sick for a long time. It was almost a mercy when it finally happened. She was in so much pain…”

Melanie nodded, thinking of the few patients she’d met during her internship who were suffering the final days of a terminal illness. She hadn’t understood the idea behind euthanasia until then.

Nash lifted his wine glass again, contemplating it a second before he drained it. Then he reached for the bottle to pour them both some more. Melanie rubbed his arm and smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Are you close to your dad?”

Nash didn’t even look at her. “No.”

There was a certain amount of finality to his statement, and it hurt Melanie to hear. She’d never known her father, because he died when she was so young. All her childhood she imagined what her life would have been like if he hadn’t died, if he had remained a part of their lives. Even now, even as an adult who understood the darker side of humanity, she still wondered what her life would have been like if he had lived. She imagined that even if he abandoned the family it would have been better than not having him at all.

She couldn’t imagine why someone would willingly choose to not have their father as a part of their life.

“Do you talk to him?”

“Have to,” Nash said, setting the wine glass down and pushing his dinner plate away. “The company I run technically belongs to him. So I have to deal with him on the few occasions he chooses to check in on things.”

“That’s sad.”

Nash shrugged. “He’s fine. He just got remarried to some young woman my sister apparently approves of. In fact, she called me today and insisted that I come home to attend some party his new wife is throwing for him.”

“Will you go?”

“Didn’t go to the wedding. Probably won’t go to this, either.”

“Why?”

Nash got up and gathered the dirty dishes, walking them into her small galley kitchen.

“Don’t really want to talk about it,” he finally said. “I didn’t come over here to confess my dark family history.”

“I don’t mean to pry. I just want to know more about you.”

He set the dishes in the sink and turned on the facet, rinsing the plates before dropping them into the dishwasher. She got up and slid up behind him, stilling his hands. “Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll do them later.”

He turned, his wet hands cold as he slipped them up underneath her thin t-shirt. “Do you really want to know how fucked up my relationship with my dad is? Or would you rather find something else to do?”