NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet (11 page)

“Those things can’t be taught,” Lewis said. “Either you have them or you don’t.” And Scarlet most certainly had them.

“Then I must have some genetic predisposition.” She tilted her head up and shouted. “Thank you birth parents wherever you are.”

He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to not know the parents responsible for your birth, to not know your heritage. “Your birthparents must have been pretty special people.” To have created someone as special as Scarlet.

“Except for the fact they gave away their daughter.” She stood. “Oops.” She covered her mouth playfully. “Did I say that out loud?”

She sure had.

“My bad,” she said.

“Maybe they were trying to do the right thing. Maybe they gave you up because they thought it was in your best interest to be raised by another family.”

She looked over at him. “If something is important, you find a way to make it work. If I was important to them, they should have at least
tried
rather than casting me out as a newborn.”

Not everyone was as strong and determined as Scarlet.

“Or a note would have been nice,” she said. “To explain why. Maybe a birthday card or a holiday card to let me know they hadn’t forgotten about me,” she added quietly, looking so sad. Then she shook it off. “Enough about me. How about we dissect your life for a while?”

No. His life was not a topic open for discussion. He
felt that same old twinge of anger laden disappointment and resentment that accompanied even the briefest thought of his childhood. “I think I’ll go get that radio now,” he joked, while seriously considering running to his room to grab the one by his bed.

“I don’t think so.” Scarlet jabbed a paint roller in his direction. “It’s your turn to contribute to our
meaningful conversation
.”

Maybe so, but Lewis never shared his past, with anyone. Some memories were better left buried. “It’s time to paint,” he said. “I need to concentrate or I’ll ruin Jessie’s purple wall.” On the plus side, maybe that’d mean they could repaint it another, more muted color. Like eggshell.

“Afraid you’ll make me feel bad with tales of your perfectly happy, loving childhood?”

Not a chance.

“You won’t.” She carried over a can of paint. “But unlike you.” She sent him a playful glare, at least he took it as playful. “I will respect that you don’t want to talk about it and move on.”

A woman who didn’t push and push until she received the answers she sought was an unusual thing. He watched her, the head of one of the largest and most highly regarded NICUs in the nation, unconcerned with the flyaway hairs that’d escaped her pony tail, squatting on his floor, with a screwdriver in her hand, prying open a can of paint.

Beautiful. Confident. Smart. Helpful. Caring. Fun. Sexy. Hard-working. Dedicated. There was not one thing he didn’t like about Scarlet Miller.

She caught him staring. “You like what you see?” she asked seductively.

Oh yeah. “Very much so.”

“Good.” She held up the top of the paint can and turned the awful lollipop purple covered side toward him. “I told you it was an amazing shade. Jessie is going to love it.”

“I wasn’t talking about the paint.”

Without comment she turned and bent over to pour the hideous color into a roller pan, not before he’d seen her smile.

Lewis gathered up the rollers and brushes, opened both windows and they started to paint. As time dragged on, his guilt grew. Scarlet had been so open about her difficult past, and when she’d given him the opportunity to reciprocate, he’d changed the topic. And she’d let him.

She deserved more, but where to begin and how much to tell?

He continued to paint. The silence closed in around him. Pressure to share…something started to build until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “My mother suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder throughout my childhood,” he said, concentrating on each thick purple stroke. “Every day I navigated her mood swings like a soldier traversing a deadly minefield. I’d wake up each morning never knowing what to expect.”

He bent to get some more paint on the roller. “Would she be manic and energized, exhibiting grandiose expressions of love? Or would she be depressed and short-tempered, impossible to please and blaming me for every little thing?” Unfortunately for him and his sister, she’d tended toward the depression more than the mania. And even though once he’d started to drive, staying away from the house could have easily been arranged, he’d refused to leave his younger sister unprotected.

“I’m assuming she stabilized with treatment or you wouldn’t have sent Jessie off with her.”

Per usual Scarlet’s first concern was Jessie. He liked that. “From what my sister tells me, with medication, for the last fourteen years my mom has been the perfect parent, in-law, and now grandparent to my two nieces. Not that it matters to me because I rarely speak to my mom and dad.” He couldn’t forget years of neglect when his mom had been too depressed to shop for food or prepare meals or do laundry or clean. Nor could he forgive a dad who’d left at dawn and returned home after they’d all gone to sleep, under the mistaken impression a few twenty dollar bills tossed on the kitchen counter each night made up for his absence, made up for the verbal abuse he wasn’t there to stop, for the responsibility of practically raising his sister, of existing on edge, of missing parties with his friends, missing out on his childhood.

Yet he’d accepted their offer to take Jessie away for the weekend out of total desperation.

“What prompted treatment?” she asked.

“Suicide attempt. A cry for help dad could no longer ignore. One that necessitated he stop seeking escape in his work as a surgeon and pay attention to his family for a change.” The old rage and resentment started to rise. He inhaled. Exhaled. Would not let it take over.

In his peripheral vision he saw Scarlet stop painting and turn to him. “How terrible.”

She didn’t know the half of it since, at the young age of seventeen, Lewis had been the one to find her…naked…in a bathtub half-filled with bloody water…both wrists slit. And lying on the white tile floor, covered in his mom’s blood was the Boy Scout pocket knife he’d cherished, one of the few gifts his father had given him.

His mother had known when he’d be home from school, an hour before his sister. She’d known his routine, had known he’d go straight to the hall bathroom. She’d planned for Lewis to be the one to find her. And that Lewis could not forgive, because no child should ever…ever have to experience the overwhelming helpless panic…the confused desperation…

Scarlet appeared at his side and placed her hand over his on the handle of the roller, lifting it from where he held it pressed up against the wall. “You don’t have to talk about it.” With a few adept strokes, she fixed the drippy mess he’d made.

But now that he’d started talking he wanted her to know, to understand. “Living with my mother was…awful.” Times one million. He looked down at her. “When Jessie moved in with me, all angry and sulky and difficult, and month after month went by with no improvement in her behavior, it started to feel like history repeating itself. I had no control over my life. Confrontation after confrontation. Trying so hard but never being able to get it right. Never knowing what would set her off. Never knowing what each new day would bring. At the thought of living on that unpredictable rollercoaster again I panicked.” To the point he’d actually considered sending Jessie to live with his parents. “But the more I fought to take back control, the worse things got between Jessie and me.”

Scarlet set down both rollers, stepped in close and hugged his waist. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.” She squeezed him tight. “It will get better,” she said confidently.

Lewis wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her tight, relieved by her confidence, wanting to believe her, needing to believe her.

“And I’ll help in any way I can,” she added.

She’d already done so much. It calmed him to know he didn’t have to go it alone, that he could count on Scarlet to be there for him and Jessie. They stood there in each other’s arms, her cheek pressed to his chest, and Lewis had never felt closer to another human being.

“We’re quite the screwed up pair,” she said.

To him they felt like the perfect pair. But they’d taken a sojourn from real life. Once Jessie came home everything would change.

“You want to know what’s even more awful than growing up with your mother?” Scarlet asked, looking up at him, her eyes serious. Apparently that wasn’t a question she wanted answered because she continued on without giving him a chance to speak. “That you haven’t moved past it, that you continue to fear it and let it impact your relationship with your daughter and women in general.”

Lewis opened his mouth to shout out an affronted, “That’s not true.” But the words wouldn’t form, because as humiliating as it was to admit, after more than a decade of avoiding his parents, and in the process, suppressing unwanted destructive emotions he had no desire to re-visit, she was right. Not that he’d let her know. “You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry,” she said with a wink, stepping out of his embrace and picking up her roller. “Your secret’s safe with me.” She returned to her side of the wall.

Even though he’d much prefer holding Scarlet in his arms for a few more hours, he picked up his roller and resumed painting. “Why do women think they have all the answers?” he asked.

“Why do men think they’re too complex for women to figure out?” she countered.

“Touché.” Scarlet was not easy. She challenged him. And it turned out he was starting to like being challenged.

“Here’s a bit of Scarlet trivia for your inquisitive mind.” She stopped painting and looked over at him. “At the insistence of my parents, I trained with the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, the official training academy for the New York City Ballet, for seven years and performed in four productions of
The Nutcracker
.”

He’d be in awe of that accomplishment later. Right now he couldn’t get the image of Scarlet the ballerina out of his head. Her hair pulled back into a tight bun, a pale pink bodysuit hugging her thin frame, graceful arms, strong legs and her chin held high. And toe shoes. Spinning.

“You’re imagining me in a leotard, aren’t you?” she asked with a smile.

“I am not.” What was a leotard anyway?

“You are so easy,” she laughed.

And simple as that she’d lifted his mood. Lewis took the opportunity she’d provided to steer the conversation in the more fun, flirty, and sexy direction he preferred. “Yes I am,” he walked toward her and turned her to face him. “So easy that all you have to do is blink and you can have me.” He stared into her eyes. “Any way you want me.”

She blinked.

“That is not fair,” she protested. “Blinking is involuntary. I can’t stop myself from blinking.”

“A blink is a blink,” he goaded her.

“Fine,” she said, like he knew she would. He had yet
to see her back down from a challenge. “I want you up against a wall.”

Doable. He slid his thumbs into the elastic waistband of his pants preparing to lower them.

“That wall.” She pointed to the one they’d almost finished painting.

He removed his thumbs and studied the wall, weighed his options: Sex with a post coital purple staining on his back, butt and hair vs. no sex and no purple staining. A tough decision.

“Come on, Lewis.” She did a little goading of her own. “A promise of any way you want me is a promise of any way you want me.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Time’s up,” she said. “And since you worry about me working on top of the stepladder, and all that’s left is the top portion of the wall, I’ll leave that to you to finish.”

They’d completed the painting a lot quicker than he’d anticipated. Now he’d have to think of a way to convince Scarlet to stick around and go out to dinner with him. He wasn’t ready to let her go, not when they could have one more night together. “I have a couple of guys coming at four o’clock to help move the furniture down from the loft.”

“You don’t need me here for that.”

“I know we won’t be able to position the bed up against the wall or hang anything on it until the paint is completely dry, but don’t you want to be here to set the room up? To hang the curtains and put on the new bedding and position the wall hangings on the other walls? Don’t you want to make sure the room turns out exactly as you’ve envisioned it?”

She didn’t answer right away.

Good.

He went on, “Then I have a special evening planned, a thank you for your help.”

“A simple verbal thank you will suffice. And when did you have time to plan a special evening?” she asked, full of suspicion.

“This morning while you were out.”

“You expect me to believe between the hours of eight and ten on a Saturday morning you managed to make special plans for this evening?”

And his friend Clark, who owned a hot new restaurant just off Central Park, had not been at all happy about the early call. But after he stopped complaining about the hour, he’d been happy to accommodate Lewis’s request for a table at seven o’clock. “I most certainly did.”

“Do tell, then.”

“I’ll be happy to,” he said. “Tonight, in the cab on the way there.”

S
CARLET ENTERED
L
EWIS
’
S
condo after their Saturday night date, glad she’d decided to go. He’d promised her a fantasy evening and he’d delivered, a delicious dinner at an upscale restaurant where they were treated like royalty, a private violin serenade at their hidden table, a romantic dance to the melodic notes from a baby grand piano, a rose from a street vendor. All capped off by a horse drawn carriage ride under the stars in Central Park.

They’d walked hand in hand and whispered secret cravings, shared tender touches and sweet kisses.

“I had a wonderful time tonight,” she said.

“The fantasy doesn’t have to end yet.” An accomplished charmer, he held out his hand palm up in invitation.

Scarlet took it and allowed herself to be led to his bedroom, a decision she’d made while in his arms during the carriage ride. Tomorrow she would return to reality and responsibility. Tonight she’d live out the rest of the fantasy, pretend he cared for her as much as she cared for him, and savor each moment they shared as if it were her last, because come next week, when she, hopefully, brought Joey home, there wouldn’t be room in her life for a man for quite a while.

Without turning on the light in his room he turned to her, removed her hairclip, sending her hair falling around her neck and shoulders, and combed his fingers down to her scalp to position her head up and at a slight angle. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

He crushed his mouth to hers and thrust his tongue between her lips over and over. He varied his kisses, alternating between deep and universe-altering, and gentle and loving. Scarlet’s knees felt weak. “Yes,” she said against his lips.

He lifted his head allowing maybe an inch of space between them. “Yes, what?” he whispered.

“Whatever you want to do next, my answer is yes.”

He chuckled as he worked to unbutton her blouse. “I want to make love to you.” His task complete he pushed it off of her shoulders and it dropped to the floor. “Slow.” He kissed down the side of her neck while he unclasped her bra. “Passionate.” He tugged it down her arms and kissed down her breast. “Unforgettable.” He reached her nipple, circled it with his tongue, and drew it into his mouth, sending a spear of overwhelming sensation straight to her womb. “Love.” He blew cool air on her wet skin and she trembled.

“Sounds good to me.” So good. The fantasy continued. She unbuttoned his shirt, tugged it off, and reached for his belt.

“Maybe you missed the
slow
part.” He pulled her into a hug, bare skin to bare skin, so warm and strong.

She grabbed his butt and ground against his growing erection. “Maybe you’d consider a slightly faster version of slow?”

He rocked into her, his breathing a little heavier, a little quicker.

Good.

She reached for his belt again, this time he let her. And while she finished undressing him, he undressed her, and neither went slow.

He led her to the bed. “Tonight I am going to acquaint myself with every inch of your body.”

Every inch of her body thought that was a fantastic idea.

He did something to his bedding. “Lie down in the middle,” he kept his voice low and deep. “On your back with your arms over your head and your legs spread wide for me.”

She loved the dominant side of his nature that emerged in his bedroom. Yet he’d relinquished control in the closet. Once in position Scarlet waited, listening but only hearing quiet, looking but only seeing darkness, feeling the cool air blowing from the central air. Her nipples tightened, her sex throbbed, and her skin tingled with anticipation. When would he come to her? Where would he start? What would he do?

A drawer opened to her left then closed. The mattress dipped as Lewis joined her on the bed. He ran his hands along her body, opening her legs wider, moving her arms so she was spread out like a starfish.

While he didn’t slide his tongue over every inch of her body, he got to most of them, saving the best for last she hoped. Yes! He set his mouth where she ached with need, and arousal surged, her hips rocked and swiveled. “That feels so good.”

“Slow,” he said.

“Sorry, that word isn’t registering.” She reached down and tried to pull him on top of her. “I need you inside me. Now. Please.”

He reached for something, a wrapper tore. He went
up on his knees then settled on top of her. So. Good. She bent her knees and hugged him close, felt him at her entrance, teasing in little dips in and out.

As if he knew she was about to belt out a complaint he kissed her and thrust deep. “Yes,” she moaned against his lips.

“I love being inside of you.”

Love. Not love love, but she’d take it. “I love
having
you inside of me.”

He began to move, in and out in slow, even strokes

“You smell so good,
feel
so good.” He kissed her again and moved along her cheek to her ear. “So special,” he whispered, still thrusting in and out. “So…perfect.”

He made her feel more cherished and more loved than all of her past boyfriends combined. Scarlet would never forget this night.

She planted her feet on the bed and raised her hips up to meet him, quickened the pace and he took over. Soon she couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, could only feel, Lewis’s weight pressing her into the bed, his body filling hers, the heat, the intense need, rising, growing, taking over, until he sent them both flying.

The next morning, Scarlet came awake cuddled into Lewis’s side, her head resting on his arm, the residual contentment from their repeated lovemaking leaving her limp. “Mmmmmm.” She turned her head to kiss his shoulder. “I could get used to waking up with you all warm and toasty.”

He stiffened. “It’s over, Scarlet. This can’t happen again.”

She knew that, they’d both agreed, but, “Wow. When you’re done you’re done. Good bye, get out, huh?” Like
nothing that’d happened between them in the last two days mattered one bit. That hurt. “How about giving me a few minutes to wake up before you toss me from your bed?” Like a mistake that needed to be rectified as soon as possible.

On that unpleasant note, she no longer wanted to remain in his bed after all so she tossed off the covers.

“Wait.” He covered her back up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This isn’t easy for me.”

“Oh, I disagree.” She kicked the covers all the way off this time. “Pushing people away is easy.” She sat up. “Being an insensitive jerk is easy. Make me mad and I’ll storm off so you won’t have to deal with me. Would it have killed you to say something nice? To maybe lie to make me feel good by telling me you had an amazing time this weekend and you’re going to miss having me around?”

“I did. I am,” he said.

“Right,” she snapped. “It means so much to hear you agree to it after I suggest it.” Not.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded miserable. Good. “I’ve been lying here for an hour trying to think of the right thing to say.”

“Newsflash, Lewis. You just wasted an hour.”

“This isn’t what I want.”

She shifted to face him. “And of course this is all about you, you who pursued me, you who put the moves on me, you who got what you wanted and now can’t get rid of me fast enough.” She stood.

“It’s not like that.” He sat up. “I don’t want to give you up, but Jessie’s my family and she needs my full attention right now. I can’t risk her finding out about us and it setting her off and ruining all the progress we’ve made in the past two weeks.”

Progress they’d made because of Scarlet’s intervention, thank you very much. “I get it,” she said, reaching for her panties and jamming one leg and then the other into them. “You want me in your life on your terms. Basically when you need my advice or help with your daughter.” She found her bra and slipped it on. “Or when you’re so desperate for sex even I’ll do, as long as I disappear afterwards so I don’t disrupt your family.”

She found her blouse and jerked it on. “Because family comes first and I’m not, nor will I ever be your family. I get it. I understand.” She worked to button her shirt. “As long as you understand that by next week I hope to have a family of my own that I don’t want
you
to disrupt. So when you realize what a mistake you’ve made by treating me like one of your bimbo one-night-stands, and you want to apologize, don’t bother, because I’ll be too busy taking care of
my
daughter and worrying about what’s best for
my
daughter to care.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He was the king of sorry.

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“Those words mean nothing without action to back them up.” Scarlet found her pants and yanked them off the back of a chair. “From where I’m standing, you put more effort into screwing me than you did into not hurting me.” She grabbed her sandals and stomped out of the room.

Worrying about Lewis coming after her turned out to be wasted brain function, because he didn’t. Triple jerk loser.

But just in case he changed his mind, Scarlet rushed to put on her pants, buckle her sandals, and gather up her bags. Without a backward glance she left Lewis’s condo, content to never step foot in it again.

Mid-morning on Monday Scarlet received a request to come to the nurses’ station to confirm that a bouquet of two dozen red roses and an obscenely large box of chocolates was in fact for her, before her eagerly awaiting staff, who’d congregated like a pack of hungry wolves surrounding a fresh kill, broke into it. She opened the card.

As if that would make it all better.

“They’re mine,” she confirmed, tearing off the cellophane wrapper and removing the lid. “Dig in.”

While her staff fought each other to pick the perfect sweet treat, Linda plucked the card from Scarlet’s hand. “Ooooh. L. How mysterious,” she said. “Might that L belong to Dr. Lewis Jackson from the emergency room? What’s he sorry for?”

“I’ll never tell.” Especially not Linda. She turned to get back to work.

“Hey,” Linda called out. “What about your flowers?”

“You all can enjoy them, too.” Scarlet didn’t want Lewis’s easy-way-out attempt to appease his guilt.

On Monday afternoon Scarlet ignored the flashing message light on her phone and the stack of pink message slips a secretary had hand delivered to her. Didn’t people have any respect for Memorial Day? She sank into the rocker in the peaceful sanctuary of Joey’s room, couldn’t wait to take her six week maternity leave.

“I’ve got your baby furniture all picked out,” she told Joey who lay contentedly swaddled in her arms. “It’s on a thirty day hold. All I have to do is call and they’ll
deliver it within twenty-four hours.” As soon as she received her foster parent approval which she hoped to get soon after her Wednesday home visit.

She jiggled the bottle to get Joey sucking. “I’m thinking a pretty butterfly theme for your room. I may have overdone the pink color scheme a bit, but I’ve been dreaming of having a little girl for so long. It feels like I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.” Scarlet hugged Joey close. “I can’t wait to take you home and have you all to myself.”

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

Pam, Joey’s social worker stood there with a man and woman Scarlet didn’t recognize. “I’m sorry.” Pam looked truly pained as she said it. “I tried to call you. I left three messages. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

Scarlet looked at the couple standing with Pam, the woman much shorter than the man, late thirties or early forties, both dressed conservatively, their faces bereaved, their eyes focused in on Joey, and dread squeezed her heart.

She knew what Pam was about to say before she said it.

“This is Michelle and Peter Quinnellen,” Pam said quietly. “Holly’s parents.”

Scarlet’s lungs seized. Tiny scraps of the picture perfect future she’d imagined for herself and Joey floated like snowflakes in her peripheral vision. “Are you sure?”

“The police checked and I verified,” Pam said almost apologetically. “Michelle is a homemaker and Peter is a businessman in Pennsylvania.” Pam made an effort to sound upbeat. “They’re active in their church.”

Scarlet’s mother had been a homemaker, her father had been a businessman, and in their case, active in
their church had meant donates a lot of money. Labels said nothing about a person’s true character or why Holly had been too scared to tell her parents about her pregnancy.

Scarlet wanted to scream, “Where have you been? Why wouldn’t Holly give us your contact information? What was she so scared of? And why are you here for Joey when you weren’t there for your own daughter?” But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, felt weighted down and on the verge of complete collapse.

Pam looked down at the floor. “They’re here for Joey.”

Scarlet’s world started to spin out of control. She gripped the arm of the rocker for stabilization.

Linda showed up in the doorway. “Is everything okay in here?”

No, things were not okay.

Michelle studied Scarlet. “You’re the one,” she said quietly. “The nurse Pam told us about.” She took a tentative step into the room. “The one who was with Holly when she delivered, the one who’s taken a personal interest in Joey.”

Much more than a personal interest, she loved the baby sleeping in her arms, she’d hoped and planned and dreamed… The heaviness of loss and despair settled on her chest.

“Did Holly…?” Michelle brought a tissue up to her nose. “Did Holly suffer?” She let out a sob and Peter put his arm around his wife and tucked her into the side of his taller body, strong and protective.

Scarlet gave the woman points for believable concern for her daughter and the man points for believable concern for his wife. She pushed her personal hurt aside, gathered up some professionalism and answered, “It was
quick. She didn’t suffer.” Even if she had, what would be the point of telling the girl’s parents?

“Thank you for being there with her,” Michelle said, looking like she was barely holding it together. Scarlet knew the feeling. “And for taking such good care of baby Joey.”

Scarlet didn’t want a thank you. She wanted to stand up and run and take Joey with her. She wanted to cuddle and love and raise Joey, she wanted them to be a family. They were supposed to be a family.