The Couple Most Likely To

Her figure had grown a little more womanly, with soft curves in all the right places and a grace to her movements that said she knew who she was and was happy with herself. Above her deep blue eyes, her eyelids had tiny, curved creases at their outer corners, as if she had plenty of reasons to laugh and smile. She wore a pleated silk skirt with a pattern like watercolor painting and he could hear the faintest swish of fabric when she moved.

As she examined the uncooperative camera, her honey blond hair fell forward to brush and then mask her face and out of the blue he had another flash of memory, this time about the night they’d conceived Anna, in the backseat of his car after the senior prom. Stacey had had her hair professionally piled on top of her head…it had fallen down as they’d made love…longer back then…tumbling in the dark…glinting with gold…brushing his chest…brushing his—

“Okay, one more time,” she said. “Smile!”

He did, and this time when she showed him the photo he thought the whole world would be able to track the erotic direction of his thoughts. “This one shouldn’t scare them,” he blurted out.

“No.” She took a quizzical look at it. “They might want your phone number.” She grinned suddenly, making her eyes widen and her arched eyebrows lift higher. Again he remembered. Her smile had always shone at a million watts. The grin didn’t last. “Sorry, that was inappropriate.” She raked her lower teeth across her top lip.

“It’s fine. Forget it.” He watched her go to the computer to enter his name and set the machine up for printing and laminating the card. He found the sudden silence unbearable, because it gave him too much time to feel astonished at the fact that all the chemistry was still there. “Back at the day-care center, those were your kids?”

Something to say.

Small talk, in any other situation.

Between the two of them it was anything but.

She nodded, still looking at the screen. “Max and Ella. Uh, the marriage didn’t make the grade, though. You probably worked that out.”

“Mmm, yes. I was sorry to hear it.”

More than sorry, but he couldn’t identify the feeling at first.

When he did identify it, he was shocked at himself yet again. At some primal male level, he was basically ready to find out if Stacey needed the man killed—preferably by burying him in the fresh concrete foundations of a large building. Sleeping with the fishes had a certain ring to it, also. How come he’d never thought to cultivate a few useful mob connections for exactly this kind of occasion?

“John has them this weekend,” she said. “John Deroy. My ex. He’s good. He wants to stay involved. He lives in Olympia, now.”

He could see how much she struggled with this, and it didn’t surprise him. She would be the kind of mother who found it difficult to spend any time away from her children, especially since they were so little. He wondered what had gone wrong with the marriage, so soon after what presumably had been a joyful birth.

“So at least when they’re with your ex, you get some time to yourself,” he said. Too gently. She probably wouldn’t be happy to know how easily he’d read her emotions.

She didn’t seem to want his empathy or understanding. “Yep, and I par-tay!” she said, mocking herself. “Woo-hoo!” She shimmied her hips and did some moves with her hands.

“I have to tell you, your imitation of a party animal is pathetic, Handley.”

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be, Logan, if I was wearing the right shoes.” She did a little Charleston dance kick in his direction, as if spiking him with a deadly heel.

They laughed.

And looked at each other.

And stopped, mutually appalled.

Handley and Logan.

Sheesh, had they hit a time warp? How could they have dropped so quickly into the hard-edged teasing routines they’d enjoyed so much back in high school? That was half a lifetime ago. They’d gone in such totally different directions since then. They should have forgotten all of it. The chemistry, the connection, everything.

“Anyhow…here it is,” she said, producing the freshly laminated ID card, complete with holographic security logo. She gave it to him, and it still felt warm from the machine. He noted how carefully she avoided touching his fingers during the transaction, as if she didn’t dare to risk the burn.

“On to the tour,” he said.

They both behaved impeccably.

Mechanically.

Dishonestly.

She showed him the O.R. suite, the maternity floor, the outpatient clinic rooms, the E.R., staff cafeteria and gift shop. “If you need a newspaper, or to mail something.” They encountered the head of the ob-gyn department on his way to a C-section delivery, and he and Jake exchanged quick greetings. Stacey spoke to several more people on their journey through the hospital, always with a smile or a question about their day. He could tell that she was both respected and liked. Relied upon, also, judging by the queries she fielded and the cheerfully efficient answers she gave.

“Leave it on my desk…Call me or Hannah next week…Put something in writing—just a few lines—and I can look into it.”

Then she took him to the adjacent Children’s Connection building, where he would see infertility patients and sometimes supervise the prenatal care of women who planned to give away their babies through the center’s highly regarded adoption program.

Highly regarded, but he knew there had been some problems two or three years ago. He’d been working in Australia then, and couldn’t remember a lot of detail, nor where his information had come from. Something about babies being kidnapped, IVF mix-ups and adoptions that had emerged as shady. At his job interview, he’d been assured by the Children’s Connection’s Director of Adoption Services, Marian Novak, that the problems had been sorted out.

If Stacey had more detailed information, she didn’t mention it, and he asked her on an impulse, as they crossed back to the hospital, “How long have you been working at Portland General?”

“Since I went back to work after the twins were born. I used to work at Portland University Medical Center, but this position was a step up. It’s only part-time for the moment, but I’ve been told I can upgrade to full-time at some point. For now, it’s two days a week, and the occasional evening.”

“You probably prefer that anyhow, with the twins.”

“It’s a good balance,” she agreed. “I get to spend quality time with them…but I don’t go completely nuts.”

The grin came again, practically knocking him off his feet. He liked that she could admit her toddlers sometimes drove her crazy. He found the perfect-mother act that some women put on a little unconvincing.

Again, the more personal direction of their conversation led to awkwardness on both sides and they fell silent.

Jake just didn’t get himself into situations like this. He’d traveled so much, had deliberately chosen career steps that gave him variety. He favored relationships that were monogamous and multidimensional and quite passionate while they lasted, but when they were over he moved on.

His previous lovers didn’t come back to haunt him.

They moved on, too.

He couldn’t remember ever encountering a former flame in a professional context before this. How did you handle it? How did you resolve the massive disconnect between the practical small talk and the fact that you’d had this person’s naked body entwined with yours, and her moans of release hot and breathy in your ear?

Stacey Handley wasn’t just any ex-lover, either. She’d always been different.

Because they’d been so young, he told himself quickly.

A moment later, they reached the hospital lobby and she slowed. “You’re all fixed up for Monday. You have your parking authorization.” She checked off a couple of other details, indicating the printed Portland General Hospital personnel folder she’d given him back in her office. “You’re parked in the visitors’ lot today?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you’ll want to take that elevator over there.” She gestured toward it, helpful and courteous, as if the disconnect wasn’t happening for her.

Yeah, but he wasn’t fooled.

He obeyed her unstated leave-me-alone-now-please message, said thank-you and goodbye, and headed for the elevator, knowing that there was way more awareness between them than either of them would have expected or wanted, and that she felt it every bit as strongly as he did.

Chapter Two

When Stacey reentered the day-care center, Max and Ella had already left with John.

Dumb of her, really.

She should have returned directly to her office instead of detouring this way in the hope of a final hug, or the chance to see John face-to-face. If she had seen him, she would only have repeated the kind of instructions that always made his hackles rise. Yes, of course he would encourage Ella on the potty, of course he would remember that Max was completely in love with pouring things at the moment, and he’d childproofed his house months ago, so she could give the subject a rest.

“You okay, Stacey?” Nancy Logan approached her. Although the two women didn’t see each other away from the hospital, they got on well together. Stacey considered Nancy a friend, and it showed in the other woman’s concerned question.

“I’m fine,” she answered. “I just hate to think of him driving on the interstate with the kids in this weather after dark.”

Nancy patted her arm and gave a wry smile. There was a wealth of understanding in her hazel eyes. “You’re like me. You worry too much. It’s because of working in hospitals. We never see all the kids who get home safe every night, we only see the ones who don’t.”

“Stop! Don’t even say it!”

“Yes, because I’ll scare myself, too.” Nancy shivered suddenly. “It’s crazy. Is it the dark winter days? I’ve been worried about Robbie lately, too…” She frowned and glanced over at her handsome husband, who was working in the day-care center office. She didn’t explain her reaction. Looked as if she regretted letting anything slip at all.

To change the subject, Stacey said quickly, “Tell me about Dr. Logan. He’s your husband’s cousin. We—we knew each other in high school but haven’t seen each other in almost seventeen years. I didn’t like to ask him too many questions about what he’s been doing since.”

“Mmm, I wish I had more to tell you, but it was only pretty recently that I found out he existed. He’s single, he’s traveled a lot. You’d know what a successful doctor he is because you’ve seen his résumé. My in-laws never—but never!—speak about that branch of the family, and Robbie and the other kids have learned not to, also. It gets my father-in-law too upset.”

“There’s obviously some major grievance from the past.”

“Which Jillian is determined to heal. She feels like a fraud as a social worker, I think, urging families to work together, when there’s such a rift dividing her own. She persuaded Jake to come back to Portland, and I get the impression that wasn’t easy. I think we all support her in theory, but it’s going to be an emotional business. Speaking of Jillian, here she is again.”

Just as had happened an hour ago, Jillian came briskly in Stacey’s direction. This time, she didn’t have Jake Logan with her.

“We have a child with behavior problems that she’s looking into,” Nancy explained quietly. “He’s a sweetheart but very hard to manage.” She said to Jillian as the social worker reached them, “You’re here for Aidan’s assessment?”

“Almost not late, this time!”

“I’ve been telling Stacey about what you’re trying to do to bring the Logan cousins back into the family fold. She knew Jake in high school—”

“Stacey, you didn’t mention that before,” Jillian cut in, her face showing added interest. “Were you good friends?”

“Um…”

Yes, the very best, until we got to the point where we couldn’t even be in the same room without anger and hurt overflowing in a huge mess. That’s not friendship. Only lovers work that way.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to pry,” Jillian said, apparently reading too much in her face. “It’s just that there’s a Logan family potluck dinner happening tomorrow night at his new place, and we both agreed we wanted to dilute the atmosphere by inviting some other people.”

“It’s a good idea,” Nancy agreed.

“Please come!” Jillian urged her.

“Because my last name’s not Logan?” Stacey smiled.

“Exactly!”

“Do come,” Nancy said. “You don’t have the twins this weekend. And you know Jake. It would be nice for him to see a familiar face since he’s newly back in town.”

“Give me the details,” Stacey said, and she saw from the reactions of both women that they really did want her to come. They were obviously nervous about the event, and she wondered just what had happened long ago to keep the two branches of the family so estranged from one another. “And what do you need me to bring?”

They agreed on a chicken casserole, and Jillian said again that it would be nice for Jake, nice for all of them, because the event should turn into a party, it shouldn’t be some dry, sparsely attended family confrontation.

Going back to her office at last, Stacey admitted to herself that her own thoughts about the potluck dinner were far more selfish. She never knew what to do with herself when the twins had gone to John’s.

Tonight she would relax with a glass of wine, get a spicy take-out meal that the twins wouldn’t have enjoyed, take a hot bath uninterrupted, read a book with soft music playing in the background. Tomorrow she’d run errands without the need for hauling two kids in and out of car seats. She’d do the house cleaning chores she never had time for during the week, then maybe she’d drop in to see a friend.

And by late tomorrow afternoon she’d have gotten all of that need for freedom out of her system and she’d start missing Max and Ella the way astronauts missed gravity, or cave explorers missed light. Her love for them was so powerful and fundamental, it provided the anchor point for her whole universe.

She almost had vertigo when the twins went to John’s.

She’d felt an alarming and unexpected degree of vertigo seeing Jake this afternoon, also, but since they were inevitably going to run across each other around the hospital, they both might as well bite the bullet and get used to it now. She would definitely go to the potluck dinner at his place tomorrow night.

“I did as we agreed and invited a few extra people,” Jillian told Jake on Saturday evening, at just before six.

She’d arrived at his newly rented house a little early, as she’d promised to do, bearing not only the agreed-upon chocolate mud cakes for dessert, but wine, napkins, extra silverware…most of the party supplies, in fact. She had to send him out to her car to bring in two more bags.

“Great place,” she told him, when he returned.

He’d rented a modern log home on a generous acre of land on the hilly outskirts of the city. The property had peace and space and warmth, as well as the easy freeway access to the hospital that he would need when racing to a delivery in the middle of the night.

He’d rented furniture and hired a professional interior designer to add some finishing touches, and in forty-eight hours the place had gone from bare and echoey to fully furnished, before he’d moved his personal belongings in here on Wednesday. Despite the designer’s expert eye and attention to detail, Jake wasn’t totally happy with the result, however. Something was missing.

“You didn’t have to bring all this,” he said to Jillian.

“Well, I did have to, with all the extra people.” She shrugged and smiled, laughing at herself a little.

“So just how many non-Logans did you invite?”

She ticked them off on her fingers. “Brian and Carrie Summers. They adopted through Children’s Connection and it went so well for them that the birth mother, Lisa, is still a big part of their lives. She’s become a real friend, so she’ll be here, too. And Stacey, whom you know. She and her husband…ex-husband,” she corrected quickly, with a regretful expression, “conceived their twins through IVF treatment at the center. That’s not a confidence I’m betraying because she’s very open about it. And Eric and Jenny asked if they could bring…”

But Jake didn’t hear who Eric and Jenny were bringing.

Stacey and John had conceived through IVF.

For some reason, he reacted to this news with a powerful surge of complex emotion. His thoughts whirled. He and Stacey had had no trouble conceiving by accident seventeen years ago. But then Anna’s birth had been so horrible. Stacey had bled too much afterward. They’d both been so upset and bewildered. She hadn’t realized her postpartum flow was greater than normal, and of course he had no medical knowledge at that point. Neither of them realized soon enough that she had an infection and needed antibiotics.

“Want to help set out the glasses?” Jillian asked, and he nodded absently and set to work, needing only a fraction of his concentration for the mechanical task.

Stacey had had to listen to some typically insensitive opinions from her mother after the birth—that the loss of Anna was “for the best,” that in future “maybe you won’t be so thoughtless.” He’d been rocked by the sense of a burden lifted warring with his genuine grief. They were both a total mess at that point. Had Stacey been scarred physically as well as emotionally by Anna’s birth and death? Was this why she hadn’t been able to conceive naturally with her husband?

How long had they been trying before they’d resorted to IVF? Treatment for infertility could put an enormous strain on a couple’s marriage. The divorce made more sense to him, now.

He looked up from the current task he was working on—arranging platters of crackers, cheese and dips; he didn’t even remember Jillian asking him to do it—and there was Stacey herself, following Jillian into the kitchen with a big, glass-lidded casserole dish in her hands. He wanted to confront her with a hundred questions about her marriage, the fertility treatment, the divorce, and almost had to bite his tongue to keep them back.

He’d never felt such a powerful need to make sure that someone was all right. It stunned him that he could still feel so protective toward her, that he obviously at some level considered he still had, oh, visiting rights to her heart, the way Dr. Jake Logan, specialist in ob-gyn, had visiting rights to Portland General Hospital.

“Hi, Jake,” she said, her eyes huge and bright and…yeah…aware. Nervous. It must show in both of them.

She wore a short-sleeved cream top in some silky, lacy fabric that clung to every curve on her body. A full skirt in a light, patterned fabric swished around her legs and emphasized the swing of her hips when she moved. Her cheeks were pink from the cold outside air between her car and the house, and her honey-toned hair glistened with drops of rain like diamonds scattered over gold.

“Hi.” His voice didn’t come out right. His body felt angular and awkward, and forbidden parts of it throbbed.

“In the oven?” Jillian asked her, talking about the casserole.

“Yes,” Stacey said, “because I made it this morning and it’s chilled from the fridge. Don’t make the temperature too hot, though.”

“Jake?” Jillian gestured at the sleek stainless steel front of the wall oven, with its row of control knobs.

“Do I know how to switch it on? No clue.” He stepped toward it just as Stacey put her casserole down on the countertop and did the same.

They stood side by side, studying the situation. He knew he’d swayed too close to her, but he couldn’t help it. It felt right, standing close, where he could smell her sweetness and glance down at her pretty profile. He noticed she didn’t move away. Her skirt brushed his legs.

Chemistry, again.

Memories.

Needs.

“Hmm,” she murmured. “Five separate controls, and none of them have words on.”

“This one?” He reached toward it.

“Maybe.” She seemed skeptical, and tilted her head. At thirty-five, the fluted line of her neck was still smooth. “But which setting? Do we want plain rectangle, or rectangle with horizontal line near the top, or rectangle with—”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “What happened to words? And what idiot designs these symbols?”

“I’m going out on a limb, here. I’m going with rectangle with horizontal line near the bottom and Mercedes-Benz symbol in the middle.”

“I think the Mercedes-Benz symbol must mean the fan, although I’m sure the car company is appreciative of the publicity.”

Stacey laughed, then turned the control to the setting they’d agreed on.

Nothing happened.

She shrugged at him and smiled. Not the million-watt smile, but the crooked one with the dimple in one cheek. Her sarcastic smile. He remembered it very well. Only Stacey Handley produced dimples along with her sarcasm. “Any new theories, Sherlock?” she asked.

Right now, he didn’t want theories. He didn’t care if it took their combined brainpower another hour to work out how to switch the oven on, as long as it meant they could keep standing close—flirting, remembering the good times instead of the bad—and he could watch her mouth as she spoke.

More people had arrived. What was it about parties that made everyone crowd into the kitchen, when he had that whole professionally decorated great room through the doorway, where they were supposed to congregate? He heard greetings, including the voices of his brothers Ryan and Scott, but didn’t turn around.

“This one must be the timer setting,” he said to Stacey, as if the oven controls also governed the whole solar system.

“And this is the temperature control. It does actually have numbers, if not words.”

They both reached for the remaining knob at the same time, and Jake’s hand landed on top of hers. They turned and looked into each other’s eyes. “I—I’m not prepared for this,” she said, breathy and gabbling. “I know I’m responsible for it just as much as you are. But I’m not prepared.” Still…she left her hand where it was, beneath his. He let the ball of his thumb make slow circles over her knuckles.

“Let’s assume it blows up Russia and go with the rectangles instead,” he said softly.

“I—I didn’t mean the control.”

“I know, and you’re losing yours a little, aren’t you?”

For an answer, she just closed her eyes.

“So am I,” he muttered, intending that she should hear, and she did. She pressed her lips together into two tight lines and he wanted to kiss them and soften them and make them part, using his own mouth.

Hell, what was he doing?

He couldn’t afford this. Neither of them could. They shared a past but there was no way they could share a future, which meant that following up on his instinctive, powerful, astonishingly familiar attraction just wasn’t on. There’d be nowhere for it to go. The attitudes that had separated them hadn’t changed. There were feelings they’d never talked about or dealt with.

“Turn it,” she said. He couldn’t even work out what she meant, for a moment. “I think the first setting has to be for the broiler plate, and the second is for the oven.”

“Right. Yes.”

“If we put the temperature at about 320…” She did so, and at last the oven responded. They heard a fan start up, and when Stacey picked up the casserole and Jake opened the oven door, they could already feel warmth spilling onto their faces.

“Bingo!” he said.

“Great things happen when two powerful minds work together, Lo—Jake.”

She’d almost called him Logan, the way she had yesterday in her office, but she’d read the same danger into those old teasing habits as he had, so she’d quickly changed course.

Changing course wasn’t enough. She was frowning now, as if playing out memories of the far darker times they’d shared. They needed to get this out in the open—the ongoing attraction, the sense of familiarity, and all the important things they’d never said.

“Let’s get a drink and go somewhere where we can talk,” he said.