And Babies Make Four

Up until this job, no one had room for a woman who was going to expand before their eyes in the coming months and whom they felt might or might not be back once she gave birth, despite all her assurances that she would be. But Nathalie Dixon had been sympathetic and understanding and willing to take a chance on her, which meant the world to Mindy. She’d instantly taken a liking to the other woman.

But it was obvious that she was going to have to convince the man from her past that she was up to this. Funny how things turned out.

She wondered how much Nathalie had told him. But Jason’s eyes weren’t traveling to her belly, so maybe he didn’t know.

Which was just the way she wanted it for now. One battle at a time.

“No,” Jason said curtly, sparing a look at Nathalie before he turned to face Mindy, “nothing’s wrong. Let’s see about getting you to work, Mindy.”

She smiled, relieved. Maybe this was going to be all right after all. “That sounds good to me.”

We’ll see, Jason added silently. We’ll see.

Chapter Two

Jason glanced at his watch. It was nearly five o’clock. Finally. All day it had felt as if the minutes were dragging on the back of an arthritic turtle.

He hadn’t been able to concentrate for more than ten, fifteen of those slow-moving minutes at a time. No matter how hard he tried to block out everything, his mind kept wandering back to the woman sitting some thirty feet outside of his office.

His lack of self-discipline surprised and annoyed him. It had been years since he hadn’t been able to throw a rope around his thoughts and rein them in.

He had even managed to contain the pain and guilt he felt over Debra’s death, placing the emotions in a sealed area so that he could get on with his work. That had been the important thing then. Work had been his main goal, his main purpose for existing and his salvation, all wrapped up in one—much to the relief of the great many investors that his company handled who had come to depend very heavily on his knowledge and his savvy.

Without him a lot of people would have found themselves adrift in financial waters that seemed to keep insisting on changing course without giving the slightest warning to them.

He wasn’t much good to any of them now, least of all himself, Jason thought darkly, thoroughly disgusted with himself.

With a sigh he closed the folder containing the reports he’d been staring at without success for the past half hour. Pushing away from the desk, he dragged a hand through his hair.

The July sun was shining brightly into his window, and he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass. He doubted that anyone looking at him would have had a clue what was going on inside of him, just as they wouldn’t have been able to tell back in the days when he was in high school. He’d learned early on how to mask his feelings from the outside world.

But that didn’t make them any less real to him.

This had to stop, he told himself. But at the moment, he didn’t see how. It couldn’t end by dismissing Mindy. He hadn’t expected it, but she was good. She’d taken to the work like a proverbial duck to water, absorbing everything he said. Unlike with the temps who had paraded through the office, he hadn’t had to explain anything to her twice. What was more, she didn’t act as if he was speaking in some unfathomable foreign language. The world of finance left a great many people anesthetized, but Mindy just looked at him with those bright-blue eyes of hers, and he could see she understood. In his book, that made her a very rare person.

But then, he already knew that.

Jason massaged his forehead. The shadow of a headache was playing hide-and-seek with his temples, threatening to take over. What he needed, he thought, was a stiff drink. He didn’t indulge often, but this definitely felt like one of those times men announced that they needed a drink.

Nerve endings tightened as he heard the knock on his door. Nathalie rarely knocked, she just strolled in. The fact that it could be one of the interns whom he kept to pore over every bit of news data that affected the market, never even occurred to him.

He knew it was her. “Come in.”

And he was right. The next moment Mindy was standing in the doorway, her hand resting on the doorknob, a somewhat uncertain expression on her face.

He wasn’t accustomed to seeing her that way. The Mindy Conway he remembered was the last word in confidence, in vibrancy.

But she wasn’t Mindy Conway anymore, she was Mindy Richards, he reminded himself.

Looking at her now, it seemed as if someone had put out her light, and she was struggling to strike at least a small match again.

What had happened to her? he wondered.

Mindy cleared her throat. The last time she’d felt this awkward, she’d accidentally put on two different-colored shoes and hadn’t realized it until she was halfway to class.

“Um, it’s five o’clock and I was going to…”

The words didn’t feel right even as she said them. They felt stilted on her tongue. Everything since she’d walked in on Brad, in his plush insurance office, body wrestling with his secretary, had felt stilted to her. As though she was walking around in someone else’s dream.

Or someone else’s nightmare. It certainly wasn’t hers.

Mindy bit her lower lip and tried again. The words still didn’t feel right. Or maybe it was just the situation. Here she was, playing office with someone she’d once envisioned dressed only in a loincloth. She’d heard from someone in high school that Jason had a killer body. She had a feeling he still did.

“I was wondering, will there be anything else before I go home, um, Mr. Mallory?”

She saw him frown. Had she said something wrong? When he’d given her instructions today he’d been even more reserved than she’d remembered. At least back in high school she’d caught him looking her way occasionally. Enough times to set her heart racing. This time he was acting as if she was some kind of annoyance he was forced to deal with because of circumstances.

Jason’s frowned deepened at her use of his last name. The chasm between them felt even wider than before. “Don’t call me that.”

She pressed her lips together. “What should I call you?”

“Jason.” He fairly snapped out his own name.

She tilted her head slightly as if considering the directive. And then she shook it. “But you’re my boss, it doesn’t seem right.”

He laughed shortly, the words escaping before he could think them through. “It doesn’t seem right me being your boss.”

“Are you going to fire me?” Her breath made a pit stop in her throat and stayed there.

He looked as her as if she’d just suggested his alter ego was Spiderman. “What gave you that idea?”

Was it going to be like this every day? Was she going to feel horribly uncomfortable every time she was in his presence? She’d tried her damnedest today to be bright and cheery and eager, hoping to win him over, but he’d just seemed to become progressively worse every time he talked to her.

Mindy felt as if she was digging a deeper hole for herself with every word she uttered. But she had no choice but to respond. “Well, for one thing, you’re frowning.”

“He always frowns.”

Mindy almost sighed with relief as she heard Nathalie’s voice behind her. Turning, she saw the woman pausing in the doorway, obviously on her way out.

Nathalie’s eyes were smiling as she turned them toward her. “You know how when you were a kid and your mother warned you not to make funny faces because it would freeze that way? Jason didn’t listen.” With a throaty laugh at her own joke, Nathalie patted her on the shoulder. “Just wanted to tell you you did a great job today, Mindy. Keep it up.” She looked significantly at Jason. “Well, I have to go. I’ve got a date,” she announced.

Jason glanced at his calendar, as if to assure himself that this was Monday, the beginning of a work week. “A date?”

“Yes, a date.”

Nathalie leaned into the office, her eyes on Jason. She tossed her hair, obviously knowing the lighting would catch some of the red highlights her hairdresser had slaved to put in.

“Some of us have a social life.” She winked at her partner. “See you tomorrow, smiley.”

Nodding at Mindy, she sailed out of the room and out of the suite of offices.

Nathalie left silence in her wake. Jason shifted in his seat. He and Nathalie needed to have a long talk soon about her less-than-subtle hints.

“Well, you’re probably in a hurry to get to your husband, so I’ll see you tomorrow.” He was already looking down at the report he couldn’t seem to read.

She was being dismissed, Mindy thought. A lot better than being fired. Still, something wouldn’t allow her to leave this way. “That won’t be possible.”

Jason raised his eyes from his reading material and caused a tidal wave in her stomach. She hoped the twins were able to grab on to something stable to weather the storm out.

“I won’t see you tomorrow?”

“No, I mean it won’t be possible for me to hurry to my husband.”

Having gone through the trauma himself, the first thing that occurred to Jason was that her spouse was dead. And he’d just told her to hurry off home to him. Quickly he tried to make amends.

“Hey, I’m sorry—”

She had no idea why he felt he had to apologize. “Nothing for you to be sorry about.” Unable to stop it, the mental image of Brad’s limbs tangled around that two-bit, anorexic flake he’d supposedly hired to take dictation flashed across her brain. “Brad, of course, is another story.”

Damn, why had she just said that? Mindy upbraided herself. Jason certainly didn’t want to hear about her life and she certainly didn’t want to talk about it. From the way he was acting, Jason didn’t want to hear about anything that had to do with anything that was outside of the company he ran.

He surprised her by leaning forward. “What do you mean?”

Panic nibbled away at her, followed by a wave of shame. Her husband had cheated on her. Not once, but a number of times. This after she’d tried so hard to please him. Had given up so much to make him happy. That meant there had to be something lacking in her. She didn’t want Jason to think that, didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. “You don’t want to hear.”

“I wouldn’t have asked the question if I didn’t want to hear an answer.” He leaned back in his chair, allowing himself to study Mindy for the first time. Along with the beauty, there were signs of stress that artful applications of makeup didn’t completely manage to hide. What did she have to be stressed about? What had happened to her since the years they walked the same halls together? “What are you doing here, Mindy?”

She raised her chin ever so slightly. Defensiveness rose in her chest. “Working.”

“Besides that.”

She glanced toward the doorway that Nathalie had just vacated. “Trying to go home.”

Jason sighed. What had come over him? Where did he get off, prying? He’d never appreciated probing questions aimed at him. The least he could do was treat her the way he wanted to be treated.

He waved her on her way. “Sorry, didn’t mean to keep you.”

This time the dismissal stung. She hadn’t meant to shut him out. “No, I’m sorry. That wasn’t very polite of me. You asked a question and I gave you a flippant answer.” She squared her shoulders. “The reason I’m not going home to my husband is because I’m divorced, or about to be,” she amended. The divorce was almost final. It couldn’t be fast enough for her.

Divorced. He and Debra would have been divorced by now if she hadn’t been killed. A wave of empathy washed over him. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

Oh no, was that pity in his eyes? She wasn’t about to accept pity, not even from the hunk who’d inhabited her daydreams for so long. If possible, she squared her shoulders even farther. A tiny ache rose instantly in her lower back. A sign of things to come, she thought. But first things first.

“I’m not.” She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could just make her five forty-five appointment with her doctor at Manhattan Multiples.

He saw the way she looked at her watch. He was keeping her, he thought, and she was anxious to get away. Jason inclined his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It was her cue to go. Still, she paused one moment longer. She needed to know. “Then it was all right? My work?”

“Your work was fine. Surprisingly so.” He saw her brows narrow. She probably took that as an insult, he realized, and was quick to make himself clear. “I didn’t think this kind of thing was up your alley.”

She was grateful for the presence of mind that had made her take business courses while at Northwestern. “Survival is up everyone’s alley.”

“No argument there.” He closed the folder for the last time that day. No use beating a stalled horse. “And Mindy—”

She turned from the door to look at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”

“Tomorrow call me Jason. Mr. Mallory makes me feel like my old man.”

There was nothing old about Jason, she thought. Godlike, maybe, but not old. “Fine. Jason, then.”

Mindy smiled to herself. Workplace or not, it felt right calling him that. Like something had just moved closer in sync.

With that she withdrew, unaware that he watched her progress all the way to the front door. Or that he continued to look at the door, lost in thought, for a long while after that.

“You can sit up now.”

Digging her elbows in closer to her body, Mindy pushed herself up from the examination table. She sat up, dangling her legs over the side. She looked at the rugged profile of her doctor, Derek Cross, and realized that she was holding her breath. These days she kept waiting for the shoes to fall and disasters to line themselves up like macabre ducks in a row. His expression gave nothing away, short of the fact that he looked tired.

“Is everything all right, Dr. Cross? With the babies, I mean,” she added when he looked at her.

“Couldn’t be better.” He retired his stethoscope, draping the length of it along his neck while his nurse, Lara Mancini, removed the machine that had allowed Mindy to listen to the heartbeats of the babies she was carrying. They sounded like tiny hoofbeats. Looking at his patient, he smiled. “But I’m afraid you’re going to have to prepare yourself to be losing that girlish figure of yours very soon.”

She’d forgotten about that. Mindy bit her lower lip, her thoughts shifting to Jason as if they were on automatic pilot. She wasn’t normally a vain person, but this time it was different. This time she was going to be facing Jason. She wanted at least a little time before she mushroomed.

“Am I going to be huge?”

Derek exchanged glances with Lara and laughed. “Not if you don’t take your condition to mean you have carte blanche at the dinner table. If you eat sensibly and exercise, there’s absolutely no reason for you to gain much more weight than what these babies of yours will come to on their own.”

Exercise. Didn’t Manhattan Multiples have a gym on the premises? “How much exercise?”

Flipping to a new page within her chart, Derek began to make some notes to himself. “Well, I wouldn’t go hang gliding in the desert anytime soon, but within reason you can continue whatever you’re accustomed to.” He glanced up at her. “One of my patients played tennis until the end of her eighth month. Of course, she wasn’t carrying twins. Don’t push yourself but don’t baby yourself, either, no pun intended.”

“Don’t let him kid you,” Lara interjected, grinning as she continued tidying up within the room, “Dr. Cross intended it.”

“A nurse is supposed to back up her doctor.” Derek managed to keep a straight face only long enough to get halfway through his sentence.

Lara laughed shortly. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she cracked.

It still seemed incredible to Mindy that the woman she had seen on the screen in more than one supporting role was now being supportive of her. It was no secret that Lara Mancini had given up a promising movie career to follow her heart’s dream of becoming a nurse.

If Lara could reinvent herself, Mindy thought, if she could walk away from budding fame and gobs of money to do something noble, then what she was trying to do with her own life should be a piece of cake.

After all, it wasn’t as if she had walked away from an actual career. Despite her education and her degree in journalism, Brad hadn’t wanted her to have a career. Her place was at his side while he forged his, he’d told her time and again. Because she loved him, she’d listened. And, she supposed, to his credit, there’d always been money to do whatever she wanted to do.

The trouble was, she always had to ask him for it. It embarrassed her, even though he had always dispensed it. Embarrassed her because she always had to tell him what she wanted the money for. At times, it felt like begging. She certainly never felt it was her money as well as his. He never lost an opportunity to drive the point home that he was the one who had earned the money, not her. When he gave it to her, he always jokingly referred to the money as her “allowance.” As if she were still a child in her parents’ house.

Or worse, just a child. A child who was supposed to stand obediently by as her husband satisfied some inner craving and had affairs.

She clenched her hands on either side of her as she sat on the examination table.

“Is something wrong?” Lara’s soft voice broke into her thoughts.

Mindy shook off the morbid memories that threatened to overwhelm her. All that was behind her, she reminded herself. The best was yet to be. Right? She looked at Lara. “No, why?”

“No reason. You just had a strange look on your face, that’s all.” Lara kept her voice cheerful. A cheerful disposition, Mindy had noticed, seemed to be a prerequisite for working at Manhattan Multiples, from the receptionist on up. “If you have any questions, I’d be happy to sit down with you and answer them. Or just talk.” Lara’s eyes were kind. “You’re the last patient of the day.”

Mindy was touched. She had to stop feeling sorry for herself, she silently ordered. She was around people who genuinely cared about her and her babies. That was the important thing, not if she was going to turn into a whale for a few months.

“Thanks, but no. I was just thinking, that’s all.” She pressed her lips together. The intimate moment emboldened her. “Do you miss it?”

Lara tossed away the used paper from the table. “Miss what?”

Mindy looked to see if the doctor was listening, but he was still busy making notations in her chart. “Your career.”

Lara smiled, as if this wasn’t an original question. “This is my career.”

Mindy didn’t want to give offense, but she was curious. “I meant, do you miss making movies?”

Lara seemed to consider the question, then glanced at Derek, who watched her from hooded eyes. The two obviously were attracted to each other. “Do I miss standing around all day waiting to shoot two minutes of film that might or might not make it to the final cut? No, I like being active and there’s always plenty of activity here.” She grinned, sending another sidelong glance toward the doctor as he finished writing notes in Mindy’s chart.

Derek flipped the chart closed and looked at Mindy. “So, we’ll see you again in two weeks.”

“I thought I was on a monthly schedule.”

“That was just in the beginning,” he told her. “Because you’re carrying more than one baby, we want to be on top of things here, to make sure everything continues going smoothly for you. Besides, you can come here and complain to your heart’s content.” The support portion was the very heart of Manhattan Multiples, and none of them ever lost sight of that. “Everyone will be very sympathetic to what you’re going through. Mothers of multiple babies have their own unique set of…um—” he hunted for the right word “—circumstances.”

More like problems, Mindy thought. And she could readily identify with that. It was all she could do to place one foot in front of the other and deal with the path her life had taken.

Tempting though the thought was, and tempting though Lara’s invitation to stay and talk was, all she wanted to do tonight was fall into her own bed. The thought of sleep was more alluring than food was right now.

“When will I stop being tired?” she wanted to know.

At the door the doctor looked at his watch, then back at her. “In about eighteen and a half years. If you’re lucky.” He glanced toward Lara. “Coming, Nurse?”

Lara brightened slightly at the verbal byplay. “Right behind you, Doctor.”

They had something going, Mindy thought. Or would very soon. The looks that went between the doctor and his nurse were too hot not to generate their own flame, if they hadn’t already.

Mindy couldn’t help the pang of envy that went through her.

Chapter Three

Eloise stood in the hallway before her office, directly in the path of foot traffic and lost in thought.

She’d had no luck yet with getting through to Bill Harper. His aides guarded him like those flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz.

You’d think that the city of New York would help support an organization that dealt with pregnancies and specialized in multiple births.

Bill’s betrayal still vexed her. How could he hold this grudge against her? And why couldn’t he simply talk to her? It wasn’t as if she was unapproachable, Eloise thought as she nodded at a couple of new members who hurried past her to the ladies’ room. When she died, and if there was need for an autopsy, she was convinced that they would probably find one of the world’s biggest hearts in her chest. She truly cared about what went on here and the people who were involved in Manhattan Multiples.

Caring was one of the reasons she’d started this center in the first place. She’d needed something into which she could channel her energy and her love. She needed something to fill the hole that had appeared when Walter was taken from her.

Even trying to lose herself in her sons’ lives didn’t take care of the problem for her. And as they became older, she knew Carl, Henry and John would have less and less need for her. They’d be going out into the world, testing their wings, forging paths for themselves. As well they should.

But that would leave her with increasingly less to do. She couldn’t very well stay at home counting flowers on the wallpaper. So the idea for the center had been born, and she had taken the helm, dispensing the wisdom of her own experiences, seeking others to add to it, and all the while making a point of being in touch with every single woman who flew or waddled, depending on their state, through those doors.

A people person, she made herself accessible and hoped others would do the same for her.

So why was Bill shutting her out?

With a sigh Eloise shoved her hands into the pockets of her powder-blue skirt.

“You know, if you stand there long enough, someone is going to wind up walking into you.” Allison Baker, her personal assistant, came up to her. “Is anything wrong, Eloise?”

With a shake of her head, Eloise pulled herself out of her trance. For a second she was tempted to share her fears about Manhattan Multiples but then decided against it.

Damn, she wished she knew the answer.

Eloise realized that her prim-and-proper assistant was still waiting for an answer to her question. Eloise said the first thing that came to her mind, lame though it sounded. “I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

Allison nodded knowingly. “About the mayor’s proposed cutbacks?”

Allison was very intuitive and this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Everyone on the Manhattan Multiples staff was talking about it, wondering if they should start updating their résumés and look for work. No one wanted that to happen. Working here was a joy, even at the worst of times.

“Yes.”

Allison hugged the thick binder she was holding a little closer to her chest. “What do you plan to do?”