What Matters Most (25 page)

“You’re mine now. You hear me? Mine,” he moaned and splintered in her arms. A few minutes later, he raised his head, looked down into her face, smiled and said, “I love you, Melanie. I think I fell in love with you when you walked into my Bolton Hill office, and every day since, I’ve loved you more. Promise me you won’t put any more obstacles between us, and that you’ll accept the fact that we belong to each other. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, but somehow, she doubted her own words.

Chapter 11

T
hat Monday morning after an exhilarating weekend in Eagle Park, Jack awakened at six-thirty with the world on a string. He could still smell her woman’s scent and feel her soft skin beneath the tips of his fingers. Whew! He headed for the shower. Life was good. He wanted to call Melanie just to say good morning, but it didn’t make sense; she was probably still asleep.

He had to give a lecture in the operating theater that morning, a task that he always enjoyed, and that morning, he especially delighted in it. “You were really on this morning,” a woman doctor said to him after his talk. “You think I could make your eyes sparkle the way they lit up when you talked about cholesterol-free arteries?”

He always became annoyed when his female colleagues made passes at him, but her remark sailed right over his head. He envisioned Melanie in the grip of passion, undulating beneath his body, and couldn’t control the grin that spread over his face.

“Sorry,” he said, “but if my eyes are sparkling, it’s because of someone special.” And how good it was to be able to say that!

In spite of the frustrating Monday-morning traffic, he got to his Bolton Hill office on time. “Good morning, sir,” his nineteen-year-old, self-conscious receptionist said as she twirled the ends of her long hair extensions. “You have two calls—one from a Dr. Marsh in Memphis and one from your father.”

“Thanks. Would you ring my father first, please?

“Hi, Dad. You called me?”

“Yes, I did. I had some raspberry scones at Brewster’s the other day, and they were awful compared to the ones your patient’s mother made, plus they cost me three dollars apiece. They claim to serve the best pastries in town, but those scones weren’t worth fifty cents. I think I’m going to set that woman up in business. She’ll be able to make a living, I’ll get some decent scones and we can both make some money. I assume she can bake something other than scones.”

Knowing his father’s passion for money, Jack asked, “What kind of deal are you going to offer her?”

“If we find a nice spot, I can furnish a bakery/coffee shop for about twenty thousand. If it doesn’t serve coffee, around fifteen thousand. I put in the money, she donates the labor and we split the profits sixty for her and forty for me.”

“Seventy-thirty would be more equable.”

“Well, I could make it sixty-five for her. You think she’d take it?”

“Considering her situation, she’d be crazy not to.”

“Where can I reach her?” Montague asked. “Is she back from Memphis?”

“Not unless she came back this weekend. Let me check and get back to you. If this works out, she’ll be one happy woman. By the way, where would you put the bakery?”

“Why, next door to the clinic, of course. That way, we’d have a built-in clientele.”

Jack laughed aloud. It made sense, and he didn’t have to start thinking of his dad as a humanitarian. That would be too much of a stretch. “Remember that’s a poor area. If people have two dollars, they’ll spend it on chicken and rice.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll market it all over the city.”

“Great idea.”

He phoned Dr. Marsh and said, “This is Jack Ferguson. Glad to hear from you.”

“I want you to know that your patient, Midge Hawkins, is being discharged tomorrow. I’ve given her mother a set of instructions, but I am e-mailing them to you along with her prescriptions, which you may copy. If you have any questions or problems, please call me. I’m sending her to you with a two-month supply of medicine which I’ve put in a package addressed to you. I think she’ll do well if she follows the regimen I’ve prescribed.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll keep you up to date on her progress. If you don’t mind, I’ll have their plane tickets sent to you electronically.”

“Not at all. We’ll see them safely to the airport. Call me whenever you need me.”

Jack hung up, greatly relieved that Midge had a chance to grow into adulthood. He had a patient due at that minute, but that would have to wait. He needed to call Melanie and tell her about Midge.

“That’s the best news you could give me,” Melanie said after learning of Midge’s progress. “I’ll phone her neighbors and tell her when Alice Hawkins will be home so she can get the children ready to go back to their mother.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll send someone to meet them at the airport and bring them home.” He told her about his father’s plan for a business venture with Alice. “I think her ship’s about to come in. Dad doesn’t throw money around, so I suspect he’s already done some research and had his scouts busy.”

“Jack, you’re a blessing to a lot of people.”

“Really? What about you? You haven’t kissed me, and you haven’t told me you love me, and we’ve been talking at least ten minutes.” Her laughter soothed him like a cool breeze on a hot summer evening.

She made the sound of a kiss. “As for the rest, you shouldn’t have any doubts.”

“I don’t, but I need to hear it. Melanie, I’m in love with you. I’m in deep, baby.”

“I love you, Jack. This past weekend…will stay with me forever.”

“Me, too, sweetheart. We’ll talk later.”

Melanie hung up and tried to settle down to work on the mundane things that keep a doctor’s office in good working order, but she couldn’t concentrate. All that made life worthwhile, she’d found in Jack Ferguson’s arms the previous weekend in Eagle Park, Maryland. All the times she’d dreamed of him and imagined what it would be like to lie in his arms with him buried deep within her had come nowhere near approximating the pleasure he gave her and the pure joy of giving herself to him.

“I’ll love him as long as I live, and then some,” she said aloud and tried to focus on her work.

She phoned Alice Hawkins’s neighbor and made arrangements for Alice’s two younger children to return home the day after she arrived with Midge from Memphis. Then, knowing that the Hawkins kitchen would be bare, she ordered milk, bread, potatoes, rice, olive oil, vegetables and a chicken and stored them in the office refrigerator.

For the third time that day, the telephone rang and when she answered, the caller hung up. She locked the door, but the possibility that the caller could be her father preyed on her mind. She decided not to mention it to Jack.

“Now what?” She answered the door and accepted the mail and a package from the mailman. Seeing that the package came from a supplier, she put it aside, thumbed through the mail, found a letter addressed to her from ET and sat down to read it.

Dear Ms. Sparks,

I wanted you to know that I have a new friend. She’s just like you. Real nice, and I like her a lot. Her name is Michaela Landry, and I’m going to live with her. I don’t know for how long, but for a few weeks will be a lot better than that foster home. This is my address in case you want to write me again. I missed you a lot after you left.

ET

Melanie read the note several times, folded it and put it into her pocket. She would answer him and send him a book. She’d learned a lot in the one month she spent at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, but she cherished most having been exposed to people who regarded helping others as a privilege and a blessing. She placed the week’s orders for supplies, updated her log, wrote a note of thanks to Alexis Harrington and had decided to heat a can of soup for lunch when she heard Jack’s key turn the lock in the office door. She raced to the door. He kicked it shut, lifted her into his arms and settled his mouth on hers.

“I couldn’t wait to get here for that,” he said. “Don’t ask me how I plan to discipline myself and treat this place as an office, because I have no idea. I’m going to try, though, so you won’t be lecturing to me all the time. I don’t respond well to lectures, and especially not if they reach the nagging stage, so I’m going to try to keep it between the lines.”

“All that, and I haven’t said a word. I wanted that kiss as much as you did, and I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten it,” she said, reached up and kissed his bottom lip. “Still, we do have to be circumspect, don’t we?”

He rubbed her nose. “You’re precious. I was in no mood to eat pizza, so I brought us some lunch.” He cleared the top of his desk, made a tablecloth out of paper towels and spread out their lunch of lobster salad, whole-wheat rolls, cheesecake and grapes. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

“This is wonderful, Jack. It’s like dining in a gourmet restaurant.”

“Do you think I’d bring my sweetheart anything less than the very best? You wound me.”

She observed him carefully, because she wanted to know whether he was joking. He wasn’t. So she said, “You’ve always given me the best, Jack. I don’t ask for or demand the best, only what I need, but you always go that extra step for me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed or that I don’t appreciate it. I have, and I do.”

He looked at her with as sober an expression as she’d ever seen on him. “I will always do the best for you that is within my means, and I want you to remember that.”

She stopped eating and looked directly at him. “The likelihood of my forgetting anything about you is practically nil, and I want
you
to remember
that.
” Suddenly, she threw her arms wide. “Do I look the same to you? I’m not the same. I don’t feel the same, and I’ll never be the same.”

He stared at her, his eyes ablaze with passion and his nostrils flaring. She could almost taste his breath. “No, you’re not the same. Beginning last Friday night, you’re my woman and you love me. I’m your man, and I love you. Most important of all, we know each other, we suit each other and we know we belong together. I know I’m not the same, and I wouldn’t take a million dollars for what changed me. I don’t want to be the same.”

Her heart seemed to swell with the happiness she felt, but she had to get them off that topic before they found themselves on the floor making love. “I put some groceries for Alice Hawkins in our refrigerator. When she gets here tomorrow, I’ll take them over to her.”

“They’ll be home a little after two,” he said, “and I’m anxious to see how Midge looks. I’m sure she’ll have a lot to tell us.”

“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to examine her before she goes home.”

“We’ll see. I’m considering going to a meeting in New Orleans. We’ll be discussing the health needs of inner-city adolescents. Would you come with me?”

She thought for a few minutes. How easy it would be to settle into an affair with him, and the likelihood of that would increase if they went to New Orleans or anywhere else together. When he’d had her beneath him, he’d rocked her out of her mind, and all she could think of was that she wanted more and more and more.

“One of us should stay here and look after the office,” she said. “You’ll tell me about it when you get back.”

He remained silent for a few minutes, and she wouldn’t say that his eyes seemed sad, but his demeanor suggested disappointment. “You really don’t want to go? New Orleans is still beautiful.”

“I know, but I-I’d rather not this time.” She rested a hand on his left wrist. “It doesn’t mean I care less, only that I think it best I don’t go. Can you understand that?”

He nodded. “I suppose I do, and you may be right. In my euphoria, I want to be with you every second, and although I want to go to that conference, I hate the thought of being away from you for an entire week.”

Hoping to lighten his mood, she said, “Just think how glad to see you I’ll be when you get back.”

“That’s damned little compensation.” He discarded the remains of their lunch, kissed her cheek and went to the bathroom.

My cue to put on my uniform and get ready for work,
she said to herself as she left Jack’s private office.
He can’t have everything he wants the way he wants it, and neither can I, but he just showed me that he hurts easily, so I’d better be careful.

Half an hour later, the door buzzer rang, and Terry Jordan, the young boy she’d met sitting on an adjacent stoop when she arrived to work that first day, walked into the office.

“Hi, Ms. Sparks. I just wanted you to know that I’m entering the University of Maryland next week on a full scholarship. I’m gonna be a doctor.”

“Congratulations, Terry. I’m so happy for you. You’ll be a fine doctor.” She knocked on Jack’s door, told him that Terry wanted to see him and went into the waiting room that was already filling up with patients. She hadn’t worked so hard since her first night there.

Around seven o’clock, with the office still crowded with patients, she started into the waiting room and stopped short when she saw Ralph Sparks walk in. “Hi, Daddy. Are you all right? Do you need to see the doctor?”

“I need to see him, all right, miss, and you, too.” The smell of beer reeked from six feet away, and she knew her father meant to make a scene. But if he thought she’d cower before him as she’d done all those years, he was in for a surprise.

“If you’re not sick, Daddy, I suggest you call the doctor if you want to talk with him. He has seventeen patients who are sick, and he doesn’t have time for a social visit right now.”

“I see you’re full of sass. If you give me any mouth, you’ll swallow your teeth. You’re throwing yourself at this so-called doctor like some street woman just because he’s rich.” The room suddenly buzzed with the sound of voices. “You’re a disgrace.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He’d come here deliberately to embarrass her, and to ruin her relationship with Jack. Anger boiled up in her. “I’d like you to leave this second. If you don’t, I’ll call the police.”

He took a step toward her, but she didn’t move. “You’d call the police on your father, would you? When your belly is full, don’t come running back to me.” She saw a woman who sat near the water cooler leave the room and figured she’d gone to the women’s room, but seconds later, Jack appeared followed by the woman.