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Although the realization almost made Zoey want to cry. She’d had no idea Dr. Tate was married with children. She didn’t think anyone at the hospital knew. Too many nurses and other doctors were lusting after him, something that wouldn’t be quite so prevalent if the women in question knew he was already attached. Until now, Zoey would have sworn she was one of the minority who couldn’t care less if the man had a dozen women stowed away. But faced now with the unequivocal evidence of his tie to at least one, she felt a funny little hole open up in her heart.
“I’m not Juliana’s father,” he said. “I’m her uncle.” He sighed wearily and scrubbed his hands over his face as if feeling utterly defeated. “And frankly, you’re right,” he continued softly as he dropped his hands back to his sides, “I make her cry. For some reason, the kid hates me. And I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about it.”
Zoey studied Jonas for a long time before responding. He looked like a man who was at the end of his rope, a man who was two steps away from throwing himself off the Ben Franklin Bridge. His eyes were shadowed and exhausted looking, his mouth bracketed by white lines of strain. When he reached up to run a big hand anxiously through his hair, he closed his eyes and sighed deeply again, and she could see that he felt completely hopeless.
“Where are her parents?” Zoey asked quietly, softening at this vulnerable side of Jonas Tate she’d never seen before.
“Dead,” he replied bluntly.
Her heart turned over that the child in her arms had suffered such an enormous loss at such an early age. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
Jonas shrugged off her condolences. “I didn’t really know them. Her father was my brother, but I hadn’t seen or spoken to Alex for more than thirty years.”
Which would mean the two men were separated when they were children, Zoey thought, unable to deny her curiosity about how such a separation might have occurred. She wasn’t about to pry into the man’s personal history by asking him about it, but Jonas must have picked up on her thoughts, because he sighed again.
“It’s a long story, Zoey,” he said softly, his gaze falling to the baby in her arms. “Why don’t you take off your coat while I put on a pot of coffee?”
* * *
Actually Jonas did more than put on a pot of coffee. At Zoey’s insistence, he readied himself for work while she kept an eye on Juliana. For the first time in months, he took his time in the shower, managed to shave himself without a single nick and not only matched up his clothes—opting for a gray dress shirt, plum patterned tie and charcoal trousers—but ironed them, as well. By the time he exited his bedroom, he was in a better mood than any he could remember for the past two months. And oddly enough, he owed it all to Zoey’s appearance at his front door that morning.
He bumped into her—literally—as she was coming out of Juliana’s room. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her, and she pressed her palms flat against his chest to regain her balance. For a moment, neither moved from the position, but their gazes remained locked, as if each was awaiting the other’s move. Finally they sprang apart at the same time, mumbling excuses and apologies. Jonas swept his arm forward, indicating Zoey should precede him down the stairs, and she pulled the nursery door closed silently behind her before doing so.
Only when they were well away from Juliana’s room, safely ensconced in his kitchen with the baby monitor turned on, did Jonas trust himself to speak. Yet he still kept his voice down, certain the slightest disturbance would have the baby screaming again.
“She ate a bit more while you were getting dressed,” Zoey said, as if reading his thoughts. “I think she’ll sleep for a while.”
He nodded, but wasn’t completely convinced. “Coffee?” he asked.
“Please.”
He brought two generous mugs steaming with the strong brew to the table, then went back for sugar and cream. “Are you hungry?” he asked her. “I could fix you some scrambled eggs and bacon.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but that’s all right. I’ll have something at home later.”
He nodded again, and suddenly had no idea what to say. So he sipped his coffee and stared at Zoey and wondered how she could look so beautiful after coming off the graveyard shift.
“You were going to tell me about Juliana’s parents,” she said after a sip of her own coffee.
That’s right, Jonas remembered. He knew there was another reason for her having remained at his house after completing the duty assigned her. Other than the simple fact that he wanted her there, of course.
“But if you’d rather not,” she added.
“No,” he quickly assured her. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Forgive my frequent bouts of miscommunication. I just haven’t been getting much sleep since Juliana’s arrival.”
“How long ago was that?” Zoey asked.
“New Year’s Day,” he said, still marveling at the irony of the date. “My brother, Alex, and his wife were killed in a car accident in Portugal on Christmas Eve just a couple of weeks after Juliana was born. They left behind a will that donated everything they owned to charity and indicated that the care of their daughter should fall to me.”
“Yet you hadn’t seen your brother since you were a child,” Zoey said, sipping her coffee again.
She wasn’t nearly as unaffected by the story as she was letting on, Jonas thought. He could see in her eyes how deeply moved she was by Juliana’s situation.
He shook his head. “No, but we somehow kept up with each other so that we at least knew where the other was and what he was doing. My mother and father split up shortly after my fifth birthday. Alex was about two when it happened, I guess. By my parents’ mutual agreement, I went to live with my father in upstate New York, and Alex accompanied my mother back to Europe, where her family lived. My father remarried when I was about ten, and I’ve always thought of my stepmother as my mother. I can just barely remember the woman who gave birth to me.”
Zoey nodded. “I lost both my parents when I was three. I can’t remember much about them at all.”
For some reason, Jonas wasn’t surprised. He had detected something in her demeanor that seemed to sympathize immediately with Juliana. “Who took care of you after their deaths?” he asked.
“Two of my aunts raised me,” she said. “They were nice enough ladies, but they weren’t very realistic about the needs of a little girl growing up when I did. As a result, I was something of a...a difficult child.”
Jonas couldn’t help smiling. “That doesn’t surprise me. You’re a difficult adult, too.”
Zoey’s head snapped up and her eyes were ablaze when her gaze met his.
He chuckled. “Why is it so easy to get a rise out of you?”
She lifted her chin defensively. “Why do you get such a kick out of provoking me?”
He couldn’t deny her assertion, but he didn’t want to fight with her right now. So he went back to the original topic, picking up where he left off.
“All in all, my parents’ divorce was a surprisingly painless experience. Four people who split up and went their separate ways only to find happiness in other arenas. To this day, I can’t even form a mental picture of Alex as a two-year-old.”
“Then why did he leave his daughter in your care?” Zoey asked.
Jonas shrugged. “I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times since January. Our parents have both been dead for years. And from what the attorney said, Alex’s wife had estranged herself from her own family to the point of not seeing them at all. I suppose I am, in effect, Juliana’s closest living relative. And really, what couple in the prime of life draws up a will expecting their wishes to be fulfilled before their child reaches adulthood?”
Neither answered the question, because no response seemed necessary. They sipped their coffee in thoughtful silence for a moment until Zoey ended it with a quietly offered, seemingly benign observation.
“So now you’ve got a baby to raise, Dr. Tate,” she said with a smile.
Jonas wished he could embrace the same warm, positive attitude about it that she so obviously did. “Yes,” he replied.
And with that simple, one-word response, his first good mood in more than two months evaporated, and he felt the world drop out from beneath him. Everything he’d been refusing to think about since Juliana’s arrival exploded in his brain like a time bomb. He was solely responsible for another human being, a girl child he didn’t know the first thing about raising.
“Help me, Zoey,” he said suddenly, unable to stop the words that tumbled from his mouth without him even thinking about saying them. “Please. I can’t do this by myself.”
Three
Zoey stared at him in disbelief, her voice failing her completely. Help him? she thought incredulously. Help him? Help Jonas Tate? With a baby? What was he, nuts?
She continued to gaze at him in silence, and the coffee she had sipped as he’d uttered his request—his plea—sat in her mouth until it tasted like mud. Finally, she remembered to swallow, but when she did, she gagged and began to choke. The hacking that ensued brought Jonas around the table to pat her soundly on the back, an action that just made her cough harder because it was such an unexpectedly inflammatory gesture. Inflammatory because the feel of his palm pressing into her well-covered flesh, in a manner that was in no way seductive, somehow felt just that—seductive.
Alarmed, Zoey jerked away from him and leapt out of her chair, moving blindly toward the sink in an effort to escape. But Jonas followed her, seeming to pen her in where the countertops came together at a ninety-degree angle. Honestly, all he was doing was making sure she was okay, she told herself. But for some reason, he seemed to be much closer than he really needed to be, seemed to be intent on doing much more than helping to alleviate her cough.
Zoey had never liked it when people got too close—emotionally or physically—without her permission. There was a reason for that, she recalled all too readily, and without thinking further, she flattened her palms against his chest and pushed him away. Hard.
Jonas stumbled backward, his eyes reflecting his surprise at her gesture. But apparently undaunted, he approached her again and lifted his own hand slowly toward her. “Are you all right?” he asked as he cupped his palm cautiously over her shoulder.
Zoey flinched a little, but made no move this time to restrict him. Evidently encouraged by the less violent reaction, he dipped his hand lower to rub her back again. She told herself to stay calm and not overreact, forced herself to stand still and let him touch her. Unfortunately, that plan of action didn’t work, either. Because his simple caress still felt like the most inviting of gestures and, instinctively, she wanted to pull away before things got out of hand.
“I’m fine,” she lied, taking a few deep breaths to steady her heart rate and get her lungs moving normally again. For some reason, though, when she inhaled the musky aroma of him, her heart rate became anything but steady, and her lungs wanted to gulp in the air at a staggering speed. “I’m fine,” she repeated, though whether she was trying to convince Jonas or herself of that, she wasn’t entirely sure.
His hand continued to make lazy circles on her back, and she found herself standing there, immobile, gazing into pale brown eyes that were fixed on her face. For long moments, the two of them only stared at each other in silence, until Zoey made a halfhearted move to pull away.
But instead of removing his hand from her back to allow her passage—because, clearly, she was okay now, Zoey thought, and there was no need for him to remain so close—Jonas settled his free hand on the counter to prevent her from going anywhere. He cupped the fingers of his other hand lightly over her nape and, exerting just the slightest pressure on her neck, he started to bring her head toward his.
“Don’t,” she said softly, trying to pull back.
But Jonas seemed not to hear her and continued the gentle coercion of her head toward his. For one wild moment, Zoey forgot about the animosity she felt for him, forgot the reason she was normally so cautious around men. For one wild moment, she allowed herself to be drawn forward. His eyes were so compelling, the shape of his mouth so intriguing. He smelled so good and his touch was...oh...so gentle. No man had ever touched her in quite that way before. But when she realized what he was trying to do, understood that he had every intention of kissing her, she panicked, bolting from his arms to race to the other side of the room.
She purposely positioned herself so that the kitchen table was between them, knowing the gesture was silly even as she completed it. As if that meager barrier might actually keep him away from her if he wanted to try to again kiss her again, she thought. As if such a move would prevent her from reaching out to him.
“I’m fine,” she insisted for a third time, clutching the back of a chair when she realized how badly she did, indeed, want to reach for him again. Good heavens, what was happening to her?
“You certainly are,” Jonas agreed in a quiet, ragged tone of voice unlike any she’d ever heard from him.
He cleared his throat abruptly and returned to his seat at the table, then proceeded to sip his coffee casually, as if the past few moments had never occurred. Zoey eyed him curiously, wondering if maybe she had completely misinterpreted what had just happened between them.
Of course she had, she told herself with a silent sigh of relief, lifting a shaky hand to her forehead. She must have. He’d only been trying to stop her coughing. There was no way he had intended to kiss her. She simply must have misread the signs. She’d just pulled a double duty at the hospital, she reminded herself, and had just come off the graveyard shift. She was tired and, as usual, Jonas Tate’s presence was making her edgy. Considering their history and the quickness with which the two of them generally went for each other’s throats, the last thing the man would want to do was kiss her.
The realization brought with it an odd mixture of reassurance and regret, but she ignored the feeling as she returned to her own seat at the table and pulled the chair away. Before she could sit down, however, Jonas stood, moving quickly toward the other side of the room to stand in precisely the same spot Zoey had just vacated.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he stared at the ceiling as he asked, “Would you? Help me out, I mean. With...with the baby. With Juliana.”
When she said nothing in reply, he dipped his gaze to the floor and rushed on, “You’re obviously good with her. She took right to you, the moment you held her in your arms. She likes you, Zoey. That’s a hell of a lot more than I can say she feels about me. I don’t know what to do. I’ve had her for more than two months now, and I...” He lifted his head to meet her gaze levelly as he concluded, “I just...I don’t know what to do.”
It was costing him plenty to ask for her assistance, she realized. Clearly, he was at his wit’s end if he was coming to her for help. The two of them were mortal enemies, completely at odds over just about everything. He didn’t like her, and she didn’t like him. But he was desperate for help. So desperate, he’d even ask her to come to his aid. It was a strange feeling to have Jonas Tate dependent on her.
Zoey knew what it was like to have a newborn suddenly placed in one’s care—the shock and panic, the lack of sleep and abundance of exhaustion, the feelings of helplessness and fear that accompanied a baby’s arrival. And that was with people who’d had nine months to prepare for the event. Jonas had become a father virtually without warning and was obviously still unequipped for the responsibilities that had been heaped upon him. He did, indeed, need help. And she was perfectly capable of helping him.
If she wanted to.
“Why do you need my help?” she asked him. “Don’t you have someone looking after her during the day while you’re at work?”
“Not anymore. No one has seemed appropriate. I don’t know if you realize it, but there’s a real child-care crisis going on in this country.”
She twisted her lips into a wry grin. “So I’ve heard. There’s also a very good day-care center at the hospital for employees. Olivia McGuane keeps her son, Simon, there during the day while she’s at work. So do most of the other nurses who have kids. I’m sure Juliana would thrive and be perfectly happy there.”
Jonas shook his head. “Juliana hasn’t thrived or been happy since she arrived. I’d worry about her constantly if I didn’t think she was getting continuous, one-on-one supervision at this point. At least until she gets over this...this anguish...this despondency she seems incapable of ridding herself of.”
Zoey shook her head in disapproval. “She’s only a baby, Dr. Tate. She’s not in charge of her happiness and contentment—you are. You can’t expect her to behave and react like an adult.”
“I don’t, I—” He ran a big hand helplessly through his hair. “Look, Zoey, I know we’ve had our differences in the past,” he continued, moving slowly back toward the table. “And I know we haven’t always gotten along very well.”
“Very well?” she repeated with a unfelt chuckle. “We haven’t gotten along at all.”
“I know,” he told her as he sat down. “And I apologize for that. I haven’t been the easiest person to deal with since Juliana’s arrival, and I’ve been rough on everyone at the hospital.”
“Maybe so,” she agreed. “But you seem to go out of your way to come after me in particular. Most of the people at Seton like you in spite of your behavior.”
Jonas noted well the unspoken statement that Zoey was one of the people who didn’t. He wished he could deny her assertion, wished he could laugh off the pronouncement as simple paranoia on her part. Unfortunately, he knew what she said was true. There were times when he did seem to single her out for some reason. And if he were in a crowded room, a room full of people who’d ticked him off for one reason or another, he knew it would always be Zoey he wanted to come down on first.
Nevertheless, he said, “Now you know that’s not true. There are plenty of people at Seton who would tell you that they’re the ones I go after most often. That’s how many enemies I’ve made since I came to work here.”
He paused briefly before continuing, “I can’t manage Juliana on my own. Not yet. I need help. And you’re as likely a candidate as any. You know about babies—you’re surrounded by them every day. It’s your job to care for them. I realize there’s absolutely no reason why you would want to help me, but I’m asking you, anyway. I’d appreciate it, Zoey. It would mean a lot to me. And I’ll return the favor somehow, someday. So what do you say?”
She studied him thoughtfully for a moment and opened her mouth to speak, but Juliana’s cry rang out from the monitor on the counter. Quickly, she jumped up and headed for the stairs with Jonas right on her heels. She pushed open the nursery door and immediately reached for the crying infant, and he watched with much interest as she cradled the baby’s head in one hand and settled Juliana easily against her shoulder.
“Shh,” she murmured to the baby, moving her own body back and forth to rock the child. “Shh. You’re all right now. Zoey’s here. I won’t let anything happen to you, sweetie. You’re all right.”
Immediately, Juliana stopped crying and nuzzled closer to Zoey’s neck. Zoey smiled and kissed the baby’s temple, then turned to look at Jonas. For one brief moment, he experienced the oddest sensation that the three of them were perfectly situated there in the baby’s room. That he and Zoey and Juliana belonged together in a way that was solely restricted to other people—to people who comprised families.
Then he shook the feeling off and tried to put it out of his head, in much the same way he tried to forget how badly he’d wanted to kiss her in his kitchen only moments ago. He must be exhausted, he thought now, if he’d actually had the urge to take Zoey Holland into his arms.
“I can give you two weeks,” she said suddenly, and he could tell by the tone of her voice that the offer was drawn from her reluctantly. “Jeannette’s sister is in town and she wanted me to trade shifts with her for two weeks. Originally, I was only going to switch with her on a few nights because I didn’t want to give up that much of my time.”
“But now you will?” Jonas asked.
She shrugged negligently. “Now I will. I’ll stay with Juliana during the day while you’re at work and then spend part of the evening helping the two of you get comfortable together. I’m not sure when I’ll find the time to sleep,” she added after she placed another soft kiss on the infant’s head, “but it’s only for a couple of weeks.”
“You’re willing to surrender that much of your life for me?” Jonas asked quietly.
“No, not for you,” she told him with an adamant shake of her head. “For Juliana.”
He nodded his understanding but said nothing.
Zoey turned to look at the baby again. “I know what it’s like to be a burden,” she said so softly that Jonas had to strain to hear her. Bending her forehead to Juliana’s, she whispered further, “I know what it’s like to be thrust on to someone who doesn’t want you. Who has no idea about your needs and desires. I know what it’s like to be resented.”
Jonas wasn’t sure what to say, so he remained silent. But as he continued to look at Zoey and the baby, he felt a strange heat wander through his body and settle around his heart. Relief, he told himself. That’s all he was feeling. Relief that there would be someone to help him get through this ordeal. Oddly enough, however, that relief was accompanied by an inexplicable satisfaction that the someone in question would be none other than the infuriating Nurse Zoey.
* * *
When Jonas pulled into his driveway late that afternoon, he was beat. He was also frankly amazed that he hadn’t killed himself or someone else driving home from Bethesda, so exhausted had he been by the end of the trip. Only God and drive-through coffee had prevented such a catastrophe. Now, in addition to being exhausted, he also had way too much caffeine zinging through his system, a combination that resulted in a very strange view of the world.
That could be the only explanation for why, when he stumbled up the stairs and into Juliana’s nursery to find Zoey sitting in the rocking chair singing to the baby she cradled in her arms, he wanted to walk across the room and plant a very thorough kiss on the woman’s lips.
She had changed her clothes at some point during the day and no longer wore the blue hospital scrubs in which he normally saw her—the scrubs that had only hinted at the lush curves he knew must lurk beneath. Now Zoey was dressed in faded blue jeans and an oversize pink sweater that begged him to reach out and feel how soft it was, when what he really wanted to explore was the softness of the woman beneath it.
And her hair... Jonas curled his hands into fists lest he do something really stupid. Because Zoey had let her hair down. It hung loose and cascaded over one shoulder in a shimmer of copper that seemed to catch fire as it reflected the rays of the setting sun streaming in through the window behind her. Never before had he realized just how long and straight, how silky and rich, her hair was.
And in that moment, Jonas knew he was in serious trouble. Because instead of stirring up the anger and resentment he normally felt when he encountered her, Zoey was stirring up something else entirely. Something he hadn’t experienced for a long, long time. Something that felt dangerously like desire. Hot, heavy, urgent desire.
“Hi,” she said with a smile when she looked up at him.
