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Venturing her first real glance at his face, Ella was taken aback to find him so handsome. The only picture of him that had accompanied the “Best of” article had been a profile shot taken from a distance while he’d stood at the nurse’s station of a hospital. The caption had said something about it being the only photograph the fractious Dr. Jacob Weber would cooperate for, and in it he’d been nearly unrecognizable. And nowhere in any of the complaints Ella had heard about him had anyone—including her sister—mentioned that the man was drop-dead gorgeous. She could only conclude that his personality was so rotten it diminished the impact of looks that could stop traffic.
He had the facial structure of a male model—a strong chin and rugged, angular jaw with pronounced cheekbones and slightly hollowed cheeks. His bottom lip was fuller than his top but still neither could have been more perfectly shaped below a nose that was just long enough and just straight enough.
He also had great hair—a light chestnut-brown color—that he wore short all over but not too short, giving it an artfully disarrayed look. And when he finally closed the file he’d been engaged in and raised his eyes to Ella, they were so dark a blue they were almost purple and they seemed to pin her to her chair.
“Files.”
It took Ella a moment to realize he was asking for—well, demanding, actually—to see her files now that he’d set aside the one he’d come in with. That moment of delay was enough to aggravate him because before she’d grasped what he wanted and was able to comply, he said, “You did bring your files, didn’t you? I’m sure Bev told you to.”
Bev was the receptionist, and she’d made it very clear that Dr. Weber would not consider taking her case without a full and complete history before him.
“Yes, she told me. It’s here,” Ella said belatedly, reaching for her own file on the edge of the desk and passing it to him as he finally sat down across from her.
Those remarkable blue eyes went back to reading then, as if her medical information was more relevant than she was, and Ella worked to rein in her shock over his good looks and regain some control of her wits. Clearly this was a man she had to be on her toes with.
After a few minutes scanning the file—and still with his gaze trained on the pages and not on her—Jacob Weber said, “You’re thirty-five.”
“I am.”
“In good general health.”
“Yes.”
“On any medication?”
“No.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a federal prosecutor.”
Ordinarily that prompted a response of some kind, but not from Jacob Weber. He merely took the information without comment and continued.
“After a year of not achieving pregnancy through regular, unprotected intercourse the full gamut of tests were performed and no obstacle to conception was discovered. You had eleven courses of varying drug therapies to stimulate ovulation and—again—no pregnancy,” he said, interpreting what was documented in her file, all without looking at her.
“Right,” she confirmed.
“I see that you did have a husband in the picture for that—your physician’s notes indicate that there was normal sperm count and motility in the male. And now you’ve had five months of in vitro—even without a husband?”
“Yes.”
“All unsuccessful?”
“Right.”
He finally looked up from her file, once again leveling those amazing blue eyes on her as he set the folder on his desk and sat back in his chair. “And you expect me to do what? Perform a miracle?”
“If you have one of those hidden in your pocket, sure, I’ll take it,” Ella said, trying a little levity.
He didn’t so much as crack a smile to be polite. He merely stared at her.
Ella wasn’t sure if he actually expected another answer to his sarcastic question but since she didn’t know what else to do in response to his continuing silence, she said, “I don’t expect anything. I’ve heard that your success rate is better than average, even for people who have failed with every other doctor. I’ve also heard that you sometimes use unconventional methods that can do the trick when nothing else has. That’s why I’m here. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to have a child.”
“It looks to me like you already have done everything it takes. And it hasn’t mattered.”
“Which is why I was hoping you had something new or innovative or experimental you might try. That’s also why my regular gynecologist suggested I consult you. Between the cost and the fact that I’ve already failed to conceive after five in vitro attempts, we agreed that it was time to go in a different direction.”
“How about the direction in which you open your eyes to the fact that not everyone is meant to have kids. That some people should—and have to—just accept that they can’t and get a life.”
Ella wasn’t unaccustomed to having to take what an abrasive judge dished out, and she called upon the controls she used in court to hold her temper now, too. “I have a life,” she informed him in an even tone. “I have a home of my own, a career, a sister and brother-in-law and niece I’m very close to, friends… That isn’t the point. The point is, I want a child of my own.”
“To fill the gap because your marriage didn’t work out?”
It took a little more will to contain herself. “I wanted a child of my own when I was married—as you’ve seen in my records I was married when I first started to try to get pregnant and I didn’t need any gaps filled. Not then and not now. I want kids. I want a family. Most people do. It isn’t a phenomenon.”
“And you want it so much you’ll even do it without a man?”
“I’m a very capable, independent person. Sure, it would have been nice to have the whole package, but that isn’t how it worked out. The fact that it didn’t doesn’t change what I want, but the clock is obviously ticking for me. I don’t have time to wait for Mr. Right, the sequel, to come on the scene, court me, marry me and then start all over again. And since I don’t doubt that I can raise and support a child on my own, I really don’t need a man.”
“Apparently you need me,” he said snidely.
“Oh, you better be a miracle worker,” Ella muttered, deciding on the spot that either he was going to accept her as a patient or he wasn’t, but that if he thought she was going to beg, he was mistaken.
After dishing out a little of his own medicine, neither of them said anything for what seemed like an eternity. His almost-purple gaze didn’t waver from his scrutiny of her. She refused to squirm beneath it—if that was what he thought he could make her do.
And then, finally, he said, “I’m about to begin a new, short-term research project. A few select patients will undergo acupuncture performed by a Chinese practitioner of an ancient discipline called Qigong. She’ll also be giving herbs that she mixes herself, and teaching meditation and relaxation techniques. There will be sessions of therapeutic massage, as well. It’s a test to see if this particular form of medicine can reset the body’s natural balance in order to increase the success rate for in vitro fertilization.”
A tiny speck of hope sprang up in Ella. “I don’t object to having in vitro again afterward,” she assured in case he was thinking she wasn’t a candidate because she’d already done it so often and spent so much money on it that she was now looking to do something completely different.
“There are two problems,” he continued, ignoring what she’d said and making her hope waver. “I already have as many patients, married patients, as I need in the study, and—”
“Couldn’t you make room for just one more?”
“—the other patients have already been through my orientation to explain the process and procedures.” He finished his second point as if she hadn’t interrupted him.
“I’d be willing to go through it all without the orientation,” Ella said, hating how she’d been reduced to grasping at straws but still hoping that he wouldn’t be telling her any of this unless he was actually going to include her.
“I don’t practice in half measures,” he informed her.
He got points for being conscientious if not for being tactful. But still Ella didn’t know if he was rejecting or reluctantly accepting her.
Another silence dragged on, again with his intense eyes on her the whole while, making her worry more as each minute passed that he was going to turn her down.
“I want you to understand,” he said when he deemed to speak once more. “If I allow you into the group and this doesn’t work for you, I won’t treat you further. In other words, I will accept you as a patient only for this study and the in vitro procedures that will follow it. If you don’t conceive after a reasonable number of attempts, you have to agree that we will go our separate ways. Because, after looking at your history, I don’t see where there’s anything I can do for you that hasn’t already been done—repeatedly. For me to go beyond this particular study would be a waste of my time and your money.”
“Okay,” Ella said much too quickly, jumping at the chance he seemed to be giving her.
“Before you get on the bandwagon you should also know that because I have a full caseload and so does Dr. Schwartz—”
“Dr. Schwartz is the Chinese doctor?” Ella asked, feeling a bit giddy with the thought that Jacob Weber wasn’t turning her away cold.
“She’s married to a colleague of mine, Mark Schwartz, and she took his name.”
Ella couldn’t suppress a smile.
“As I was saying,” he continued, still without the slightest alteration in his somber demeanor. “Because of my caseload and Dr. Schwartz’s schedule, all procedures will be done in the evenings, here, after office hours.”
“That’s fine,” she assured hurriedly.
“Even with your full life?”
Oh, he was nasty! But Ella wasn’t going to let him get the best of her. “I told you I’m willing to do whatever is necessary,” she informed him.
“Well, it will be necessary for you to meet with me so I can outline what the study entails. And that will have to be after hours, too, because I don’t have any other time for it.”
He leaned forward and scanned a desk calendar. “Today is Thursday and I’m busy tonight, so that’s out. I have to be at a conference all day and evening Saturday and Sunday, and Monday evening is when the study is slated to begin,” he said, more as if he was thinking out loud than explaining his time constraints to her. “I can skip the conference’s opening ceremony and dinner tomorrow night, but I have a meeting after that that I’ll have to get to. So that has to be it. And since the hour I’m with you will be my single chance to eat, we’ll have to do it over a meal.”
Hardly a gracious invitation but she would take what she could get. “Just tell me where and when,” she said.
He did, without missing a beat or even inquiring if she minded going to the heart of Boston to the hotel where his conference was being held to make it convenient for him.
“I’ll be there,” she said after writing the time and location in her day planner and returning it to her purse.
“I’ll keep your file,” he informed her then, standing and taking it with him as he did. “Have Bev give you the paperwork you’ll need to fill out—everyone else has already done that.”
“Okay. And I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
His only answer was to raise an eyebrow at her just before he rounded the desk and walked out of the office as abruptly as he’d entered it, not so much as saying goodbye to her.
But despite his bad manners Ella felt relief on two fronts.
The renowned Dr. Jacob Weber was going to give her one last chance to have a baby.
And he didn’t seem to remember either her name or the scandal she’d been involved in in college.
Chapter Two
J acob Weber was awakened the next morning by warm, sloppy kisses.
“Ah, can’t you wait for the alarm just one morning?” he groused, keeping his eyes closed.
His only answer was more kisses. More kisses with even more enthusiasm. On his cheek, his nose, his ear, his brow…
“Okay, okay, I get the message,” he said, opening his eyes to the tiny black schnauzer puppy he’d been sharing his bed with for the past four weeks.
He couldn’t be angry, though. Not when he was looking into the furry face of the three-pound dog standing on his pillow with her head down, her shiny black nose an inch away from his, her butt up and her stubby tail wagging gaily in the air.
If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was smiling at him.
He pretended to be more peeved than he actually was now that he was awake and said, “Have you forgotten that I’m the guy who found you abandoned on the street and kept you alive by feeding you with an eyedropper and then a baby bottle until you figured out how to lap up that special formula the vet charges me an arm and leg for? The least you could do is let me sleep until six-thirty.”
The schnauzer clearly had no sense of guilt. She merely barked a tiny, high-pitched yip to emphasize her point.
And her point, Jacob knew, was that she wanted to go outside. Not something he could deny her when, even though she still needed concentrated care, he was making headway in housebreaking her. But only tentative headway. Delays were not tolerated for long. Which the second yip warned him of.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m getting up,” he said, rolling out of bed and reaching for the sweatpants he’d learned in the past four weeks to keep at the ready.
As he pulled them on he couldn’t help chuckling at the sight of the puppy playing tug-of-war with the edge of his sheet, growling and shaking her head furiously in the battle.
“That’s it, Champ, give it hell. Live up to your name. You’re nothing if not feisty,” he said.
The mention of feistiness brought with it another thought, this one of the woman he’d met in his office the day before. The woman who had been coming much—much—too easily to mind since he’d met her. Ella Gardner.
Ella Gardner.
Feisty and determined. Like Champ.
Jacob couldn’t help smiling to himself when he recalled her I-don’t-need-a-man speech. What had she said about herself? That she was a capable, independent person who didn’t have time to wait for Mr. Right, the sequel….
“Mr. Right, the sequel,” he repeated out loud, chuckling again. “I liked that one,” he informed Champ as he scooped her up in one hand and took her downstairs and out the back door of his two story townhouse.
The tiny dog couldn’t make it up or down the three steps that dropped to the patch of lawn he was allotted, so he deposited Champ at the bottom of them and then sat on the top one, his mind continuing to wander back a day.
To Ella Gardner.
He wasn’t sure why she was sticking with him. She was pretty enough—beautiful actually. Glisteningly-bright, riotously curly blond hair. Big, sparkling silver-gray eyes with long, thick lashes. Skin like alabaster. A small, thin, pert nose. Lips that—even when she’d been telling him off—had only left him wondering if they felt as soft as they looked.
Of course that in itself—noting details of her face, wondering things like how soft her lips were—was an oddity. He’d treated beautiful women in the past. But after initially registering the woman’s appearance on some level, it became something he didn’t pay any more attention to than he paid to the appearance of his less-than-beautiful patients. They were all patients—ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent married patients. They were his cases. His work. Certainly they weren’t anything personal to him. He couldn’t do his job if they were. Not legally, ethically, morally or emotionally.
Yet this one was lingering in his head the way no one before her ever had.
Was it the feistiness? he asked himself as he watched Champ wrestle fearlessly with a rubber duck that was as big as she was, and again connected the pup’s dauntless spirit to Ella Gardner.
Maybe.
He liked a little spunk, he had to admit it. And Ella Gardner seemed to have that—even if she had obviously been keeping her temper in check.
But again, he had patients whose spirit he admired and not one of them had come home from the office in his head the way Ella Gardner had. Not one had been waiting for him behind his lids when he’d closed his eyes the night before. And here he was now, barely awake and thinking about her again. Her, not any of his other tenacious, strong-willed patients.
He just couldn’t figure it out. He knew people who attributed attraction to some kind of questionable science and called it chemistry. That theory just hadn’t ever held water for him. If it was science, it was the flimsiest kind. That’s what he’d argued even with an old medical school classmate who was doing top-dollar research on pheromones for a perfume company.
But for the first time he had to concede that maybe—even if it was flimsy—chemistry between two people did exist. Because he was just stumped when it came to finding any other explanation for why the image of Ella Gardner kept following him around.
For why he kept mentally replaying their brief, all-business meeting. Every minute of it, every nuance, every expression on her face and intonation of her voice.
He just couldn’t find any other explanation for why he continued to recall her sweet, clean scent greeting him when he’d walked into his office. And how much he’d liked it.
He certainly couldn’t find any explanation other than chemistry for the regret he’d been suffering over not having taken the hand she’d extended to him to shake, over missing an opportunity to touch her.
