Baby Fever

“Patrick!”

Rye Warner hurried down the stairs. The men shook hands, then Rye retreated to Paige’s side, settling his arm around her waist and pulling her snugly to him.

The gesture reminded Patrick of what was missing in his own life, and a yearning need filled him. The need for a normal existence, with a loving woman—someone to touch and hold, someone to sleep beside, someone to talk to in the deep, dark hours of the night when fear settled in and courage failed. His beautiful wife had died twenty-five years ago, leaving him with a four-year-old daughter and only a stevedore’s salary to raise her on. Aside from the business he’d built, nothing and no one had replaced Priscilla in his heart. He didn’t think anyone ever could. But he missed—

“Why didn’t you call?” Rye asked gently, his far-to-operceptive gaze reading things Patrick wanted to keep hidden. “We have an assignment—”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision and I just took a chance. How long will you be gone?”

“At least a week. How long can you stay?”

They wandered into the living room and sat down.

“I was planning on getting a hotel room for a couple of weeks.” Patrick watched them exchange glances. “I know what you’re thinking, but everything’s fine. After almost thirty years of rarely taking vacation time, I decided I was overdue. I’m letting the company take care of itself.”

“I don’t believe it,” Paige said. “O’Halloran Shipping can’t function without you there every day. At least, that’s what you’ve always said.”

Patrick rested his arms on his thighs and clasped his hands. “Well, you know, since the merger, I’ve had a little more freedom. I’ve been delegating work—”

“Are you ill, Dad?” Paige leaned toward him, forcing him to look her in the eye.

“Do I look ill?” His heart did a little dance as he waited for her answer.

“I guess not,” she said finally.

His gaze shifted to Rye, who sat silently observing him. “You look good, both of you,” Patrick said in an effort to distract his son-in-law. “Marriage agrees with you.”

“Paige agrees with me,” Rye said, twining his fingers with hers.

“I never knew it could be like this.” She smiled at her husband. “He fills up every corner of my life, yet he lets me be independent, too. If anyone had told me marriage could be like this, I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the notion.”

Patrick ached for someone to look at him with the same kind of love.

“I’m just so sorry we’re leaving town now,” Paige continued, her gaze returning to her father. “Promise me you won’t leave before we get back. You can use our house while we’re gone.”

“Thanks, but I’d prefer a hotel, I think. Someplace with room service. You know my cooking skills.”

A slow grin spread across Rye’s face. Patrick noted it, and didn’t like the pure devilment in it.

“I’ve got just the place.” Rye stood. “Let me call and see if it’s available.”

“Don’t go to any trouble—”

“Give up, Dad. Once he’s got an idea in his head, an earthquake can’t shake it loose. So, tell me everything that’s happened at work since I left.”

As restaurant kitchens went, it was quiet. The tinkle of utensils against china, the muffled clatter of pans on the stove, the hiss and sizzle of food cooking—sounds comforting in their familiarity. The tone of quiet efficiency pervaded the building housing the Carola, a private club whose members included the famous and the infamous, giving them space apart from paparazzi and curious onlookers.

Jasmine LeClerc hummed softly as she prepared four dinner salads. Tuesday meant a smaller crowd, a lighter load and slower pace.

“Code green, table twenty, Jazz.”

Jasmine looked up at the sound of her sister’s voice. Code green was staff lingo for an unaccompanied male.

“Hubba-hubba,” Maggie said as she plucked at her blouse and fanned herself with the fabric, pretending to cool herself down. “And J.D. gave him to lucky ol’ you.”

Ignoring her sister’s theatrics, Jasmine poured a healthy scoop of honey dijon dressing on each salad. She hated serving men who came to the Carola without women, although she’d gotten good at diverting their halfhearted propositions and wholehearted innuendos. Her opinion of the male species, not particularly high before she began waiting tables, had sunk to subterranean levels over the years. And the maître d’, J.D., ever the hopeful romantic, took great delight in foisting single men on her, but not on the equally single Maggie—although Jasmine had her opinions about that, too.

“He looks a mite lonely to me, Jazz,” Maggie said.

Hope flared briefly within Jasmine, then died. Since beginning her quest almost six months ago, she had avoided considering any club member as The Donor, as she’d come to think of him, needing the detachment and anonymity. First, most of them were married. Second, she didn’t dare. No matter how desperate she became, she still needed a man who wouldn’t drop back into her life.

“Men have perfected that lonely look,” Jasmine said as she lifted the salad plates onto a tray, then added a basket of crusty sourdough bread and a dish of iced butter, “because women are pushovers. And as long as we allow them to behave like needy little boys, they’ll continue to sucker us in.”

“Pay the bank!” Maggie crowed.

Jasmine half smiled. Undoubtedly it wouldn’t be her last contribution to the bank tonight. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a quarter and deposited it in a ceramic jar shaped like Michelangelo’s David and sporting a sign on a string around its neck. She scooped up the tray and headed for the dining room. Her glance drifted to table twenty. The code green definitely qualified as hubba-hubba material. He nodded at J.D., who set a tall glass of iced liquid on the table with his usual dramatic flair. Instead of leaving immediately, J.D. stayed to talk for a few minutes.

Jasmine served salads, refilled water glasses, and tried not to look at the auburn-haired stranger who toasted the air before taking a long swallow of his drink after J.D. left. Then he opened the menu, blocking himself from her view.

He wanted a steak. A one-inch-thick prime sirloin smothered in sautéed mushrooms. He craved a huge baked potato dripping with real butter and mounded with sour cream. And chives. Chives would count as a vegetable, right?

He snapped the menu closed. He would order broiled chicken breast, steamed vegetables and rice.

It was no damn meal for a man.

Patrick glanced around the darkened dining room of the Carola. Along with hotel accommodations at a quaint ivycovered cottage, the English countryside interior of which was a little too froufrou for Patrick’s tastes, Rye had arranged a guest membership for him at an exclusive club not far from the cottage.

The scene was familiar to him—subtle background music, dark furnishings, flickering candlelight, efficient service and undoubtedly superb food, just like his club at home in Boston. Upstairs he’d probably find card rooms, a billiard room or two, and lounges, segregated by gender. He swept an encompassing glance around the room. Even the women looked the same, with their perfectly coiffed hair, their clothes hanging from their shoulders and hips in nice, straight designer lines.

His glance followed the waitress who had come into the room a few minutes earlier balancing a tray of salads on one hand. Now there was a woman. Generous curves in all the right places, curves that made a man wonder and dream, and maybe even salivate. As she moved around the table serving, she smiled in return to something one of the women said and listened attentively to the man Patrick recognized as the star of the San Francisco-based TV detective series “Blue Fog.” She disappeared into the kitchen, the tail of her white-blond braid skimming her waist. She came back empty-handed and headed toward his booth.

“Good evening,” she said, her voice intriguing in its husky timbre. “Have you decided what you’d like tonight?”

Snared by her soft gray eyes, he focused on her face. Late thirties, he guessed, and like the dark-haired waitress he’d seen working the opposite side of the room, she wore a tailored white dress shirt, narrow black tie and straight black skirt. He looked down at the closed menu, taking advantage of the moment to let his gaze flicker briefly to her discreet name tag.

Jasmine. It was a rather exotic name for an American beauty.

“I’ve decided,” he said, handing her the menu and ordering the requisite heart-healthy meal.

“I figured you for a meat-and-potatoes man,” she said, her smile friendly.

“I guess I’ve eaten plenty of both in my day. But the best way to overcome jet lag is to drink no alcohol and eat light.”

“And fresh fruit, I understand,” she added. “Maybe you’d like some for dessert?”

Patrick toasted her with his club soda, signaling an affirmative answer. Fruit. Swell. He supposed apple pie wouldn’t count.

She started to leave, then glanced sideways at him. “Do you mind telling me—No, never mind.”