“Noah, I just can’t understand how someone can give up her child and not feel any remorse. She acted as if I was inconveniencing her by even calling.”
Macy glanced down at him. His eyes were closed and her gaze moved to the slight rise and fall of his chest. She sighed and pulled away, but he tugged lightly on her hand.
“Better off...without her. Time...to move on.” His voice might have been faint, but there was conviction behind his words.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yeah, I know, but it’s easier said than done.”
But he was right. It was time for her to move on. She was thirty-five, and there were things in her life she had yet to accomplish. One was opening a medical complex and the other, getting married and starting a family. These days, neither goal seemed reachable anytime soon.
Two years ago, Noah had told her that he wanted to help get the medical complex open. Already an owner of several properties in Atlanta, he had been on the lookout for the ideal location and building, or so he had said. Macy had identified several possible commercial properties in the Alpharetta area outside Atlanta, but Noah had always found something wrong with the buildings.
Noah cracked open his eyes. “Where’s Derek?” He rubbed his forehead and dropped his hand back onto the bed as if the appendage weighed a ton.
Macy shrugged, not that Noah noticed since he had closed his eyes again. She didn’t know where his mini-me had gone, but she was glad he wasn’t in the room.
She had officially met Derek six months earlier when Noah had to undergo surgery. Prior to that, she had only heard stories of him. Noah talked about his protégé like a proud father would discuss his son.
Macy still remembered the effect Derek’s arrival had on the nurses and hospital staff back then. Tall, muscular, with skin the color of milk chocolate and movie-star good looks, he had a larger-than-life demeanor that sucked the air right out of the room, and Macy had cursed her body for responding.
He was an extremely attractive man, but what held her mind, body and soul captive were his eyes. They were dark and intense, sharp and assessing, making her powerless to look away. Never had a man warranted that type of reaction from her. With this latest visit, he’d been in town for five days, and his presence was wreaking havoc with her senses.
“Derek stepped out.” Macy finally answered Noah’s question. Noah might have only been Derek Logan’s mentor, but almost everything about his protégé reminded her of her surrogate father. Like Noah, Derek wasn’t a big talker. There was a quiet spirit about him and she wondered if anything rattled him.
“Noah, do you want me to go and find him?”
He hesitated. “No.”
Good. The man was a detriment to her mental peace. When they both were spending time in Noah’s hospital room, she kept stealing glances at Derek. He might have been a little standoffish, but he was definitely nice to look at. As far as she was concerned, the less time she spent with him, the better. She had every intention of ignoring the strong pull she felt whenever he was near. She had a feeling he felt it, too. Eyes didn’t lie. His appreciative gaze had traveled down the length of her body on more than one occasion.
She shuddered. Yeah, the less time she spent in his presence, the better.
* * *
“Craig, I hope you’re not teaching my son any bad habits or spoiling him.” Derek Logan switched his cell phone to his other ear. He leaned against the sill of the floor-to-ceiling window in the small hospital waiting room, glad to hear his brother’s voice.
“Your son is in good hands, bro. I’m teaching him everything I know.”
“Yeah, that’s what concerns me. I’ve already had to break him from claiming every girl or woman he meets as his girlfriend.” Craig’s hearty laugh flowed through the phone line. Sure, he was laughing, but when Jason had asked his teacher to be his date, Derek had been caught totally off guard.
“Well, since I married Toni, Jason and I don’t discuss girlfriends.”
“Good. He’s four years old. As far as I’m concerned, he shouldn’t know anything about girlfriends.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Now I’m teaching him all about what it’s like to have a wife.”
Derek shook his head. He knew his brother was joking, but ever since Craig married Toni Jenkins a year ago, all his brother talked about was how wonderful marriage was and how much he loved being a father. Their infant son had mellowed his brother out. As a Cincinnati police detective, he had been wound tighter than a politician on election day before he’d married and had a baby. As far as Derek was concerned, Toni was the best thing that had ever happened to Craig.