Her Motherhood Wish (Parent Portal 3)

Chapter One

The day started like any other. Thirty-six-year-old Woodrow Alexander—Wood to anyone who expected him to answer—rolled out from under the sheet and into a pair of lightweight pajama pants. He timed his movements in perfect tandem with Retro, his six-year-old blonde female Lab, who jumped off her side of the mattress, stretched and rounded the bed.

Retro, short for Retrospect, stood guard at the opened door to the bath attached to their quarters while Wood used the toilet. Then, side by side, the two of them left their suite and traipsed down the hall toward the kitchen, avoiding the living area and the closed door on the far side of it leading into the home’s other master suite. Elaina needed her sleep.

While Wood started the coffee maker, brewing a ten-cup pot of the dark Colombian blend he and his ex-wife both preferred, Retrospect let herself out the doggy door and into the yard beyond. Wood had put in the kiva fireplace at the pool that Elaina had wanted while they’d still been married. He’d built the outdoor kitchen space off to the left of that. Planted rosebushes. Built his workshop shed in the far back corner. And then, also to her specifications, he had left the rest of the yard natural. Some grass grew. He kept that mowed, but the rest of the space stood home to a lot of trees in random places, with roots that stuck up out of the hardened ground. He’d offered to clean it up for her. She’d said she liked it rugged.

He liked her happy.

By the time Retro was back indoors, he had food in her bowl and, his first mug of coffee in hand, padded barefoot back down the hall, past two closed doors, two offices—his and hers—glancing into the guest bedroom with attached bath that came after, and finally reaching his suite at the end of the hall.

Leaving his door cracked for Retro’s reentrance after her breakfast and another trip outside, Wood got in the shower. Shaved—Elaina had told Wood once, when she’d still been gloriously happy married to Peter, that he should try leaving a bit of whisker roughage on his face. He didn’t like the result. It itched. And then, dried and standing in front of the mirror, he ran a comb through his short but bushy blond hair. Thick curls had looked far better on Peter, his younger brother, than they did atop Wood’s rounder face.

Once dressed, Wood sat in the worn green armchair that had once been his father’s—a chair that was in his room partially because it matched nothing else in the house—and laced up his work boots before clipping his utility knife to his belt, dropping a couple of carpenter pencils into his shirt pocket and heading back out to the kitchen.

Retro hadn’t made it back into his room. Which meant the dog had followed Elaina back into her suite to watch over her as she showered that June Thursday morning. The golden Lab always slept with Wood, but the rest of the time she chose randomly which of the two of them to hang with.

Frying some bacon and mixing pancake batter, Wood got out bologna and bread to slap together a couple of sandwiches for lunch, adding bread to the running grocery list they kept on the fridge. Elaina’s toast plate was already in the dishwasher, her yogurt cup in the trash, but he knew she’d had both with her coffee while he’d showered. She always did. Every morning. Same thing. They had a system that allowed them to live separately while still occupying the same building.

He was just sitting down to eat when Retro bounded out from Elaina’s quarters, followed closely by the dark-haired beauty his brother had married. And then he had.

“I’m doing a double rotation today, so don’t worry if you don’t see my car,” she said, her satchel already on her shoulder over the white doctor’s lab coat and light blue scrubs she wore pretty much every day. Swallowing a big bite of syrupy pancake, Wood nodded. Told her he’d take care of the communal grocery list.

“Be safe,” she said, her keys already in hand as she headed for the door.

“What about your lunch?”

She kept her soft-sided cooler in the freezer. Loaded it every morning on her way out the door, either choosing leftovers or more yogurt and fruit. Which was about the only time he ever really saw her. When they’d divorced, neither had wanted to move, and she’d been unable to take on the cost of a house alone, so he’d built a small entryway and installed an outside door to the far side of Elaina’s suite, allowing her to come and go without interrupting him.

Or without him knowing her every move.

“I’m buying lunch today.”

For years he’d suggested she do so. For years she’d refused to spend the money. His money, back then.

Now, in her second-to-last year of her residency as a nuclear radiologist, she was earning a pretty decent salary. Things were changing.

“Be safe, Wood,” she said again, her hand on the door.

“Be safe,” he said in return.

Their mantra. It was like they couldn’t leave each other’s presence without the words spilling out of them. A direct result of the grief they shared.

Breakfast done, he rinsed his dishes, took a couple of seconds to give Retro a bit of a rubdown, then grabbed his lunch and headed out. He didn’t have far to go. Less than five miles to the luxury apartment complex going up not far from the new Oceanfront Medical complex. Still, it didn’t look good if the framing-crew supervisor showed up to the job late.

He was a mile out, and twenty minutes early, when his phone rang. Someone calling off for the day, most likely. He glanced at the number showing up on his dash. Not one he recognized. All of his guys would show up in his contact list by name. As would his boss, the general contractor on the project. He let the call go to voice mail.

One unknown caller starting out with “Mr. Alexander? This is the police...” was the only scary call he ever planned to answer in his lifetime. His phone dinged to indicate he had received a new message.

He waited until his truck was parked along the back of the temporary fence marking the crew parking lot before listening to the voice mail. The Parent Portal—a fertility clinic that, while located right there in little Marie Cove, was making a name for itself—needed him to call.

Stupidly, relief swept through him. Elaina was okay. He had no one else to lose. Figuring the call had something to do with Peter, who’d done much of his gynecological residency at the clinic, he dialed, sat back and watched as one truck and then, a few seconds later, another slowed and pulled onto the lot. His men. Hand-chosen by him. Arriving for another day of sweating it out under California’s June sunshine as they nailed the thousands of two-by-fours and four-by-sixes to frame the current project.

“Mr. Alexander? This is Christine Elliott, managing director of the Parent Portal...”

The woman didn’t bother with hello. Had apparently recognized him on her caller ID. He’d had no idea the number she’d left had been to her private phone. He’d been expecting to speak with a receptionist.