Prescription for Desire (17 page)

“
Really? You were just
going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“
I was trying to,” she said
sarcastically, “but here you are.”

“
Just so you know, this
isn’t over.” He tenderly cupped her face. “I’m coming for you. So
be ready.” Kissing her deeply, he showed no mercy so that she would
understand he meant what he’d said. He wasn’t letting her
go.

A few people around them in line
cheered and whistled.

“
Armand … I—”

“
We
will
see each other again. I’ll make
sure of that.” He kissed her forehead and stepped back since she
was next in line. After she checked in, she turned to look at him
with sadness etched on her face. Finally, she walked toward the
security point and disappeared with his heart.

Chapter
Eleven

Raven scanned through decorations for
Yasmine’s upcoming baby shower. The parents-to-be had opted not to
know the sex of the baby. However, Raven knew because she saw it on
the screen at the five-month check up. They were decorating the
nursery in yellow and green, and Yasmine wanted the baby shower to
have the same colors as well. If she knew the sex of the baby,
Raven was sure that Yasmine would decorate the nursery in all
different shades of pink.

“
So what do you think about
the shower games that I selected?” Raven asked Bria and Shelbi. The
sisters were relaxing at Raven’s home in the living room, eating
appetizers and drinking wine.

Bria wrinkled her brow. “I like them
all except the change the diaper one. Do we really have to use
candy bars?”

Shelbi laughed. “Mmmm … .no, let’s not
actually place anything in the diapers.”

“
Well what fun is it going
to be if they’re just dry diapers? Babies don’t have dry diapers.
You should know, Bria.”

“
Exactly. I really do know
and it’s not cute at all, which is why when his father is home, he
has diaper duty.”

“
You should’ve brought the
little munchkin with you tonight so I could pinch his chubby
cheeks,” Shelbi said, popping one of the mini empanadas Raven made
into her mouth. “Girl, these things are so good. Glad you’re
back.”

Raven had been home for a little over
a month, and for the most part settled into her usual routine.
Armand had called several times for the first month, but she
ignored all of his phone calls, and was glad when they eventually
ceased. While she loved and missed him, she truly hoped that he
would find someone to settle down with and give him a family. He
would make a wonderful husband and be an outstanding father to his
children. Unfortunately, it just couldn’t be her.

“
I’m glad to be home, too.
I missed you all so much.”

“
Well, I still think it was
terrific of you to step up to the plate and help Cannon on such
short notice,” Bria stated. “We’re glad you’re home, even though
you seem different.”

“
Different?” Raven asked
with a smirk. “I haven’t changed.”

Shelbi sarcastically laughed. “Oh, we
know, but …” she stated, cocking her head to the side. She wore the
same puzzled expression that Cannon had when they Skyped while
Raven was in Argentina. “You just have a glow about
you.”

Bria nodded. “I’ve noticed the same
thing.”

Shelbi stood and jumped up and down.
“Oh my goodness! You did what I suggested, didn’t you?”

“
What are you talking
about?”
Oh no.

Shelbi stood over Raven, who was
sitting on the floor and slowly sipping her wine. “You know what
I’m talking about. Before you left I told you to have a fling with
an Argentine hunk.”

“
Mmmmm … oh really?” Bria
asked. “You do look like you’ve had some between the sheets. You’re
less uptight.”

Between sheets, on the
floor, in the exam room, on a sequoia tree. Oh yes, I’ve gotten
plenty.

“
Come on, now. I was busy
all day at the medical facility. It’s not like working at the
practice. You live where you work, so if there’s an emergency you
ride the elevator downstairs and you’re there. I rarely left except
to eat empanadas at the bakery across the street, or go to the
orphanage.”

“
Oh. So you kept it local.
He was in
Ghilaua
?
Was he the owner of the bakery you were frequenting? Is that why
you can make these so well?” Bria asked, pointing to the plate of
empanadas. “He gave you his recipe along with other things
…”

Shelbi sat down next to Raven. “Mmmm
hmmm. Big sister is blushing.”

“
I’m not blushing” Raven
ran her hands through her hair. “I didn’t do anything with anyone.
I’m just … in a new place. After Howard died, I was miserable.” She
glanced at the picture of him in his police uniform on the
fireplace mantle. “However, going away for a few months and doing
something out of my ordinary routine did wonders for
me.”

Shelbi smacked her lips and grabbed
her glass of wine. “Okay … we’ll let you slide this time. We just
want you to be happy, big sis,” she said sincerely.

“
You two are wonderful and
crazy. It’s good to be home.” Sahara jumped onto her owner’s lap,
and Raven gave the dog an affectionate rub before she scurried
away.

Bria joined them on the floor. “Just
out of curiosity. Would you tell us if you had a fling with an
Argentine hunk?”

Raven giggled and downed the rest of
her wine. “Nope.”

*****

“
Are you sure, Maria?”
Armand asked as he sat on the phone in his office late one
afternoon.

“
Yes. I’m not saying I’m
going through with it, but the couple only wants Isabella and one
other girl. You know I would never separate Isabella from Israel.
However, they see children coming and going all of the time because
of it, and I would hate for the twins to still be here years from
now. They’ve been with me for almost three years
already.”

“
Well, what did they say
about Israel?” Armand wanted to throw something across the room. He
glanced at his tablet and decided that wasn’t a great
idea.

She let out a frustrated groan. “I’ve
already told you. They said they’d think about it, but if they
didn’t adopt him they would make sure the children would still be
able to see each other whenever they wanted.”

“
I guess that’s all day
long then. They’re twins. They don’t like being separated, and you
know Israel feels protective over his sister.”

“
I’m well aware of that,
Dr. Phillips. As of now, they’re only filling out their application
for Tia. I told them I’d have to think about Isabella, which is why
I called you.”

He sighed. This day was going downhill
with every phone call. “Thank you. Let me look into something, and
I’ll call you within the next few days. Please, don’t do anything
drastic, Maria.”

“
I won’t.”

Contemplating, Armand tapped his
fingers on his desk. He was supposed to let the Doctors Unlimited
board know his decision about helping with the new facility in
Chile. If he accepted the job, he’d begin working there next month.
However, he no longer wanted the position. He wanted something else
… or rather, someone else.

The wheels in his head had already
been spinning but now they were out of control.

Armand glanced at the clock and
thought about the time difference in Memphis. Cannon had called him
earlier about the Chile facility, and other proposals they’d been
discussing over the past few weeks. Picking up his phone, he called
his boss.

*****

“
Aww … look at the cute
little booties,” Yasmine said, holding up five pairs of booties for
the ladies to see. They were at Yasmine and Cannon’s home for the
surprise baby shower luncheon. Cannon thought it would be a good
idea to have it there, that way when he returned home from his
round of golf with Sean and their father, he could simply carry the
gifts upstairs to the nursery. It would save him the trouble of
having to load his car, and then bring everything into the
home.

Raven pushed over a heavy box, along
with Yasmine’s best friend, Sherika Williams-Winters, who’d flown
in from Madrid, Spain as a surprise. She’d moved there with her
husband, Douglas, after their wedding last summer.

“
Okay, here’s the last
gift,” Raven said. “It’s from me.”

“
Oh my!” Yasmine’s face lit
up with recognition. “This is a huge box, ladies. I wonder what it
could be.” She winked at Raven and proceeded to rip the Winnie the
Pooh wrapping paper off to expose the playpen she’d wanted. “This
is perfect! Thank you, sis.”

“
You’re very welcome. I saw
you eyeballing it the other day when we were at Babies R Us. I was
surprised you didn’t add it to your registry.” She had some other
gifts for her, but because it was things for a little girl, Raven
was going to give them to Yasmine once she brought the baby home
from the hospital.

Yasmine stood with her huge six month
baby bump garnering all of the attention underneath a flowing
lavender dress. “Ladies, thank you so much for all of these
wonderful gifts. I want to give a special thank you to my
sister-in-laws, Bria, Shelbi, and Raven, for throwing me this
wonderful surprise shower. Since I’m an only child, I feel truly
blessed to have gained sisters when I married Cannon. Love you
ladies more than you know. I’m especially happy that my best
friend, Sherika, who has been my sister since fifth grade, has
flown to the States for this special day.”

“
Girl, of course,” Sherika
replied, rubbing Yasmine’s belly. “Where else would I
be?”

A numbing pain shot through Raven’s
stomach at the gesture. While she definitely no longer wanted to
carry a child, she still longed to be a mother. Adopting apparently
was out of the question, even though at one point she did consider
the possibility of doing an overseas adoption, especially when she
was at Maria’s orphanage. The idea had bounced back and forth in
her head for a while, and she had begun some research on the
Internet about adopting babies in Brazil and Chile. However, the
idea of having to take care of a newborn and decorating a nursery
at this point in her life made her a little queasy.

After Yasmine and Cannon’s mothers
made their speeches, all of the invited guests retreated to the
dining room to partake of the food that had been catered by
Justin’s restaurant.

Raven had just finished making her
plate when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She really hoped
it wasn’t the hospital; she was on call for the weekend, and had a
few patients who were due any day now. She glanced at the caller
ID, and in a way hoped it was Armand. She longed to hear his voice
in her ear saying her name in the sexy, breezy way he always did,
as if it was the most important word in the world to him. It had
been a month since he’d last called without her answering. While
she was glad he’d moved on, she missed him and what they had very
much. Alas, it was not him calling. It was Cannon.

“
Hey, what’s up?” she
asked, heading toward the nearest room from the dining room, which
was his office. She opened and shut the door quickly, sliding on to
the leather couch and setting the plate on the coffee table. It
reminded her of the first time she ate dinner at Armand’s
apartment. She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

“
I wanted to see how
everything was going?”

“
It’s going well. Yasmine
received some really nice presents for the baby.”

“
Good. We just finished
playing golf and hanging out at the clubhouse with Dr. Braxton.
Trying to gauge when the shindig will be over with.”

“
We just started eating
lunch, but we’ve played most of the games and opened the gifts. Um
… maybe another hour or two.”

“
All right. One more
question. You know Mom pretty much only works one or two days a
week now that she loves babysitting Rasheed Jr. for Bria, and we’ve
gone back and forth about hiring a primary care physician. We
really need to, Raven.”

“
I know. Are you thinking
about Garrett Braxton?” He was definitely a likely candidate.
Having graduated from medical school with Sean, he was a good
friend of the Arrington family. Garrett had his own small practice
with another primary care doctor, but there had been talks of a
possible merger with Arrington Family Specialists.

“
Yes, he’s on the short
list of possible candidates. He has Sean’s vote, since that’s his
best friend, and I have some other people in mind.”

“
You just wanted to put
that bug in my ear, right?”

“
Of course, baby
sister.”

“
Cannon, for the millionth
time, you’re only older by two minutes. In fact, I think it’s only
one minute and thirty something seconds. I’m sure you have the
birth certificate somewhere in this office.”

“
You’re in my
office?”

“
I’m leaving in a sec, but
I agree we should hire someone soon. Mom and Dad’s retirement
celebration is in May. I have a feeling after that they aren’t
coming back to work any days of the week, especially with your
bundle of joy coming in June. You know they’re excited about having
more grandchildren.”