“You believe he can do this. That he can be one of the three percent.”

“Three to eleven percent. And I guess I do.”

With her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her shins and cradled herself. She’d missed a period and was feeling cranky. While she’d had unpredictable and difficult periods, it had been a long time since her body had acted up on her. Not since she’d lost the baby.

“A key factor to recovery is that there be separation,” Brett added. “At least a year is recommended, but because Chloe acted before Jeff’s behavior escalated into full-on physical abuse, their time apart could be shorter.”

“I told Chloe she could stay with me until she and Jeff get things figured out. We’re doing fine here now that we’ve settled into a routine, and that way I can help with Cody.

“Anyway, Chloe said she was fine with a meeting. She wants to help. And if all goes well, she’d like to set up regular meetings with Jeff, one every couple weeks to start, so that he can continue to be a part of Cody’s life.”

She heard a squeak in the background. “Where are you?” The question slipped out before she could remember she didn’t want to know.

“Home. I just got in from LA, and I’m heading into my room to get comfortable.”

He was going to be undressing, he meant. Too much information.

“I heard a squeak.” The explanation sounded lame.

“The doorknob on my bedroom door sticks. I was going to get it fixed, but I’ve decided not to. If not for the squeak, I’d never have heard Chloe trying to get out of the room that night, wouldn’t have been outside the door...”

“I wondered how you happened to burst in at just the right moment...” So much rested on his having been there. Jeff’s whole life. His marriage. Chloe and Cody’s lives, too. “Your instincts are well honed to prevent abuse,” she said, thinking out loud.

But the words were true. Growing up as he had, Brett was always on alert.

She heard his belt buckle clink. And realized what was supposed to have been a two-minute call had already gone on too long.

Without an extra word getting in anywhere, she made plans with Brett to arrange an afternoon meeting with Jeff a week from that Friday—nine days away. She’d take time off work to drive Chloe to Palm Desert. Brett would let Jeff know to alert his counselor to the plan.

Brett would be in Texas at the end of next week so couldn’t be present himself, Ella was glad to hear.

And disappointed, too.

* * *

ELLA DIDN’T EVEN consider that something other than food poisoning could be wrong with her when she threw up suddenly at work Thursday afternoon—the day after she’d spoken to Brett.

Jason happened to be on the unit at the time. Told her to take the rest of the day off. She couldn’t figure out what she’d eaten that didn’t agree with her. With Chloe serving dinner at the Stand all week while she honed the menu, Ella had eaten out with Jason two of the past three nights. And had what the rest of the residents at the Stand had the other night. No one else had taken ill.

Jason checked in with her again the next morning, though he didn’t generally do Friday morning rounds, and she was glad to tell him she was fine.

Until that afternoon when she experienced another violent bout of nausea that caused her to run out of the room while she and Jason were in with a patient.

Jason found her half an hour later, in her office, going over notes for a staff meeting she was holding the next morning. He walked in, put a hand on her neck and then picked up her wrist, as though taking her pulse.

“Anything wrong, doc?” she asked, a twist to her mouth. She wasn’t worried. She knew her body. And nothing was seriously wrong.

She might have a minor bug.

Or a case of the nerves. Worrying about Jeff’s emotional state. His marriage.

Torn between Brett and moving on.

Dating a man she liked but knew she didn’t love. Wanting Chloe to be happy...

“Are you prone to nausea?” Jason asked, sounding all doctor-like as he looked at her.

“No. I don’t think I’ve thrown up since I was a kid.” Back when she’d first started her period, her cramps were so bad they sometimes made her sick to her stomach. She later found out that her system basically told itself to ovulate and menstruate at the same time. Which was why she couldn’t conceive without help.

“Food poisoning doesn’t last more than twenty-four hours and doesn’t just come in once-a-day bouts.”

“You think I have the flu?” She’d been concerned about it herself, after this afternoon’s illness. She obviously had a bit of a bug that her body was mostly fighting off. With a bit of nausea as the only symptom. Which was why she was in her office, away from the patients. Since the initial Ebola scare in the United States, she’d been more aware of the viruses that could catch you unawares. More aware of her chance of catching something, working in a hospital. And more aware of her ability to spread, them, too.

“You don’t have the flu,” he said. “You aren’t the least bit flushed, have no fever and, by your account, aren’t feeling lethargic or achy.”

The way he was looking at her, eyebrow raised, he seemed to have something else on his mind.

Not that she knew him that well yet. He’d agreed to take things slow. She’d told him a bit about Chloe and Cody staying with her. About Jeff. As reasons why she couldn’t jump into anything with both feet at the moment.

They had dinner a couple times a week. Saw each other at work.

And he still made her laugh.

“I hate to ask this, especially in light of my hope that we’re on our way to being exclusive, but have you... Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

“No!” Her response was immediate. And followed by another severe bout of nausea. She made it to her private bathroom. But just barely. And was embarrassed as hell when she took the moistened towel he handed her when she was done.

He was a doctor. He dealt with bodily functions every day.

But not hers.

Ella wiped her face, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, leaning back against the wall. She didn’t trust herself to stray far from the commode. And the cold tile felt good.

Jason stood along the opposite wall, his lab coat giving him a sense of authority that she didn’t need right then.

“I can’t be pregnant, Jason.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.”

He didn’t want kids. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him in the first place.

She told him about her medical condition. About the years of treatments that had been necessary to help her conceive. About losing her baby. Leaving out the part about Brett not wanting the baby and retaining a divorce attorney.

“Have you had normal periods since you lost the baby?” He was frowning. And sounded so doctor like.

Her stomach felt sick again. “Up until recently, yes.”

“As you know, metabolic irregularities cover such a broad range, you don’t always hear or understand everything about them,” he said, looking more serious than ever. “But you should have been told...sometimes—not always of course, but sometimes—pregnancy corrects the irregularity in certain hormonal imbalances, allowing a woman who couldn’t conceive on her own prior to the pregnancy to conceive quite naturally afterward. Regular periods could indicate such a correction.”

Oh, God. She might have been told. She couldn’t remember a lot about the time immediately following her miscarriage. She’d been too busy grieving. And divorcing. Paralyzed, Ella sat on the floor, staring up at Jason as he said, “Doctors don’t always mention the possibility, depending on the circumstances, because there’s not enough known about why it does or does not happen, but, there are enough marked instances that we know that it can. Anyway...I find it interesting that you tell me you can’t get pregnant, not that you haven’t been with anyone recently.”