"Well," he said in the sexiest voice she had ever heard, "either you’re carrying the pregnancy EXTREMELY well, or you’re definitely not Lois!"

Brenda laughed, and Jax thought perhaps the angels had sung. He couldn’t believe that Ned was actually right about something for a change. The woman was perfection. She was petite, but statuesque. Wispy tendrils of her brown/black hair hung at her temples, and all Jax could think of was brushing it back with his lips. Her brown eyes were framed with luxuriant dark lashes, and as his thoughts began to stray towards feeling those lashes against his lips, he knew he had to put a damper on things. He hardly considered it polite to be lusting after his date before he even got inside the house. But he was.

"No, you’re right!" he finally realized she was laughing. "I’m not Lois. I’m Brenda Barrett. Come on inside." Jax nodded and stepped into the fragrant hallway. As Brenda moved past him to shut the door, Jax knew he was in lust. The woman had the most attractive derriere that he had ever seen. Clothed or unclothed. When she turned back to him again, the smile returned. "Let’s try that again." She extended a hand. "I’m Brenda Barrett. And you’re….?"

"Jacks…..Jasper Jacks," Jax replied, awkwardly transferring the bouquet of flowers to his other hand so that he could shake hers. "But my friends always just call me "Jax," with an x."

"Which explains why there really are very few people who ever call this reprobate Jax," Ned said, appearing in the door of the kitchen. He smiled as he slowly walked down the hallway, wiping his hands on a towel and then throwing it over his shoulder. He shook Jax’s free hand warmly and then looked at the flowers. "Aww, Jax….you shouldn’t have!"

Jax grimaced. "Good, cause I didn’t! These are for your very beautiful, very pregnant wife, Ashton. Where are you hiding her these days?"

Ned motioned towards the living room, and Jax preceded both he and Brenda into the room. He walked to where Lois was comfortably seated in a large overstuffed chair. "Now, YOU must be Lois!" Jax said with a charming grin.

"Ooooo, flowers…." Lois gushed. "Look, honey, he brought flowers!" She buried her face in the tropical assortment. "Aren’t they the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen?"

Jax’s glance strayed from Lois back to Brenda as he thought that Lois was definitely wrong. "I’m glad you like them, but please don’t go over-exciting yourself over them, Lois." He cast an amused grin towards Ned. "The only medical personnel here tonight are an overrated radiologist and a surgeon who doesn’t remember one thing about how to do a Caesarian section!"

"So….you’re a surgeon?" Brenda asked quietly. Inwardly, she was beginning to get a bad feeling about this blind date after all. She hadn’t really met that many doctors, except for Ned, of course. She had never dated one. But the only thought that kept coming to mind was Dr. Peter Benton on the program "ER." Were all surgeons egotistical, cold men who were too full of themselves to notice anyone else in the room?

Ned intervened. "Not only is he a brilliant surgeon, but he’s the new co-chief of the ER at Cedars. When he’s too busy carving people up, Dr. Quartermaine covers for him in the ER."

Jax blushed and his face had an "aw, shucks" look that Brenda found reassuring. "Well," Ned continued, "why don’t I just get you all something to drink while I check on dinner?" He looked at Brenda first. "White wine as usual?"

Brenda nodded. "That’s fine for me, too," Jax chimed in. "I’m not on-call tonight so I can afford to indulge in a little liquid refreshment."

Lois was busy watching Jax and Brenda, her head turning from one side to the other like she was at a tennis match. {This is SO perfect. They’re made for each other.} "Ned, why don’t I go help you in the kitchen while you’re getting the drinks?"

"NO!!!" Both Brenda and Jax’s faces paled and they exclaimed the same reaction when the words came out of Lois’s mouth. They looked at each other and then at Ned, who just smiled and shrugged his shoulders innocently. Jax recovered first. "Why don’t you just stay here and rest – you’re probably pretty uncomfortable at this stage of the pregnancy anyway. And I’m sure that in a few months when you get back to your wifely duties, you’ll wish you were still pregnant!"

{Wifely duties? I knew it was too good to be true. A chauvinist pig, just like Dr. Benton. Or even Wulfgar.} But, for Lois’s sake, Brenda tried not to show her alarm. The night was young. Maybe it was just a temporary slip. As Ned left the room, Brenda relaxed in her chair. "So….it sounds like you’ve only recently come to work here at Cedars."

"That’s right. I was chief of surgery at Mass General in Boston before Cedars Sinai made me an offer I couldn’t refuse."

{Drat….*chief* of surgery. It only gets worse. CHIEF chauvinist pig.} Brenda tried to smile through her growing sinking feeling. "Now….you can’t fool me, though. That’s no Boston accent you’ve got there, mate!" She laughed loudly, and Lois caught it immediately.

{Poopers. Brenda hates him already. Why? He’s gorgeous, smart…..Please, Brenda, don’t pick a fight with the man before we’ve even had a chance to eat dinner!}

Jax was smiling as Ned appeared with the white wine. He took a glass and sipped before answering her. "Very astute. I was born in Australia, but my family moved here when I was about ten years old. The accent just sort of hangs on. Sometimes it’s more pronounced than others."

Brenda was sipping her own wine and sizing up Jax up. He was wearing a pair of tan linen pants and a matching linen loose-fitting sport coat. His starched white shirt had faint dark brown and blue stripes, and he had chosen a blue tie that matched the blue of the stripes perfectly. Even in this warm California afternoon, the knot of the tie was pulled all the way up to his Adam’s apple. {Geez, if this is what he wears to a dinner with friends, what does he pull out for a night on the town? A tux with tails?} But after she learned of his Boston origins, it began to make sense. She decided to test her theory. "So, Mass General? Did you go to school in Boston, too?"

Jax nodded. "Only medical school, though. Harvard."

Brenda’s eyes narrowed. {Probably on the debate team…..maybe the rowing team with those shoulders. Typical Eastern preppie.} Ned saw the warning signs and caught a glare from Lois.

"Uh….Brenda went to school in Boston too, didn’t you, Bren?" Ned tried to steer the conversation back to things in common.

Jax’s face brightened. "Really? Where?"

"Boston College." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and took another slug of wine. "So, where did you get your undergrad degree?"

"Princeton."

"Ahh….Prep school in Boston, too, I’ll bet." Brenda began to sincerely hope that Ned had a whole lot more wine in the kitchen. She would need it to get through the evening with this stuffed shirt.

Jax nodded, sipping his wine. "Andover." Lois saw Brenda sinking lower and lower into her chair and recognized impending doom.

"SO….NED, HONEY……dinner smells delicious! When do we eat?" She shot Ned a look that said It-better-be-soon-or-you-sleep-on-the-couch-tonight.

"Uh…..NOW!" Ned had been married to Lois long enough to recognize an emergency flare when he saw one. He stood and went to help Lois to her feet from the low chair. "I hope everyone likes chicken cordon bleu, twice-baked potatoes, and green beans almondine."

"Sounds delicious." Jax smiled, but at the same time he felt like he had knots through his entire intestinal tract. He had felt like he was being sized up during his conversation with Brenda, and somehow he suspected that he didn’t pass with flying colors. He was frankly beginning to think he shouldn’t have worn the suit to dinner, but all those years of training in proper behavior by his parents were hard to ignore.

Jax and Brenda were seated opposite each other at the dining room table, with Ned at the head of the table and Lois at the other end. The conversation remained relatively light and harmless through the salad into the main course, when "shop talk" began to rear its ugly head.

"So, Ned….did you hear about the excellent job that Jason Quartermaine did in surgery the other day? That emergency that came up just as you invited me to dinner?"

Ned brightened and pointed with his fork at Jax. "Yes, actually, I did. But I hear there’s an excellent crop of young surgical interns coming up this year."

Jax nodded. "Jason Quartermaine, Tony Jones, Joe Scanlon, ….." He stopped and thought for a moment. "I know there are a few more, but I’m not real familiar with all of the names yet."

Brenda shot Jax a sarcastic smile. "Obviously the female names are causing a problem for you." Jax gave her a vacant look. "Women." Still nothing registered. She looked to Lois for help, but Lois was just staring down at her green beans, praying that Brenda would keep her mouth shut. No such luck. "You didn’t mention any FEMALE names in those brilliant student surgeons."

Jax shrugged. "That’s because there AREN’T any females in the group of surgical interns."

Ned suddenly jumped up. "More wine, Brenda?"

She waved her hand at Ned. "I wonder why that is – I mean, why there’s no female surgical interns." She stabbed at a piece of chicken viciously. "I mean, I would think maybe it was just an aberration this year, but I read somewhere that there’s a real scarcity of women in the surgical profession."

Jax tipped his head to the side. "Probably due to the pressure. It’s hard to take five years out of your life to prepare for a career. And there’s the long hours once you do make the grade." He forked up more double-baked potato and chewed thoughtfully. "And women usually have different priorities than men."

"BOY, this chicken is sure tasty, Ned!!!!" Lois was sure that if she hadn’t been pregnant and awkward, she would have jumped out of her chair to slap her hand over Brenda’s mouth.

"Different? How?" Brenda put her fork down so that she wouldn’t be tempted to stab Jax after the words came out of his mouth that she was expecting.

"Well, you know…." Jax began, "….husbands and children usually come first for women." Ned felt sorry for Jax. {Just like one of the Christians right before they went into the arena with the lions.}

Brenda put her fork down hard and it clinked when it came into contact with the good china. "And don’t you think that wives and children make a good priority for men, too? Just where do PEOPLE fit into your list of priorities, Dr. Jacks?"

Jax’s face registered the shock. {What a spitfire! I wonder if she’s as passionate about other things as she is about this feminist cr*p.} "People ALWAYS come first with me, Ms. Barrett," he returned, emphasizing the "Ms." "Otherwise, I wouldn’t have chosen the medical profession."

"BRENDA!" Lois couldn’t take it anymore. "’Ya know, I think Ned plans on servin’ dessert in the livin’ room so we can be more relaxed. Why don’t you come upstairs with me and help me find that new game of Trivial Pursuit you just bought me and Ned?" Lois was already rising from her chair and although Brenda opened her mouth to object, Lois had already grabbed her by the arm and was dragging her out of the room.

Lois had barely gotten to the bedroom and closed the door behind them when she lowered the boom. "BRENDA BARRETT!!! What is the MATTER with you tonight?"

Brenda tried to look innocent. "Who me? Nothing." She played with a non-existent piece of dust on Lois’s dresser. "Why would you say anything’s wrong?"

Lois spun her around to stare into her eyes. "Why are you picking on that nice man downstairs like that? He’s been nothing but kind and gracious since he got here, and you’re treatin’ him like some kind of monster!"

"Well, Lois, you know how strongly I feel about some issues…" Brenda started, but Lois gave her a stern look.

"And isn’t it amazin’ that those same issues just HAPPENED to come up at dinner?" Brenda sighed with an "I’m busted" look, and Lois gently rubbed the sides of her arms. "Come on, Bren. Give him a chance. I’m not askin’ you to marry the man or anything. Just get to know him without pickin’ him to pieces. He IS handsome, you know."

Brenda smiled and shuffled her toe a little. "I know. I noticed." She looked up at Lois excitedly. "Did you see those eyes? Those blue eyes are to *die* for!"

"So, couldn’t you just lower the armor a little for tonight and just think about the eyes….and the rest of the package…..without worryin’ how he feels about animal rights or nuclear proliferation or whatever you’re carryin’ a torch about right now?"

Brenda grimaced and hugged Lois. "You’re right as usual, Lo." She sighed as Lois motioned for her to have a seat on the bed and went into the bathroom. "You know, they say women read my romance novels to escape the real world. They read them to live in a world where every man is perfect and always says just the right thing and the sex is the greatest thing since sliced bread." She let out a long sigh. "Sometimes I spend my whole day creating these perfect guys. I know how they think, how they dress, how they move…..even how they kiss!" She looked down into her lap as Lois came out and stood in the bathroom door, drying her hands and listening intently. "It’s just hard for me, Lois. Before I even know what I’m doing, I start measuring every guy up against one of my perfect heroes in the books, and somehow they all fall short in one way or another." She looked sadly at Lois. "Why can’t just one of ‘em turn out to be Wulfgar?"

Lois hung the towel on the bar in the bathroom and came to sit next to her on the bed. She put her arm around Brenda with a sigh. "I know, Brenda. But that’s why the fictional guys are in the books -- because they *are* fictional. There’s no guy out there who’s gonna be like Wulfgar…..or Derek, or Flynt. But a lot of ‘em come darn close, and you’re never gonna find out if you keep makin’ ‘em jump through hoops and holdin’ ‘em to impossibly high standards!"

"I’m sorry," Brenda said, bumping her shoulder against Lois’s. "I’ll try to behave myself -- really I will." She grabbed Lois by the hand. "Let’s go back downstairs and give old blue eyes a chance to redeem himself!"

"She hates my guts," Jax said morosely, following Ned into the kitchen with a stack of plates in his hand.

"I think *hate* is going a little overboard, don’t you?" Ned said with a smile.

"Just because she almost bit my head off when we were discussing women’s rights?" Jax shook his head and picked a stray crouton out of one of the salads and popped it in his mouth. "No, I think if Lois hadn’t taken her to the bathroom with her just now, I would be wearing Ms. Barrett’s glass of wine." Jax glanced over his head at the floor above. "She’s probably up there right now, telling Lois what a Neanderthal I am."

Ned leaned over to reach deep into the refrigerator and retrieve a large cake pan. "No," he said, closing the refrigerator door. "It’s just one of those woman things -- they always go to the bathroom in groups. Didn’t you know that?" Jax gave Ned a surprised look and as Ned took a large knife out of a drawer, he gestured at Jax with it. "And if you EVER tell Lois or Brenda that I said that, I’ll have to use this on you."

Jax shuddered. "Now there’s a really scary thought. Letting a radiologist get near a knife!!"

Jax picked up the dessert plates and followed Ned into the living room. As they set things down on the coffee table, Jax sat on the edge of a chair and Ned began cutting pieces of cake. "You have to admit, though," Ned said softly, checking the stairs first for any sign of females. "Brenda is a beautiful woman."

Jax shook his head. "No. She’s not beautiful." Ned stopped cutting for a moment. "She’s whatever you call better than beautiful. Gorgeous. Exquisite. Breathtaking."

Ned nodded. "Yeah, all of that and more." He glanced up at the staircase. "Well, it sounds like they’re coming back. Maybe Lois did tell Brenda to tone it down a little bit with the feminist propaganda." He looked at Jax critically. "But one thing before they get back – Jax?" Jax looked at him expectantly. "Lose the tie!!"

Jax made a face and pulled at the knot. "Too much?"

Ned tipped his head to the side. "Not for a board meeting at Cedars. But definitely too much for a quiet dinner on a Friday night with friends."

Jax shook his head as he pulled the tie off and stuffed it in his coat pocket. He started to shrug out of the coat, too. "Thanks, Ned. I just can’t seem to get used to this laid-back California way of doing things."

Just then, Lois and Brenda came down the stairs. "So, Ned – what’s for dessert? Something totally fat and calorie free?" Brenda definitely seemed to be in a better mood than when she had left the room, and her eyes flared when she saw Jax in his shirt-sleeves, sans tie, rolling the sleeves of the shirt up as he spoke.

"Well," Jax said with a flair, offering Brenda the seat next to him on the couch, "I only helped carry the dessert plates, but I really don’t see that you have anything to worry about, Brenda." His eyes slowly made a tour of her from toes to the top of her head and back down again, giving her a tingling feeling. "Yep. Definitely nothing to worry about in the excess pounds department."

Brenda shrugged her shoulders in delight at the change in Jax’s tone and wardrobe since she had left the room. "It’s your favorite, Brenda," Ned said, handing her a dessert plate, "chocolate gooey butter cake."

"Mmmmm, Ned, you know my weaknesses," Brenda purred, breaking off a piece of cake and popping it in her mouth. She closed her eyes as she chewed.

"Are you game, Jax?" Ned offered him a piece. "I know you’re into health food and all that….."

"Oh, but you have to try some of this!" Brenda exclaimed, opening her eyes again. She grabbed the plate before Jax could take it out of Ned’s hand and broke off a piece, turning to Jax and feeding it to him delicately. His eyes locked with hers the entire time, and as she pulled her fingers away, his tongue crept out and licked them gently, causing Brenda to shiver on the inside. {Hmmm…maybe the man took a few Wulfgar lessons while I was upstairs. This is a definite improvement.}

After everyone had cake, they agreed to play a friendly game of Trivial Pursuit and divided into teams. Brenda and Ned partnered, much to Jax’s disappointment. But Lois complained that she and Ned always ended up on the same team since they were married, and everyone agreed that a women versus men match would not be a good idea, considering the near fiasco at dinner.

After the cake had been consumed, the white wine flowed freely during the game and pretty soon, everyone was in a very good mood, Brenda included. She watched Jax out of the corner of her eye. As he laughed at Ned’s ignorance of geography, a lock of his hair fell across his forehead, and he pushed it back with a nonchalance that she found attractive. His hands were strong-looking, his fingers long with very short fingernails. {That’s probably because of how many times he washes his hands for surgery. Can’t have long nails when you’re wearing those surgical glove thingies.}

Lois put them all to shame when the category switched to television programs of the 1970’s. When the category switched again to sports, Brenda was shocked that Jax was an expert on water sports trivia.

"Wow," she said, letting Ned fill her wineglass again. "I never knew that Bostonians knew that much about warm-weather sports like swimming and sailing."

Jax blushed becomingly. "Actually – sailing is one of my secret passions. When I moved here one of the first things I did was buy a sailboat."

"Really?" Brenda squealed, squirming back and forth in her seat. In the back of her mind she realized that she was acting a little "ditzy" for her own taste, but the change in Jax’s attitude seemed to justify her relaxing her high intellectual standards for a few hours. "I LOVE to go sailing. I live in a condo not too far from the marina at Pembroke Cove."

Jax’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Really? I sail out of that marina pretty often." He looked down nervously. "I’d love to have you join me sometime for a day on the "Cutting Edge.""

Brenda returned a coy smile. "Sounds great." {Definitely becoming more and more of a Wulfgar as we speak.}

Lois poked Ned in the ribs when she saw the sparks flying back and forth between the two of them and gave him an "I-told-you-so" look. Ned just shook his head and grinned. One of his wife’s most passionate pastimes was matchmaking.

By 1AM, the bottles of white wine were empty and Jax and Lois had barely beaten Brenda and Ned in the last round of Trivial Pursuit. Brenda suspected that Ned had cheated to let Jax and his pregnant wife win, but she was either too mellow from the wine or from the feel of Jax’s arm on the sofa behind her to notice.

"Wow," Jax said, glancing at his watch as the game was packed back into the box. "It’s a good thing that I don’t have to be on duty again until Sunday." He gave Brenda a dazzling smile. "I think it may take me that long to recover from the intoxicating nature of the wine and the company this evening."

Brenda stood up and stretched. {Definite Wulfgar potential. Now if I could just get him to cut loose a little and use less than 15 words in a sentence.} Jax looked at Brenda with concern. "Since I can’t offer you a ride home, I would feel much better if I could at least follow you and make sure you arrive safely." As Lois shot Ned another knowing look, Jax explained self-consciously, "We’ve all been consuming a lot of wine, you know. And we didn’t exactly appoint a designated driver."

Lois waved her hand. "Oh, you don’t have to worry about Brenda. She can drink 3 strong men under the table on one of her BAD nights!" She laughed at her own joke but when Brenda gave her a wide-eyed dirty look, she quickly added, "But at this time of the mornin’, it probably would be a good idea! I mean, you never know what kind of perverts could be lurkin’ around the corners!"

As Jax grabbed his jacket and followed Brenda to the door, he turned once more and kissed Lois on the cheek. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Lois. I hope we can do this again soon." After Brenda made Lois promise to call her if she had even a twinge of a labor pain, Jax put his hand on the small of Brenda’s back and escorted her to her car.

As she was driving home, Brenda glanced up into her rear-view mirror and saw the reassuring glare of Jax’s headlights. It wasn’t like her to play the helpless female. She didn’t ordinarily let men open doors for her, or be overly protective of her. But for some reason, it didn’t seem to painful when Jax assisted her into her car or insisted on walking her to the door when they finally arrived at her condo.

Brenda inhaled the cool, crisp air and turned to face Jax, who stood two steps below her, bringing them almost eye-to-eye. "Well, I guess this is me," she said, gesturing to the front door. "And Lois was really right about my drinking capacity," she said in embarrassment. "I was the talk of the dorm in college. I always won all the chugging contests that the fraternities held." She crossed her heart with her first finger. "I feel sober as a judge – I promise."

Jax nodded seriously. "OK, then, I guess that about covers it."

Brenda shuffled one foot nervously. {Isn’t the man going to kiss me goodnight? Maybe he’s not as much of a Wulfgar as I thought.} "Yeah, I guess it does," she said softly.

Then Jax surprised her when he looked up into her eyes and he cupped his hands around her face gently. "All except for this," he said on a whisper, and he brought his face down to hers so quickly that she almost didn’t have time to close her eyes. His lips rubbed back and forth gently across hers, teasing and tasting, and then settled down on her mouth for an in-depth exploration. Brenda’s hands fluttered in mid-air for a few seconds, and then settled on Jax’s shoulders.

Wulfgar would have been proud of him.

To be continued……