Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

Really, Mindy Thought, She Shouldn’t Get Such A Warm, Fuzzy Feeling When Faced With Such A Humbug.

Nevertheless, warm and fuzzy—among other sensations—just so happened to be exactly what Reed.or rather, Dr. Atchison.aroused in her.

No, no, no, no, not aroused, she hastily corrected herself. No way did he arouse her. Nuh-uh. Never in a million years. She was a pregnant woman about to be tossed out of her home on her keister. The last thing she needed to be feeling these days was aroused by some guy she’d just met.

No, surely what Reed—Dr. Atchison—did was, um…oh, gosh…Inspire her. Yeah, that was it. Pregnant women were always experiencing feelings of inspiration, weren’t they? And hey, it was Christmas, after all. A very inspirational time of year. So it was inspiration she felt when faced with Reed Atchison. Inspiration, not arousal…

Dear Reader,

Hey, look us over—our brand-new cover makes Silhouette Desire look more desirable than ever! And between the covers we’re continuing to offer those powerful, passionate and provocative love stories featuring rugged heroes and spirited heroines.

Mary Lynn Baxter returns to Desire and locates our November MAN OF THE MONTH in the Heart of Texas, where a virgin heroine is wary of involvement with a younger man.

More heart-pounding excitement can be found in the next installment of the Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB with Secret Agent Dad by Metsy Hingle. Undercover agent Blake Hunt loses his memory but gains adorable twin babies—and the heart of lovely widow Josie Walters!

Ever-popular Dixie Browning presents a romance in which opposites attract in The Bride-in-Law. Elizabeth Bevarly offers you A Doctor in Her Stocking, another entertaining story in her miniseries FROM HERE TO MATERNITY. The Daddy Search is Shawna Delacorte’s story of a woman’s search for the man she believes fathered her late sister’s child. And a hero and heroine are in jeopardy on an island paradise in Kathleen Korbel’s Sail Away.

Each and every month, Silhouette Desire offers you six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance. So make a commitment to sensual love and treat yourself to all six!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

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A Doctor in Her Stocking
Elizabeth Bevarly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

is an honors graduate of the University of Louisville and achieved her dream of writing full-time before she even turned thirty! At heart, she is also an avid voyager who once helped navigate a friend’s thirty-five-foot sailboat across the Bermuda Triangle. Her dream is to one day have her own sailboat, a beautifully renovated older model forty-two-footer, and to enjoy the freedom and tranquillity seafaring can bring. Elizabeth likes to think she has a lot in common with the characters she creates—people who know love and life go hand in hand. And she’s getting some firsthand experience with motherhood, as well—she and her husband have a five-yearold son, Eli.

For Mom and Dad, who always made Christmas wonderful.

One

“Terrific. Nothing in today’s paper, either.”

In one hand, Mindy Harmon held the eviction notice with which her landlord had gifted her two weeks ago. In the other, she gripped the Monday real estate classifieds, wherein she could find not a thing to suit her needs—or, more correctly, her pocketbook. Again. And seeing as how Christmas was barely three weeks away, it wasn’t likely that much would open up anytime soon. Certainly not within the thirteen days she had left before she would be forced out onto the street

If she’d had a third hand, Mindy would have used it to comfort the new life growing in her womb. So, dropping the eviction notice onto her minuscule kitchen table-which, like the apartment and virtually everything else in it, was also rented—she curled her fingers over her softly budding torso, stroking with a slow, rhythmic caress.

“Looks like we’re going to be homeless for Christmas, kiddo,” she said softly, “unless some fairy godmother steps in to work some holiday magic for us.”

She sighed heavily. Ah, well. This certainly wasn’t the first setback she’d seen in her life, and, undoubtedly, it wouldn’t be the last. Still, setbacks were a bit tougher to take now that she had someone besides herself to think about. Especially someone so tiny and defenseless, someone who would be relying solely on Mindy for his—or her—survival.

“Oh, Sam,” she muttered aloud to her dead husband. “You really ruined Christmas this year, didn’t you? And here I thought you’d never top the mess you made of things last year.”

Of course, the catastrophe of last Christmas now paled in comparison to what the holiday promised to hold this year. Last year, all Sam Harmon had done was drink himself into oblivion and pass out on the Christmas tree. Of course, that, unfortunately, had resulted in the tree crashing into the fireplace. Which, even more unfortunately, had caused the tree to catch fire. And that, most unfortunately of all, had turned their entire house into a blazing tinderbox.

And as if all that still hadn’t been enough to ruin the holiday, after the smoke had cleared, Sam, who had always, always, insisted on controlling the checkbook—because, hey, he was the man, and the man always took care of the finances, unless he was a total wuss—had revealed that he had neglected to pay a few bills here and there recently. Like, for example, their homeowner’s insurance.

At least the two of them had come out of it alive. Homeless and penniless, but alive. And there had been a bright spotthe tragedy had made Sam finally realize that he needed to get help with his drinking. By summer, he’d been sober for nearly six months, and things had begun to look up. They’d even decided to start a family, and in August, Mindy learned she was expecting.

But the good times were short-lived. The day after she’d revealed her pregnancy to him, Sam started drinking again. And a few nights after that, on his way home from work via Stumpy’s Bar and Grill, he’d driven into a tree at a muchhigher-than-legal speed, and had been killed instantly.

Leaving Mindy, at twenty-seven years of age, widowed, expecting and broke. His life insurance had been just enough for her to bury him, pay off the mortgage for a house they didn’t even have anymore and bail herself out of the massive credit card debt they’d accrued over the years, thanks to Sam’s unrelenting spending. But there had been nothing—absolutely nothing—left to spare.

She supposed she should still be grieving for Sam—after all, it had only been four months since his death. But she’d had so many other things to think about in that time, so many other matters that had commanded her attention instead—taking care of herself and her unborn baby, making sure she had enough to eat and a place to sleep, and a way to pay for all the medical expenses, not to mention the endless array of things that the baby would need in the coming months. Sam hadn’t given her much choice in the matter. He hadn’t left her in a state where she could afford to grieve.

And, truth be told, their marriage had hardly been a happy one. They’d wed barely a month after meeting, and Mindy had realized—too late—that she really didn’t know her husband at all. Instead of the handsome, charming, happy-golucky sort she had thought Sam to be, she’d quickly learned that he could be moody and unpredictable when he was drinking. And he drank a lot. Too much. Enough to put a significant strain on their marriage.

In spite of all that, though, she’d made up her mind early on that she would make the marriage a good one, no matter what she had to do. Marriage was for keeps, after all, till death—

Well, it was for keeps, that was all. And Mindy struggled for years to make hers work, to smooth over the rocky spots and stay the course. Sam, however, hadn’t much shared her desire to keep things on track. More than once, he’d come home late smelling of bars and bourbon and beautiful women. Mindy had blamed his behavior on his drinking, but even in those all-too-few months of sobriety, even when the bars and bourbon were out of the picture, she knew the beautiful women weren’t.

She had hoped becoming pregnant would make a difference for both of them. Sam had shared her enthusiasm for having a baby, had agreed wholeheartedly that he wanted to become a father as much as she wanted to be a mother. But, as always, he let her down there, too. Because the prospect of becoming a father—of having to be responsible for someone other than himself—had driven him right back to his old life-style.

Mindy sighed again as she tossed the classifieds down onto the table beside the eviction notice, splaying both hands open over her softly swollen belly. She was certainly no stranger to poverty, having grown up surrounded by it. And likewise, she was accustomed—pretty much—to being alone. Except for her four years married to Sam—which had been pretty lonely, too, now that she thought about it—she’d been alone since her mother’s death when she was sixteen; she’d never known her father. And she was confident she could take care of herself, just as she had been doing for the last decade. But the little one…Ah, there was the worry. Because providing for herself was nothing compared to caring for a tiny, helpless life who would be solely dependent on her for survival.

She curled her fingers a little more possessively into her belly, battling the tears that threatened. Boy, pregnant women cried a lot, she thought. And she still had four months to go before the baby was born. Four months of complete uncertainty. Four months of wondering just how on earth she was going to manage to raise a baby on her meager income from waiting tables at a diner. Four months of feeling alone, frightened and anxious. Four months of worrying over how she was going to survive.

And then, once the baby was born, she knew, life would only hold more fear, more anxiety, more worry.

But, hey, that was four whole months away, she tried to reassure herself, swiping a quick finger under each eye. A lot could happen in four months. And she certainly wasn’t as bad off as some people, she reminded herself. She had a roof over her head and a warm bed to sleep in—at least for another two weeks. And she had food in the refrigerator, heat in the radiator and a job that paid her a steady, if meager, wage.

And in three weeks, it would be Christmas, she recalled with a smile. This was the most wonderful time of the year. The most magical time of the year. The most hopeful time of the year.

Yeah, a lot could happen between now and the baby’s birth. For the moment, at least, she…they…were okay. For the moment, she had everything she needed. For the moment, the balance of her life was just fine. She glanced down at her watch and frowned. And for the moment, she was running late for her shift, she realized. She was going to have to hustle if she wanted to make it to Evie’s Diner in time for the afterwork dinner rush.

Quickly, Mindy ran a brush through her unruly, shoulder length tresses, then bound them atop her head with a yellow ribbon, in a negligent heap of pale gold curls. A few pieces escaped to cascade around her face, but she didn’t have time to fix them. Instead, she hastily donned her yellow waitress uniform and white tights, and stepped into her white sneakers. Then she thrust her arms through the sleeves of a white sweater to ward off the chill of a South Jersey winter while she was working, and grabbed her coat from the closet by the front door.

As she locked the door behind herself, she couldn’t help but think that she would only be performing the gesture for another two weeks. Ed Franke—or, rather, Ed Cranky, as she inevitably thought of her joyless landlord—was throwing everyone out of the building, just in time to turn the place into a Christmas co-op. And with no family to turn to, there was nothing Mindy could do except find another place to stay once that due date arrived.

The phrase due date came back to haunt her as she raced down the stairs toward the street, stuffing her hands into her mittens as she went. Because even though the date of her eviction loomed far more heavily than the date of her baby’s birth, frankly, Mindy wasn’t ready for either of them. Unfortunately for her, though, there was no way she could avoid them. Because they would both be coming, all too soon.

Sure as Christmas.

Dr. Reed Atchison was in a lousy mood. But then, that wasn’t really surprising, seeing as how, so far today, he’d overslept, nicked his chin something fierce while shaving, skidded off a snowy road into a pile of snow that couldn’t have been more inconveniently placed and missed his turnoff on U.S. 31, thanks to unpredictable winter traffic—all of which had added up to making him late for work.

And that had just been that morning.

Since then, Reed had also had to intercede in a near-fracas between two dietary aides over whether Mr. Hunnicutt was on the bland or the high-fiber diet, and he’d had to tell Mrs. Wyatt Westaway that what she’d been certain was a life-threatening, malignant tumor in her chest was really only a gastric reaction spurred by her lactose intolerance. Plus, he had just come from four hours in surgery, and now he was hungrier than he’d ever been in his entire life. And as if all that weren’t enough, to make matters even worse, on top of everything else.

He grumbled under his breath. On top of all that, it was Christmastime. Christmastime. Dammit. Just the thing to make a crummy day even crummier, and to make a scroogey man even scroogier.

Bah, humbug, he thought in the crummiest, scroogiest voice he could mentally muster. What’s for dinner?

As if conjured by his thoughts, his colleague and what passed for his closest friend in the world, Dr. Seth Mahoney, strode into the locker room that all the male surgeons of Seton General Hospital shared. And as always, Seth was way too happy for Reed’s tolerance. Way too warm. Way too sunny of disposition. Way too blond.

Honestly. How Reed and Seth had ever become friends in the first place was a complete and unsolvable mystery. They were opposites in every way, physical as well as metaphysical. Reed’s hair was black, his eyes brown, his features blunt and forbidding. He was the polar opposite of Seth’s blond, blue-eyed, all-American-boyishness. Even their personal philosophies, and their outlooks on life, the universe and everything were totally at odds. Where Seth saw hope for the planet and the good in all people, Reed saw the truth—that they were all headed to hell in a handbasket. In the fast lane. Two at a time.

Total opposites, for sure. Seth, after all, loved this time of year.

“Reed!” the other man exclaimed when he saw Reed struggling to tug on his hiking boot. “Thank God you’re here. I’ve just sewn Mr. Hoberman’s scalp back on, and I’m ravenous for dinner. Care to join me?”

Reed chuckled in spite of himself. “Gee, Seth, put that way, I don’t see how I can resist.” He finished tying up his boots, then rose to jerk a massive, oatmeal-colored sweater on over his T-shirt and faded jeans. That done, he scrubbed both hands restlessly through his dark hair to tame it and rubbed his open palms over a day’s growth of heavy beard.

“But it better be someplace casual,” he added. “I’m not changing my clothes again. And I’m not in the mood to mind my manners, either.”

“And this is news?” Seth pulled the top half of his pale blue hospital scrubs over his head, then dunked it easily into the laundry bin with a proud “Yesss!” for his perfect twopointer. Which was no big deal, seeing as how the bin was only a foot away from the guy, Reed noted with a shake of his head. Then he went to work on his pants.

Once divested of his scrubs, he strode in his boxer shorts to the locker beside Reed’s and wrestled it open. “I was thinking of trying that diner over on Haddonfield Road,” he said, the metallic bang of the locker door punctuating his statement. “Evie’s it’s called. A couple of the nurses ate there the other night and raved about it.”

“Fine,” Reed said as he sat down to wait for his friend to finish dressing. “As long as there’s food—and lots of it—it’ll be perfect. I’m starving.”

Seth’s change of clothes was almost identical to Reed’s, except that his own blue jeans were quite a bit more disreputable looking, and his sweater was a dark charcoal gray.

Jeez, he was blond, Reed thought as he eyed the other man critically. And so damn young to be such a skilled surgeon. Although Reed was only thirty-seven himself, he felt like he was decades older than Seth. Then again, Seth was the med school boy wonder who had graduated from high school at sixteen, completed his premed studies by nineteen and finished his residency three years ago, at the age of twenty-seven. So Seth hadn’t exactly seen the same side of the world growing up that Reed had seen. And for that reason, he had doubtless aged a good bit more slowly.

To the casual observer, that observation would come as something of a surprise, because Reed Atchison was, and always had been, in a seemingly enviable position. He was a member of the generations-old, generations-rich Main Line Atchisons, one of the founding families of Philadelphia. His forebears had made their fortunes generations ago-one side of the family in steel, the other side in oil-and they’d hoarded every penny as if it would be the last they ever saw.

Reed still lived in the family stronghold in Ardmore, even though the massive house was way too big for a confirmed bachelor like himself. He kept a condo here in Cherry Hill, across the river and closer to the hospital, and he used it on those occasions when he didn’t feel like making the drive home across Philadelphia.

He knew he should sell the estate now that both of his parents were gone. He was the last of the Atchisons and would almost certainly remain single and child-free, the end of the generational line. He had no desire to marry, certainly no desire to procreate and no desire to maintain all those family traditions that had been virtually engraved in stone—Italian marble, naturally—before he’d even been born.

Because for all their wealth and social prominence, the generations-old, generations-rich, Main Line Atchisons were also generations-cold and generations-closed-minded. Hell, Reed had had access to all the money and material possessions a kid could ever want when he was growing up. He’d attended all the best schools, had worn all the right clothes, had driven all the most bitchin’ cars and had visited all the most happening vacation spots. But he sure could have used a hug or two along the way, and those had been glaringly absent from all the glitz and glamour.

The moment the thought materialized in his head, Reed shoved it away, frowning. Where the hell had that idea come from, anyway? He never had needed, never did need, never would need, a hug. Not now. Not ever. Hugs were…Well, they were. He fought off an involuntary shudder.

Unnecessary. That’s what hugs were. Reed had lived for thirty-seven years just fine without excessive—or any, for that matter—physical shows of affection and he certainly wasn’t going to start needing them now. Physical displays were way overrated, in his opinion. Signs of weakness.

Which was probably the main reason he’d partaken of so few of them in his life. Certainly he had a normal, healthy sex drive but he’d had little impulse to act on it over the years. He told himself it was because he just didn’t meet that many women he wanted to be physical with. And, hey, in this day and age, sex could get you killed. No, he didn’t exactly live like a monk. But he wasn’t a party animal, either. Most of his relationships had ended when the women lost interest, usually because he didn’t show them the kind of physical attention they demanded.

These days, Reed lived a quiet, uneventful, orderly life and he liked it that way just fine. Why mess it all up with a relationship, especially one that would include.hugging?

It was just that this time of year was so full of that stuff, he thought, conveniently blaming the holiday he’d always resented for his emotional restlessness of late. Everywhere he looked, people were getting maudlin and sentimental. All the magazines were sporting covers that depicted more-illuminated-than-usual family life. All the television commercials showed sappy scenes of homecoming and reunion, over and over and over again. Everyone everywhere was wishing him a happy holiday, every time he turned around.

Like Reed would ever have a happy holiday. Or a homecoming or reunion. Or even a more-illuminated-than-usual family life. No sense in getting all maudlin and sentimental. It could only lead to trouble.

“Hey, man, you look like you could use a hug.”

Reed jerked up his head to glower at his friend’s assessment, only to find Seth holding back his laughter.

“I do not want to go there,” Reed muttered as he stood, suddenly oddly delighted by the fact that he was a good three inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than his friend. All of it solid rock, naturally, he thought further.

“Then quit looking like you just lost your best friend,” Seth told him, still smiling.

“Don’t tempt me,” Reed returned, only half joking.

But Seth wasn’t falling for it. “C’mon, Reed, it’s Christmas. Will you please just lighten up?”

“Christmas,” Reed echoed blandly. “All the more reason to feel cranky.” Then, just for good measure, he added, “Bah, humbug.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Scrooge, for that enlightening, yet seasonal, observation.” Seth shook his head in what was clearly feigned disgust. “You know, I’m really glad I didn’t spring for the Russell Stovers for you this year. You’ll have to make do with an old, fossilized Hershey bar I found under my sofa cushion last July.”

“Just don’t wrap it, okay?” Reed said. “I hate all that festive red and green.”

But Seth only chuckled some more. “I have never met a man more predisposed to holiday grumpiness than you are. I’m sure there must be a reason for it, and if you were really my friend, you’d tell me what it was, but.” With what sounded like a heartfelt sigh, he shut his locker door with a resounding clank and turned to Reed. “I guess, for now, I’ll just have to look for the best in you.”

This time Reed was the one to chuckle, but his dry, derisive laughter in no way mirrored the good humor his friend’s had held. “If you want to find the best in me, then you’ll have to dig pretty damned deep,” he said.

“Hey, no problem,” Seth answered readily. “I’m a surgeon, remember? A really good one, too. I know what’s deep inside everyone. And I have a college degree to prove it.”

He knew what was deep inside everyone, huh? Reed mused. Now there was a troubling thought.

But before he could comment, Seth continued. “See, that’s where we differ,” he said.

“Only there?”

Reed’s sarcasm went right over his friend’s head. Either that or, like always, Seth just chose to ignore it. Because he went on, “When I go into a person, I’m looking for the good stuff and I work with that. And when you go in, you’re looking for the bad, and that takes priority.”

“Is this some weird surgeon’s angle on the glass being halffull or half-empty?”

Seth nodded. “Yeah, in a way, I guess it is. I’m just saying that I refuse to be blinded by the bad things in life, when those are so few and far between. It’s the good things that are most obvious, most evident, most abundant. And those are what make us able to survive the bad things.”

“Oh, please. You can’t possibly believe that the good in the world outweighs the bad. There’s poverty, hatred, bigotry, terrorism, war—”

“Love, honor, education, beauty, art,” Seth immediately interrupted him.

But Reed wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. “Sickness, death, crime, drugs,” he continued to enumerate.

Seth, however, was no more willing to back down than Reed was. “Music, chocolate, lingerie, prime rib-”

“All right, all right,” Reed surrendered. “Let’s just agree to disagree, okay?”

But Seth shook his head. “No, I don’t agree to do that.”

Reed eyed him in confusion. “You always did before.”

“It’s Christmas,” he repeated unnecessarily. “This is the best time of year to focus on the good things. Frankly, I’m getting really tired of all your pessimism.”

Reed opened his mouth to object, but Seth held up a hand, palm out, to cut him off. “Just hear me out,” he said. “I’m going to make a little wager with you, to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong.”

Now Reed eyed his friend with suspicion. “What are you talking about?”

Seth settled his hands on his hips, staring at his friend with much consideration. “You insist that the bad outweighs the good in people, right?”

Reed nodded. “Didn’t I make that obvious?”

Seth ignored his question and asked instead, “You are of the opinion that man is, by nature, at best, indifferent, right?”

Another nod. “Right.”

“You think the average person is more likely to turn his back on someone in need than to lend that person a helping hand, correct?”

“Correct.”

Seth paused, then crossed his arms over his chest and eyed Reed some more. “I, on the other hand, am convinced that the good outweighs the bad, that people are, by nature, decent folk and that, if given a choice, the average person will be inclined to help out another individual in need.”

“My, what a rebel you are,” Reed responded dryly. “Hang on a second while I alert the media.”

But Seth only ignored him again. “And I’m going to bet you that I’m right and you’re wrong.”

Reed smiled. He loved betting with Seth. Because, invariably, Seth lost. He was a lousy gambler, doubtless because he was such a flagrant optimist. Optimists never came out ahead in wagers. There was no place for hope in the world of chance. But instead of leaping to agree to the other man’s offer, Reed hesitated.

“What’s in it for me, if I win?” he asked. “More important, what’s in it for you, if I lose? And just how the hell are we supposed to settle something like this anyway? It’s all abstract.”

“It’s Christmas,” Seth repeated, more emphatically this time. “That means goodwill toward humankind abounds out there right now. You sure you want to go through with this wager? Things are heavily weighed in my favor.”

“Oh, please,” Reed muttered. “Christmas makes no difference at all. People still hate each other, they’re still willing to take advantage of each other. Now more than ever, I’d bet. There must be no end to the holiday scams that arise this time of year.”

“I say you’re wrong,” Seth insisted. “I predict that within hours of our walking out of this hospital, we’ll witness some act of goodwill that was totally unprovoked.”

Reed narrowed his eyes at his friend. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you and I—” he punctuated the statement by pointing a finger first at Reed, then at himself “—we’re going to spend the rest of the evening together. And before this evening is through, I’ll bet you that we see someone do something nice for someone else. For no other reason than that it was the right and decent thing to do, because one person cared about what happened to another.”

Reed glanced down at his watch. “There’s less than five hours left to this evening, pal,” he said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little optimistic?”

Seth smiled. “Uh, yeah. That was kind of the point, Reed. It just goes to show you how absolutely certain I am that I’ll win.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Reed assured him. “But I don’t have any problem taking advantage of a crazy man. As long as the prize is right. What do I win at the end of this evening, when you realize what a sap you’ve set yourself up to be?”

Now Seth’s smile turned predatory. “If you win—which, it goes without saying, you won’t—I’ll spring for an allexpenses-paid golf holiday in Scotland next summer. For two. You and me. Won’t cost you a dime.”

Reed thought about that for a minute. “Throw in a bottle of The MacCallan, and you’re on.”

“You got it,” Seth agreed readily. “But if I win,” he hastily continued, before Reed had a chance to start feeling cocky, “then I get something of equal value in return.”

“You want me to pay for a trip to Scotland for two? I can do—”

“No,” Seth told him. “What I want in return is for Dr. Scrooge to perform an act of humanity, of goodwill, himself. A gesture of complete selflessness and kindness.”

“What?” Reed exclaimed.

“If I win,” Seth said, “then you have to do something nice for somebody.”

Reed threw his friend a look that he knew must be ripe with suspicion. Because suspicious was exactly how he was feeling at the moment. “I have to do something nice for someone? That’s all?”

Seth barked out a laugh this time. “That’s all?” he echoed incredulously. “Listen to you. You act like it won’t cost you anything to perform an act of selfless kindness for someone.”

Reed’s suspicion compounded at the statement. “It won’t,” he told the other man.

Seth smiled, a smile that was knowing, confident and a bit sad. “Then how come you’ve never done something nice for anyone before?” he asked softly.

Reed opened his mouth to reply but realized, much to his dismay, that he had no idea what to say. He hadn’t ever done anything nice for anyone before, he thought. Had he? He tried to remember. But he honestly couldn’t come up with a single incident where he had committed an act of selfless, unprovoked, unpremeditated. niceness.

It wasn’t that he had anything against gestures of goodwill, he tried to assure himself. He just didn’t trust them. And he wasn’t a bad man. He was just a…a thoughtless man? An uncaring man? No, surely not, he told himself. He was thoughtful. He was caring. He thought and cared about…stuff. Sure, he did. It had just never occurred to him to.what was it that bumper sticker said? Commit Acts of Random Kindness and Senseless Beauty? But the reason for that was simply because he wasn’t one much for bumper-sticker philosophy, that was all.

Wasn’t it?

“I…” he began. But no more words were forthcoming.

“You what?” Seth cajoled.

“I…” Reed tried again.

“What?”

“I…I accept your wager,” he finally finished lamely. “If I lose-which I won’t,” he hastened to add, “I’ll even throw in a bottle of The MacCallan.”

Seth nodded, and Reed got the feeling the other man knew something he didn’t know himself. But all he said was, “Good. Then let’s eat.”

Two

Mindy had never been more exhausted in her entire life than she was as the dinner rush began to wind down. Boy, the first trimester had been bad enough, she thought, had had her nodding off at the worst times, in the strangest places. She’d once fallen asleep while riding the elevator to the OB-GYN’s office. She recalled reading somewhere that women were supposed to have a burst of energy in the second trimester. They were supposed to feel strong and animated and invincible, like some kind of prenatal Wonder Woman.

Mindy, however, felt more like Washer Woman.

“Order up, Mindy!”

She sighed heavily, hoisting herself up from the chair behind the counter where she’d collapsed in the hopes of stealing a minute or two off her feet. Then, when a rush of wintry wind blasted her from the door that was opening ahead of two more diners, she hugged her sweater more tightly around herself. She was almost as cold these days as she was tired. She hadn’t felt warm for five months now.

She stood up on tiptoe to pluck the Reuben sandwich and fries from the kitchen window, settling them onto her tray before reaching up to retrieve their mate, a chicken salad on whole wheat. And as she crossed the diner to present both plates to their rightful owners, another patron lifted a hand, indicating he wanted to place an order. Mindy nodded as she took care of one table before approaching the other, tugging a stubby pencil from beneath her by-now-dismembered ponytail as she made her way to the newcomer.

She smiled as she stopped by his table, so much did he resemble Santa Claus—a really skinny Santa Claus, anyway. But where Santa’s dapper red suit looked plenty warm, this guy’s attire was neither red nor dapper, nor did it look in any way warm. His tweed jacket was threadbare, his gloves more hole than wool. A knit cap covered his ears, but she couldn’t believe the man received much warmth from it.

Poor thing, she thought. It must be in the twenties out there tonight—so far, December had been unseasonably cold—and he probably didn’t have anyplace else to go. She thanked her lucky stars again that she wasn’t out on the streets—yet—and conjured the most winning smile from her arsenal.

“What can I get for you?” she asked the man.

He smiled back at her, and although he may have been cold on the outside, he certainly radiated warmth from within. “I’m celebratin’,” he said without preamble.

Mindy chuckled, so infectious were his high spirits. “Good for you,” she told him. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s my birthday,” he replied proudly, his voice sounding rusty from disuse but happy nonetheless.

“Hey, congratulations. Is it the big three-oh?” she teased, because, clearly, it had been decades since this man had seen thirty.

He laughed and shook his head. “I’m eighty years old today, missy. Eighty! What d’ya think about that?”

“Get out!” she exclaimed, nudging his bony shoulder playfully with her elbow. “And here I thought I was going to have to card you if you asked for a beer.”

He laughed some more. “No, ma’am. I don’t touch that stuff. But I think I might like to sample some of that chili I hear they do so good here.”

Mindy nodded as she scribbled down his order. “It’s the best,” she assured him. “Evie’s special recipe, passed down through generations. What else can I get for you?”

The man’s smile dimmed some. “Maybe just a glassa water. That oughta do me.”

She started to object, started to remind him that it was his birthday and that he was entitled to celebrate with more than just a bowl of chili, then she realized that a bowl of chili was probably all he could afford to buy. And heaven only knew how long he’d been saving to manage even that for a birthday feast.

So she smiled once more, tucking her pencil back into her hair, and said, “I’ll be right back with your water.”

Among other things, she thought. She rattled the change in her pocket as she strode toward the carousel over the kitchen window. She’d had a good night tonight, considering the fact that it was Monday. Thanks to the nearby mall and hospital, Evie’s Diner always had a nice, steady stream of patrons, both from people who worked in those places and the people visiting them. Heck, Mindy had probably cleared almost twenty bucks this shift, in addition to her—very tiny, granted—wages. Still, there was no reason she couldn’t spring for a little birthday present for someone who was marking such a major milestone.

She made a few more notations to the man’s order, then clipped it onto the carousel and spun it around to the kitchen. “Order in, Tom!” she called to the cook. Then she went to the coffeepot to fill a cup of hot birthday cheer for her customer.

“The club sandwich looks good.”

Reed mumbled something in agreement to Seth’s gourmet analysis, but his attention wasn’t on the plastic-coated menu in his hand. It was on the blond, pale, exhausted-looking—and slightly pregnant—waitress on the other side of the diner, the one who seemed to be this close to falling over if one more stiff wind from outside hit her. Involuntarily, his gaze skidded over to the main entrance as two more diners strode through. He had to force himself not to shout, “Hey! Close the damned door, will ya?” or jump up to close it himself.

Fortunately, when he looked over at her again, he saw that the little blond waitress had moved behind the counter to sit down. Reed mentally willed the newcomers to take a seat in somebody else’s section and glanced down at the menu again.

Hmm…The club sandwich did look pretty good. Of course, at this point, he was so hungry that a rubber chicken with a wax apple stuck in its mouth would look good.

“No, the French dip, I think,” Seth was saying.

But again, Reed’s attention had been diverted, because wouldn’t you know it, those two idiots who had just come in had indeed sat down at one of the exhausted-looking waitress’s tables, and she was making her way toward them now.

He felt he could honestly say that he’d never met a weak woman in his entire life. Never. The doctors and nurses of the feminine persuasion who surrounded him at the hospital were in no way fragile, in no way weak. On the contrary, they were the hardiest, sturdiest people he knew, both physically and emotionally. And the women in his family, both Atchisons on his father’s side and Thurmons on his mother’s side, had been uncommonly stalwart. Strong-willed, strong-minded, strongtempered.

Which maybe explained why he couldn’t take his eyes off of the waitress who seemed to be none of those things. She was an alien creature of sorts, a fragile female. And something inside Reed—something he had never felt before in his entire life—surged up out of nowhere, nearly overwhelming him. A desire to protect her, he marveled. To take care of her. That was what the something welling up inside him was. She was a total stranger, he tried to remind himself. And probably not quite as fragile as she appeared.

Still…

He shook off the incomplete rumination as he watched her. In spite of her obvious exhaustion and her faintly rounded belly, she moved with certainty and purpose. And even though she looked ready to collapse, she stood firm—even smiled a little—as she scribbled down an order on her pad and moved away from the table. She joked with the elderly man seated in the booth across from Reed and Seth, and her laughter sounded robust enough as it warmed the room around her.

And still Reed couldn’t quite take his eyes off of her. Still, he felt compelled to do something—he had no idea exactly what—to ease her fatigue.

He told himself it was because she was pretty, in a pale, fragile kind of way, and any man worth his weight in testosterone would just naturally respond to that. But there must be something else, too, he mused. Because he’d been around women who were prettier than she was, women who wore much-more-attractive outfits than a yellow polyester waitress uniform and sneakers. And they hadn’t come close to capturing his attention the way this woman had.

She was pretty, though. And she smiled a lot. And even though she seemed fragile, there was something about her that indicated she probably could take care of herself just fine. That maybe she had been taking care of herself for some time now. He supposed looks could be deceiving. And after all was said and done, she really was none of his business.

Still, he thought, she was pretty.

“Definitely the French dip,” Seth said, bringing Reed’s thoughts back to the matter at hand—food.

Their waitress—a brash, blousy brunette whose name tag proclaimed her to be Donna—returned then, and Seth repeated his order for her. Reed asked for the club sandwich because he’d never read past it—and, hey, it did look good—along with coffee. He was about to ask for a side of onion rings when a quiet outburst of laughter erupted from the other side of the room, claiming not only his attention but Seth’s and their waitress’s as well.

“‘Scuse me for a minute, will you, gents?” she asked as she moved away from their table and over to the one across the way.

As Reed and Seth watched, every waitress in the place, along with the cashier, the busboy and a couple of gravystained kitchen workers, gathered around the other booth and began belting out a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” to the elderly man seated there. He seemed not to know what to make of the episode at first, then he smiled, a huge grin that softened his craggy features and actually brought tears to his eyes.

Tears, Reed marveled. Just because a bunch of diner employees were singing “Happy Birthday” to him. Unbelievable. He shook his head in bemusement, then turned to say something to Seth. But he stopped short, because, naturally, Seth was looking as if he wanted to burst into tears himself.

Oh, man. What a pushover.

“Why don’t you just go over and join them for another chorus?” Reed asked, only half joking.

But Seth didn’t rise to the bait. “Hey, if they sing another chorus, maybe I will.”

“You are such a bleeding heart.”

“Hey, at least I have a heart to bleed.”

Meaning, of course, that Reed didn’t have a heart, he thought grimly. Then again, he couldn’t exactly deny Seth’s assertion, could he? Not when he went out of his way, every single day of his life, to illustrate exactly that fact. Hey, it was hereditary, after all. Heartlessness ran on both sides of his family tree.

“Why is it that you became a neurologist?” Reed suddenly asked the other man. “You’d do much better with hearts.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Seth returned dryly. “You being a cardiologist, I mean, seeing as how you would do so much better with heads.”

“Maybe I just like cutting them open,” Reed said, unable to help himself. “Or better yet, cutting them out.”

“Or maybe,” Seth posed, “you’re just trying to figure out what makes them tick. Trying to learn how to jump-start your own.”

Reed eyed him thoughtfully, thinking he should probably be offended by what Seth had said. Oddly, he wasn’t. In spite of that, he responded, “You know, that’s a hell of a thing for a man to say to his best friend.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Seth agreed. “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Seth was spared having to answer that question by the return of their waitress, who was still chuckling when she pulled her pencil from behind her ear again. With a couple of quick cracks of her gum, she sighed out a final laugh and said, “Oh, that was fun. Now then. Can I get anything else for youse? Coffee? Beer?”

Reed was about to ask for those onion rings again, but Seth gestured toward the other table and piped up, “What was that all about?”

Donna smiled, one of those too-bright, why-don’t-youcome-up-to-my-place-and-see-my-etchings? kind of smiles. And Seth, naturally, returned it with one of his own. Seth always had liked brash, blousy brunettes. And brash, blousy blondes. Brash, blousy redheads, too. And really, they didn’t have to be brash. Or blousy, either, for that matter. As long as they were breathing.

“That,” Donna said, “was yet another one of Mindy’s good deeds. The kid’s got a heart of gold. Go figure.”

Well, that certainly perked Seth right up, Reed noticed. Not that Seth needed perking. He was just about the perkiest damned man on the planet already.

“Good deed?” he echoed. “Heart of gold? Gosh, that’s really, really interesting. And just who, may I ask, is Mindy?”

Donna jutted her stubby pencil over her shoulder, toward the pretty—pregnant—blond waitress who had commanded so much of Reed’s attention. “She’s a total sweetheart, that’s who Mindy is,” she told them. “Like I said, go figure. In the last year, her house burned to the ground, her husband got himself killed and every nickel she had left went to straightening out the mess he’d made of their lives. And now she’s being evicted from her crummy apartment so the scumbag landlord can turn it into a co-op. And she’s five months preggers, to boot. And broke. And all she has is this lousy-paying job to get her through. But even at that, she bought the old guy dinner tonight, because it’s his eightieth birthday.”

“Oh, really?” Seth asked with much interest, folding an elbow onto the table and cupping his chin in his palm. “My, but that was certainly a nice thing for her to do.”

Reed frowned, knowing where this was going. “So that must be her grandfather or something, right?” he asked, jerking his head toward the elderly man across the way.

Donna shook her head, her dark ponytail dancing when she did. “Naw, she never saw the guy before tonight. He’s homeless, I think. Prob’ly usually gets his dinner out of the Dumpster out back.”

“Oh, really?” Seth reiterated. “She’d never met him before tonight? He was a total stranger to her?”

“Yeah, but on account of it’s his birthday, he came in and ordered a bowl of chili, ‘cause he wanted to celebrate. But Mindy thought he should get more than just a bowl of chili, so she used some of her tips to buy him a cuppa coffee and a steak sandwich and a piece a peach pie to go with.”

“Oh, really?”

Donna, finally, gave him a funny look. “Yeah, really. Boy, it doesn’t take much to interest you, does it?”

Seth threw her a salacious grin and cocked one blond eyebrow. “You might be surprised.”

Donna tossed him a pretty lascivious smile right back. “Oh, yeah?”

Reed cleared his throat in a manner that was by no means discreet. “Uh, do you think you could go ahead and place that order now?” he asked. He was, after all, going to take a bite out of the table if someone didn’t put something edible in front of him soon.

“Yeah, sure thing,” Donna said, turning.

Reed was about to add that extra part about onion rings before she could get away, but before he had a chance Seth caught her gently by the elbow and said, “So this Mindy has nothing in the world, is about to be bounced out of her apartment, along with her unborn child, but she squeezed out a few bucks from her tips just so this old guy she’d never met before could have a decent birthday dinner?”

Donna scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop. “Didn’t I just say that?”

Reed nodded and released her. “Yeah, you did. But I wanted to make sure my friend here heard all the details.”

“I heard,” Reed muttered.

As always, Seth ignored him. “Thanks, Donna,” he said instead, releasing their waitress so that she could place their order. Finally.

“No problem, big guy,” she returned with a bright smile. “I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

And then she was gone. Before Reed could tell her how much he wanted those onion rings. He sighed with much disappointment.

“Did you hear that, Reed?” Seth asked, turning to sit forward at the table again.

“I heard,” Reed repeated.

“Mindy, that big, selfless, generous sweetheart, did that out of the goodness of her heart.”

“I heard.”

“Just because it was the right thing to do.”

“I heard.”

“Because she’s a kind, decent human being.”

“I heard, dammit.”

Seth leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms with much satisfaction, grinning triumphantly. “Can you imagine?”

Reed ground his teeth hard. “According to our waitress, she’s also pregnant,” he pointed out. “It was probably just some kind of maternal instinct or hormonal reaction kicking in.”

Seth chuckled. “Yeah, you wish.”

There was no way Reed was going to get out of this one, he thought. Seth had gotten lucky tonight. He’d taken a chance that they’d encounter some bleeding heart like himself, and for once in his life, the guy’s gamble had played out. Which meant no golfing vacation in Scotland. No bottle of thirty-sixyear-old, single-malt scotch. But worse than all that, now Reed was going to have to do something…nice…for somebody.

In a word, ew.

“All right, you win,” he conceded. “I’ll perform a good deed. Can I just write a check to the Salvation Army?”

Seth smiled. “Of course you can. But don’t think for a moment that doing so will settle our wager.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“You have to perform a good deed,” his friend reminded him. “A physical act of niceness and goodwill. Check writing is too impersonal. But by all means, you can include a check to some deserving organization as part of your payment for your debt.”

“Fine.”

“But you know who could probably really use a helping hand right about now?” Seth added.

Reed narrowed his eyes. He could tell by the other man’s tone of voice that he wasn’t going to like the suggestion that would inevitably follow.

“Mindy, that’s who.”

Yep, Reed had known he wasn’t going to like his friend’s suggestion at all.

“I mean, think about it,” Seth continued. “She’s pregnant, she’s about to be evicted. And just three weeks before Christmas, too. Evicted, do you believe that? What kind of scumbag landlord does such a thing?”

Reed frowned at him. “Uh, yeah, I do believe that, Seth. I’m the one who expects the worst from everybody, remember?”

Seth gave that some thought. “Oh, yeah. Well, there you have it. Sometimes you’re right. Not usually,” he quickly interjected when Reed opened his mouth to pounce on the concession. “But sometimes. Anyway, getting back to Mindy.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I think she’d be a likely recipient for your goodwill,” Seth went on, ignoring, as always, Reed’s objection.

“Fine. Then I’ll write her a check.”

Seth shook his head. Vehemently. “No, no, no, no, no. You’re missing the whole point. You have to do something nice for her. A good deed.”

“Hey, writing a check is doing something. It involves a physical activity.”

Seth made a face at him. “You know what I mean.” Then, before Reed could utter another word, his friend lifted a hand and called out, “Oh, Mindy! Excuse me, Mindy?”

Reed squeezed his eyes shut tight. He could not believe what was happening. He felt as if he was in seventh grade again and his best buddy, Bobby Weatherly, was about to reveal the crush Reed had had on Susan Middleton. Man, that had been humiliating. To this day, Reed simply could not speak to any woman named Susan without feeling embarrassed. Now it looked as if he was going to have the same problem with all future Mindys.

The little blond waitress appeared to be understandably confused as she approached their table but she didn’t seem at all anxious. As she drew nearer, though, Reed saw that she looked even more fragile and exhausted than she had from a distance. Her eyes were smudged by faint purple crescents, her cheeks were overly pink, as if she’d exerted herself far too much this evening. Her face had a thin, pinched look to it, as if her pregnancy so far had left her drained.

As a doctor, even if he was a cardiologist instead of an obstetrician, he knew pregnancy hit different women different ways. Some women continued on with their lives as if there were nothing out of the ordinary going on with their bodies. Some women had more energy than ever. And some, like Mindy, were left looking almost ghostlike, thanks to the extra work their bodies were forced to perform in order to generate life.

She wrapped her sweater more tightly around herself as she paused by their table. Her gaze lit first on Seth, and then on Reed, then quickly ricocheted back to Seth, as if she’d been troubled by something in Reed’s expression.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Her voice, too, was thin and fragile, soft, but warm. She looked to be in her midtwenties, Reed thought, even if she did carry herself like an old woman. The other waitress’s words came back to him, almost as if he hadn’t heard them clearly the first time. She said Mindy’s husband had “gotten himself killed,” thereby leaving this young woman a widow. She’d suffered a very significant*md;and very recent, seeing as how her pregnancy was barely showing—tragedy, and now she was about to suffer another in being evicted from her home.

Why did life do that to some people? he wondered. Why did it just keep hitting them and hitting them and hitting them, then kicking them again for good measure when. they were down? Why were some people singled out from others to receive the lion’s share of misfortune? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. People like this pale, fragile woman surely deserved better than that.

“My friend and I couldn’t help but overhear that rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday,”‘ Seth said, scattering Reed’s thoughts. “Nor could we help but notice that you seemed to be leading the choir.”

Mindy smiled. “Yeah, it was great, wasn’t it? Well, not the singing necessarily,” she quickly qualified with an even brighter smile. “I know I have a long way to go before I could be a Supreme. I meant it’s great that Mr. McCoy has reached his eightieth birthday. Eighty! Isn’t that amazing?” she asked, her voice growing more animated. “I mean, think about it. He’s lived through the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, World War II, the Race for Space, the Cold War, Vietnam.”

“And he survived leisure suits and the disco era, too,” Seth added. “No mean feat, that.”

Mindy nodded. “Exactly. The world has changed so much in his lifetime. And he can remember all of it. It’s incredible.”

Reed looked over at Seth and found his friend hanging on Mindy’s every word, as if she were revealing the secrets of the universe to him. “Incredible,” he echoed in a voice that Reed had heard before, the one Seth used when he was fast falling for a woman he shouldn’t be falling for, fast or otherwise.

Of course, Seth fell fast for a new woman nearly every hour, which meant that Reed should put a stop to his descent right now. That way he could spare the innocent Mindy the ugly aftermath of his friend’s wandering ways.

“Miss, uh…” Reed began.

The waitress turned to him, but where she’d had a sunny smile in place for Seth, her features quickly schooled into a polite, if bland, expression for him. “Mindy is fine,” she told him.

Yes, Mindy is indeed fine, Reed thought before he could stop himself.

That thought was immediately followed by another, one that essentially went, Holy cow! Where did that come from? Immediately, he pushed both thoughts away. She was pregnant, for God’s sake, he reminded himself. No way did she deserve to be ogled like a.like a.like a beautiful woman, he finished lamely. Even if that was precisely what she was. She was a beautiful woman. One who was waif thin and delicate looking.

She was in no way the kind of woman he normally ogled, anyway, pregnant or otherwise. He preferred women his own age, professional women in his own income bracket, women who’d shared some of the same life experiences he’d had himself. Strong women. Women who didn’t look so damned exhausted and.well, fragile.

“Mindy,” he said. “You’ll have to excuse my friend here. He’s easily impressed.”

She nodded, but somehow he knew she had no idea what he was talking about. “Well, enjoy your dinner,” she said hastily, turning away.

“Wait,” Seth exclaimed, halting her progress, “don’t go.”

She spun around again, but this time her expression was unmistakably wary. “Was there something else? I’ll be happy to go get Donna for you.”

“No, no,” Seth told her. “It’s what we can do for you. Or rather, what my friend and colleague can do for you. Because, Mindy, sweetheart, Dr. Atchison here is about to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Seth turned his attention pointedly on Reed and asked, “Aren’t you, old buddy, old pal?”

Mindy eyed first the blond man in the booth before her, and then the black-haired one…and felt the hairs on the back of her neck leap to attention. The two men were like color negatives of each other: one handsome, fair and blue-eyed, the other handsome, dark and brown-eyed. Their dispositions, too, seemed to be utterly opposite each other. Where the blonde put Mindy immediately at ease and seemed pleasant enough, the dark-haired man sent every sense on alert and made her entire body hum with electricity.

Not that he seemed scary by any stretch of the imagination. Not in a dangerous way, at any rate. He did, however, inspire a kind of caution, the kind a woman felt when faced with a man who had the potential to break her heart. Strange, that, she thought, seeing as how she’d only known him for about thirty seconds now.

Although both men were certainly attractive, the blonde was a bit too boyish in his looks, a bit too adorable in his presentation, for Mindy to find him anything other than kind of cute. The dark-haired man, however.

Well, she’d always been partial to black hair. And brown eyes. And craggy, blunt good looks. Which made her choice of husband odd, now that she thought more about it, because Sam Harmon had been a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, surfer-dude wannabe. Therefore, this man was nothing at all like Sam. And therefore, she told herself, she shouldn’t feel intimidated by him the way she had felt around Sam there toward the end.

And really, intimidated was the last thing she felt at the moment. As standoffish as the dark-haired man’s demeanor seemed to be, Mindy immediately sensed something within him—way deep down within him—that was almost…personable? Warm? Good-hearted? Kind? Oh, no, surely not, she corrected herself. Not with a frown like that. Not with a glare like that.

Still…

“He really is going to make you an offer you can’t refuse,” the blond man said, shaking off the odd sensation winding its way through Mindy’s soul. “Just watch. Reed?” he said further. “Tell our studio audience what Mindy here has won.”

She eyed the dark-haired man—the one called Reed—in confusion, then turned back to the blonde. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you guys seem to have me at a loss. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She waited for the blond man to offer an explanation—or even the dark man, for that matter. She wasn’t particular, so long as she received some kind of explanation—and when none was forthcoming, she arched her eyebrows in silent query.

Finally taking the hint, the blond man dipped his head toward his companion. “My friend here,” he said, “is Dr. Reed Atchison, resident heart surgeon over at Seton General Hospital. I,” he added hastily, seeming genuinely surprised to realize that he had neglected to introduce himself as well, “am Dr. Seth Mahoney. And Reed and I have been having an interesting difference of opinion lately. You, my dear Miss…uh, Mindy.have just solved the dilemma for us.”

Mindy eyed him warily. “Um, thanks. I guess.”

“No, no, thank you,” he immediately—and very enthusiastically—replied. “This has been a most enlightening meal, and we haven’t even received our food yet.”

“We haven’t received our coffee yet, either,” the dark-haired man—Reed…Dr. Atchison—mumbled.

“Oh, I’ll go get Donna and remind her,” Mindy offered quickly, snatching the opportunity to excuse herself from what was promising to become a puzzling—if not outright bizarre—situation.

“Not yet,” the blonde—Seth…Dr. Mahoney…whoever—halted her.

She sighed fitfully. “I’m really sorry,” she said again, “but I don’t know what you guys are talking about, and I have a lot of work to do right now, so if you’ll just excuse me…”

The blond M.D. nodded. “I understand,” he said. Gosh, that made one of them, Mindy thought dryly. Before she could comment, however, he added, “We can continue our conversation after your shift has ended.”

Mindy shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think that would be—”

“It’s no problem,” the man assured her. Then he turned to his friend. “Right, Reed?”

Dr. Atchison grumbled something under his breath that she was fairly certain wasn’t an agreement.

“What was that?” Dr. Mahoney asked.

“I said, ‘Fine,’“ the other man snapped.

Funny, Mindy thought, but it sure hadn’t sounded as if he’d said, Fine.

“Um, really,” she continued hastily, “I don’t think I—”

“Of course you do,” Dr. Mahoney assured her.

Mindy decided not to dwell on that. “I’m probably going to be working late,” she said instead, “and you doubtless have other things to—”

“Not a thing in the world,” the blond doctor assured her. “In fact, we’ve been looking forward to a nice, leisurely meal, haven’t we, Reed?”

“Mmm.”

Dr. Mahoney smiled at Mindy winningly. “And there you have it.”

She opened her mouth to say something else that might excuse her from any further association with these two enigmatic—albeit very attractive and not a little intriguing—men, but Donna returned with their coffee, elbowing Mindy gently out of the way.

“You go sit,” the other waitress said. “Get off your feet for a little while. I’ll keep an eye on your tables. The dinner rush is about over, anyway. And you gotta take care of that little bun in your oven.”

Mindy felt herself color at the other waitress’s comment. She wrapped her sweater even more tightly around herself, crossing her arms over her lower abdomen as if she might protect the life growing there, even though there was really no threat to that life at all—not at the moment, anyway.

Because she was so small, and because this was her first time being pregnant, she still wasn’t showing that much, even though she was five months along. She had hoped the average observer wouldn’t notice her condition yet but she supposed she was kidding herself in that. Not that she hadn’t told her co-workers at Evie’s about it—hey, they deserved to know she’d be incapacitated for a few weeks come April, after all. But she didn’t want anyone else, especially total strangers, to know the particulars of her private life.

“Donna,” she muttered. “You don’t have to broadcast my…condition…to the whole world, you know.”

But Donna only shrugged as she dumped a handful of creamers onto the table. “It’s okay, Min,” she said. “These guys know all about it.”

Mindy closed her eyes and felt her cheeks flame brighter. “Donna…” she said again. Because these two men probably hadn’t noticed her condition before now. The reason they knew about her pregnancy was more than likely because someone—someone like, oh, say Donna—had told them about it. And seeing as how once you got Donna started, it was really hard to turn her off, Mindy could only imagine what else the other waitress had let slip.

“Oh, come on,” Donna said. “It’s no big deal, being knocked up and homeless. It happens to a lot of women.”

Mindy raised a hand to cup it over her eyes and closed them tight. “I was not knocked up,” she said. “Sam and I made a conscious decision to have a baby. Can I help it if he…” She sighed heavily, dropped her hand back to her side and strove for a bright smile that she was certain fell short. “Never mind. Just…try not to spread around the particulars, okay? Please?”

Donna shrugged again. “Sure thing, Min.” Then she turned to the two men seated at the booth. “Forget I said anything about Mindy’s…you know…situation, okay, gents? And please do point out to her that I never told you about what a big drunk her husband was, did I? Or how he slept around on her the whole time they were married? Or how, in my opinion, she’s better off without him anyway?”

“It’s true,” Dr. Mahoney agreed. “She never did tell us about that.”

Donna nodded, smugly, Mindy thought. “See? That was private, so I kept that part to myself.” She turned back to her two customers. “Your sandwiches should only take a few more minutes.”

And with that, Donna spun around and headed back toward the kitchen, leaving Mindy to fend for herself.

“Oooh…” she said, lifting her hand to her forehead again. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Here, sit down.”

She felt two strong hands cup her shoulders and softly urge her forward and was surprised, upon opening her eyes, to see that it was the dark-haired doctor who was doing the gentle cajoling. It seemed like a gesture that would have been more appropriate coming from the man who’d identified himself as Dr. Mahoney. Or perhaps not, she thought further as she let Dr. Atchison sit her down at his place in the booth. He remained standing, hooking his hands on his hips, but he glowered at his friend.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he said.

“What I’ve done?” the other doctor exclaimed. “I didn’t do anything. What are you talking about?”

“You’ve embarrassed her,” Dr. Atchison said. “How could you embarrass her like that?”

Dr. Mahoney gaped at him. “I didn’t do that. Donna did that.”

“But you’re the one who started this whole thing, so you’re responsible.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. Taking advantage of a pregnant woman. Just where do you get off?”

“Reed, what the hell has gotten into you? I never—”

“She obviously wants to be left alone, so we ought to just leave her alone.”

“But, Reed, she’s—”

“A nice girl. You said so yourself. So we should both definitely—”

“Excuse me!”

Mindy had to raise her voice when she interrupted, so animated—and loud—had the two men become in their argument. An argument that she seemed to be at the heart of, an argument she didn’t for one moment understand, an argument that everyone in Evie’s Diner seemed really, really interested in hearing. Thankfully, though, both men ceased at her outburst. Unfortunately, they both turned to stare at her in openmouthed surprise, as if she’d just jumped up onto the table to dance the. cha-cha with a rose stuck between her teeth.

She pushed her way out of the booth and stood next to Dr. Atchison, trying not to feel overwhelmed by the fact that he towered over her by at least a foot, and probably weighed twice as much as she did. “If you’ll both excuse me,” she said, “I have work to do.”

“We’ll talk later,” Dr. Mahoney told her as she turned to go.

“No, we won’t,” she assured him.

But without missing a beat, he assured her right back, “Oh, yes, Miss…Mindy…we will.”

Three

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Mindy said an hour later as she enjoyed dessert with the two doctors who had suddenly become the center of her universe. She still couldn’t quite figure out how she’d been talked into joining them for dessert and coffee—or in her case, dessert and warm milk—after they’d finished their dinner and she’d concluded her shift. Seth—and when had she gotten past referring to them as “Dr.”?—had just been so convincing. So charming. So sweet. She hadn’t been able to resist him.

Actually, she thought, that wasn’t quite true. The one she hadn’t been able to resist was Reed. Because in keeping with their utter opposite-ness, as charming and sweet as Seth had been, Reed had seemed—and still did seem—so quiet and withdrawn. Not in a negative way, just…in a thoughtful way. In a resigned way. As if he were contemplating some matter of great importance. Seth, on the other hand, seemed to find the matter—whatever it was—kind of amusing. But it was Reed’s utter concern for something that had drawn Mindy into whatever mystery the two men had created.

But now that mystery was solved, and in solving it, Mindy’s confusion was only compounded. So she reiterated what they’d told her in an effort to make some sense of it.

“So, you two made a bet at work earlier that you’d see someone perform a gesture of goodwill this evening,” she went on. “Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Seth confirmed.

“You,” she went on, pointing an index finger at him, “thought that the two of you would witness a person performing a gesture of goodwill toward another person. Am I following right?”

“You’re following right,” Seth agreed.

“And you,” she said, pointing now at Reed, “thought there was no way you two would see something like that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Reed grumbled.

Mindy shook her head at him. “Boy, you sure do have a low opinion of the human race.”

He gazed down into his coffee cup. “So I’ve been told. On a number of occasions.”

He was glowering again, she noted, but somehow the action seemed insincere. She fought back a smile. She’d never seen someone try so hard to be a malcontent, when it was obvious that malcontentedness was the last thing present inside him. Still, there was no point in puzzling over that quandary, she thought. Not when she had a perfectly good other quandary commanding her attention at the moment.

“So then you guys saw me buy dinner for Mr. McCoy,” she said, “and that was the gesture of goodwill that sealed the wager.”

“You got it,” Seth told her.

“So Reed lost and now he has to pay up by performing a good deed himself.”

“Yepper,” Seth said enthusiastically.

Mindy switched her attention from one man to the other and back again. “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?” Seth asked. “You just described the situation perfectly.”

“But where do I fit in? I mean, aside from having done something nice for someone else, thereby making you the winner of the bet.” She shrugged, then repeated, “Where do I fit in?”

“Well, the least we could do is make sure you’re rewarded for your good deed,” Seth told her.

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” she assured him. “I mean, I didn’t do it for a reward.”

“I know!” Seth exclaimed. “That’s what’s so great about all this.”

“But—”

“You did it because you’re such a genuinely good person, and because you felt like it was the right thing to do. And for that, you deserve a reward.”

“But—”

“And Reed here is going to reward you.”

“But—”

“Just wait till you hear what he’s going to do for you,” Seth interjected—again—before she had a chance to object—again. “He and I discussed it all through dinner, and you’re gonna love this idea. I promise you.”

He turned to his companion, who was seated next to Mindy—and no matter how hard she tried to scrunch herself up into the corner of the booth, Reed was still way too close to her—then smiled that game-show-emcee smile again.

And in that voice reminiscent of Bob Barker, he added, “Reed? What’s Mindy earned for her good deed?”

Reed sighed heavily, appearing none too happy about the good deed that he was obligated, out of a gambling loss, to perform. When he turned to look at Mindy, his expression punctuated his distaste for the whole thing—she didn’t think she’d ever seen a man look more grim. Or, rather, he would have looked grim. If it hadn’t been for that telltale glimmer of warmth, and something else akin to hopefulness, that she saw shimmering in his dark eyes.

What an extremely interesting combination of contradictions the man was, she thought. Mindy found herself wishing that she had a chance to investigate him further, wishing that there was some way she might get to know him better. She wished she could find out why he tried so hard to hide what kind of person he really was, why he adopted such a gruff exterior to mask what was obviously a soft center. She wished—

Nothing, she told herself quickly, adamantly. That’s what she wished. She wished absolutely nothing. The last thing she needed in her life right now was a curiosity about a man she would never have a chance to investigate further or know better. Because after tonight, he’d be out of her life for good.

And even if, by some wild miracle, their paths crossed again, he wasn’t a man for her. She was a pregnant waitress who was barely managing to keep her life together. He was a successful doctor who’d clearly enjoyed every advantage life had to offer.

And even if by some even wilder miracle he took an interest in her, he wasn’t her type at all. Not just because of their social and economic differences, but because his attitude toward life in no way mirrored hers. Mindy was the kind of person who looked for the good in others, who hoped for the best, who expected that everything, eventually, would work out. This man clearly felt completely opposite. Even if there might be a spark of hope and a kindling of goodwill deep down inside him, he obviously didn’t nurture that tiny flame. He didn’t seem to truly believe in it. He didn’t act upon it. He and Mindy would never get along.

Like there was any chance of them getting together in the first place, she thought morosely.

He inhaled deeply before speaking, something that brought her attention back to the fore, where it belonged, and Mindy got the definite impression he really wished he was anywhere but there. Then, very quietly, very slowly, very reluctantly, he said, “Since it looks as if you’re about to lose your home, I want you to stay at my place.”

Mindy couldn’t have been more surprised by the offer—Ha, some offer, she echoed derisively to herself once it settled in—and she was helpless to hide her reaction. Her mouth dropped open in amazement, her eyebrows shot right up to her hairline and she uttered a loud sound of total and utter disgust.

“You want me to what?” she demanded, fairly spitting the words.

He, in turn, seemed genuinely surprised by her vehement response. But he repeated, “You can stay at my place. Here in Cherry Hill. It’s like five minutes away from the diner. You’ll be very comfortable there.”

For another long moment Mindy only stared at him, unable to believe what was happening. These guys had seemed so nice, she thought. So decent. So warm and kind. Was she a lousy judge of character, or what? Then again, recalling the kind of man she had married, was she really surprised that she’d been so easily duped by these two?

Boy, this was what happened when a person looked for the good in everybody and always expected the best, she thought further. She got herself slapped silly by the fates.

She mentally counted to ten before she said anything more, in an effort to halt her rising temper. “Oh, I get it,” she finally said, proud of herself for somehow managing to keep her voice level. “No good deed goes unpunished, right? I did something nice for someone and now I have to pay for it, is that it?”

It was clearly not the reaction Reed had been expecting, because he reared his head back some and frowned in clear confusion. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Pay for it? I thought I was offering you something you need. What’s the problem?”

“Something I need?” she echoed, incredulous. “Hey, the last thing I need is for some guy to be looking to make me his…his…” She swallowed with some difficulty. “His kept woman,” she finished in a lower voice, proud of herself again for finding a term that was socially acceptable—sort of—for what he was proposing.

He eyed her with confusion again. “Kept woman?” he repeated. “What on earth are you.?”

His question trailed off at a bark of laughter that erupted from the other side of the table. When Mindy turned to look at Seth, she saw him fighting back laughter-with a tremendous amount of effort but without much success.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You,” he replied without compunction, barely restraining his chuckles. “Thinking that Reed wants you to be his…his…his kept woman.” He punctuated the observation with another ripple of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich. Wait’ll they hear about that one at the hospital. I can’t wait to tell the nurses in CCU.”

Now Mindy was really confused. She turned her attention from Seth to Reed, only to find the latter growing red in the face. Really red. For a moment, she thought the reaction was caused by his anger and outrage. Then, suddenly, she realized he was embarrassed.

“Uh…isn’t that what you were proposing?” she asked.

Seth laughed harder, and Reed grew redder. “No,” he finally said, not looking at her. “That wasn’t what I was proposing at all.”

“Then what?”

“I apologize, Miss Harmon—”

“Mindy,” she corrected him automatically.

He dipped his head forward to acknowledge that he had heard her but he still continued, “Miss Harmon. I suppose I should have phrased my offer a little differently.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Seth remarked, still chuckling. “Oh, that’s a good one. Reed having a kept woman in his apartment. Why ‘keep’ one when there are plenty pounding on the door to get in and take advantage of him? Hey, I can name a half dozen nurses right now who’d like to keep him in their apartments. Man, oh, man, I think this is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Reed wished he could share Seth’s point of view, but frankly, what Mindy had said was the most humiliating thing he’d ever heard in his life. She thought he intended to set her up at his place and take advantage of her sexually? Her? A pregnant woman? A pregnant woman on the rebound? Just how lonely and desperate did she think he was?

As quickly as the question formed in his head, Reed shoved it aside. He wasn’t lonely or desperate, he assured himself, no matter what she seemed to think. Nor was he the kind of sicko creep who would use a woman in Mindy’s situation and condition to satisfy his own longings. She was right, he thought. No good deed went unpunished.

“What I meant, Miss Harmon,” he began again, “is that, even though I live just outside Philadelphia myself—west of Philadelphia, I might add—I have a condo here in Cherry Hill that I keep for those occasions when I work late or get snowed in or what have you. Ninety percent of the time it’s empty. Donna gave us the impression that you don’t have any other family you might be able to stay with—”

“No, I don’t. But that’s really none of your—”

“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of my condo. Until you find a new apartment of your own, 1 mean. This time of year, it’s got to be difficult to find a place to live, and you might very well wind up having to put your things in storage, so—”

“I rent a furnished apartment,” she interrupted him. “I have very few things to store. That’s not likely to be a problem.”

“Okay,” he went on, “but it still must be difficult looking for a place this time of year.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “It has been. Frankly, I’m not sure I will find a place by the time I need to be out of my apartment. But something will turn up,” she assured him halfheartedly. “It always does.”

He hesitated only a moment before asking, “What if it doesn’t?”

Mindy glanced down at the backs of her hands, unable to meet his gaze. “I’ll worry about that when…if…it happens.”

“It won’t happen if you take advantage of my condo,” he pointed out. “And there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t.”

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