“I’d say you need me, Dr. Logan. You need me real bad.”

Ryan had never seen a pair of eyes that could manage to look so innocent and so not…at the same time.

And hiring Maddie Kincaid to be his assistant was a plan that made sense. On the surface.

But…

“I know what you’re thinking. You’re worried about us being together in the house for too long. That I might start getting ideas.”

“No, it’s not that.”

She half laughed, half sighed. He told himself that she was sitting too far away for him to feel her breath on his face. That the last thing he wanted was to feel her breath on his face.

She went on. “After what I’ve been through, marriage is the last thing on my mind. Trust me.”

He did.

Oh, hell. It wasn’t her he didn’t trust….

Dear Reader,

“In like a lion, out like a lamb.” That’s what they say about March, right? Well, there are no meek and mild lambs among this month’s Intimate Moments heroines, that’s for sure! In Saving Dr. Ryan, Karen Templeton begins a new miniseries, THE MEN OF MAYES COUNTY, while telling the story of a roadside delivery—yes, the baby kind—that leads to an improbable romance. Maddie Kincaid starts out looking like the one who needs saving, but it’s really Dr. Ryan Logan who’s in need of rescue.

We continue our trio of FAMILY SECRETS prequels with The Phoenix Encounter by Linda Castillo. Follow the secret-agent hero deep under cover—and watch as he rediscovers a love he’d thought was dead. But where do they go from there? Nina Bruhns tells a story of repentance, forgiveness and passion in Sins of the Father, while Eileen Wilks offers up tangled family ties and a seemingly insoluble dilemma in Midnight Choices. For Wendy Rosnau’s heroine, there’s only One Way Out as she chooses between being her lover’s mistress—or his wife. Finally, Jenna Mills’ heroine becomes The Perfect Target. She meets the seemingly perfect man, then has to decide whether he represents safety—or danger.

The excitement never flags—and there will be more next month, too. So don’t miss a single Silhouette Intimate Moments title, because this is the line where you’ll find the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Saving Dr. Ryan
Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAREN TEMPLETON,

a Waldenbooks bestselling author and RITA® Award nominee, is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty diapers are not mutually exclusive terms. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasizing about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.

She loves to hear from readers, who may reach her by writing c/o Silhouette Books, 300 E. 42nd St., New York, NY 10017, or online at www.karentempleton.com.

To country doctors everywhere, whose selflessness epitomizes the best in human nature.

Acknowledgments

To Oana Nisipeanu, M.D.,

who answered my medical “hows?”

to Kelli Garcia,

for giving me a virtual peek inside a small-town doctor’s office;

to Debrah Morris and Linda Goodnight,

for being my “tour guides”

to Northeastern Oklahoma and for making me fall in love with that part of the world, sight unseen;

to JoAnn Weatherly,

for answering my questions about geriatric hip fractures.

Any goofs are mine, not theirs.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

Chapter 1

“Keep your shirt on! I’m coming, I’m coming…dammit!”

His big toe now throbbing, Ryan Logan continued down the dark stairs in his stockinged feet, all the while fumbling with the buttons to the flannel shirt he’d dragged on over his tee at the doorbell’s first shriek. He yawned so widely his jaw popped: he hadn’t gotten to bed but two hours ago, at three-thirty. Which meant his blood wasn’t yet moving fast enough to ward off the damp, late September chill that permeated the old house. Judging from the rain still battering the roof, there’d be no sunrise.

He’d no sooner plowed one hand through his hopeless hair when the bell blatted again. On a muttered curse, he yanked open the front door: the two little kids standing on the porch jumped a mile. Ryan’s heart twisted—the pipsqueaks were soaked through, the boy’s dark eyes glittering in terror and excitement underneath a fringe of scraggly bangs. Pale fingers gripped closed a stringless, nothing-colored hooded sweatshirt, his other hand hanging on for dear life to the shivering little blonde beside him. Ryan had never seen either of them before.

The boy stumbled backward a little, taking the girl with him. His eyes went wide and his mouth sagged open, but nothing came out. It dawned on Ryan how scary he must look.

“It’s okay, son,” he said, squatting down. Wasn’t anything he could do about the bed-head, but he could at least reduce his six-foot-two frame into something less intimidating. He lifted his voice just enough to be heard over the rain pummeling the porch overhang. “What is it?”

“You the doctor?”

“Sure am.”

The trembling child glanced back into the rain-drenched darkness, then at Ryan, still warily.

“Mama said to come.”

With a nod, Ryan leaned over to grab his boots off the mat by the door. He was wide-awake now: odd hour calls came with the territory when the closest hospital was forty-five minutes away.

Both floor and kids flinched when Ryan stomped his foot firmly inside the first boot. “Sorry,” he said, sparing them both a quick smile. The boy couldn’t have been more than five or six, his sister—Ryan assumed—maybe three or so.

“She said to hurry,” the boy said.

Ryan shoved on the other boot, grabbed his denim jacket off the stand by the front door and shrugged into it. “Where is your mama?” he asked, clamping his broad-brimmed hat on his head with one hand, snatching his black bag off the hall table with the other.

A beanpole arm flailed out. “D-down there. In the car.” The bright eyes glanced back at him over a chin quivering from both emotion and the raw autumn chill, Ryan guessed. “She said to tell you the b-baby’s comin’.”

Oh, Lord.

Ryan dropped the bag back on the table and pulled the dripping children inside. He took a precious moment to crouch in front of them again, gently squeezing the boy’s shoulder, smiling into the little girl’s huge, frightened eyes. “Stay right here,” he softly commanded, then bolted out into the driving rain before the boy had a chance to protest.

The steering wheel bit into Maddie Kincaid’s palms as she choked back a bitter scream. Despite the piercing, damp cold inside the old Impala, sweat drenched her flannel nightgown underneath her car coat. The pains had come on so sudden, her only thought had been to get out, get help. She hadn’t even bothered to put on socks—if she could’ve bent over to begin with—and now her feet felt like Popsicles inside her canvas slip-ons.

The pain crested, passed. On a deep, panicky sigh, she leaned her head on the back of the seat, determined not to cry, even though it was highly unlikely anybody’d hear her over the hammering rain and wind. She’d never meant to send Noah and Katie Grace out in the storm, but they’d been gone before she could stop them. At least she’d remembered seeing the office sign in front of the slightly dilapidated, two-story house when she’d passed it yesterday. Something to be grateful for, at least.

But—a blast of wind plastered another layer of leaves to the windshield—what if nobody was home? What if she had to deliver this baby herself, right here, and take care of two other children besides?

Something like a laugh tried to well up in her throat. Just when you think things can’t possibly get any worse…

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh God,” she whimpered, rolling her head back and forth, only to suck in a sharp breath when the next pain began clawing its way through her belly. Her labor with the first two had been nothing like this. Especially Noah’s. All that walking, trying to get things moving—

The scream escaped this time as fire blazed through her crotch. She tried to get on top of the contraction, to focus her breathing, as the searing pain obliterated everything but itself—

The car door flew open, sending chilled air and wet leaves swirling inside; a large male hand landed on her rock-hard belly, provoking a little yelp. She glanced over, registering little more than pale eyes, a hard-set mouth and prickly cheeks, all shadowed by a cowboy hat. “Where’re my kids?” she managed through clenched teeth.

“Inside. Safe.”

“Alone?” Fear surged through her, more intense even than the contractions. “They’re scared to death of bein’ in a strange place by themselves! They’re—”

“Fine,” the man said quietly. “How far apart are they?” His voice was gentle, low. Totally lost on her. Sheets of water drummed relentlessly into the mud by the car, on the Impala’s hood and roof, irritating her no end. She realized the man’s hand still rested on her distended belly.

“I hope to heck this means you’re the doctor.”

“Looks like this is your lucky day, ma’am.” He removed his hand; she glanced over, saw he was squatting by the open car door. Rain streamed off his hat brim. “So.” Patience weighted the single word. “How far apart—?”

“I don’t know,” she bit out. “Constant, seems like.”

“Can you walk?”

“You think I’d’ve let my kids out in this rain if I could?”

No sooner were the words out than a pair of strong arms slipped around her, lifting her up and out of the car. With a little cry, Maddie tucked her head against the solid, firesmoke-scented chest, trying to avoid the pelting rain. The doctor cocooned her inside his jacket as best he could, plopped his hat on her head, then gently shifted her in his arms to slam the car door shut.

“Hang on,” he shouted over the din. “I’m gonna get you to the house as fast as possible, okay?”

Huddled underneath the coat, the precariously angled hat, Maddie nodded weakly, the pain mercifully subsiding for the minute or so it took for the trek to the house, set back from the road maybe a hundred feet or so.

But only for a minute. The instant they got inside, another contraction vised every muscle from her ribs to her knees. She bit her lip to keep from screaming in front of her babies, standing wide-eyed in the old-fashioned vestibule as the doctor swept her past them and down a narrow hallway. She was barely aware of the children’s sneakers beating a tattoo against the bare wood floor as they followed, Noah asking her over and over if she was all right.

“I’m fine, sugar,” she managed, somehow, even though she couldn’t see him. Still, she winced a little as the doctor lowered her onto the edge of a bed covered in a heavily textured bedspread, flinching in the sudden flash of a bedside lamp being turned on.

“You feel like pushing yet?”

She shook her head.

“Good. Means we got a minute.”

He helped her out of her coat, then disappeared. Seconds later, he was back with a pile of linens, what looked like some shirts or something, and his black bag, which he thunked onto the nightstand. Noah and Katie Grace stood rooted to the spot a few feet away, Katie with her thumb in her mouth. Water dripped from both their heads, had turned Noah’s gray sweatshirt—two sizes too big, but she’d found it for next to nothing at some yard sale—nearly black. Maddie moaned and struggled to get up. “They’re all wet—”

Another pain slammed into her, grabbing her breath. She doubled up, falling onto her side into the bed, mortified and aggravated and plain scared out of her wits. Her eyes clamped shut, but a tear or two still escaped. Through her nightgown sleeve, she felt a warm, steady touch, which she had to admit did calm her some.

“I’ll take care of it,” the doctor said. “You just concentrate on having this baby, you hear?” She managed a nod, the bedspread rough against her cheek. “Good. Water break yet?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Here—” A thick, white towel appeared in her line of sight. “In case it does while I’m tending to the kids.”

Maddie struggled to protest, but her body had other ideas. The next few minutes were reduced to disjointed impressions—a radiator clanking, rain slashing against the window, wet clothes plopping on the floor as the doctor soothed her frightened children. The fact that nobody had appeared to help him out. Like a wife or housekeeper. Or something.

Suddenly she felt a painless but decisive sensation in her lower belly, like a pin pricking a balloon; she barely managed to stuff the towel between her legs to catch the gush of warm liquid. She swiped at a tear trickling down the side of her nose, hating the thought of a stranger taking care of her children. Of her. That she had no choice in the matter.

More fluid seeped into the towel with the next contraction. Maddie only half watched, silently panting, as the doctor wrapped her children in warm blankets, settling them into an overstuffed armchair in the corner of the room, close to the sizzling radiator.

She heard the change in his voice, knew he’d seen.

“You two just snuggle up for a bit while I check out your mama. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” she heard from Noah, and relief trickled through her. He tended to be skittish around most men these days. Especially ones as big as Dr. Logan. Not that Maddie could blame him for that, she supposed.

Again, the doctor vanished, reappearing maybe a minute later. He fussed with something or other nearby, then turned to her, his thick, damp hair a dull gold in the weak light. He raked one hand through it, raising a field of curved spikes on the top of his head.

“I put the kids’ clothes in the dryer,” he said, his gaze snagging on the towel indelicately wadded between her legs, which for some reason provoked a low chuckle.

Maddie squeezed shut her eyes, breathed through the next wave of pain. “What’s so blamed funny?”

“My timing, looks like.” He grabbed another towel, replacing the first one. She opened her eyes to catch his nod in approval as he briefly inspected it, tossed it into a plastic tub. “Fluid’s clear. Good sign. Now let’s see what’s what.”

The next few minutes passed in a blur as the doctor palmed her belly, pronounced the baby in the correct position, then prepared both the bed and her for the birth. All the while, his face remained expressionless, his manner calm, efficient, unembarrassed, even when he helped her remove her soaked panties. Several pillows now at her back, Maddie watched him fish his stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff from his bag, noted how his height was offset by a kind of wiryness, that his movements were sure and graceful. She began to relax, at least enough to say, “You know, I don’t normally let a man remove my underwear without getting his name first.”

“Logan,” the doctor said, amusement—she hoped—making his mouth twitch. “Ryan Logan. The degrees are up in my office.” He jerked his head to the right. “On the other side of that wall.” She saw his attention flicker briefly to the kids, both of them already out like lights, Noah snoring softly. Dr. Logan looked back at her, barely smiling. “Looks like they’re down for the count.”

She nodded, licked her lips. Figured she may as well preempt the first round of questions. “I didn’t do that to him.”

“I didn’t figure you had. You want some water?”

Maddie nodded again; Dr. Logan poured a glass of water, handed it to her. “Just a sip, now—”

“I know, I know.”

She sipped, handed him back the glass, catching the compassion in his expression. And a boatload of questions, waiting off to the side. He picked up a cordless phone, punched a number into it. “Calling for reinforcements,” he explained. “The midwife. How far along are you?”

“I think I’m about three weeks early—”

He frowned, then spoke to the person on the other end. “Hey, Ivy, got a surprise delivery about to happen over here, was wondering if you’d… Uh-huh.” He laughed softly, etching creases at the corners of his eyes, then sobered. “Small, from what I can tell. Early, a bit. But the head’s engaged, she’s a multip… No, I haven’t. Thought I’d wait for you to do that.” He turned to Maddie, his expression unreadable. “Third baby?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How long you been in labor?”

She opened her mouth to answer, only to be strangled by another pain. Dr. Logan leaned over to massage her shoulder, his kindness adding yet another layer of achiness to the twenty worries already suffocating her.

“Yeah, they’re real strong,” he said quietly into the phone, his eyes locked with hers, silently coaching her through the contraction. “And she’s got that look on her face…. No, not yet, but I wouldn’t wait, if I were you. Membranes ruptured, maybe ten minutes ago? I doubt she’s gonna have a long second phase. Yep, door’s unlocked.”

He disconnected the phone, set it on the nightstand. When the pain subsided, she noticed the severely dipped brows, the firm mouth turned down at the corners.

“Okay, let’s back up here a second—you think you’re three weeks early?”

She didn’t miss the edge to the question. “Yes.”

“Labor came on quick then, I take it?”

“An hour ago, maybe…ooooh!”

Without thinking, she grabbed his hand with the next contraction, squeezing shut her eyes, swallowing down the howl threatening to strangle her. She felt Dr. Logan’s free hand cradle her hard belly, the other warm and steady under the pressure of her fingers. Floating over the pain, his voice eased her through the contraction.

“Minute and a half. Good.” She looked up, grateful to see his expression had softened some. He was younger than she’d at first thought, she realized with a bit of a start. A lot younger. Mid-thirties, maybe. Weren’t country doctors all supposed to have white hair and potbellies?

The bed creaked a little when he eased himself onto the edge. Not looking at her face, he pushed back her nightgown sleeve, strapped the blood pressure cuff to her arm. “By the way, I’m not in the habit of removing a woman’s underpants without knowing her name, either.” A pair of wire-rimmed glasses appeared from his pocket; he snapped them open before settling them into place. “So,” he said, pumping up the cuff. “You are?”

“Miserable.”

He smiled a little, squeezing the bulb until she thought she’d lose the circulation in her fingers, frowning slightly as the needle hitched, dropped. “Pressure’s a bit high, Miserable.”

“Might have something to do with my bein’ a little stressed at the moment.”

He grunted. Strong, smooth fingers slipped around her wrist. He focused on his watch. “New in town?”

“You could say that. And my name’s Maddie. Maddie Kincaid.”

“And…is there a Mr. Kincaid?”

The wedding ring had been one of the first things hocked, not that it had brought much. Still, Maddie found it interesting he wasn’t making assumptions one way or the other. “Not anymore—oh, Lordy!”

“You ready to push?” she thought she heard the doctor say, but since she already was, the question seemed moot.

Ryan grabbed a set of disposable latex gloves from his bag and snapped them on. So much for waiting for Ivy to do the internal. Yes, he was the doctor, but he was also a stranger. And this gal didn’t need any more on her plate right now, that was for damn sure. But she shouldn’t be pushing before he knew if she was fully dilated or not.

“Sorry,” he said, slipping down the sheet. “I really need to—”

“It’s okay.” Marbled knuckles gripped the sheet as she panted out, “But it’s not every man I’d let do this on the first date.”

Biting back a smile, Ryan quickly examined her, relieved to find all systems go. And her blood pressure wasn’t dangerously high, just enough to bear watching. Not that deliveries made him nervous—he’d done his fair share over the past ten years—but he wasn’t real excited about doing an out-of-hospital birth with an underweight woman, three weeks early—she thought—whose case he didn’t know.

“You can go ahead and push now,” he said, leaving the sheet up and peeling off the gloves.

“Like you’ve got any say in it,” she got out, just before her face contorted again. But not with pain this time. With determination.

Ryan wriggled into a fresh pair of gloves, deciding against asking her if she wanted to get the kids up. They were zonked, nobody needed the distraction right now, and if she’d wanted them up, he had no doubt she would have made her wishes known.

Three pushes later, the baby’s head crowned. No surprise there.

“Pant, Maddie, pant! Don’t push, you hear me? Pant the baby out…yeah, like that, good. Baby’s real small…the idea is to birth it, not launch it into orbit.”

For a split second, her startled gaze met his and she looked as though she might laugh…only another surge diverted her attention.

“Pant, honey! That’s right, that’s a girl… Good, good…okay…here we go…!”

He steeled himself for her screams…but they never came. One of his patients had likened giving birth to squeezing a cannonball through the eye of a needle, an image which had pretty much burned itself into his mind. Maddie Kincaid, however, either had the highest pain threshold known to womankind or was possessed of a will Ryan decided he did not ever want to tangle with.

Two blinks later, a tiny, perfectly shaped head slid out, the cord loosely wrapped around the baby’s neck. Ryan easily untwisted it, helping the little thing to rotate before easing first one shoulder, then the other, out from underneath the pubic bone, then presented Maddie Kincaid with her new daughter—five and half pounds, tops, of flailing determination, red and wrinkled and bald, but with a set of lungs capable of waking the dead in three counties.

With a sound that was equal parts laugh and sob, Maddie thrust out her arms. “Give her to me! Is she okay? She must be okay if she’s cryin’ like that, right?”

“She’s fine,” Ryan said, trying to ignore the strange, burning tightness in the back of his throat that assailed him every time he delivered a baby. He quickly suctioned the perfect little nose and mouth, wrapped little missy in a clean towel and laid her on Maddie’s stomach. He should probably get to the Apgar scoring, but God knows millions of healthy babies had been born over the years without being graded like eggs the minute they were born.

“You’re a peanut, but you’re a real perky little peanut,” he said softly, rubbing the tiny thing’s back through the towel. Then he looked at the skinny, scrappy woman who’d just produced the now-quieter infant squirming in her arms, and something inside just melted, like when your muscles get all tense but you don’t even realize it until someone tells you to relax. “You done good, Mama. Shoot, you didn’t even work up a good sweat.”

Silver eyes, full of delight and mischief, briefly tangled with his. “Widest pelvis in the lower forty-eight,” she said, her grin eclipsing the entire lower half of her face.

And the thought came, This is no ordinary woman.

A moment later, in a flutter of skirts and long salt-and-pepper hair, Ivy Gardner burst into the room, took one look at the situation and said, “Figured you’d get the fun part, leave the cleanin’ up to me!” Except then the two-hundred-pound woman, her hair barely caught up in a couple of silver clips, swept over to the bed. “I’m Ivy, honey,” she said to Maddie, her expression softening at the sight of the baby. “Oh…wouldja look at this cutie-pie?” She let out a loud cackle. “Boy or girl?”

“A girl. Amy Rose.”

Ivy grinned. “Amy. Beloved.”

“That’s right.”

But Ivy had already turned her attention to other matters, massaging Maddie’s abdomen to facilitate the expulsion of the placenta, all the while cooing to the new baby and praising her mama.

Ryan left them to it. Ivy Gardner had delivered more than five hundred babies in the last twenty-five years, had never lost a one. Or a mother, either. And right now, he figured his patient could use some mothering herself.

His heart did a slow, painful turn in his chest as he peeled off his gloves, staring out the window. The rain had stopped, he realized, the sky pinking up some in the east.

And Ryan found himself beset with the strangest feeling that his life had just changed somehow.

He glanced over at the two children, stirring from sleep on the chair. It plumb tore him up, seeing those three—now four—in the condition they were in. What had brought Maddie here, with two small children and as pregnant as she was? She didn’t look like she was much more than a kid herself, although he supposed she was at least twenty or so. Except for the mud on the bottoms of their jeans, the kids’ clothes had been clean enough, but they were worn, probably secondhand, the little girl wearing her brother’s hand-me-downs, he guessed.

His gaze drifted back to Maddie. Scraps of light brown hair, the color unremarkable, grazed her cheeks and neck, the shoulders of her faded nightgown. Paper-thin, freckled skin stretched across prominent cheekbones, a high forehead, a straight nose. When she spoke or laughed, her voice was rusty. When she gave a person one of her direct looks, it was like staring into a bank of storm clouds.

And those storm-cloud eyes clearly said, “I’m more than life has ever given me a chance to be.”

Right now, those eyes were fastened on her newborn child, the harsh angles of her too-thin face aglow with the rush of new-mother love. Born too soon, the infant wasn’t quite “done” yet, but he was sure Maddie didn’t see the wrinkled, ruddy skin, the bit of hair plastered to the head with vernix, the little face all smushed up like a dried apple. The infant yawned, and Maddie giggled.

“You’re a funny-looking little thing,” she whispered, and Ryan almost laughed out loud.

“Mama?”

Ryan turned in time to catch another sleepy yawn. Noah’s hair had pretty much dried by now, sticking up all over his head in a mass of little horns. Ryan could relate.

“Hey, grasshopper,” he said, scooping the child off the chair, blanket and all. “Come meet your new sister.”

For an instant, the child cuddled against his chest. Too sleepy to protest, probably. He smelled sweet. Clean. Whatever was going on in Maddie Kincaid’s life, she’d given her children baths last night. An effort which had probably brought on the premature labor.

Ryan set the child, still huddled under his blanket, on the bed at Maddie’s knees. The boy rubbed his eyes, yawned again. Then frowned. “Another girl?”

“Oh, now, hush up,” Maddie said over a weary, but relieved, laugh, as Ryan deposited an owl-eyed, silent Katie next to her brother. “There’s nothing wrong with girls, silly billy—”

“Good Lord!” Ivy peeled the back of the blanket from the boy’s shoulder. “What on earth do you have on?”

“Their clothes were all wet,” Ryan said, “so I stuck ’em in the dryer. Figured they’d be okay in my shirts for a little bit.” Ivy lifted eyebrows at him. Ryan shook his head—don’t ask.

But Noah was busy angling his head at his sister, his brow beetled. “You positive she’s a girl? ’Cause she sure don’t look like one.”

Maddie reached up and ruffled his hair. “Yes, baby, I’m sure. If you don’t believe me, you just go on ahead and ask the doctor.”

“You think maybe Daddy might’ve liked her better’n Katie Grace an’ me?”

The room went so silent, you could hear the muted thumping of the dryer, clear out in the pantry. Standing at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed, Ryan didn’t move, not reacting when Ivy’s gaze shot to his. But he saw the flush leap into Maddie’s translucent, speckled cheeks, and anger suddenly knifed through him as he remembered the scars he’d seen on the child’s back. They’d been old, healed up for some months, but they hadn’t been the result of any accident.

Maddie blinked several times, then swallowed, obviously trying to figure out what to say. With her free hand, she reached up, drew her firstborn down onto her chest to place a fierce kiss in all those spikes. “Doesn’t matter now, baby. Only thing you have to remember now is how much I like you and Katie. And I love all three of you with all my heart, forever and ever and ever. You hear me?”

Ryan’s eyes burned. How many times had his own mother, gone now nearly twenty years, said the same thing to one or the other of her three sons? Except then Noah, as kids will, switched the conversation to more practical matters by announcing he was hungry.

Ivy beamed. Feedin’ and birthin’—the woman was in her element now. “Well, I just bet you are, sweetie. And Mama, too.” She turned questioning brown eyes on Ryan. “I didn’t figure you’d have anything decent in that kitchen of yours to make breakfast, so I brought my own fixin’s, if that’s all right.”

He feigned a hurt expression. “I’m not a barbarian, Ivy. There’s eggs. I think. And coffee.”

“Oh, well, then,” Ivy said on a huff. “As if you could give a nursing mother coffee, for goodness’ sake. Not to mention children.” Elbows pumping, full skirt flapping around her calves—this one had mirrors and embroidery all over the bottom tier—Ivy sailed toward the bedroom door, turning back when she hit the doorframe.

“Noah and…Katie, right?” The kids turned to her with synchronized nods. Ivy held out her hand. “Let’s go see if your clothes are dry yet before you trip in those T-shirts. Then you can help me make pancakes.”

Two pairs of questioning eyes turned to their mother. Katie’s thumb popped into her mouth.

“It’s okay,” Maddie said with a smile. “You go on, now.”

They went. Maddie at once sank back into the pillows, letting out a sigh as her eyes drifted shut. Worn out from the strain of pretending, would be his guess. As if reading his mind, she said quietly, “It’s been a long time since they’ve had pancakes.” She opened her eyes, but didn’t move. “I’m very grateful to you. And Ivy. But we best be on our way as soon as I can move, before they get spoiled.”

Ryan grabbed the footboard, a scowl digging into his forehead. “Giving the kids a good breakfast is hardly spoiling them. And unless you can assure me you’ve got someone to help you out for the next few days, you’re not going anywhere until I say it’s okay.”

A pointed little chin, only marginally bigger than her son’s, reared up. “It was an easy birth. And I was up after the other two in a few hours.”

“By choice?”

He was actually startled to see tears well up in those gray eyes. She looked away, busying herself with unbuttoning her gown to put the baby to breast. A flush of self-consciousness stung Ryan’s cheeks as he watched Maddie help her new daughter find the nipple. Why he should be reacting at all made no sense. He’d watched dozens of mothers nurse their babies. Hell, how long had it been since nakedness had meant anything more to him than anatomy?

The alert, hungry infant hit pay dirt almost at once; Maddie’s soft laughter glittered with love and momentary surcease from her worries, and something inside Ryan warmed a little more…and made him feel as if he needed to justify his presence in the room.

“Tired?” he asked.

Maddie shook her head. The fingers of her left hand—graceful, short-nailed—stroked her baby’s cheek. “No.”

“It’s not a sign of weakness to admit you’re tired after having just given birth, Maddie.”

Her mouth stretched thin. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, you’re fine. Feel like talking, then?”

After a moment, she said, “Answering questions, you mean?”

“A stranger gives birth in my house, you might say I’m curious. And concerned.”

Pride flashed in those silvery eyes. “I’ll pay you for delivering the baby.”

“I’d bet my life on it. But that’s not what I want to know.”

Again, he saw the tears, figured she’d do just about anything to keep them from falling. “I could say it’s none of your business.”

Ryan tried real hard to squelch the exasperation this woman seemed determined to stir to life inside him. “You made it my business when you showed up here in labor. You’re at least twenty pounds underweight. So forgive me for taking my job seriously, but I want to know why. You’re blamed lucky the baby’s as fit as she is, but it won’t do you or her any good to neglect yourself any more than you already have. Did you even have any prenatal care?”

Maddie stared hard at the baby, her mouth set. With her free hand, she swept a hank of straggly hair off her face; it fell right back. “This is my third child. I know how to take care of myself.” She looked up at Ryan. “I don’t smoke or drink, if that’s what you’re thinking, and I ate as well as I could. I never have weighed more than a hundred ten pounds, even when—”

She stopped, cleared her throat, fingering the baby’s cheek.

Ryan let out a ragged sigh, deciding a cup of coffee sounded real good, right about now. “I’m not judging you, Maddie,” he said, and she snorted her disbelief. “I’m not. I just wonder how you’re going to take care of yourself. And your children.”

After a moment, she said, “I’ll get by.”

He folded his arms. “You know, why didn’t you just go ahead and have the baby in the car?”

Her mouth twisted. “There wasn’t room.” A beat or two passed before she added, “I don’t like being beholden to people.”

“I gathered that much,” he said, then waited until she looked at him. “But it looks to me like you haven’t got a whole lotta choice in the matter right now. All I want you to worry about for the next few days is feeding that new daughter of yours and getting your strength back.”

The eyes sparked, like the flash of sword-steel. “I don’t need—”

He stared her down. She got quiet, but her embarrassment pricked his heart when she palmed away a tear. “We’re strangers to you. Why should you feel obligated to take care of us?”

Ryan suddenly felt hard pressed not to strangle the woman. Moving as cautiously as his brother Cal might with an unbroken colt, he eased around the bed and sat on its edge, leaning over so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Let’s get one thing clear, right now. Obligation doesn’t have a blamed thing to do with this. Like it or not, you and your daughter are now my patients, because I took an oath a long time ago that won’t allow me to see the situation any other way. Got that?” She hitched one shoulder, her mouth quirked. “Good. At least we got that settled.” He leaned over, grabbed a clipboard and blank chart off the nightstand. “So let’s make it official. Full name?”

“Madelyn Mae Kincaid.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Is that the truth?”

She blew out a breath. “You can check my driver’s license if you don’t believe me. Which is in my coat pocket with my change purse.”

So she was a few years older than he’d thought. Still awfully damn young to be a mother three times over, though.

“Address?”

Her resultant silence gave him no choice but to look over. She was frowning down at the baby. “Maddie?”

After a moment, she met his gaze. “I guess I don’t have one, just at the moment. Well, unless you count the Double Arrow.”

The Double Arrow. His brother Hank’s place. Wasn’t the Hilton—hell, it wasn’t even a Motel 6—but she’d been safe there, at least. However, even cheap motels ate up money at a good clip. Money he suspected she didn’t have. “Where were you before?”

“Arkansas. Little Rock.” She made a face. “We moved there from Fayetteville after Noah was born…” Something in her expression led Ryan to believe there was more, but then she said, “I came here to find my husband’s great-uncle. Maybe you know him? Ned McAllister?”

“Ned? You’re kidding? He’s kin to you?”

“Like I said, by marriage. I…we’ve never actually met.” Then she paled even more, if that was possible. “Oh, no…he didn’t die or anything, did he?”

Ryan let out a soft laugh. “Ned? I imagine that old buzzard’ll outlive me. But his bones aren’t as strong as they used to be. Broke his hip last week, so he’s in the hospital over in Claremore. Which is where he’ll be for some time, at least until he’s finished up his physical therapy.”

“Oh!” With that one word, Ryan could see Maddie’s last shred of hope vaporize. She looked down at the baby, her hand trembling when she stroked the infant’s cheek. “He never had a phone—well, I suppose you know that—and all I had was a P.O. box for an address. I knew I was taking a chance, just coming on out here like this, but there was absolutely nobody else….”

Pride and panic were a helluva combination, weren’t they?

The baby had fallen asleep. Ryan leaned over and gently removed her from Maddie’s arms, making sure to keep the infant well swaddled in the double receiving blankets Ivy had brought, even though the heat had taken the chill off the house by now. She was diapered, too—Ryan always kept packages of disposables in his office to accommodate his littler patients. And their sometimes forgetful mothers.

He sure did have a soft spot for the babies, he admitted to himself as he smiled at little Amy Rose, giving Mama a chance to regain control. Shoot, giving himself a chance to quash a feeling akin to hitting a patch of black ice.

Lucky thing for him he was real good at steering out of the skids.

“I’ve got some clothes for her, back at the motel,” Maddie said on a shaky breath. He glanced over at her, imagining how ticked she’d be if she had any idea how worn out she looked, lying there against the pillows. “I guess I kinda forgot them, once the pains hit.”

Ryan felt one side of his mouth lift. “Understandable.”

Maddie stayed quiet for a moment, her attention fixed on the baby, then let out a sigh. “Before you ask…my husband’s dead.”

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I, but not for the usual reasons.”

He couldn’t quite decide if that was regret or anger flickering at the edges of her words. Maybe a bit of both.

“He leave you broke?”

Her laugh was humorless. And her lack of verbal response told him this was not a topic currently open for discussion.

What kind of man left his wife and children this bad off?

If Maddie Kincaid had started having babies at nineteen, it was highly doubtful she had much in the way of education or skills. What she did have was three little kids. And more courage than most men he knew. But here she was, in a strange town, the only person she knew in it medically incarcerated for the foreseeable future. And even so, what on earth good would Ned McCallister do her? Not only was the ornery old man the least likely candidate to take on a woman with three small children, but there was no way Maddie and her kids could live in that shack of his.

What they had here was a crisis situation, no doubt about it. And Ryan had the sinking feeling that somehow, he had been the one appointed to handle said crisis.

From the kitchen emanated the aroma of pancakes and coffee, Ivy’s commanding voice chattering to the children. A few hardy birds, oblivious to the fact that summer was over, chirped and twittered outside the window as the sun burned off what was left of the storm. Needing to move, to be doing something, Ryan laid the baby down in the bassinet he’d retrieved from his office before the delivery. There had to be an answer here. One that wouldn’t make his head hurt.

“Your folks still around?”

After a moment, she said, “I already told you. There’s nobody.”

Don’t get overly involved with your patients. How many times had Ryan’s instructors drummed those words into his head? But if he didn’t believe healing was less about procedures and medicines and biological function, and more about giving a damn about the human beings who put themselves in his care, then those pieces of paper up on his wall in the other room meant squat.

Of course, not many people understood that, any more than they understood that personal sacrifice came with the territory.

Nor did Ryan understand quite what was happening here. Yes, he cared about his patients. All of them. Even old Miss Hightower, whose contrariness Ryan had long since attributed to a simple fear of growing old, of being alone. But this was different. Something about this one struck a personal chord way down deep, way past the day-to-day caring he dispensed, along with the occasional antibiotic and common sense advice, to his other patients.

It had been a long, long time since anything had shaken him up the way this situation was threatening to. He didn’t know what he was going to do about it—about Maddie—but he sure as hell knew he didn’t like it, not one little bit.

He patted the edge of the bassinet, twice, then started backing toward the doorway. “I think I’ll just go see what’s keeping Ivy in the kitchen, then go get myself cleaned up,” he said, wondering why the hell he felt so skittish in his own house.

Chapter 2

Maddie frowned at the doorway for some time after Dr. Logan’s departure. Despite his going on about her not leaving until he said it was okay, she was getting a real strong feeling he wasn’t all that comfortable with the idea. Although she guessed his reaction had less to do with her personally than it did with his just not being real used to having houseguests.

That’s what she was going to go with, anyway.

Crossing her arms over her wobbly belly, she surveyed her surroundings for the first time. Which provoked another strong feeling—that Dr. Logan was not someone overly concerned with his environment. Oh, she supposed the faded floral wallpaper, the coordinating murky drapes and dark-stained wood trim bordering the windows might’ve been okay, forty or fifty years ago. But if it hadn’t been for the sunlight glittering and dancing across the room, it would be downright depressing in here. And wasn’t that a shame? Far as she was concerned, everybody deserved a home that was cheerful and inviting. Especially someone as nice as Dr. Logan.

Not that it was any of her business.

On a sigh, Maddie carefully snuggled down on her side, watching her new daughter snoozing in the bassinet by the bed. She ached some from the couple of stitches she’d had to have, but not badly. Although she could feel the adrenaline that had been keeping her going the past couple of days quickly draining away. The baby scrunched up her tiny face in her sleep, pooching out her mouth, then giving one of those fluttery little gas smiles. Maddie smiled, too, skimming one finger over the itty-bitty furrowed brow. Maybe after a bath, Amy Rose would start looking more like a human baby—

Just like that, a fresh wave of worry washed over her. Maddie rolled onto her back, her hands pressed to her eyes, wishing like heck she could just let her mind go blank for a little while, even though she knew full well that things weren’t going to change simply because she didn’t want to think about them.

All right, so she supposed necessity sometimes made a person confuse hope with reality, but still, it had been silly counting on being able to stay with Jimmy’s Uncle Ned. But what on earth was she going to do? She had fifty dollars to her name, twenty-four of which would go for the motel room. There was little point in going back to Arkansas, since she no longer had a home or knew anybody who could help her there. Which meant she had to stay here in Haven.

If she did that, she could apply for assistance in Oklahoma…but who knew how long that would take to kick in? Or how much it would be?

Or, if she got a job, which she wouldn’t be able to do for a few weeks at least, what was she going to do with the kids? How could she possibly afford full-time day care for the two younger ones, part-time for Noah while he was in school, on the kind of salary she was likely to get?

She could maybe sell the car, get a few hundred bucks for it…but if she did that, how would she get around? Where were they going to live?

What if they tried to take her children away?

Maddie’s chest got all tight, like she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs: no matter how hard she tried to fit the pieces of what was left of her life together, they simply refused to go. For all intents and purposes, she and her babies were homeless.

Homeless.

Her hand flew to her mouth, but not fast enough to block the small cry of despair that escaped. It just seemed so blamed unfair. She wasn’t stupid. Or helpless. And heaven knew, she wasn’t lazy. Yet here she was, so far up the creek, she couldn’t even remember the feel of the paddle in her hands.

Everything that could be sold had been, to pay bills, to pay off Jimmy’s debts. All they had were the few things in the trunk of the car—some household items, a couple of the kids’ favorite toys, some odds and ends she couldn’t even recall at the moment—and the two mangy looking suitcases filled with clothes so worn, Goodwill probably wouldn’t even take them. Take them back.

A silent tear, then another, raced down her cheek: you know you’ve reached rock-bottom when you can’t even afford Wal-Mart.

Approaching footsteps and whispered conversation galvanized her into hurriedly wiping her eyes on the hem of the Downy-scented sheet, then gingerly pulling herself upright. Even when her hormones weren’t all goofy, Maddie was a person who cried at the drop of a hat, feeling things deeply as she did. Jimmy had hated it with a purple passion, but that’s just the way she was. A second or two later, Ivy ushered in the children, Noah grinning over a bedtray heaped with pancakes, sausage, eggs, milk, juice.

“Look what we brung you, Mama!”

Maddie’s vision went fuzzy all over again when she caught sight of her son’s great big old grin, how bright his eyes were. Up until a few months ago, he’d been as likely to get into mischief as the next little boy—too smart for his own good, she’d been inclined to think on those days when he’d seemed hell-bent on driving her completely up the wall. She hadn’t fully realized until this moment how much she’d give to have a reason to fuss at him again, for him to feel confident enough to test his limits. And hers.

And look at Katie Grace! The polar opposite of her rambunctious brother, who’d play quietly by herself for hours and hardly ever complained about anything, even Maddie’s quiet little baby doll was smiling.

Some color had leeched back into their cheeks, too. Noah’s, especially. He’d always been fair-skinned, like she was, but he’d gotten so pale these past few months she was afraid people would start asking her if he was sick.

“Ivy says you gotta eat it all,” Noah pronounced, the whole lot nearly spilling in his zeal to get it settled over her lap.

Oh, my. It was more food than they’d seen since they left Little Rock two days ago. More than she’d seen at one time in months.

“We’ll share,” she said to Noah, who had settled on the bed to study his baby sister, butt in the air, chin resting in his palms. Katie crawled up beside Maddie, snuggling against her side.

“Oh, they already ate,” Ivy said, helping to arrange pillows behind Maddie’s back. She grinned down at Noah. “For such a little thing, he can sure pack it away. Five pancakes, two pieces of sausage, and two glasses of juice. And sweetie pie here got down a whole pancake and a piece of sausage.”

The first bite of pancake stuck in Maddie’s throat: she’d been doing well to be sure they got peanut butter sandwiches every morning.

And every night.

A strong, comforting hand landed on her shoulder. “You’re here now,” Ivy said gently. “You and your babies are safe, you hear?”

She nodded, swallowed. But the tears came anyway.

A second later, she was engulfed by warmth and kindness like she hadn’t known since her foster mother’s house. In fact, Ivy reminded Maddie a bit of Grace Idlewild, who’d done her level best to give Maddie some stability in her life, who’d made her believe you could accomplish just about anything with hard work and determination.

But right now, she didn’t need to be thinking about things she couldn’t change, so she decided to take what comfort she could against Ivy’s formidable bosom, barely hearing the midwife’s explaining away Maddie’s tears to her other babies as something that some ladies go through after they have a baby, that’s all, and they weren’t to think another thing about it.

Then Ivy scooped Maddie’s new daughter into her arms. “You eat. I’ll get her cleaned up in the kitchen, where it’s nice and warm. Ryan told me you’ve got some clothes for her back at the Double Arrow, but I always bring a little undershirt and sacque with me, just in case. Come on, you two—let’s let Mama finish up her breakfast in peace.”

Then they were gone, leaving Maddie alone with more food than she could eat in three meals and more worries than any one person should have to deal with in one lifetime.

Ivy had changed the radio station on him.

A frown bit into Ryan’s forehead as he walked into the warm, coffee-and-pancake scented kitchen, his hair still damp from his shower. Country music whined softly from the small radio on the windowsill; except for those times he needed to keep an ear out for the weather, he usually kept it on the classical station out of Tulsa, a habit inherited from his mother. Living alone had its definite advantages. Like being able to count on the radio station staying set where you left it.

Not to mention being able to cross your own kitchen floor without dodging three other bodies. Generally Ryan considered himself pretty mellow, but he tended to get ornery when confronted with an obstacle course between him and his morning coffee. In fact, he nearly tripped over Noah, who for some reason decided to back up just as Ryan got behind him to reach for the coffee pot. Ryan grabbed the kid’s shoulders to keep them both upright; the boy jerked his head up, his eyes big, growing bigger still as Ryan scowled down at him. He hadn’t meant to, it was just that between his not being able to figure out what to do about Maddie and her kids and his caffeine withdrawal…

Oh, hell.

Ryan quickly rearranged his features into a smile, but the damage had been done: Noah dashed back to Ivy’s side like a frightened pup, glancing just once over his shoulder at Ryan before returning his full attention to Ivy.

“What’s that?” the kid asked, pointing to the baby’s tummy.

The midwife held the nearly naked baby in a secure football grip, suspended over the pockmarked porcelain sink as she gently sponged off the little head. “That’s her umbilical cord, honey,” Ivy said, patting the baby dry with a towel, then launching into a detailed description of placentas and umbilical cords that apparently fascinated Noah. For at least two seconds. Then having apparently recovered from his close encounter with the bogeyman, he wandered over to the back door and looked out into the large backyard. There wasn’t anything that would be of any interest to children, Ryan didn’t think—a bunch of overgrown oaks and maples, a badly neglected rose garden, a wooden shed—but Noah timidly asked if he and Katie Grace could go outside anyway. Ryan said he didn’t see why not, since the sun had come out, burning away at least some of the moisture from the leaf-strewn, fading grass.

The children—and his first cup of coffee—gone, Ryan poured himself another mug, then leaned against the counter, squinting against the sunlight slashing through the curtainless, mullioned backdoor window as he watched Ivy in action. Little Amy Rose Kincaid, less than two hours old, was wide-awake, her dark eyes intent on Ivy’s face as the midwife dressed the infant in a miniscule T-shirt, booties and a plain yellow sacque with a drawstring bottom. The baby stared at her so hard, she nearly went cross-eyed. Ivy laughed.

“Looks like she’s trying to figure me out.”

“Tell her there’s a hundred bucks in it for her if she does.”

Ivy rolled her eyes, then said, “Probably wondering what I did with her mama. Isn’t that right, precious?” She swaddled the baby up in a receiving blanket, scooped her up onto her shoulder. “Bet she’s gonna be a sleeper. Her Apgar was fine, by the way,” she added, then scowled at Ryan. “Probably better than yours would be right now. That your third cup of coffee?”

“Second.” He frowned. “You keeping track?”

“Well, shoot, boy, somebody’s got to. You’ve got some nerve, you know that, lecturing people about their diets when you still eat like a college kid yourself. And a dumb college kid, at that.”

He shrugged. Took another swallow. “A doctor’s prerogative.”

“Foolishness, more like.” She nodded toward the stove, ancient when Ryan had first seen it as a kid, more than twenty-five years ago. But it still worked. Apparently. Since he’d broken down and gotten a microwave last year, he avoided the thing almost as much as he did paperwork. “Go on,” Ivy urged. “There’s some sausage and scrambled eggs left. I’d make you pancakes, but I’ve got my hands full right now.”

No point in arguing. Not that he wasn’t hungry. It just seemed cruel to give his stomach something it wasn’t going to get on a regular basis. But he grabbed a stoneware plate from the drainer, his heavy socks snagging on the wooden floor as he lumbered over to the stove, where he piled on a half dozen links, God knows how many eggs. A lot.

“And get yourself some juice, too,” Ivy commanded. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you about antioxidants.”

Ryan got the juice, sloshing it over onto the eroded Formica counter when he tipped the pitcher a half inch too far. Ivy clucked—Ivy clucked a lot—then wiped up the spill one-handed.

“When you gonna get yourself a housekeeper, is what I want to know.”

With a groan, Ryan sank down onto a kitchen chair, some fancy Victorian press-back number Suzanne had picked out when they were still engaged. He shoveled in a bite of egg before replying. “For one thing, I don’t need to be tripping over some stranger in my own kitchen every morning.” Noah’s dark, frightened eyes flashed through his memory, making him frown. Harder. “And for another, what am I supposed to pay her with? My charm?”

“Oh, Lord. Then you would be in trouble.”

Ryan shrugged, took a swig of coffee, downed another forkful of egg.

“Of course, you could get yourself a wife instead, you know.”

Yeah, well, he’d figured that was coming. “You applyin’ for the job?”

“Don’t be fresh.”

He almost grinned. The caffeine must be kicking in. Not to mention the food. After a gulp of the juice, he said, “Anyway, if I don’t have the money or the charm for a housekeeper, how in tarnation am I supposed to take care of a wife?”

Of course, both of them knew the problem went much deeper than that, although Ivy had flat-out told Ryan his objections were nothing but bunk more times than he’d care to remember. For some reason, though, judging from her squinty eyes—which meant she was more carefully considering her response than she was normally prone to do—this was apparently not going to be one of those times. He’d no sooner breathed an inward sigh of relief, however, when she slammed into him from another angle.

“Well, I don’t suppose I can do much to shake the stranger-in-your-kitchen business,” she said. “But there’s no earthly reason you should be having money problems, and you know it. You got enough patients to keep three doctors busy, and most of those who don’t pay private have insurance or Medicare or something. The house is free and clear, you don’t have any dependents and you went to school on scholarship, so there’s no school loans to pay back. So what gives?”

“Criminy, Ivy!” So much for his better mood. Still chewing, Ryan lifted his bleary gaze to hers. How other folks survived morning conversations was beyond him. “What lit your fire this morning?”

With a loud sigh, she dropped onto the chair opposite him, rubbing the baby’s back. “I’m worried about you, is all. Figured that fell to me when your mama died. She’d be all over your case, and you know it.”

This, he didn’t need. On top of having people cluttering up his kitchen, a woman he didn’t quite know what to do with in his guest room and a practice that kept him running ragged but close to the poverty line at the same time, Ivy’s reminding him about his mother was just one straw too many.

Yes, Mary Logan certainly would be on his case. Not to mention his brothers’ as well. When it came to getting their acts together, lifewise and lovewise, all three of her sons seemed to have struck out. And for a woman who’d preached the family unit as the bedrock of civilization the way she did—and lived it, to boot—her sons’ disastrous records would have sent her to her grave, if cancer hadn’t done the job first when Hank and Cal were still in their teens.

The family had drifted apart after her death, like a solar system without its sun. Not so much physically—all three of them were right there in Haven—but emotionally. And Big Hank, their father, hadn’t seemed to know how to bind up the wounds, either. Had too many of his own to tend to, would be Ryan’s guess. Wounds from which he never fully recovered. The old man simply faded into himself, little by little, quietly dying in his sleep five years after his wife’s passing.

Mama would have given them all hell, if not the back of her hand, for giving in like that. For giving up. And Ivy, who’d been Mary’s best friend, had simply taken up their mother’s cause. One day, Ryan supposed, he’d appreciate it.

One day. Not this morning. Not when the events of the last few hours seemed hell-bent on rattling him to kingdom come.

So he impaled a sausage, waved it at her. “Do me a favor, Ivy—stick to midwifery. Which reminds me…the Lewis baby turned yet?”

“Yesterday, thank you, so no, I don’t need you, and you’re changing the subject.”

He stuffed the whole sausage in his mouth, mumbled, “Damn straight,” around it.

Ivy let out a little sigh of her own, shifted the dozing infant to a more secure position on her shoulder. “You know she’s got to stay here, don’t you?”

His plate clean, Ryan kicked back the last of his juice, got up to carry his dishes to the sink. “I’m hardly going to turn the woman and her kids out, Ivy.”

“I know that. But I figured you’d probably try to find someplace else for her to stay.”

He shook his head, washing up his few dishes, then started in on the griddle and skillet. “No. At least not for the next week or so. I want to keep an eye on her. And the baby.”

“And then?”

Yeah, well, that was what was making the eggs and sausage do somersaults in his stomach, wasn’t it? “I don’t know. She tell you she’s kin to Ned McAllister?”

Ivy heavy brows lifted. “No. How?”

“Her husband’s great-uncle.”

She angled her head. “And her husband is…?”

“Dead.” Ryan took a moment to let some of the anger burn off, then said, “Jerk left her with nothing.”

“Oh…that poor thing.”

Ryan turned to Ivy, wiping his hands in a dishtowel. “You saw the scars?”

Ivy sighed. “The father?”

“According to Maddie. I see no reason not to believe her.”

That was worth several seconds’ clucking. “Life’s thrown some real curve balls at that young woman.”

Ryan couldn’t disagree there. He glanced up at the clock, grabbed his jacket from where he’d dumped it earlier over the back of the kitchen chair.

“Where you goin’?”

“Over to Hank’s to pick up whatever Maddie’s left in her room.”

“Think he’ll be up for a visitor this early?”

“Ask me if I care,” Ryan said, punching one arm through his jacket sleeve. “I’ve got office hours starting at eight-thirty, and I figure Ms. Kincaid just might like her clothes before six o’clock this evening.”

Hank greeted him barechested and scowling, his jeans unsnapped. A toothbrush dangled out of his mouth; comb tracks sliced his dark, wet hair. Eighteen months older, two inches taller and twenty-five pounds heavier than Ryan, Hank Logan was what some folks might call “imposing.” Others bypassed niceties and went straight for “scary.” And with good reason. Nothing pretty about that mug of his, that was for damn sure, every feature sharp, uncompromising, anchored by a twice-broken nose that made a person think real carefully before disagreeing with him. Everything about Hank Logan said, “Don’t mess,” and most folks didn’t.

Which led a lot of people to wondering what on earth had possessed the guy to buy a beat-up, run-down, sorry-assed old motel and go into the hospitality business.

Hank had been a cop in Dallas, up until a couple years ago, when his fiancée had died in a convenience store robbery gone to hell. And so had Hank. The force shrinks had finally convinced him he needed to take some time off before facing the world again with a gun strapped to his hip. So Hank had come home on a six-month leave. But, while Ryan had his practice, and Cal, their youngest brother, the family horse farm to look after, Hank had been suddenly left with nothing.

Until this motel.

He never got back to Dallas.

Hank took one look at Ryan and swore, the effect somehow not all that intimidating around a mouth full of toothpaste suds. “She had the baby?”

“I won’t even ask you how you figured that out.”

“Hell, Ry—” Hank ducked back inside his apartment adjacent to the office, a hellhole if ever there was one, and strode back to the bathroom. Ryan followed, shutting the door behind him. As usual, some opera singer was holding forth from the CD player.

“She was in her ninth month,” Hank was saying over the sound of running water and an emotionally distraught soprano. “Her car’s not here this morning. And you are. Doesn’t take a genius.”

Ryan, however, hadn’t really heard that last part, fascinated—in a ghoulish kind of way—with the state of his brother’s apartment. The only refined thing about it was the music. While none of the Logan brothers would win any housekeeping awards, from the looks, and smell, of things, Hank seemed determined to see just how bad his place could get before it ignited from spontaneous combustion. Layers of dirty clothes, moldering fast food containers as far as the eye could see, dishes stacked like drunken acrobats in the sink—the place redefined dump.

“For cryin’ out loud, Hank—why don’t you pay Cherise an extra fifty bucks to clean up in here once a week?”

From the bathroom, he heard spitting and rinsing, before Hank reappeared, laconically buttoning up a denim shirt. Dry heat hummed from a vent under the no-color drapes, teasing the hems. “I do. She comes tomorrow.”

“I take that back. Make it a hundred. And remind me to make sure her tetanus shots are up to date.”

Hank grunted.

“And how’d you know Maddie Kincaid was in her ninth month, anyway?”

His brother had let his cop-short hair grow out—a lot—but he still moved with a kind of taut awareness, as if he expected the bad guys to pop out from behind his Murphy bed. His eyes as dark as Ryan’s were light, Hank tossed his brother a glance as he rifled through a pile of clothes on an ugly upholstered chair, looking for something. “I asked. She said three weeks yet.”

Lord. Hank had probably frightened her into labor. “The baby had other ideas.”

Hank found what he was looking for—a belt—and threaded it through his jeans. “How’d she find you?” He dug in his pocket for a stick of gum, a habit taken up after Ryan finally convinced him to give up smoking. The wrapper drifted to the floor after he poked the gum into his mouth.

“I have no idea. She and the kids just showed up.”

“Huh. You take her to the hospital?”

“I was doing well to get in position in time to catch the baby. That’s why I’m here. To get their things.”

Hank nodded, snatching a spare set of keys off a hook by his door. He grabbed a leather jacket from the back of a dinette chair and opened the door to the biting cold.

They walked the short distance in silence, gravel crunching underfoot, their breath frosted in front of their faces. Hands rammed in his pockets, Ryan glanced around. You couldn’t exactly say Hank’d been singlehandedly restoring the place to its former glory, since that was a word one would never have associated with the Double Arrow, even in its heyday. But he was definitely restoring it, shingle by shingle. A dozen single-room units out front, a half dozen two- and three-room cottages down by what the previous owners generously called a “lake.” The single rooms were pretty much done; Ryan imagined it would take another year, maybe two, before the cottages were ready for occupants. At least, the two-footed variety.

It was a pretty spot, actually, especially this time of year with the ashes and maples doing their fall color thing. With a little effort—okay, a lot of effort—Hank could turn the motel into someplace folks might actually want to stay.

The scrape of a key in a lock caught Ryan’s attention; they stepped inside Unit 12, Ryan breathing a silent sigh of relief that the room seemed—and smelled—clean. A little strong on the Pine-Sol, but that was okay. Calling the county health authorities on his own brother wasn’t high on his list. Especially as Hank could still probably beat the crap out of him, if he had a mind to.

The twin beds were both undone, a denim jumper and blouse neatly laid across the back of the desk chair. One suitcase was open on the metal-and-strap rack, the contents still more or less intact. Ryan quickly gathered the few stray items, including a plastic soap case and toothbrush from the bathroom sink, haphazardly folding the clothing before stuffing everything into the open case, then clicking it shut. Even without really looking, though, he could tell the clothes were worn and faded. For a woman with such intense pride, her predicament must be eating her alive.

Ryan hauled the cases out to the truck, Hank meandering wordlessly behind. To tell the truth, none of the brothers had much to say to each other anymore. Which was a shame, he supposed, since they’d been close as kids, even though they’d tormented each other like any normal siblings.

Hank stood with his arms crossed, the stiff breeze messing with his hair. “Now what do you suppose makes a woman that pregnant up and leave wherever she was?”

Ryan settled the cases in the truck bed, turned back to his brother. Little had caught Hank’s interest since his return, other than this rat-trap. But damned if Ryan didn’t catch a whiff of genuine intrigue about Maddie Kincaid.

“Desperation,” he said simply. “Husband’s dead, she’s got no money from what I can tell. And her only living relative is here.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Ned.”

Black brows shot straight up. “McAllister?”

“Yep.”

“Damn. She really is havin’ a bad string of luck, isn’t she?”

“To put it mildly.” Ryan pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, fished out a twenty and a five. “Let me settle up for her room.”

But Hank shook his head. “Forget it. In fact, if she needs a place to stay—”

“No,” Ryan said, too quickly, tucking the bills back into his wallet. “I need to keep an eye on her. And the baby, you know.”

Hank gave a nod, then a sigh. “Pretty thing,” he said, which just about surprised the life out of Ryan. Far as he knew, it had been a long time since Hank had noticed a woman. Much less mentioned one. And that he’d notice this one, in her ninth month, skinny as a rail, with two other kids to boot…well, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and Ryan wasn’t about to figure out why it bothered him, but maybe it meant Hank was coming back to life.

Which was a good thing, right?

“I suppose she’d clean up okay,” Ryan said nonchalantly, climbing behind the wheel.

Hank’s long, craggy face actually split into a grin. A grin. A grin the likes of which Ryan hadn’t seen for longer than he cared to remember.

He gunned the truck to life, more irritable than he had any right or reason to feel.

Chapter 3

Ivy and the kids rushed out the back door just as Ryan pulled up, the midwife going on about taking the kids with her on her rounds, she’d just been waiting for Ryan to get back so Maddie wouldn’t be alone. And that she’d updated Maddie’s chart, it was on his desk, everything looked real good.

Then they were gone in a blur of dust and engine growls— Ivy’s battle-scarred Ford pickup had a good five years on Ryan’s—leaving Ryan with a fresh pot of coffee and profound relief that Ivy’d taken the kids away for a bit. Keeping an ear out for Maddie and Amy Rose was one thing; watching two little kids while seeing to his patients was something else. He’d lost his last nurse/receptionist to marriage and a move to New Mexico not a month ago, had yet to replace her. Sometimes he had a temp in to help, but he usually found it less problematic in the long run to wing it on his own. His paperwork was suffering some, but he told himself he’d catch up, one of these days. Years.

Ryan got himself another cup of coffee and wended his way toward the haphazardly connected group of four rooms that made up his office. The house sat on a double-sized corner lot, three blocks from the center of town. Back in the twenties, a back parlor and summer porch had been converted into an office/exam room and waiting room with its own entrance. Later on, somebody got the bright idea to build a breezeway linking the original office to the detached garage, which had served double duty ever since as auxiliary exam and file rooms.

The layout didn’t make a lick of sense, architecturally speaking, but it suited Ryan’s purpose well enough. And that was all that mattered.

He’d peeked into the waiting room on his way to Maddie’s room: no one yet. Good. He only had a handful of actual appointments today, but every fall, soon as school started, there were the usual rash of coughs and colds, not to mention the playground boo-boos and football injuries. About due for the first round of strep, too, he imagined.

The door to the back bedroom was slightly ajar; Ryan slowly shouldered it open, saw that Maddie was asleep. He’d intended on just setting the suitcases down and getting out of there, except one of the cases wasn’t as flat on the bottom as he’d thought so that it fell over onto the wooden floor with a bang! loud enough to set him back five years.

Maddie twisted around in the bed, her eyes soft and unfocused. The room smelled of sunshine on clean linens, the sweet scent of newborn baby. An odd sensation that managed to be vague and sharp at the same time sliced through him as a stray shaft of sunlight grazed the top of her head, turning her dull brown hair a rich, golden color. And she had on one of his shirts, he noticed, that blue plaid that had gotten all soft, just the way he liked it.

“One problem with this hotel,” he said, his throat suddenly dry, “is the lousy room service.”

Maddie smiled, slowly and lazily, and his heart just hopped right up into that dry throat. “Hardly,” she said in that scratchy little voice of hers, before carefully pushing herself upright. Her just-washed hair was all feathery and soft around a scrubbed face, making her look more than ever like a child.

Only not.

She yawned, then nodded toward the cases. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He shifted, hooking his thumbs into his jeans pockets. Told himself he was the doctor, he had a right to be there. “Sorry to wake you.”

Her eyes had gone a smoky-blue. From the colors in the shirt, he supposed. “S’okay,” she said, only then she must’ve noticed he was staring at the shirt, because she looked down at it, then back up at him, blushing a little. “Ivy said you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed this until I got my things.”

“I don’t,” he said, because oddly enough, he really didn’t. Only then she laced her hands around her knees through the bedclothes, and smiled, and damned if something inside him didn’t just melt all to hell.

Ryan cleared his throat. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I just gave birth. Other than that, not too bad.”

“Any light-headedness?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Bleeding’s normal?”

“Seems so to me, and Ivy said it was, too. I’m cramping some, but I guess that’s to be expected.”

Ryan folded his arms across his chest, grateful to be back on solid ground again. “A good sign, actually.”

“What they don’t tell you is the pain doesn’t quit once the baby’s born.”

“You want a Tylenol or something?”

But she shook her head, just as he figured she would.

“You don’t have to tough it out, you know.”

A thin smile stretched across her lips. “Yes, I do.”

Not knowing what to say to that, Ryan walked over to the bassinet, grinning down at the ruddy-faced little girl asleep inside. “She kind of grows on you, doesn’t she?”

This time, Maddie’s laugh was full and rich. “Takes after her mama, I guess.”

Despite the lack of self-pity in her words, they perturbed him nonetheless. “You’re not red and wrinkled, Maddie,” was the only thing he could think of to say, which was at least worth another laugh.

“No, I suppose not. But I’m no beauty, either. Not like Katie Grace. I imagine I’m gonna have to beat the boys off with sticks by the time she’s ten.”

Amy Rose began to stir, making little “feed me” noises. Ryan gathered up the baby with an ease fine-honed from handling other people’s babies for so many years, talking silliness to her as he checked her diaper—no meconium yet, but he imagined that would pass with the next feed—then carried her to her mother. But he didn’t give Maddie her baby right away, using the infant as an excuse to bide his time until he figured out what to say.

Damn. He was no good at this kind of thing. But there was no way he could let her self-deprecation pass, either.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, which earned him a puzzled look. “We never see ourselves the way others do, you know.”

“Oh,” was all she said, then reached for her daughter, a tiny crease settling between naturally arched brows. Her hair slithered over her shoulders in a hundred glistening layers as she spoke softly to her baby. Her scent surrounded him, shook him, a combination of shampoo, his own clean shirt and…her. Somehow, inexplicably, whatever it was that would enable little Amy able to pick her own mama out of a hundred other nursing mothers, Ryan picked up on, too.

She undid two buttons, guided her baby to a high, small breast. Ryan made himself focus on Maddie’s face, again unnerved by his reaction. Not only was it unprofessional, if not downright unethical, but up until an hour or so ago, he would have thought it impossible.

He retreated to the end of the bed, leaned on the footboard. Quietly dug himself in deeper. “In fact,” he said, “my brother even commented on how pretty you are.”

Her head snapped up at that. “Your brother?”

“Hank. He owns the Double Arrow.”

Silence followed, punctuated only by the sounds of a busily suckling baby, the hiss of heat from the radiator. Then: “Does kindness run in your family or what?” She lifted those steely eyes to his, littered with questions. And maybe a little hope. Or was that disbelief?

Ryan folded his arms across his chest. Smiled a little over the ache nudging his heart, that this woman should mistake a casual comment—not even made in her presence, for pity’s sake—for kindness. “Not especially, no. What I mean to say is, none of us are any good at flattery. Well, except maybe for Cal. I mean, our mother made good and sure we could keep company in polite society without embarrassing her, but…”

Ryan caught himself, wondering how—and why—the conversation had flipflopped. But she was grinning at him, her ingenuousness trickling past his resolve. “How many of you are there?”

Oh, hell. He didn’t want to go down this path, he really didn’t…but he did like making her smile. Especially since he imagined there wasn’t a whole lot in her life worth smiling about these days. “Three. Me and Hank—we’re eighteen months apart—and Cal, the baby.”

“The baby?”

“Well, to us he is. He’s eight years younger than I am.”

“Which probably still makes him older than me.” She angled her head, making her hair glisten some more. “Right?”

Ryan stuffed his hands into his back pockets. “Well, I guess it does at that.”

“And your parents?”

“Both dead.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks pinked. “I’m sorry.”

“They were already older when they had Hank and me. Mom was in her mid-forties when Cal was born.”

“Oh, my goodness!” she said, her eyes wide, then added after a moment, “Does Cal live around here, too?”

“Yep. He raises horses, out on the family farm. Well, his farm now. We all inherited when Dad passed, but Cal’s in the process of buying us out.”

Her expression thoughtful, Maddie shifted the baby up to her shoulder to burp her. Then she glanced around the room, and he saw something like a shadow shudder across her features. Ryan’s gaze followed, sliding over the dull wallpaper and furnishings he’d never bothered to change, although he’d been planning on giving Suzanne a free hand with redecorating after they were married. Afterward, it hadn’t seemed worth the bother.

“Like I said, this hotel’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Her eyes lifted to his, a smile just barely tweaking up the corners of her mouth. “How’d you come by such a big place?”

“I inherited both the house and the practice from the doctor who used to live and work here.” He shrugged. “I figure as long as the house isn’t falling down around my ears, that’s good enough.”

“Spoken just like a man,” she said, her gaze meeting his for a moment before dipping back to her baby, now feeding from her other side. She palmed the tiny head, smiling a little, then glanced around. “Still, there’s a nice…feeling in here, you know?”

Her wistfulness clutched at his heart. Ryan checked his watch, wondering where his patients were, why they weren’t coming to stop him from hanging himself.

Why—why?—was he pulling the desk chair over closer to the bed, straddling it backwards and plunking his butt down?

And when her brows lifted, he heard himself say, “You’ll find I’m a real good listener, Maddie.”

She looked down at Amy Rose, who’d fallen asleep with the nipple still in her mouth. The temptation to let some of these worries out of her brain, like relieving the pressure on a simmering pot, was nearly overwhelming. She also knew once she started, she would be hard put to hold back. Being truthful was just part of her nature. But she did not want him to feel sorry for her, either. Only she didn’t see how that was to be avoided, once she told him her tale.

Except he was waiting, and she was being rude now, wasn’t she?

After Maddie buttoned herself up, she lifted her knees, laying the baby against her thighs so she could watch her sleep. So she wouldn’t have to look into those kind blue eyes any more than was absolutely necessary, where she knew she would see any number of things she wouldn’t want to see. Like judgment. Or worse, pity.

She skimmed over the first part of her life, about how her teenaged mother had given her up to the foster care system when Maddie wasn’t but three years old; how she’d been shunted from home to home until she came to live with Joe and Grace Idlewild as a twelve-year-old smartmouth with a chip on her shoulder the size of a house, and how they’d been the closest things to parents she’d ever had; how her mother had never come back for her, and how Maddie had eventually given up hoping she would.

And then how, against her foster parents’ wishes, she’d fallen in love at seventeen with Jimmy Kincaid, a virtual orphan like herself; how the boy—for he hadn’t been but eighteen himself at that point—had given her to believe that, with him, she’d have the one thing she most wanted in the whole world, which was a life, a family, a home of her own. How he’d had such big dreams, about being successful, about making lots of money. And how she’d let herself believe those dreams could be hers, in large part because he’d been the first person she’d ever met who’d had dreams, which had seemed to her at the time much more enticing than determination and hard work.

Even though she kept her eyes averted, she told the doctor all this without shame on her part, because while she would admit to the foolishness of youth, there had been no shame in being young. Or in having dreams, even if the dreams of her youth had been foolish.

“Except at some point…” She let out a sound that was half sigh, half laugh. “Well, eventually I realized that Jimmy wasn’t inclined to work for any of his dreams. He just somehow expected them to happen, I guess. But no matter what, there is no power in heaven or on earth strong enough to make me give up my babies the way my mama did me.”

The doctor’s silence made her finally look over. He was sitting backward on the straight-backed chair, his hands fisted one on top of the other to make a pillow for his chin while he listened, his gaze intense.

“Even if it meant staying married to an abusive man?”

“I know that’s how it looks, but he wasn’t always like that. When I got pregnant the first time, you never saw anybody happier than Jimmy. And even when things were rough, he was never mean to me or Noah. Not…not at first. It wasn’t until I got pregnant with Katie Grace…”

The memories stung more than she’d thought they would. But she’d gotten this far, might as well see it through. Just like she had her marriage.

“Jimmy’s usual method for dealing with his frustrations was to simply walk out. Which he did more and more, toward the end,” she added on a sigh. “Sometimes for hours, sometimes for days.”

“And this didn’t bother you?”

“Sure it did. But he’d always come home eventually, all sorry for what he’d done, and he’d always have some money—and I learned early on not to question where he got it—and I wanted so hard to believe, each time, that things would be better.”

Her eyes got all gritty feeling; she took a moment until the feeling passed. “I guess I took it on myself that whether the marriage survived or not was up to me. I don’t feel that way anymore,” she quickly added when she saw Dr. Logan’s expression darken.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

“I got pregnant a third time. I know it sounds irresponsible, but I couldn’t tolerate the Pill and Jimmy hated using…you know. So I got a diaphragm from the clinic, but then Jimmy showed up out of the blue one night and maybe I didn’t get it in right, I don’t know…” She grasped the sleeping baby’s tiny hands, smiling when the delicate little fingers automatically grasped hers. “He wanted me to get an abortion. I said no.” She swallowed. “He…didn’t take it too well.”

“He hit you?”

Maddie nodded, staring hard at the baby, trying to block out the memory of Jimmy’s anguished face afterward. “I was so…shocked, that he’d actually do that. I mean, it wasn’t like this was entirely my fault, was it? So I threatened to walk out right then and there. Only he started crying, sayin’ over and over how sorry he was, that it wouldn’t ever happen again. I’d never seen him cry before. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve taken him at his word, but…we’d been married for four years by then. He was the only man I’d ever loved. And everybody makes mistakes, you know?”

Again, the silence. On a deep breath, Maddie lifted her gaze to the doctor’s, seeing in his eyes the one thing she’d least wanted to—that he didn’t understand. “I had to give him another chance, don’t you see? I had two children under the age of four and another on the way. And for a while, things were better. He got a real job, we were doing okay, he stuck around… Then one of his ‘buddies’ came up with another ‘sure thing’. I tried to talk him out of it, but…well. And of course, the ‘sure thing’ didn’t pan out, and Jimmy got more depressed than I’d ever seen him. He still had his job, but it was just on a loading dock down at the Wal-Mart, and…and I don’t know. I got the feeling he just…gave up.”

By this time, she was talking more to herself than to Dr. Logan. “I didn’t know what to do. How to reach him or anything. He wouldn’t talk to me by that point. He stuck around more, but he wasn’t really there, y’know? Anyway, he was off from work one morning, so I decided maybe it might be nice to run to the grocery store without having to drag two little kids with me. I didn’t normally leave Jimmy alone with the kids, but I wasn’t feeling good and the shopping still had to be done, so I said he’d have to watch the kids. I could tell he wasn’t any too thrilled about it, though. When—”

She clamped her lips together, even as the tears escaped yet again.

“Maddie?”

On a deep breath, she continued, her voice trembling. “When I got home, maybe an hour later, Katie was hiding behind the couch, crying so hard she could barely catch her breath. I found Jimmy b-back in the kids’ bedroom with Noah, who was screaming, screaming…” She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could feel her heartbeat in her temples. “The belt was still in Jimmy’s hand.”

When she opened them, she found the doctor’s eyes riveted to hers, his face rigid with fury. But he didn’t say a word. So she looked at the baby instead, which only tangled up her emotions even more. “How I managed not to lose the baby, I do not know, because I started yelling at Jimmy like a crazy woman, telling him to get out of my house and to never come back, that our marriage was over, that if he ever hurt one of my babies again, I would kill him. I had no idea….”

She shook her head, still disbelieving after all this time. “He took the car, eventually landing in some bar he’d never been to before, where he got stinking drunk and picked a fight with somebody he shouldn’t’ve. Guy hit him back, Jimmy’s head caught the edge of a table when he fell. By all accounts, it shouldn’t’ve been enough to kill him….” Her stomach was shaking up a storm; she willed it to settle down.

After a moment, Dr. Logan stood and approached the bed. He didn’t say anything at first, like maybe he was afraid to, but his set mouth and wrinkled brow told Maddie probably more than she wanted to know. He simply stood beside her, his hands crammed in his back pockets, watching the baby for several seconds, until his breath suddenly left him in a great rush. “And now I suppose you blame yourself for his death?”

She thought on that for a bit, then said, “Not as much as I did at first. I mean, yes, I was the one who told him to get out, but it wasn’t me who told him to drive way the heck out to some bar he’d never been in before, pick a fight with a local twice his size. And it wasn’t me who’d made a mess of my life, or took out my frustrations on a five-year-old child.”

The side door buzzer went off, making both of them jump.

“That’ll be my first victim,” he said, finally looking at her. “The office is right next door, so all you have to do is thump on the wall if you need anything—”

“I’ll be fine,” she reassured him with a shaky smile. “You just go on now.”

He touched the baby’s head with two fingers, then left the room.

“Well, hey, Alden,” Ryan said, coming up with a grin for the elderly man sitting in the waiting room, a grin which he then shared with Alden’s Lancaster’s pinchy-faced daughter Ruthanne sitting beside him, her black patent leather purse clutched tightly on top of even more tightly clutched together knees. The old man was just in for a checkup after a bout with pneumonia he’d gone through a few weeks ago. “Come on in, come on in… How’re you feeling?”

But then it was as if something just shut right down inside of him, because Ryan barely heard his patient’s “Not too bad, considerin’,” as the pair followed him into the office, barely said two words to the old man as he checked his vitals, listened to his lungs and heart. Wasn’t until he caught the odd looks the two of them were giving him that he realized he wasn’t acting like his normal self.

Which might have something to do with the fact that he sure as hell wasn’t feeling like his normal self.

Ryan fixed a smile to his face, dragged his bedside manner back out on display, and got through the appointment as best he could. But after they left, rather than calling in the next patient—Sadie Metcalf and her chronic psoriasis—he decided maybe he’d better take a minute to collect his thoughts.

The fifty-year-old rolling chair behind Dr. Patterson’s oak desk creaked mightily when Ryan slumped down into it, his palm cradling his cheek. It wasn’t as if he’d never heard stories like Maddie’s before. Or borne witness to the effects of neglect, ignorance, abuse on mind and body. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been fully aware he was wading into treacherous waters, encouraging her to talk. Still, it wasn’t the tale itself that had left him so shaken—she hadn’t said anything he hadn’t expected to hear in any case—it was the telling of it.

The way she kept that soft, raspy voice of hers steady, even though her hands trembled with the emotion brought on by freshly remembered wounds. The way she’d looked at him—the few times she did—as if daring him to judge her. Not that she was asking for absolution for the decisions she’d made, not even those he imagined she’d be the first to admit hadn’t been any too smart.

Why he should be feeling something like admiration for a woman who made no apologies for loving a man who had left her with nothing but a pile of debts and three children, he didn’t know. Yet he did. She’d given that love freely, unselfishly—the illogical, irrepressible, irresistible love of youth, Ryan mused sourly. And now, even though that love had left her in a fix and a half, her pride still balked at having to ask strangers for help.

Like a stubborn child, Ryan thought, snapping upright and rubbing his eyes. A stubborn, courageous child with the soul of a woman, a woman who deserved far more than life had given her thus far.

A woman who deserved the kind of man who would put her first.

Who could offer her more than dreams.

A rap on the office door disrupted Ryan’s brooding. He got up, opened the door to look down into Sadie Metcalf’s puzzled smile. “Don’t mean to rush you, Dr. Ryan, but Alden left some time ago…?”

“Yes, yes…sorry,” Ryan said, standing aside to let Sadie in, at the same time pushing a whole bunch of thoughts he shouldn’t even be having out.

A tiny window over the tub let in enough light for Maddie to see her reflection in the medicine cabinet over the pedestal sink, upon which she now leaned heavily, frowning at herself. The tile floor chilled the bottoms of her bare feet; she barely noticed. The shakiness from having told Dr. Logan her story had already begun to ease some, mainly because there seemed little point in dwelling on things she couldn’t change. She would grieve for what she’d lost every day of her life, but her heart told her that her marriage would’ve died anyway, even if Jimmy hadn’t. Her love for him sure had, although she’d resisted admitting that to herself for some time after the fact.

Oh, Lord, it was all too much to think about right now. She finally got around to brushing her teeth, which is why she’d come into the bathroom to begin with. When she finished, though, she squinted at her reflection, her mind wandering off in a different direction entirely.

Why on earth would anybody call her “pretty”? All she saw was a redhead complexion without the benefit of having red hair, a mouth that was no more than a slit in her face, a nose that was too long, eyes that were too wide apart. And a figure? She wouldn’t know a curve if it bit her.

And, no, she was not feeling sorry for herself. Those were just the facts of the matter.

Maddie let out a sigh, then shuffled back to bed. Oh, well…if nothing else, she supposed it was still a nice ego boost to know that some man, somewhere, found her worth looking at. And since ego boosts came few and far between in her life, she figured she might as well make the most of this one. Even if it had come secondhand, like her clothes, through a source who didn’t see her as a woman at all.

Which, she thought on a yawn as she felt herself drift off, she supposed was just as well, all things considered.

Ryan’s last appointment of the day—removing a dozen stitches from Roy Farver’s forehead where renovating his hen-house had led to a run-in with a wily two-by-four—had been gone for a half-hour or so before he heard the thumps and thuds and animated conversation that signaled Ivy’s and the children’s return. They burst into his office, bringing the chill with them. Both children sported brand-new jackets, Noah’s navy-blue, Katie’s a hot-pink bright enough to blind half the state.

“Look what Ivy buyed me, Dr. Ryan!” Noah beamed at him, apparently momentarily forgetting his apprehension. “It gots like a hunnerd pockets an’ everything!” Seated at his desk, Ryan removed his glasses to peer at the kid, who was gleefully slurping down what was left of a chocolate ice-cream cone. Dots of color stained his pale cheeks over an ice-cream stuccoed chin, while bits of yellow leaves clung to his dark curls. Then Ryan’s gaze shifted to Katie, who, clinging to Ivy’s hand, gave him a shy, chocolate-coated smile in return. She looked down at her coat, then back up at him, her smile broadening.

“I look pretty,” she said, her voice weightless as goose down.

“You sure do, sweetheart,” he said, ignoring the dull ache curled up inside his chest like a dog settling in for the night. Then he waved Noah over, grabbing a tissue to wipe off the sticky little face. When he gently took the child by the arm, however, the boy flinched, the fire going right out of his eyes.

“It’s okay, grasshopper…I just want to clean you up a bit. I won’t hurt you.”

After a moment, Noah nodded, although he still made a helluva face when Ryan tried to undo some of the damage. “Where on earth you take these kids, Ivy?”

She hadn’t bothered unfurling herself from that poncho thing she wore, so he guessed she wasn’t planning on staying. “Verna Madison’s youngest gal’s about to have her third baby, they’ve got four-week-old lab pups. You seen them yet? Five of ’em, gold as sunshine. And full of the devil.”

“C’n I go show Mama my coat?” Noah asked between licks, completely undoing Ryan’s cleanup job.

“Your mama and sister are taking a nap,” he said, wondering how Maddie was going to react to Ivy’s purchases. “Which they both need.” At the child’s crestfallen expression, he added, “You know, I’ve got about a million blocks out in the waiting room. Why don’t you go build something to show your mama later?”

When the children had gone, Ryan stretched back in the desk chair, making it squawk. Hard to believe those were the same frightened children who’d shown up on his doorstep barely twelve hours ago. A knot formed in his chest at the thought of any child’s having to feel that kind of anxiety.

He could only imagine how Maddie must feel.

He glanced up at the midwife, whose face indicated she was thinking much the same thing. She caught his stare, blushed. “I didn’t figure it would hurt them to have a treat. And the coats were half off. Last year’s stock or something.”

Shaking his head, Ryan leaned forward again to gather up the charts strewn across the blotter. “Looks to me as though somebody wants to be a grandma real bad.”

Ivy let out a sigh. Her daughter Dawn, whom Ivy had raised on her own, had left Haven before the ink was dry on her high school diploma, going off to college, then law school. Now an attorney at some high-falutin’ firm in New York City, Ivy’s only child seemed determined not only to never set foot in Haven again, but to never give her mother any grandbabies, either. “Guess I’ve just about given up on that score. Not that I’m not proud of my daughter, but I swear I’m gonna wring her skinny little neck if she tells me one more blessed time her career’s far more challenging, reliable and stimulating than raising a kid could be.”

Yeah, that sounded like Dawn, who was the same age as his brother Cal. In fact, there was a time there when Ryan had thought Cal might have been a little sweet on Ivy’s daughter, but that was a long time ago….

“Now, where on earth did you drift off to?” he heard Ivy ask, and he lifted his gaze to catch the amused curiosity in hers.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, standing to pull a chart out of the file. “Just thinking about…stuff.”

“Uh-huh. Like what to do with your houseguests?”

He slammed the file cabinet shut. “Hadn’t gotten that far yet.” He peered over at her, standing there with her arms tucked up under that poncho. “Although something tells me you have.”

“Knowing you, you’d put the kids in sleeping bags in the downstairs bedroom with Maddie and the baby.”

He frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

Ivy huffed. She was nearly as good at huffing as she was at clucking. “You know, sometimes I wonder how on earth you were smart enough to get that scholarship to med school. How’re you gonna keep an eye on mama and her baby if she’s down here and you’re asleep upstairs? Besides, those two youngsters need their own space, and you’ve got those two connecting bedrooms upstairs that would be just perfect—”

“For crying out loud, Ivy—take a breath, wouldja?” Hands on hips, Ryan simply stared at her, frozen, as something damn close to fear knifed through him, as surprising in its sudden appearance as it was in its intensity. Especially as he had no idea what he could possibly be afraid of. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t had any company for a while. Like forever. No reason the prospect should make him feel uneasy. And yet everything inside him whispered, “Watch out, buster.”

“I’ll go on ahead and change the beds,” Ivy said, now shedding the poncho and heading out the door and, presumably, the back stairs, “if you tell me where the clean linens are.” She vanished, reappeared. “You do have clean linens, don’t you?”

“In the closet at the end of the hall. Shoot, Ivy, I’m not a throwback.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

He no sooner got out a sigh when he felt somebody looking at him. He turned, still frowning hard enough to make Katie Grace frown back.

“You mad at us?” she asked.

Well, that just turned him to mush. He scooped the little girl up onto his hip, just like he did with every other three-year-old who came to his office. Difference was, this one wasn’t going home in a few minutes. “No, sweetheart. I’m not mad at you.”

Calm, blue-gray eyes linked with his for a second before a pair of tiny arms looped around his neck.

Oh, Lord. He was in trouble now.

Chapter 4

This bedroom didn’t look much different from the one downstairs, Maddie thought, but it had two windows and was a little bigger. And a bit more inviting looking, but that might have been due to the warm light given off by a pair of rose-decorated lamps on either side of the bed. Before she’d left for the evening, Ivy had fed them all, then made up the double bed in fresh white linens, turning down the covers like this was some fancy hotel.

For what seemed like the thousandth time that day, tears pooled in Maddie’s eyes, that strangers should be showing such concern for her and her children. But right now, her babies came first: instead of resenting how helpless she felt, she should be grateful that there were such good people in the world.

Since she wasn’t an invalid, for heaven’s sake, she’d put on a pair of jeans with the doctor’s shirt, and was now settled with Amy Rose in an old but comfortable padded chair in the corner of the room. Noah and Katie Grace were in the adjoining room, bouncing from one twin bed to the other. Maddie had already told them three times to stop, even resorting to the time-honored threat of “Okay, but if you fall and crack your head open, don’t come cryin’ to me,” which the kids clearly took as permission to keep jumping. So she told the doctor, who’d been in and out carrying up her cases and what-not, that if they did crack their heads, to just add his fixing them up to her bill. He’d laughed a little at that. But in the intervening twenty minutes, there’d been plenty of giggling, but no cracked heads, so she’d begun to relax some.

About that, anyway.

Despite her kids’ shenanigans, Dr. Logan seemed to get on with them real well, which she supposed wasn’t any too surprising, considering what he did for a living. But there was still something about him that only confirmed her earlier conclusion that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation. Nothing she could put her finger on, just a feeling.

“So how many rooms does this house have, anyway?” she asked, more for something to say than anything else.

“Well, let’s see,” he said, leaning against the dresser flanking one wall and crossing his arms over his chest. The storm was fixing to make an encore appearance, the wind tormenting the pyracantha branches outside the house, making them scrape against the wall. “There’s four rooms downstairs, not counting the office space, another six bedrooms and two baths up here.”

“Goodness.”

Dr. Logan smiled. “This had been Doc Patterson’s childhood home. He was the youngest of nine. His parents kept adding to the original house every few years to accommodate them all.”

“And nobody in the family wanted the house after the doctor died?”

“Nope. His brothers and sisters had scattered all over creation years before, their kids all have places of their own.”

“What about his kids?”

“Didn’t have any. Married twice, but no children.”

“Oh,” she said, then got quiet for a moment, rubbing the baby’s back. “So it’s just you in this great big place, all by yourself?”

He paused. “Yep.”

From the next room came a thump loud enough to make the sleeping baby’s hands flail out, followed by more giggles.

“What made you decide to become a country doctor?” she asked, because this was something she really was curious about.

His mouth twitched a little. “Being sick a lot as a kid, actually.”

“You?”

“Yep. Allergies, recurring bronchial infections, you name it. If Doc Patterson wasn’t out at our farm, I was in here, at the office. We got to be pretty good friends, he and I. Enough that, about the time I started to grow out of many of my ailments, he started taking me with him on his calls. And I began to think I wanted to follow in his footsteps.” Now he grinned, full out. “Most people I knew thought I was nuts, wanting to take on a job with no benefits, long hours, and unreliable income. But there was no talking me out of it.” He checked his watch. “It’s getting on to eight o’clock. You want me to get the kids ready for bed?”

She opened her mouth to say, no, of course not, only to realize there was a big difference between sitting still in a chair and wrestling two wired little kids into bed. So what she said was, “I’d be very grateful.”

Dr. Logan nodded, then headed into the adjoining room. Maddie decided she’d best supervise, though, so she got up and carefully moved herself and her new daughter into the kids’ bedroom, where Ryan was already pawing through the smaller of the two suitcases, looking for pajamas.

“Oh, land!” Maddie nearly gasped at the rumpled sheets and every-which-way blankets and pillows on the beds. “Would you look at what you two have done to these beds! And where did you put your new coats? They better not be on the floor somewhere!”

Naturally they both flew out of the room to heaven-knew-where, appearing not ten seconds later, panting and giggling, with the coats.

Maddie set Amy Rose, who was sawing logs to beat the band, down on one of the beds and reached out for the coats. “Give those to me.” She swiped dust and dirt off first one, then the other. “Honestly, you two.” But even she could tell her scolding didn’t have much punch to it. “Get your toothbrushes out of the case and go brush your teeth,” she said, and to her immense relief, they did. She turned to Dr. Logan, who was now standing with a faded Barbie nightgown in one hand and a pair of worn Barney pajamas in the other. “They love those coats so much, I don’t have the heart to make them give them back.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, Maddie Kincaid, because you’d for sure hurt Ivy’s feelings if you did that. And what do you think you’re doing?”

“Fixing up the bed,” she said, tugging the bedcovers up on one of the beds, then rearranging the pillow. Trying to convince herself that accepting Ivy’s generosity wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. “And no, before you ask, I’m not straining anything.” From the bathroom, she heard lots of giggling and spitting, followed by a shriek. Her belly protested some when she straightened up.

“Noah James!” she hollered in the direction of the bathroom, “you better not be spitting toothpaste at your sister!”

“I’m not, Mama!” More giggles. On a sigh, Maddie looked over at Dr. Logan. “I guess you have a point. About the coats, I mean. It’s just…”

“Tell me if the situation were reversed, you wouldn’t do the same thing.”

The kids came barreling out of the bathroom, their chins a slobbery mess. Maddie grabbed a tissue from the box by one of the beds, then a child. “Well, I guess you’re right about that,” she said, swiping the goo off Katie Grace’s chin and sending her over to Dr. Logan. In the midst of cleaning off Noah, Maddie glanced over at the doctor, who was down on one bended knee in front of the tiny girl, patiently waiting while she unbuttoned her sweater herself. When the little girl got the last button undone and beamed up at him with a look that was equal parts triumph and adoration, something twisted around Maddie’s heart. Something she didn’t need to be dealing with right now.

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