Emmy had to remember all the things she knew better than to lose sight of.

Like the fact that she was in Boonesbury on business. Boonesbury, where she would never choose to vacation, let alone live the way Aiden did.

Like the fact that at that exact moment Aiden Tarlington could have a child of his own sleeping downstairs in his bedroom. A child he hadn’t expected to have and might now have to raise all on his own.

It was just that even remembering all that didn’t chase away the image of him in her mind.

Tall and muscular. Incredible to look at. Incredible to be with.

And so simmeringly sexy that she could still feel the heat of him as if he’d left an imprint on her.

Dear Reader,

Our resolution is to start the year with a bang in Silhouette Special Edition! And so we are featuring Peggy Webb’s The Accidental Princess—our pick for this month’s READERS’ RING title. You’ll want to use the riches in this romance to facilitate discussions with your friends and family! In this lively tale, a plain Jane agrees to be the local Dairy Princess and wins the heart of the bad-boy reporter who wants her story…among other things.

Next up, Sherryl Woods thrills her readers once again with the newest installment of THE DEVANEYS—Michael’s Discovery. Follow this ex-navy SEAL hero as he struggles to heal from battle—and save himself from falling hard for his beautiful physical therapist! Pamela Toth’s Man Behind the Badge, the third book in her popular WINCHESTER BRIDES miniseries, brings us another stunning hero in the form of a flirtatious sheriff, whose wild ways are numbered when he meets—and wants to rescue—a sweet, yet reclusive woman with a secret past. Talking about secrets, a doctor hero is stunned when he finds a baby—maybe even his baby—on the doorstep in Victoria Pade’s Maybe My Baby, the second book in her BABY TIMES THREE miniseries. Add a feisty heroine to the mix, and you have an instant family.

Teresa Southwick delivers an unforgettable story in Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles. In it, a nurse feels a strong attraction to her handsome patient, yet she doesn’t want him to discover the real connection between them. And Patricia Kay’s Annie and the Confirmed Bachelor explores the blossoming love between a self-made millionaire and a woman who can’t remember her past. Can their romance survive?

This month’s lineup is packed with intrigue, passion, complex heroines and heroes who never give up. Keep your own resolution to live life romantically, with a treat from Silhouette Special Edition. Happy New Year, and happy reading!

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Maybe My Baby
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and the mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland; instead she spends all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter One

The plane had landed in Fairbanks, Alaska, but there was a delay in clearance to unload passengers. So while Emmy Harris waited with everyone else, she took the makeup bag from her carry-on to do a little repair work.

As the new director of the Bernsdorf Foundation, she didn’t want to look travel worn when she met Dr. Aiden Tarlington for the first time. He was a good friend of the head of the foundation’s board of trustees—the Old Boys, as Emmy and her assistant referred to them.

The trustees were the seven men—all of them old enough to be Emmy’s grandfather—who were her bosses. And if she’d learned nothing else in the two months since she’d been promoted to director, she knew that one hair out of place could shoot a hole in her credibility with them.

So, since she assumed Dr. Tarlington was Howard Wilson’s contemporary, she knew better than to present anything less than a perfectly professional appearance and attitude. It was the only way to counteract the demerit of her relatively young age when dealing with that particular generation—even when she was the person in the position of power, the way she was on a fact-finding trip like this one. Which also happened to be her first ever.

There wasn’t the need for too much makeup repair, though, because Emmy didn’t wear much in the first place. At twenty-nine her skin was clear and she hadn’t yet discovered any wrinkles, which meant she didn’t have anything to camouflage. She did like to dust her high cheekbones with a pale-pink blush, however, and after a full day on the go she wanted to blot the shine from her narrow, not-too-long nose.

Before she’d left home that morning she’d also applied just enough mascara to darken her lashes and accentuate her hazel eyes. That didn’t need refreshing, despite the fact that it was now late in the afternoon. But the pale-mauve lipstick she’d used twice already during the day was once again in need of replenishment, so she carefully filled in her full lips with that.

She’d pulled her very straight, thick, auburn hair into a tight bun at the nape of her neck—again in an effort to add years and professionalism to her appearance. But a few wisps had strayed and she combed them smoothly back into place.

As the plane finally began to roll forward again, she tucked the makeup bag into the carry-on and unfastened her seat belt. She brushed at her navy-blue skirt to rid it of the pencil erasings that had accumulated while she’d worked through the flight. Then she stretched one leg out as far as she could to see if the new, expensive nylons were going to hold up to their claim that they wouldn’t bag at the knees even after long periods of sitting.

The minute the plane came to its second stop at the terminal and the pilot thanked the passengers for flying with his particular airline, Emmy stood up and put her suit jacket on over her high-necked white blouse.

She was eager to get off the plane and down to the business of checking out the small community of Boonsebury. Part of her new job as director was to gather information and recommend that the foundation bestow one of their grants to bring more modern medical care to the rural area or recommend that the foundation deny the application.

Either way she didn’t want to be in Boonesbury, in Alaska, any longer than necessary. She was a city girl through and through, and she already knew that these trips to the backwaters of America were not going to be her favorite part of being the foundation’s director. They definitely hadn’t been her predecessor, Evelyn Wright’s, favorite part. In fact, a trip like this one, to a very underdeveloped area in Arkansas, had ultimately caused Evelyn to resign.

At the first opportunity, Emmy slipped out of her row into the main aisle and began the slow trek to the exit door. Aiden Tarlington was to meet her at the Fairbanks airport and take her the rest of the way to Boonesbury where he was the sole doctor.

She imagined that he’d be a paunchy old country doctor and hoped that, if the remainder of her journey required him to drive, his eyesight and reflexes weren’t waning the way Howard Wilson’s were. The last time she’d ridden with Howard he’d scared her nearly to death.

There were a number of people waiting just inside the gate as she stepped through it into the airport and Emmy initially scanned the crowd for a head of white hair—like Howard’s. She had no basis for that. For all she knew Dr. Tarlington might be as bald as Rooney Whitlove—another of the Old Boys.

Then she realized that a couple of people were holding signs with names on them and she amended her view to read those signs since that was a more likely way to connect with the man she was meeting.

No, she was not Sharon.

She wasn’t Winston Murphy, either.

But she was Emmy Harris….

Only, the man holding the cardboard rectangle with her name written on it was hardly white-haired. Or bald. Or old, for that matter.

Instead, he had a full head of longish, dark-brown hair the color of bittersweet chocolate. And it was combed haphazardly back from the face of someone more her own age. The jaw-droppingly handsome face of someone more her own age.

Emmy rechecked the sign to be sure she wasn’t mistaken.

She wasn’t. It was her name written in big, bold letters. And the sign was definitely being held by a man who was not at all grandfatherly.

Maybe he isn’t Dr. Tarlington, she thought as she took in the full view on the way over to him. After all, he wasn’t dressed to impress, the way the representative of potential grant recipients might be. This man had on a pair of well-worn blue jeans, a V-neck sweater that showed a hint of white T-shirt underneath, and a denim jacket one shade lighter than the jeans.

Not that the attire didn’t suit him, because it did. Although Emmy doubted the guy would have looked bad in anything.

He was very tall—probably an inch or more over six feet—and he had about the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen. He also had a very angular jaw: a full lower lip below a thinner, but very sensual, upper lip; a slightly long, slightly hawkish nose; and deep-set, light-blue eyes that would have made him remarkable even if the rest of his face had been plain.

She stepped up then and said, “I’m Emmy Harris,” not wanting to address him as Dr. Tarlington since she doubted that’s who he was.

Down went the sign and out came a large hand with thick, blunt fingers.

“Hi. Aiden Tarlington.”

Emmy barely took his hand, scanning his face all over again.

“Dr. Tarlington?” she said for clarification, still thinking this could be the doctor’s grandson and namesake.

“Aiden will be fine,” he assured her in a deep, rich voice that was all-male.

“You’re Howard Wilson’s fishing buddy?” she asked somewhat tactlessly.

“We’ve been known to do some hunting, too.”

“So, you’re friends?”

“We are. Why does that seem to surprise you?”

“I just thought… Well, I guess I just assumed that you would be closer to Howard’s age.”

“Ah. No, I’m a long way from seventy-two. But we are still friends. And fishing and hunting buddies. If that’s okay with you,” he added with an amused smile that put tiny creases like rays of sunshine shooting out from the corners of each of his piercing blue eyes.

“It’s not that it’s okay or not okay. It’s just—”

“A surprise,” he supplied for her.

“A surprise,” she confirmed. “I really did think you’d be one of Howard’s cronies.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Disappointed was not what Emmy was feeling.

What she was feeling was an inordinate—and inappropriate and entirely unprofessional—urge to get her hair out of that bun.

“No, no, it’s nothing,” she assured him. “You just aren’t what I was expecting.”

Of course that had been one of Evelyn’s many laments—that nothing on these trips ever turned out to be what she expected. But this was hardly something to complain about the way Evelyn had complained about so many things.

“In fact,” Emmy added. “It’s better that you aren’t Howard’s age. Now I don’t have to worry about being driven to Boonesbury by someone with cataract-dimmed eyesight and not-great reflexes.”

“My eyesight and reflexes are fine,” the doctor said, and she wondered if she’d heard just the faintest hint of something in his tone that might have been flirting.

Surely she must have been mistaken, she told herself.

Although, those blue eyes of his hadn’t left her for a single moment since she’d approached him and introduced herself.

Then he said, “But we aren’t driving to Boonesbury, anyway. It would take us a full day to do that and another full day to drive back at the end of your stay. We’re flying.”

“Oh?” That news confused her, since she hadn’t been instructed to book a connecting flight. “And you’ve taken care of the arrangements?”

“I have. I flew the plane in and I’ll be flying the plane out again.”

“Oh.” There was a tinge of alarm in that one.

Emmy had been Evelyn’s assistant for a number of years, privy to the same complaints Evelyn had voiced to Howard about the inconveniences and lack of amenities on these trips. But the final straw for Evelyn had been a flight in a small aircraft that had been forced to make an emergency landing. Emmy had hoped never to be in that same position.

But here she was, on her first time out, faced with flying in a small plane. Piloted by a doctor.

“So you’re a doctor and a pilot?” she said, trying not to sound as if that failed to inspire her with confidence.

“Licensed in both, yes.” He seemed amused again, and there was actually a sparkle in his eyes that made them all the more striking.

Then he leaned forward a little and pretended to confide, “I’m a better pilot than Howard is a driver, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She was beginning to worry about a lot of things….

“Have you flown much?” she asked.

“Much. It’s how I make house calls to see about one-third of my patients.”

“Do you own your own plane?”

“Well, let’s just say Boonesbury and I are partners in it.”

“What kind of plane is it? A tiny prop?” Which was what the other director had had her harrowing landing in.

“Do you know planes?”

“No.”

“Then it probably won’t do much good for me to give you the particulars, but my plane is a twin prop. That means it’s slightly bigger than a single engine— I have two engines—and she’s a six-seater. A single engine prop would have two or four seats, if that matters to you at all.”

“What matters to me is if she’s safe. I’ve never been thrilled with small planes.”

“She’s perfectly safe. I’m a stickler for maintenance, and I’ve never yet had a single incident that’s put me on the ground before I wanted to be.”

There’s always a first time, Emmy thought. But she didn’t say it. Instead she reminded herself that this was all part of the job she was going to do without the nervousness and fussiness Evelyn had exhibited.

Besides, not flying would add two days and who-knew-what other complications to the trip, and she didn’t like that idea any better than the idea of flying in a small plane.

So she decided she was just going to have to trust this man.

“I guess it’ll be all right,” she finally conceded.

“I guarantee it will be.”

Emmy took a deep breath and sighed a resigned sigh. “Where to, then?”

“The noncommercial terminal is on the other side of baggage claim. As soon as we pick up your luggage we can head out.”

The doctor took her carry-on without comment and pointed with his well-defined chin in the direction they needed to go. “This way,” he said.

But even as they began to walk he looked at her, up and down.

“I hope you packed some warmer clothes and a heavy coat,” he commented after a moment of scrutiny.

“I have jeans and slacks. And a light sweater.” What she’d thought would cover most needs, even should she have to trek through some countryside.

“No coat?” he asked again.

“It’s only September first.”

“But this is Alaska.”

“Which is why I brought long pants and the sweater.”

“The trouble is, Boonesbury isn’t far from the Arctic Circle. Our highs aren’t getting much above freezing and our lows are already getting down into the single digits.”

“Oh,” Emmy said yet again. She hadn’t looked into the possibility of chilly weather because she’d honestly thought it was too early in the season for cold to be a factor even in Alaska. It was still the height of summer in Los Angeles.

But the doctor was unfazed. “Looks like first thing tomorrow we get you a coat and some warmer clothes. Even though it’ll be Sunday I think I can get Joan to open up the store for us.”

“There’s a woman’s clothing store in Boonesbury?”

“No, it’s more of a general store—Joan sells about everything imaginable. But we all just call it the store.”

“I see. Well, I probably won’t need much. I’m not all that susceptible to the cold.”

Aiden Tarlington couldn’t seem to suppress a grin at that. A grin that put two intriguing lines on either side of his mouth. “Uh-huh,” was all he said as they reached baggage claim.

It didn’t take long to grab her suitcase and get to the terminal used for private flights. Unlike the commercial accommodations, there was no covered boarding ramp, though. They had to go out onto the tarmac. Into air that was surprisingly chilly and hit Emmy like opening the door on a meat locker.

But she hid the shiver that ran through her so her companion didn’t see it and have his suspicions confirmed that she was some kind of wimp.

The small plane was dwarfed by its jet-liner cousins waiting at the surrounding gates, and Emmy had a resurgence of tension at the idea of getting into what seemed to her like a miniplane. A miniplane that would be piloted by a country doctor rather than by someone who had made a career of it.

As the country doctor did his preflight check he seemed to know what he was doing, but still Emmy buckled up tight and found both armrests to clutch just for good measure.

Then, after some back-and-forth conferencing with the control tower, they taxied out to the runway and took off.

“We’ll be flying relatively low,” Aiden explained over the din of the engines. “So you’ll get a good look at things until we lose daylight. And in case you were wondering, I am instrument trained to fly in the dark.”

Emmy hadn’t known special training was required to fly at night, and it didn’t help calm her nerves to learn that it did. Even if he was qualified.

“Come on, relax and enjoy the sights,” he urged as if he knew what she was thinking.

They weren’t in the air for more than a half hour when all signs of civilization disappeared and a spectacular panorama took over.

Aiden began to point out lakes and glacier-made valleys, specific mountain peaks and natural wonders Emmy might have missed otherwise.

But despite the incredible beauty of it all as a setting sun dusted everything in rosy hues, Emmy was left with little doubt that she had entered a true wilderness. And that didn’t thrill her. In fact, it left her with a sense of isolation she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel again, even on these trips.

To keep the feelings at bay she told herself, I won’t be here forever. I’m not changing my whole life the way I was before. I’m only here for work. For a short while…

But still the feeling persisted, tormenting her.

The flight took about an hour and a half—the last half hour of it in darkness. But finally Aiden announced that they were about to land.

“Where?” Emmy wondered aloud since she couldn’t see an airport or so much as a light in the distance as they descended. And, unlike on takeoff, there was no radio contact going on, either.

“We’ll put down in the field. It’s what passes for Boonesbury’s airport,” Aiden informed her.

“A field?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said with yet another touch of amusement in his voice.

But the reassurance didn’t keep Emmy from hanging on to those armrests with a white-knuckled grip. Or from thinking about Evelyn again and beginning to understand why the other woman had had so many complaints about the conditions she ran into on these trips.

Aiden was very intent on what he was doing, and his concentration allowed him to land the plane smoothly, gliding to the ground with little more than a bump before the plane slowed and came to a stop near a small shack illuminated by a single pole light. There was an SUV waiting beside it but no one was in the SUV. And no one came out of the shack to greet them, either. In fact, there was no indication of another human being anywhere around. There was just the field, the shack and a whole lot of fir trees in the distance.

But at least they were on terra firma again and the relief of having accomplished that without incident was enough for Emmy to once more vow that she would rise above whatever rough patches she encountered.

As Aiden shut down the engines and began flipping levers and noting gauge readings on a paper on a clipboard, he said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. The bed and breakfast where you were supposed to stay had to close. Their pipes burst. So you’ll be bunking with me. And since my cabin is between here and Boonesbury proper—what there is of it—we won’t get into town tonight.”

“Bunking with you?” There was enough of a surplus of shock in that to completely hide the fact that something like titillation had taken a little dance across the surface of her skin at the idea of “bunking” with him.

“Let me rephrase that,” he said, obviously fighting a smile as his end-of-flight tasks came to a conclusion and he turned toward her. “The B and B is the only thing we have in the way of a hotel or motel so there isn’t really a choice but to stay with me. But you won’t actually be staying with me. My cabin has an attic room complete with its own bathroom, and it can only be reached by an outside staircase. So in actuality it’s a separate residence. Well, except that you’ll need to use my kitchen. But it’s a pretty cozy room that I’m sure you’ll be comfortable in. And I promise you’ll have complete privacy.”

Again Emmy was reminded of her predecessor and of Evelyn’s gripes about some of the accommodations she’d had to suffer through. And even if the attic room of Aiden Tarlington’s cabin was nice enough, there was the added complication of being in close proximity to the man and how awkward that might be. Emmy didn’t appreciate this situation any more than Evelyn would have. Plus she knew it would only be made worse if she didn’t find a way to curb her heightened awareness of how attractive he was.

“There’s nowhere else I could stay?” she asked.

“Sorry.”

Emmy chewed that over in her mind to get used to it.

Certainly it would have been preferable to stay somewhere else. Away from him and the odd effect he seemed to have on her. But if that wasn’t an option it wasn’t an option, and she’d have to make the best of the situation.

Besides, she assured herself, before too long she would get used to being around him and stop even noticing how attractive he was. This whole situation—and his knock-’em-dead good looks—were all just a novelty. A novelty that would wear off.

And as soon as it did, there wouldn’t be a problem.

She hoped.

Aiden’s cabin was made of rough-hewn logs and was situated near an evergreen-bordered lake with nothing else as far as the eye could see around it.

Moonlight reflected on the undisturbed, glassy surface of the water to cast the only light as Aiden took her bags onto the front porch. He bypassed the door to the lower level and instead went around to the right side of the building.

Emmy followed, finding a wooden staircase there.

“Let’s get your things upstairs and turn on the space heater to warm the place while we have a little something to eat.”

Emmy was all for warmth, because he hadn’t been exaggerating about the cold that was even more noticeable here than it had been in Fairbanks.

The second floor was one large room except for the bathroom. One large room with a brass bed, an overstuffed chair, a reading lamp and a very old armoire. And nothing else.

Emmy thought that cozy was stretching the truth a bit, but she didn’t say that.

“The bed has a feather mattress,” Aiden informed her as he set her suitcases on the wooden floor that hadn’t seen stain or varnish in several decades. “I hope you aren’t allergic.”

“I’m not,” she said as she poked her head into the bathroom, where she found toilet, sink and a claw-footed bathtub with a very dated showerhead dropping down from directly over the middle of the tub.

Aiden had turned on the space heater by the time she returned from inspecting the bathroom.

“I wouldn’t recommend using the heater all night long. It can get pretty hot if it’s on for hours at a time. And there’s an electric blanket on the bed, under the quilt, so you’ll be warm enough while you sleep. Getting out of bed in the morning is just sort of a shock to the system.”

“I can imagine.”

“Wakes you up, though.”

“Mmm.”

“Come on, let’s go downstairs. I have some sandwiches made up since we didn’t have any in-flight food service.”

He held the door open for her, and Emmy went out into the cold again.

At the bottom of the steps Aiden went ahead of her to the main door. As he did, her gaze dropped inadvertently to the jeans-clad derriere that was visible below his jacket.

Like the rest of him it was something to behold, and Emmy silently chastised herself for looking, snapping her eyes up to a safer view.

But the view wasn’t actually much safer when she took in the expanse of his back and broad, broad shoulders, or the sexy way his hair waved against his thick, strong neck.

“Ladies first,” he said then, and she noticed belatedly that he was waiting for her to go in ahead of him.

Emmy stepped into the cabin, glad for the warmth coming from the old radiator against one wall.

The place seemed about double the size of the attic room but it still wasn’t large. Or luxurious. Living room, dining room and kitchen were all one open space, with a mud room off the kitchen in the rear and a single bedroom and another bath on the other side of a log-framed archway to the left of the living room.

The furnishings were as inelegant as the cabin itself. There was a brown plaid sofa and matching easy chair at a ninety-degree angle to each other, with a wagon wheel coffee table in front of them and a moderately sized television and VCR across from them.

Aiden’s stereo equipment was on an arrangement of stacked cinder blocks against one wall, there was a fairly nice desk taking up another, and a scarred oak kitchen table and four ladder-backed chairs stood in what passed as a dining room only because the table and chairs were near the bar that separated the kitchen from the rest of the cabin.

“I know it’s nothing fancy,” Aiden said in response to Emmy’s glance around. “But Boonesbury provides the cabin and most of the furniture for the local doctor, and I’m usually not here enough for it to matter that it isn’t too aesthetically pleasing.”

“But it is cozy,” she said, mimicking him to tease him a little.

He laughed and she liked the sound of it. Along with the fact that he’d caught the joke.

He hadn’t been kidding about already having sandwiches made. There was a covered plate of them in the refrigerator. He brought that and a bowl of potato salad along with two glasses of water to the kitchen table where they shared the light repast while Aiden filled her in on the quirks of the plumbing system and the party-line inconveniences she would encounter if she used any telephone in Boonesbury.

They’d finished eating and Aiden was on his way back to the fridge with the remaining sandwiches when there was a firm knock on the front door.

By then it was after ten o’clock and a drop-in visitor struck Emmy as strange.

But Aiden took it in stride and said over his shoulder, “Get that, will you?”

She’d already figured out that he was a very laid-back guy and that there weren’t going to be any formalities even for the director of the Bernsdorf Foundation. So, in an attempt to adjust to the casual attitudes, she went to the door and opened it.

There was no one at eye level, but down below, on the porch floor, there was a baby carrier and a duffle bag.

Thinking that this couldn’t possibly be what it looked like, Emmy stepped out into the cold to investigate.

But it was exactly what it looked like.

Amidst a nest of blankets and a hooded snowsuit there was a baby bundled into the car seat. A baby with two great big brown eyes staring up at her from over the pacifier that was keeping it quiet.

“I think you better come see this,” she called to Aiden as she glanced all around and found no signs of anyone else.

But about the time Aiden came out onto the porch there was the sound of a vehicle racing away in the distance.

“What’s going on?” Aiden asked.

“Good question. All I know is when I opened the door this was what I found—a duffle bag and a baby in a car seat. And I just heard a car or truck drive off.”

“Oh-oh,” Aiden said. But he didn’t sound as unnerved as Emmy felt.

He went down off the porch, searching both sides of the cabin. But after only a minute or so he rejoined her, shrugging those mountain-man shoulders of his as he did.

“There’s nobody out there anymore. But we’d better get this little guy—or girl—in out of the cold.”

He picked up the carrier and the duffle bag and took them inside.

Emmy followed him all the way to the kitchen table, where he deposited everything, unbundled the baby and lifted it out.

“Hello, there.” He greeted the child in a soothing voice he probably used with his youngest patients.

Then, to Emmy, he said, “Check the bag, see if there’s a note or something that tells us who this is.”

Emmy did as she was told, wondering if her predecessor had ever had a trip quite like this one was already turning out to be.

Along with baby clothes, diapers and food, she did find a note, albeit not much of one. Written on it was only one word: Mickey.

“Mickey, huh? Well, let’s check you out a little, shall we, Mickey?” Aiden said when Emmy let him know what she’d found.

She watched as he took the baby to the sofa and laid it down there to unfasten the snowsuit. Then he removed the pajamas that were underneath it, and then the diaper.

“Looks like Mickey is a boy,” Aiden announced unnecessarily, replacing the diaper in a hurry and with more expertise than Emmy would have had. “Don’t let him roll off the sofa,” he instructed, going for his medical bag where he’d left it on a table near the front door.

Bringing it back with him, he went on to examine the child who was still watching everything with wide eyes and sucking on the pacifier, only protesting when Aiden used the stethoscope to listen to his heart and lungs.

“I’d say Mickey, here, is about seven months old, well fed and taken care of and as healthy as they come,” was the final diagnosis.

“And why was he left on the porch? Or do you often have people drop off their children late at night for a checkup?”

“No, this is a first.”

“You don’t know the child or who he belongs to or where he came from?” Emmy asked with undisguised disbelief.

“I know as much as you do,” Aiden said patiently.

Emmy stared at him, wondering how he could possibly be so calm about this.

Then something clicked in her brain and she began to replay all that had happened since she’d landed in Alaska. The need to take the small plane into the middle of nowhere. To stay in a strange, distractingly attractive man’s cabin away from everything and everyone, in a room without central heat. And now a baby left on the doorstep?

This had to be some kind of practical joke Howard was playing on her.

Or maybe it was a test to see how she handled whatever curves came her way and to find out if she really was better suited to the job than Evelyn had been.

“This is all a setup, right?” she heard herself say. “Howard just wants to see how I deal with the unexpected, if I can keep my eye on the ball and not get overly involved in matters that don’t concern me. I know he thought Evelyn didn’t make it as director because she was so freaked out by the things that happened on these trips. He thought that she took everything too seriously and too personally, that she got too involved in things that didn’t have anything to do with the grants, that she lost sight of what she was in these communities to do, of what was and what wasn’t her business and let the wrong things influence her recommendations. So he decided to put me through trial by fire, didn’t he?”

Aiden settled Mickey on his knee and looked at Emmy as if she’d lost her mind. “The only thing Howard set up was the opportunity for Boonesbury to be considered for the grant.”

“Come on. Making me fly in the same kind of plane Evelyn nearly crashed in? Making me stay here? A baby left on the porch the minute I arrive? Howard arranged it all.”

“I’m sorry, Emmy, but he didn’t. This is just the way things are.”

It was not a good sign that even in the middle of this the sound of him saying her name made her melt a little inside, and she wondered if she was just on some kind of overload. She had been up since four o’clock that morning, after all, and it had hardly been a relaxing day.

But still she didn’t give up the notion that Howard had planned what had happened since she’d landed in Alaska to test her. And she knew that even if he had, his cohort here wasn’t likely to confess from the get-go.

“Okay, fine. This is just the way things are,” Emmy repeated with a note of facetiousness. “So what does that mean? That while I’m here and you’re giving me the tour of Boonesbury’s medical needs we’re going to deal with an abandoned baby, too?”

“Well, it looks like I am. I don’t have a choice. Somebody left this baby here, and they must have had a reason. For now I need to find out who that person is and what the reason was and decide what to do about it. But I won’t let it—or Mickey—stand in the way of what you’re here to do. Boonesbury really could benefit from that grant money.”

“And you’re just going to take it in stride,” Emmy said, still finding it difficult to believe anyone could be so cool about it all.

Aiden Tarlington shrugged his shoulders again. “This is Alaska. Things in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau—the cities—are pretty much what you’d find in the lower forty-eight. But out here there’s a mix of stubborn independence and neighbor helping neighbor. I know these people and I know this baby being here could mean just about anything. But, like I said, I’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere with what you’re here to do, or impact on you in any way.”

And if this was all some kind of test Howard had set up, she decided on the spot that she was going to pass it. That she wasn’t going to get upset by this turn of events and call the head of the board of trustees to whine about it the way Evelyn would have. That she wasn’t going to take it upon herself to care for that baby even if she was itching to hold him and comfort him and let him know he was with people who would be kind to him. That she wasn’t going to let herself be distracted the way Evelyn would have been. Or let herself be swayed in Boonesbury’s favor because she was already having her heartstrings tugged.

She was there to assess medical needs of the entire area and community and that was all. Period. Finito. That was the total sum and substance of what she was concerning herself with. She knew that Howard had very nearly not given her the job because Evelyn had left him with so many doubts that a woman could do it. Doubts that a woman could weather the hardships of these trips and remain objective in the face of the things she might see. And Emmy was going to prove him wrong.

So, with all of that in mind, Emmy tried to ignore Mickey by raising her chin and her gaze high enough not to see him and said, “I’m sure everything will work out. But if you don’t mind, I’ve had a really long day and I think I’ll leave you to do whatever you need to with Mickey to get him settled in for the night.”

“Sure. You must be beat. There won’t be any rush to get out of here tomorrow, so you can sleep in as long as you want and we’ll just go into town whenever you’re ready.”

“Great.”

Aiden stood to walk her to the door, taking Mickey along with him. “If you need anything just stomp on the floor a couple of times and I’ll come running.”

“Okay. Good luck with this,” Emmy added, nodding at Mickey.

“Thanks,” Aiden said with a small chuckle, as if he could use some luck.

Or a benefactor who hadn’t enlisted him to test the new director, Emmy thought. Although she was impressed by how good he was at the charade. Obviously, Howard had chosen well in his coconspirator.

Emmy opened the front door and flinched at the blast of cold air that came in. “Better keep Mickey out of the draft,” she advised. “I’ll close this behind me.”

Aiden nodded, staying a few feet back.

“Good night,” Emmy said.

“Sleep well.”

She pushed open the screen door, then stepped out onto the porch and turned to pull the wooden door shut.

But as she did she couldn’t help taking one last look at Aiden Tarlington, standing there holding that baby, and she was struck by what an appealing sight it was to see the big, muscular man cradling the infant in his arms.

But she wasn’t going to let any of it get to her, she reminded herself firmly.

Not the adorable, abandoned baby.

Not the wilderness.

Not the rustic room without heat.

Not the idea of needing to fly back to civilization in the tiny plane when this was over.

And not the drop-dead-gorgeous, sexy doctor she was sort of living with.

Evelyn, Emmy knew, would never have been able to keep her mind on the job with all these distractions.

But Emmy was determined that she would.

Chapter Two

Aiden woke up early the next morning and immediately rolled to his side to peer down at his youngest houseguest.

He’d pumped up an air mattress and placed it between the bed and the wall as a makeshift crib, but he hadn’t been sure it was the safest way for the baby to sleep. Worrying about it had made for a restless night. But, as he had on every other bed check, he found Mickey sound asleep, peacefully making sucking noises as if he were practicing for breakfast.

Even though it came as a relief to see once again that the infant was all right, Aiden didn’t hold out much hope of falling back to sleep himself. The sun wasn’t anywhere near rising yet, so he rolled to his back again, closed his eyes and tried to relax enough to maybe doze off.

Except that now he could hear those sucking sounds and he just kept thinking, What the hell am I doing with a baby…?

He’d thought he’d pretty much seen it all up here during the past seven years. But he had to admit that having a baby left on his doorstep was a new one. He delivered babies, he didn’t have them left with him.

As he’d put his tiny charge to bed he’d tried to figure out if Mickey was one of the babies he’d delivered seven months or so ago, but he hadn’t been able to tell. A newborn and a seven-month-old didn’t look much alike. Even the eye color often changed. And it wasn’t as if he could remember specific, identifying features of each baby, because he couldn’t.

And then there was the other possibility. The possibility he didn’t want to consider. The possibility he had to consider even if he didn’t want to.

What if Mickey was his? What if that was the reason he’d been left with him?

If it hadn’t been for one single night, he would have been able to say there was no way that it was possible that he was Mickey’s father. But there had been that one single night. And when he’d counted backward—seven months for what he guessed to be Mickey’s age and then another nine months gestation—he had to admit that that one single night could have, in fact, resulted in Mickey.

That thought chased sleep further from his grasp, and Aiden opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

One single night…

One single night when his marriage had fallen apart, when Rebecca had left him, that he’d gone into town and drowned his sorrow in a whiskey bottle.

And ended up sleeping with Nora Finley.

But until now he’d thought sleeping was all they’d done.

Even now he couldn’t remember anything beyond being in Boonesbury’s bar to tie one on and meeting up with Nora.

He only knew that when he finally came to the next morning, there had been a note on the pillow beside him that said, “Thanks for a good time, Nora.”

But since he’d still had his pants on he’d assumed the “good time” they’d had had merely been drinks and laughs and maybe sharing a platonic mattress.

He’d been sure that nothing else had happened. He liked Nora well enough but she was a long—long—way from his type. To say she was rough around the edges was a kind description of the woman who had hacked out a place in the woods to build her cabin with her own two hands, and who made her living running dogsled races. And rough around the edges was not something he’d ever found attractive.

But now he couldn’t be absolutely positive that nothing beyond drinks and laughs had happened. Maybe he had offered her more than a place to crash for a night.

Mickey didn’t look like Nora, Aiden reminded himself, in an effort to find something to hang some hope on to. Mickey didn’t look like Aiden, either. Or like anyone Aiden knew.

But the hope he derived from that was fleeting. Looks were hardly conclusive proof of anything.

Which meant that he was going to have to do some investigating. Some testing. Some questioning.

And all right away.

Unfortunately.

Because although this was not something he ever wanted to be faced with, having it happen now was phenomenally bad timing.

He was grateful to Howard Wilson for submitting Boonesbury for the grant that Emmy Harris was there to consider them for. The money would be a huge help in updating the care he could give, and Aiden had planned to do everything he could to convince her to recommend that they get it. Only now he had Mickey and this whole situation to deal with, too.

But there was nothing he could do about it. He just had to hope that Emmy Harris would be as understanding and patient as she was lovely to look at.

That thought made him nervous the moment after he’d had it. On two counts.

First of all, Emmy Harris had already not seemed patient and understanding about Mickey. Actually Mickey’s arrival had sort of pushed her over the edge, Aiden recalled, as he considered the end of last evening and the foundation’s director saying what she’d said about Howard setting up these complications, about this being a trial by fire.

She hadn’t seemed patient or understanding then. She’d seemed agitated.

And second of all, what was he doing thinking about her being lovely?

That didn’t have a place in any of this.

It was tough to ignore, though, he secretly admitted to himself.

Because she really was a knockout. And a whole lot more his type than Nora Finley.

Not that he was interested in Emmy Harris personally. But, purely on an empirical basis, she was a very attractive woman. How could he not notice that? How could he not notice that she had skin as flawless as Mickey’s? And high cheekbones that no plastic surgeon could have fashioned as well? And a small nose with the faintest hint of a bump on the bridge that kept it from being too perfect and ended up making it just plain cute? And lips full enough to inspire images of long, slow kisses…

Fast—think about what you didn’t like about her, he ordered himself before his mind ventured too much farther afield than it already had.

He hadn’t been wild about that bun her hair had been in—that was something he hadn’t liked.

Although the hair itself was a great color—rich mink-brown all shot through with russet red.

And her eyes were a fascinating color, too. Dark brown but with rays of glittering green all through them so that first he’d thought they were brown and then he’d wondered if they were green, before he’d finally sat across the kitchen table from her and been able to really figure it out.

Plus there were those legs of hers. Terrific legs.

Any woman in a skirt and nylons was a rare, bordering-on-nonexistent sight in Boonesbury. But even if it had been an everyday occurrence, her legs would have caught his attention. Long, shapely legs that made them a particular treat.

A treat that only started there. It continued all the way up a great little body that was just curvy enough to let him know she was a woman underneath that stuffy suit and high-collared blouse.

Oh, yeah, she was easy on the eyes.

And smart.

And she had a sense of humor, too—something he was really a sucker for in a woman….

Aiden mentally yanked himself up short when he again realized the direction his thoughts had wandered.

So much for thinking about what he didn’t like about her.

But even when he tried to come up with something else, he couldn’t. The bun was about it in the negatives column. And he had no doubt one swipe of a hairbrush would take care of that.

Which was probably why, even in spite of the mess with Mickey, he was looking forward to this next week more than he had been before he’d met Emmy Harris.

This isn’t a social event, he reminded himself.

This week was work. And that was the only way he should be thinking about it.

Besides, even if Emmy Harris had been there for some other reason, Aiden knew better than to let down his guard with a woman like her.

She might be more his type than Nora Finley, but he could tell the minute she’d stepped up to him at the airport that she was not the kind of person who could make a go of life in the Alaskan wilderness.

Emmy Harris might look pretty special, but he knew right off the bat that she wasn’t the kind of special to live where high fashion translated to anorak jackets, mukluks and thermal underwear. Where the only restaurant was also the gas station and the mayor’s office. Where there wasn’t a shopping mall within driving distance. Where a fair share of women—like Nora—considered cutting their nails with a gutting knife to be a manicure.

And if there was one thing Aiden already knew from painful experience it was that it was a losing battle to make any attempt to fit the round-peg kind of woman Emmy Harris was into the square hole of Boonesbury.

Oh, no, that wasn’t something he’d ever try again.

But even so, he thought as the sun began to make its first appearance through the open curtains of his bedroom window, he did have to admit that having the foundation’s beautiful director there with him for a little while would be a nice change of pace.

Of course it would have been a nicer change of pace if he didn’t have an abandoned baby and possible fatherhood looming over his head at the same time to distract him, but it was still a nice change of pace, anyway.

On the other hand, considering how intensely aware he’d been of every detail about Emmy just in the first few hours of knowing her, maybe having Mickey around as a buffer was a good thing.

Mickey made a noise just then that sounded different from the sucking noises, and Aiden rolled to his side again to check on him.

When he did he found the baby’s eyes open and his fist in his mouth.

Mickey left the fist where it was but looked up at Aiden with curiosity.

“Morning, little guy,” he said softly.

Mickey granted him a tentative smile from behind the fist.

“Ready to get up?” Aiden asked as if the infant would answer him.

Mickey grinned even bigger, as if that idea had thrilled him.

“Okay, but here’s what I’m thinking,” Aiden informed the baby. “I’ll get you cleaned up and fed, and then you’re going to have to pay me back by keeping things on the up and up while Ms. Emmy Harris is around. You can’t let me do anything stupid. What do you say?”

Mickey finally removed his fist from his mouth and blew a spit bubble for him.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

But Aiden was worried that Mickey had his work cut out for him.

Because as he got out of bed to pick up the baby he could feel the itch to see Emmy again, to hear her voice, to catch a whiff of her perfume.

An itch so strong he wasn’t sure how he was going to ignore it.

Even if the medical future of the whole county was riding on it.

For Emmy there was ordinarily nothing like a good night’s sleep to recharge her batteries and help her face the day.

But she had had nothing like a good night’s sleep. And when she woke up at five minutes after seven, she was aggravated with herself. Even if she was on a business trip, it was Sunday and there was no hurry getting to work. The least her body could have done was to have let her get some rest.

Although, it wasn’t actually her body at fault. Her body was supremely comfortable in the feather bed.

It was her mind that had kept her awake most of the night. Her mind that had kicked up again now.

She kept her eyes closed and took deep breaths, willing herself not to think about anything.

Just sleep, she told herself. Just sleep…

But her nose was so cold where it poked above the covers that she thought that might be keeping her awake.

Which meant she would have to get up, have her bare feet touch an undoubtedly frigid floor, expose herself completely to what her nose was suffering already and go all the way to the far corner of the room to turn on the space heater.

What exactly was it that people saw in rustic living? It was a mystery to her.

She sighed and resigned herself to having to leave her warm cocoon to get some heat in the place.

Flinging aside the electric blanket and quilt, she ran on tiptoes to the space heater to turn it on, then dived back under the covers again.

But that mad dash didn’t save her, and even after she was back in the warm bed a chill shook her whole body like a leaf in the wind.

How could any place in the twenty-first century—especially in Alaska—not have central heat, for crying out loud?

But once the chill had passed and the room was beginning to warm up, Emmy relaxed again and admitted that it was nice under that electric blanket and the weight of the quilt. She even began to wonder if maybe she’d be able to fall asleep again after all.

She closed her eyes and gave it a try.

Just sleep. Just sleep…

But would her stubborn brain give her a break?

Absolutely not.

It started spinning with the same thoughts that had kept her up most of the night—that it was a dirty trick Howard was playing on her to put all these obstacles in her way to test her on her very first trip for the foundation.

But he wasn’t going to get the best of her. The determination to pass the test was stronger this morning than it had been the night before.

She figured that she’d already overcome some of the obstacles: she’d gotten on that small plane rather than allowing fear to rule; she’d left Aiden Tarlington to contend with the baby rather than digging in as if it were her problem; and she’d made it through her first night in the attic room without heat.

So there, Howard!

Of course, she’d also spent the night tormented with vivid images of Aiden Tarlington and a strange longing to be back downstairs with him.

But that didn’t count as a failure of the test; keeping her from sleeping was not foundation business. It only counted as foundation business if she was distracted from her reason for being here. And while the much-too-attractive doctor had the potential to do just that, she was not going to let it happen.

Any more than she was going to let herself get sidetracked by the complications of the oh-so-cute baby who had come onto the scene last night.

Because although it might not be easy to keep her focus, she was going to do it. She really was. Howard was not going to win this one.

She’d fought for this job, and now that she had it, she was going to do it. She was going to do it better than anyone had ever done it before her—man or woman. And without a peep of complaint.

She just needed to wear blinders of a sort. She needed to block out the effects of Aiden Tarlington’s appeal, the draw of the adorable Mickey, and keep her eye on the ball.

And that was what she was going to do.

The little pep talk bolstered her confidence and she felt herself actually beginning to drift off to sleep again.

And if while she did, the picture of Aiden Tarlington came back into her mind and made something warm and fuzzy inside her stir to life?

Well, she wasn’t working at the moment, was she?

There may have been no hurry for Emmy to join Aiden for the tour of Boonesbury but, when the next time her eyes opened it was eleven o’clock, she bolted out of bed in a panic. What kind of impression did it make for the foundation’s director to sleep that late?

She rushed to the bathroom to take a shower but that was no quick thing. She had to deal with the peculiarities of a pitifully poor spray of water that literally ran hot one minute, cold the next, and never just warm enough to stand under.

She’d wanted to do something nice with her hair. Something nicer, more youthful and definitely more attractive than the bun. But that would have taken too long so she ended up leaving it to fall loosely around her shoulders.

And as for clothes, she could hardly dawdle when it came to deciding what to wear, and quickly chose a pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved, white, split-V-neck T-shirt. Then she applied blush and mascara—as fast as she did in her car on the way to her office when she’d slept through her alarm.

Yet it was still noon before she grabbed the black knee-length cardigan sweater she’d brought with her and bounded down the stairs to knock on Aiden’s door.

“It’s open. Come on in.”

A shiver that had nothing to do with the barely above-freezing temperature outside actually shook her at the sound of his voice through the closed door. Before she opened it she reminded herself how much she had riding on this trip and how much damage she could do to herself by allowing an unprofessional response to this man.

Besides, she’d already had her life scrambled by a nature boy, and she knew better than to get too close to another one. She and Aiden Tarlington were oil and water, and the two just didn’t mix.

Remember that, she ordered herself as she went inside.

“Hi,” he greeted, the moment she did.

He was sitting at the kitchen table with Mickey in the baby carrier in front of him so that he could feed the infant what looked to be applesauce.

Emmy returned his greeting and then debated about making an excuse for why she was putting in such a late appearance. But the fact that Aiden didn’t question her gave her the opportunity not to explain herself and so she didn’t.

“We’re just finishing up lunch here,” he informed her. “Help yourself to something to eat.”

Emmy was struck all over again by the lack of formality, but she went to the other side of the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee.

There were still a few sandwiches from the night before in the fridge and, in the interest of letting him think she’d been up for more than an hour, she chose one of those to bring back with her to the table rather than having the toast or cereal she would have preferred as her first meal of the day.

As Emmy joined Aiden and Mickey at the table, Aiden was intent on persuading the baby to accept another bite of food. Not being in the conversation left Emmy free to drink in the sight of the big man.

He had on blue jeans and a blue-plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows exposing the cuffs of a darker blue crew-neck T-shirt that also showed behind the open collar. He looked more like a lumberjack than a doctor but he was something to behold nevertheless.

“So I see Mickey is still here,” Emmy commented, when the infant took the spoonful of what was indeed applesauce.

“Still here,” Aiden confirmed.

“Mmm-hmm. And you’re still going with the story that he was just left here,” Emmy said, unable to suppress a knowing smile at what she was convinced was an elaborate ruse instigated by Howard.

“I’m still going with the story because it’s the only story there is.”

She decided to call his bluff. “If Mickey has really been abandoned shouldn’t you call the police or Child Protective Services or someone with the authority to do something about it?”

Aiden showed no sign of wavering. “That might be what I should do if I was somewhere else,” he explained smoothly. “But we don’t have anyone in Boonesbury to call. State police provide law enforcement on the rare occasions we need it, but since this isn’t an emergency it could be days or even weeks before they get around to sending someone. There’s a Social Services office in Fairbanks but I’d have to take Mickey to them.”

“That seems like what you should do, then,” Emmy said, still testing.

Until something else even more outlandish occurred to her.

“Unless he could be yours,” she said with a full measure of challenge in her tone.

But Aiden didn’t pick up the gauntlet she’d dropped. He didn’t raise his eyebrows at the very suggestion. He didn’t balk and defend himself in instant outrage.

Instead his slightly bushy eyebrows pulled into a frown that actually seemed unnerved by exactly that possibility.

“Could he be yours?” Emmy repeated in shock.

Again there was no quick denial.

In his own sweet time Aiden said, “I’m going to have to do some digging before I can answer that.”

Which obviously meant that there was a possibility Mickey might be his.

And for absolutely no reason Emmy could put her finger on, she felt a swell of something that seemed like jealousy. Although, of course that couldn’t have been what it was.

“Oh,” she said quietly, hating that she sounded so incredulous.

Aiden didn’t seem to notice, though. He was very serious now and he stopped feeding Mickey to level those incredible blue eyes on her. “I know it looks bad that there’s even the chance that I could have a baby I had no idea existed. You’re probably thinking it makes me an irresponsible jerk who shouldn’t be caring for Boonesbury’s citizens, let alone be the person who would oversee your grant money. But it isn’t like that.”

Actually she’d been too stunned to think anything. But she let silence pretend that was exactly what had been on her mind so he would go on.

Which was what he did.

“It’s a long, personal story,” he said. “But if Mickey is mine—and I’m not convinced that he is—but if he is, it was a matter of one night when I hit rock bottom and pickled myself in a bottle of scotch. Now that’s something I’d never done before and haven’t done since. But that night I ended up so out of it I don’t remember what happened. Until now I’d been sure nothing had, and that may still be the case. Mickey’s being left here could be something entirely separate from that night. From me. I just don’t know. But either way, I’ll have to find out what’s going on.”

Emmy stared at him. Intently. She searched his eyes, his handsome face. And she suddenly began to doubt that this was a test Howard had set up. This man was too uncomfortable admitting this to her, too embarrassed to have to admit it to her, for it not to be real.

“Did you call the woman who could be Mickey’s mother to ask if he’s yours?” Emmy inquired, maybe testing just a little more.

“The woman’s name is Nora Finley and I haven’t seen or heard from her since that night I thought I’d just given her a place to stay. She lives in a cabin a long way from anywhere and she doesn’t have a phone. She’ll have to be tracked down, and the best way to do that is to put out a message over the radio. There’s a station in Cochran—that’s the nearest town to Boonesbury. Their signal is strong so it gets picked up pretty far out. I called there and they’re going to report on Mickey on their newscast, requesting that anyone with any information about him contact me or the station, and they’ll be broadcasting regular messages from me to Nora, asking for Nora to contact me as soon as possible. That will all start tomorrow since they don’t air on Sunday.”

So he was trying to reach this woman over public airwaves to ask if they’d slept together, if she’d had his baby and if she’d left that baby on his doorstep?

No one would choose to do that unless they had to.

“This isn’t something Howard arranged in order to see how I handled complications and distractions on these trips, is it?”

Aiden shook his head. “I wish that’s all this was. But it isn’t. I told you that.”

“Someone actually packed up their child and brought him to you without warning or explanation.”

“I’m afraid that’s how it looks.”

“And it’s a coincidence that it happened now?”

“A lousy coincidence that I’m trying to make the best of.”

Maybe she was letting down her guard, but she believed him. It was all just too crazy to be invented, and in the light of day, looking at Aiden’s expression, she honestly didn’t think anyone could be that adept an actor.

“Okay, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” she finally said. “But if this is all something you and Howard devised—”

“Why would I risk all of Boonesbury’s medical future?” Aiden cut her off to ask. “I know your recommendation makes or breaks that grant. Even with Howard’s endorsement there are still six other votes that have to go Boonesbury’s way in order to get the money. If you go back and tell them not to give it to us, Howard’s one vote in our favor isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans.”

That was all true and swayed Emmy more in the direction of letting go of her assumption that Howard had arranged a trial by fire for her. Apparently Evelyn’s complaints that these trips rarely went smoothly had some merit.

But that was all right, Emmy consoled herself. She was good at multitasking and she’d put that into play here.

“Then I guess we’ll just deal with this along the way,” she finally said.

Mickey, who had lost interest in his applesauce and instead had turned his attention to Emmy, cooed at her as if he were giving his approval.

And Emmy, who had been trying not to notice how cute he was, finally gave in and laughed at him. “You like that idea, do you?” she asked the baby.

Mickey giggled as a reward.

“Does this mean you’ll do diaper duty?” Aiden asked, sounding relieved and relaxed again.

“Oh, no. There has to be a line drawn,” Emmy joked in response to the note of teasing in his tone. “The only diapers I’m signing on for are for kids of my own if I ever have any.”

“Guess I’ll have to take care of it, then, so we can get going. Will you keep an eye on him while I clear away his lunch?”

“That I’ll do,” Emmy agreed.

She was finished with her sandwich, so when Aiden got up from the chair in front of Mickey she replaced him.

The seat was still warm from his body, and of all the things to find sexy she didn’t think that should be one of them.

But that’s how it was just the same and it left her fighting images of his body wrapped all around her.

Luckily Mickey seemed to have made it his goal to entertain and charm her because he helped get her mind off the image by drawing her attention back to him with enthusiastic waves of his arms and kicks of his legs.

Only too willing to comply, Emmy grasped his feet in her hands and made a bicycle motion that delighted him as she studied him.

He was an absolutely adorable baby with those big brown eyes and those chubby cheeks. He had pale-brown hair that cupped his round head like feathers and two tiny teeth just beginning to poke through the center of his bottom gums.

“How could anybody leave you on a stranger’s doorstep?” she asked in a cooing sort of way that belied the words.

Mickey apparently responded to the tone rather than the content because he grinned at her and made a grab for her hair.

“That’ll hurt if you let him do it,” Aiden advised as he rejoined them.

“Oh, I think I could stand it,” Emmy said in a singsong as she rubbed Mickey’s knees with her nose to make him laugh.

“Don’t be too sure.”

Aiden had laid a towel on the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the cabin, and he took Mickey out of the car seat then to lay him on the towel to change him and get him into his snowsuit.

As he did, Emmy finished her coffee and washed her cup to replace it in the cupboard. Then, after Aiden had bundled the baby back into the carrier the way Mickey had been the previous night when they’d found him, Aiden put on that same jean jacket he’d worn the day before, tossed a few diapers, the pacifier and a bottle in a plastic bag to take with them, and carried the car seat outside to the SUV. With Emmy following behind.

“Why don’t you start the engine so it’ll warm up while I figure out how to strap this thing in the back seat?”

Again, no standing on ceremony.

But Emmy was getting used to the fact that things between them were so casual and she didn’t mind it. She was even beginning to like it a little.

“Okay,” she agreed, catching the keys Aiden tossed to her with an ease that seemed to impress him.

Emmy was waiting in the passenger seat and the engine was warm enough to produce heat before Aiden finally judged the carrier secure and slipped behind the wheel.

“I talked to Joan—the woman who owns the local store,” he said as he put the SUV into gear and pulled away from the cabin. “She’s meeting us at one-thirty so we can get the shopping over with before I show you around town. I didn’t think you should be doing a lot of walking until we got you a coat.”

“Okay.”

Something about that made him smile a smile that might have been a smirk on a less handsome face. “What? No more of the ‘I’m not susceptible to the cold’ stuff?”

“I’m conceding to your greater experience in the tundra,” she said as if she were merely humoring him.

“This is nothing compared to the tundra,” he said with a laugh. “But if you want to sneak a peek at that—”

“No, thanks. Boonesbury and the complete tour of the medical needs it serves will be fine.”

“In a warm coat,” he goaded. But his grin was every bit as infectious and charming as Mickey’s, only with a whole lot more grown-up appeal.

He went on looking at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment longer. Then he said, “I like your hair down better than in that librarian bun, by the way. The bun doesn’t suit you.”

“It has its purpose.”

“Probably to make sure Howard and the rest of the Old Boys take you seriously.”

Emmy’s expression must have shown her surprise—both at his correct assumption of the reason she wore the bun and at the term Old Boys.

As if Aiden knew what she was thinking even now, he said, “Yeah, they know you call them the Old Boys, so don’t ever say it without affection.”

“Howard told you that?”

“It came up. But since he’s the youngest of the trustees he figures you’re referring to everyone but him.”

“Great,” Emmy muttered to herself facetiously.

“There’s no offense taken, so don’t worry about it.”

The two-lane road they were on went over a ridge just then and began a steep decline that brought Boonesbury into view. It changed the subject as Aiden nodded with his chin in that direction.

“There she is—the town of Boonesbury.”

To call what Emmy was looking at a town seemed like an exaggeration.

It reminded her of the old frontier in Western movies. There was a single main street not more than four blocks long and so wide it was as if the buildings on one side were trying to keep their distance from the buildings on the other. What few cars and trucks were parked in front of the peeling-paint one-and two-story structures were aimed nosefirst to the curb and even then there was room for three regular-width lanes in between.

From the vantage point of the hill she could see houses all around what passed for Boonesbury’s thoroughfare, scattered as erratically as marbles tossed on the ground. Some of them were close enough together to be considered neighborhoods of sorts, others sat off alone as if anyone who had been inclined had staked out a plot of ground for themselves.

And that was it.

Which was exactly what Emmy said. “That’s it?”

“That’s the heart of the town. The business district, I suppose you could call it. There’s more—a lot more—that’s Boonesbury county, it’s just too widespread to see from any one spot.”

As they drove into town, Aiden pointed out the highlights of the businesses they passed.

They were all small businesses—no chain stores or recognizable names were anywhere to be seen—and only the bare necessities of the community seemed to be served.

There was a barber shop and a beauty shop side by side in the same building. An accountant and a lawyer shared an office. There was a mechanic. A tiny bank. An equally as tiny chapel for a church. An insurance office. And several other places that offered more than one interest per establishment—the Laundromat was also the library, the snowblower sales and repair shop was also the post office, the local mortician also sold real estate and acted as travel agent, and, as Aiden had said before, the only restaurant was also the mayor’s office and the gas station.

The general store was housed in the largest building, a white clapboard structure two levels high with a recessed front door and cantilevered display windows on either side of it.

Aiden parked in front, and once he’d taken the baby carrier out of the back seat they were let into the store by a tall woman with an extremely long nose and kind green eyes.

Aiden introduced her as Joan, and as Emmy went to explore the shop that carried everything from groceries to underwear to farm equipment, she could hear him telling the other woman about Mickey, asking if she recognized the baby or knew anything about him.

Joan didn’t, but before they left the store Emmy bought a down-filled parka, three sweaters, another pair of jeans and some warmer socks, and Aiden purchased a travel crib, more diapers, formula and baby food.

Introducing Emmy, showing off Mickey and telling his story, and asking about Nora Finley became a pattern once they’d left the store and begun their trek along the street. A number of the shops were closed, but there were still people milling around between the few that opened on Sunday, and since Aiden knew everyone they encountered, they all stopped to talk.

By midafternoon they’d gone completely up one side of the street and down the other with Aiden providing commentary about every building and most every owner and employee. Plus, Emmy had met more people than she’d ever be able to remember, and word of Mickey’s situation was well spread.

Aiden suggested they get in out of the cold for a cup of coffee and they ended up at the Boonesbury Inn—the only restaurant and bar.

It was a big adobe building with water-stained walls and four wooden steps up to a scarred double door.

The place was packed with people sitting on stools at the bar to watch a baseball game on the television, playing pool on the three tables that occupied the rear or sitting at the tables and booths where food was being served.

Aiden and Emmy got the last booth, which was where they spent the remainder of the day doing as they’d done through the rest of the city tour with people they hadn’t yet spoken to. But with no better results—no one recognized Mickey or knew anything about Nora Finley.

Through it all Emmy was struck by the friendliness of the whole town, though, and by the time they left the place—after coffee evolved into a dinner of hamburgers and fries and Mickey had been passed around like a football—Emmy was actually beginning to appreciate the warmth of Boonesbury.

Mickey was sound asleep when they got him home, and Emmy offered to get him ready for bed while Aiden set up the travel crib.

The baby slept through the change and went right on sleeping as Aiden set him in the crib that he’d put alongside his own bed—the bed that Emmy had to work very hard not to picture Aiden in when she brought Mickey into the bedroom.

And then Mickey was down for the night and Aiden was ushering her out of the room, and she knew she should say good-night and go up to her own room.

She just didn’t know what she was going to do up there since it was only nine o’clock and there wasn’t a television or a radio and she didn’t feel like reading the book she’d brought along for the trip.

Aiden solved the problem by reminding her that the space heater needed to be turned on to warm the attic room in advance, leaving her to wait downstairs while he did it.

“How about a little brandy to chase away the chill?” he suggested when he returned.

Neither of them had had anything stronger to drink than coffee and water at the inn, so a small drink now didn’t seem so out of the question. Even if she was there on business, Emmy reasoned, there had to come a time when she was off the clock.

“Sounds good,” she said.

“Sit down and I’ll get it.”

He’d motioned to the sofa and that was where Emmy sat, hugging one end with her hip.

When Aiden joined her with the brandy he sat on the chair where he was closer to her than he would have been at the other end of the couch.

He’d been clean shaven when Emmy had come downstairs that morning, but his beard was beginning to shadow his jaw now. It added to his rugged masculinity and made him resemble a burly lumberjack all the more. A very attractive burly lumberjack.

“We didn’t learn much about Mickey or the woman you think might be his mother,” Emmy said to get her mind off just how good he looked.

“No, we didn’t. I thought if it was Nora who left him, someone might have seen her at least pass through town.”

“So maybe Mickey isn’t hers.” Or yours either, was the unspoken finish to that.

“Maybe. But I can’t rule it out all the same. She could have come here and left again without ever going near Boonesbury.”

“What’s your next plan of action? Or is it just to see if the radio announcements tomorrow bring any information?”

“The radio announcements only start tomorrow, they’ll go on until I stop them. But, no, I can’t just leave it at that. I thought we’d spend tomorrow at the office. Monday is always a full day, and it’ll give you a chance to see what goes on. Then, when I get a minute to spare, I’ll take some of Mickey’s blood to type it, see how it compares to mine. And to Nora’s, if I have that in her file.”

Obviously, he hadn’t ruled himself out as Mickey’s father.

Thinking along that line, Emmy said, “I suppose it is hard to understand why anyone would leave him with you if you’re not his father.”

But her assumption that Aiden was leaning more in that direction was wrong.

“Actually, it isn’t all that far-fetched. As the only doctor for miles, and one of the few people educated beyond high school, I hold a pretty unique position. Even folks who shy away from civilization or value their independence and self-reliance above all else, still come to me with their problems—medical and sometimes otherwise. Basically, they trust me around here.”

“In other words, if someone was going to leave their baby on another person’s doorstep, you’d be the likeliest choice?”

“As a matter of fact.”

“That’s an even heavier responsibility than most doctors have.”

“Maybe. But I like it that way. As I said, I’m not thrilled with having a baby left with me without any explanation—and in the middle of this grant stuff, to boot. But I like having a closer relationship with my patients. Knowing them by name. Knowing what’s going on in their lives. Having them place that much confidence in me—”

“Having them leave you their babies…”

“I’d rather have that than have a cold, impersonal practice in a big city. If doing what I need to do with Mickey now and having to wonder if he’s mine in the process are the trade-off for that, I’m okay with it.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.