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Daddy on Her Doorstep
Lilian Darcy
Obstetrician Andrew was intrigued by his new single tenant and neighbour who looked about ready to pop – and ready to jump down the throat of anyone who hinted she might need help.So he knew he shouldn’t get involved. But with Claudia showing every sign of labour, what could he do but come to her aid? And could being there in her time of need make Andrew her knight in shining scrubs?
You’re pregnant, Claudia.
You have a baby due in a month.
The last thing you need is to feel like this.
About your landlord.
Your sexy, manly, capable, laid-back landlord.
She made a frustrated sound, and it seemed to make him stir. She was just about to whisper something to him about getting to bed—he could stay on the couch till morning, if he wanted, but she needed her room—when he reached out.
Was he still asleep?
His hand curved around the back of her head and pulled her closer. His eyes were still closed. His nose nudged forward. Where was the mouth he was looking for? Ahh …
His lips were so warm. She had to drag herself away. She had to! Or push him, or tell him, “Wake up, Andy. I’m not whoever you think I am.”
But none of that happened. She let him kiss her, her own mouth motionless while his lips coaxed her. He mumbled, “Mm,” the sound coming from deep in his chest. He wanted a response. His dream self was growing frustrated that these soft lips beneath his weren’t answering the kiss.
How could she answer it?
How could she not?
Dear Reader,
I’m lucky enough to be part of a wonderful group of writers who go away together once a year for an intensive week of writing, brainstorming and craft discussion. Okay, I admit there is a small and responsible amount of eating, laughing and drinking as well.
During a brainstorming session, one of our group was looking for inspiration for her next series and I came up with a great idea for a trilogy featuring a family of successful doctors. There was the high-achieving older brother, the laid-back middle child, the burned-out younger sister. I threw in a beautiful rural setting, a baby or two, and a couple of characters—a gold-digging blonde and a blue-collar cop—whom you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be the best match for the hero or heroine concerned. I was so inspired about it … and my friend wasn’t interested.
Writing is funny that way. What sets off fireworks of inspiration for one writer will leave another writer totally cold. “Would you mind if I kept the idea, then?” I asked her. Trust me, she wasn’t planning to fight me for it. Undeterred by her lack of enthusiasm, I rushed back to my room with the whole thing fizzing and singing in my head, and started writing until my hand hurt.
Two hours later, I had the basic outline for the three stories that would become the McKINLEY MEDICS trilogy, and now here’s the first book. Daddy on Her Doorstep is Andy’s story, and who better to pair with a laid-back rural doctor than an uptight city woman with endearingly rigid ideas about having a baby on her own? I hope you enjoy Andy and Claudia’s journey, and that you’ll look out for A Doctor in His House coming soon.
Lilian Darcy
About the Author
LILIAN DARCY has written nearly eighty books. Happily married, with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family. Lilian loves to hear from readers. You can write to her at: PO Box 532, Jamison PO, Macquarie, ACT 2614, Australia, or e-mail her at: lilian@liliandarcy.com.
Daddy on Her Doorstep
Lilian Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
Pregnant.
Andy’s new tenant hadn’t mentioned that little detail over the phone. He sat at the wheel of his pickup and watched her unloading her things onto the porch, with a vague sense that he was spying, while he gave about thirty percent of his attention to his sister Scarlett’s voice in his ear. “… so there was nothing we could do, and it was so fast …”
A very nice wheeled designer suitcase thumped up the wooden steps. The new tenant paused to stretch her lower back, placing a hand there for support.
The bump of her pregnancy was unmistakable in this pose, neat and round and firm, but as soon as she straightened again it almost disappeared. She had the kind of long, lean, gym-honed body that made a pregnancy look like this season’s hot fashion accessory, and she was probably a little chilly in those three-quarter-length sleeves, since it was only the beginning of April and the clear air had a definite bite.
“… so I’ve been thinking I might take a week off, just some quiet time, but not here in the city …” Scarlett had called Andy on his cell just as he was about to drive past his own house on his way from his office to the store, so he’d pulled over in front of his neighbor’s place to take her call, only a few yards from his own driveway. He hadn’t intended to watch his new tenant unloading her car, it had just happened that way.
“… and if it wouldn’t create problems for you and Laura …” he heard Scarlett say into his ear.
He put his reply in fast. “Laura and I have split up.”
“Oh, Andy! When?” His sister sounded distressed.
“February. It’s okay. It’s not a problem.”
There was a beat of silence as Scarlett absorbed the news. “She tried too hard, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, she did,” he admitted, glad that Scarlett understood, so he didn’t have to explain.
“Was she upset?”
“She was the one who made the move. I came home from work and there was a note and a whole lot less stuff.” The extent of Laura’s stuff had been part of the problem. “But we both knew it was coming. She’s found someone who appreciates her for who she truly is, the note said.”
“Ouch!”
“And she was right. I really didn’t do that.”
Speaking of ouch …
The tenant heaved a second suitcase out of the trunk of her car and paused once again to arch and rub away the ache in her back. Her outfit looked brand-new and designer label, the soft sage-green stretch fabric gathered at the side seams so that it made her bump into a graceful curve instead of an inconvenient bulge.
Her dark brown hair shone with rich chestnut lights, and the artfully casual topknot looked as if it had been twisted and pinned in place at a Manhattan salon not more than half an hour ago, just as the fringed and patterned scarf around her neck could have been draped by a Hollywood stylist. Her sunglasses said expensive loud and clear.
But it was the bump that had him thinking.
“Definitely pregnant,” Andy muttered. “Wonder when she’s due …”
“Sorry?” said Scarlett.
“My new tenant seems to be pregnant.”
“Oh, you have a new tenant? Ohh …”
He couldn’t miss the disappointment. “Is that a problem?”
Seemed to be the tenant that was the problem for his sister, not the pregnancy. He didn’t have a problem with either the tenant or her fashionable bump, but he was a little curious about why a woman like this—all big-city sophistication and style—was here in a small, scenic town in Vermont, renting solo, on a short-term lease. Where did the pregnancy fit in?
“Well, see, that’s what I’ve been working up to,” Scarlett said. “I’m taking some time off. Hoping to. Thinking about it. I’d been wondering if I could use your rental half, since it’s been empty. You know, just sit in a porch swing for a week.”
“You can sit in my porch swing, instead of the rental one.”
“I know, but it’s not the same.”
“It’s almost the same,” he pointed out, “since my place and my rental are two halves of the same house.”
He’d loved the extravagant Victorian on sight, four years ago, and since he hadn’t needed such a big place, he’d been happy that it was divided into two generous apartments. He was casual about renting out the half he didn’t live in, relying on word of mouth and a couple of low-key listings on the internet, preferring short leases for the variety. He hadn’t hugely cared when it stood vacant, as it had been all this past winter, while his two-year relationship with Laura had done its slow, splintering crash, like a felled tree.
“Yeah, but that’s … No, I can’t explain.” Scarlett sounded very flat, and very tired.
“This is only a three-month rental,” he began.
This was what made him curious. Three months renting to a pregnant tenant from New York City, who had most definitely told him on the phone that she’d be living there alone, and that she didn’t want a longer lease because she was only subletting her condo in Manhattan for the first two months, and didn’t want it sitting empty for too long. She was a corporate accountant, she’d said.
So where did her due date fit in to her stay here? What was her plan? What were her intentions once the three-month lease was up?
“So if I hold off on my vacation until July …” Scarlett said.
“You may actually be able to come up here and get a Vermont tan,” he finished for her. “And make it longer than a week. Make it as long as you want.”
He’d experienced for himself the therapeutic benefits of escaping the city and coming to the Green Mountain state. Five and a half years ago, one weekend here had led to a major change of lifestyle and priorities. Scarlett had been largely responsible for the whole thing, and now he had a chance to return the favor.
“But, no, I’ll never get July,” she said. “New rotations start. I have a shot at August. Just a week …” She was talking to herself more than to him, mentally adjusting her heavy schedule.
Like every member of the McKinley family except Andy, she was all about crammed schedules. He remembered all too well what that was like.
On the porch, a heavy-looking cardboard box was about to join the two suitcases. This time, the arch-and-rub was followed by a hard lean onto the seat of the porch swing. The swing rocked too much and the pregnant tenant … Nelson, Claudia Nelson … almost lost her balance. She grabbed the swing chain, pivoted on one foot and sat on the moving seat with a hard thump, and Andy had to fight an impulse to leap out of the pickup and rush to her aid.
Which she might not have appreciated, since she would have no idea who he was at this point. Anyhow, she’d recovered her balance now.
Recovered her balance, but not her built-in cool. She flattened her hand over her upper chest and took some breaths that looked as if they’d been learned in prenatal class and practiced diligently since. In through the nose. Out slow and steady, through rounded lips.
Shoot, she wasn’t in labor, was she? She only looked around six months or so, but as he’d already observed, she had the kind of body where it was hard to tell.
“I’d better go,” he told Scarlett. “Think about it for August or whenever, and call me back when you decide. Please.”
“I will.”
“I’ll hold off on another tenant for a while when this one moves out. Meanwhile, if you want to come up sooner, I can check out some of the bed-and-breakfasts around here. They’re pretty quiet. And I can make sure a porch swing is part of the deal.”
“Thanks, Andy. But, no, it was probably a dumb idea.” Down the line, Scarlett sighed to herself and began planning again. “I’ll wait. Even August, with the new interns … I’ll check the calendar. Maybe October …”
Scarlett disconnected the call before Andy could tell her that October sounded too far off, given the stress and fatigue in her voice. He knew what his father, Dr. Michael James McKinley, Senior, would have said to her: “Get a good night’s sleep and pull yourself together, Scarlett. You’re a cancer specialist. You’re going to lose patients. You can’t let it get too personal.”
Speaking of personal, it was time for Andy to introduce himself to the lady with the bump. The trip to the store for some steak and potatoes to accompany salad and a beer as tonight’s meal would have to wait.
There was a man in the front yard. Claudia had been vaguely aware of him since he’d pulled to the curb thirty feet down the street to take a call on his cell, but then she’d taken her eye off him for a few moments while she caught her breath after that scary near-fall.
Now, instead of ending the call and driving away as she would have expected, he was suddenly here, coming toward her, smiling as if he knew her.
Or as if he had suspect intentions.
She had a moment of vulnerability, unfamiliar and unwanted. The baby crammed itself against her lungs, making her breath short. Her female friends—well, her one best friend, Kelly, plus her work colleagues and her hair stylist—kept telling her approvingly that she barely showed. But, oh, the baby was there, and if she didn’t show much from the outside it was only because the pregnancy was crowding out her internal organs, instead.
What did this man want? Around her own age of thirty-four, he looked strong and competent and sure of himself, dark haired, square-jawed, crooked-nosed, dressed in conservative dark pants and a pale polo shirt, with sleeve bands that stretched tight around hard biceps. His stride was long and he had an aura of casual ownership.
Of the moment.
Of the situation.
It might have been appealing in other circumstances. She liked competence and control in a man.
Right now, however, there was no traffic going by and the air had filled with an odd stillness, as if she and this stranger were the only two people anywhere near. He was kind of frowning and smiling at her at the same time. He was incredibly good-looking, with an especially nice mouth. Any woman would be bound to notice. But he was big and strong and she was no match for him physically. Especially not now.
She stood, and the swing rocked again, reminding her of how she’d almost fallen a moment ago, and then had bumped down on it painfully hard.
Scary. Unsettling.
She was used to grace and strength in her body, not this clumsiness.
She was used to being fully in control.
She wasn’t used to this instinctive gesture of curving one hand in protection across her lower stomach, while the other was pressed against her beating heart.
I want this baby, she reminded herself. I chose it. I went for it. It was a considered decision after a ton of research and planning. I didn’t sit around whining that there weren’t any good men and that my body clock was ticking.
She wanted the baby, yes, but she wasn’t a huge fan of the actual pregnancy. It made her feel caged and vulnerable, a familiar feeling from long ago that she hated and fought or avoided whenever she could.
“Claudia?” the stranger said, still with the frown and the grin.
“Y-yes?” He’d said her name.
“Hi. It’s nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, showing strong, clean fingers. “I’m your landlord. Andy McKinley.”
Her landlord! Sheesh, of course he was! Claudia, you panicky idiot! She even recognized his gravelly voice from the phone.
Oh, shoot, she was going to cry.
I’m not. I’m not.
This was another thing she didn’t love about the pregnancy—all the hormonal emotions sloshing around inside her. Just the switch from slight—and let’s face it, pretty irrational—fear about a stranger’s approach to relief that he had a good reason for smiling at her, knowing her name and giving off that sense of ownership, was enough to dampen her eyes and tighten her throat.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she managed, after swallowing the tears back. Fortunately, she was still wearing her driving sunglasses so he wouldn’t have seen. She took her hand away from her chest, returned his handshake and found her fingers engulfed in a warmth and strength that once again reminded her of her own new vulnerability. “I’m a little earlier than I said.”
“No problem.”
