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The apartment was on the top floor of a garage behind the house owned by Frannie’s great-aunt Esther, and the rent was cheap, making Polly’s decision easy. “It’s wonderful!” she told Frannie. “Don’t you think so, Laurel?” she said, rubbing her daughter’s back reassuringly.
Never mind that the entire apartment would nearly have fit inside the master bathroom of the house she had just left. Her former residence had never been her home. It had never really felt like her home.
When Polly and he had married, Carl had bought it to please her mother and stepfather.
Well, this place would be all hers—hers and Laurel’s.
She walked into the tiny kitchenette, remembering the house she’d shared with Carl. It had been in the kitchen of the large house that Carl had first confronted her. He had brandished a gun to scare her.
She had been wearing a flowing maternity dress, a little designer number. It had been blue….
But that was all behind her. Now, Polly wore inexpensive stretch slacks and a plaid maternity top, the tie in back cinched tight since she had nearly regained her figure. The clothes had been salvaged from her wrecked car. Her toiletries, too, had been there, including a small bottle of the costly perfume she had loved—and probably never could afford again. Surprisingly, no one had stolen her bag, as would have happened in a large city. Not that there was much worth taking—except for one small item of importance to her. It was still there.
She would need a new, nonpregnant wardrobe here—all the better to prevent discovery, at least for the next three weeks, until Laurel’s actual due date. Polly would also have to dye her hair again soon. She had noticed in a mirror at the hospital that its lighter roots had begun to show. She had darkened her eyebrows and lashes, too, and these would eventually need touching up.
She glanced out the kitchen window, which overlooked the driveway. The yard was fenced, and it was beautiful. In the center was a magnificent aspen, its fall leaves brilliant gold.
More important, the place looked secure.
Frannie had followed her into the kitchen. “Do you think you’ll take the apartment?” she asked.
“Absolutely.” Polly knew she sounded enthused. She was enthused.
She had almost said no when Frannie first told her about the place. Polly had not wanted help from anyone. But she had been acting helpless. What else did she expect but that someone would offer help?
“It’s perfect,” she said. “I don’t know how to thank you, Frannie.”
“You just did.” She touched Polly’s shoulder and smiled, revealing her prominent front teeth.
“Everyone here has been so nice.” Polly thought of Reeve Snyder, and a warmth unfurled inside her. During the past days in the hospital, she had seen a lot of him—as he checked on Laurel, of course. He had been kind. Helpful. He never criticized her fumblings as a new mother. In fact, he encouraged her.
And he had helped her get the part-time job that was so important to her. She planned to start soon, since her responsibilities at first would only be to make phone calls from her own home. She could work around her soreness and exhaustion, and be able to care for Laurel by placing calls only when her daughter napped.
Polly would increase her time and responsibilities gradually. And her pay. At her starting rate, it would take her years to work off her debt, especially since Laurel and she needed money to live on.
Employed by the medical center, which was so close to this place, she would be around doctors if she needed help.
Around Reeve Snyder. The idea pleased—and troubled—her.
Despite the occasional, confusing times he stomped out of her room with no explanation, she liked him. But she didn’t dare get close to anyone.
And he had a preexisting relationship with Alicia Frost. The reporter.
“What are you thinking about?” Frannie asked, startling Polly.
Polly realized she had been staring sightlessly toward the tiny breakfast nook. She made herself smile. “Just how nice everyone has been, especially you, and Clifford, and—”
“Dr. Snyder,” finished Frannie. “He certainly has taken you on as a mission. It’s like he’s from one of those old cultures in which if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for her forever.”
“That’s impossible!” Polly took a step backward so abruptly that she startled Laurel, who began to cry. “Oh, Laurel, I’m sorry. Everything’s okay, sweetheart.” Polly danced around the living room, but the motion didn’t settle the baby in her arms. “Maybe she’s hungry,” Polly said to Frannie. She sat on the sofa, arranged a blanket over her shoulder and began nursing the baby. She loved the warm, loving bond nursing created between Laurel and her.
But she couldn’t concentrate on it now. She didn’t look at Frannie. She didn’t know what to say.
The last thing she wanted was for Reeve Snyder to feel responsible for her. Only she had responsibility for Laurel and herself.
No matter how unnerving that responsibility was.
Taking a chair across from Polly, Frannie returned to the subject as though Laurel hadn’t interrupted. “Don’t worry that Reeve will continue to feel responsible for you. It’s not in his nature, believe me. He can be charming. But it’s an act. Ask any nurse at Selborn Community. Or even Alicia—I know she came to see you when he was in your room. After what happened to him, he isn’t interested in attachments to any woman.”
Polly should have been reassured. Instead, she felt worse. “What happened to him?”
“He lost his wife and baby in a horrible accident.”
A knot twisted deep in Polly’s stomach. “Oh, no! How?”
Frannie glanced at her watch. “It’s a long story and I’d better get back to the hospital.” The abrupt change in subject told Polly she wouldn’t hear more from Frannie now about Reeve Snyder’s loss.
But her mind was spinning. He had been married. He had suffered unbearable heartache. Poor man. He had helped her, even if his moods shifted as swiftly as a sudden snow squall. Maybe that was a result, somehow, of his grief. How recent had it been? If only she could—
But she could do nothing to ease his loss. She couldn’t even deal with her own.
“Now you just get settled in here,” Frannie said as she stood to leave. “My aunt Esther—”
“Did I hear my name?”
A large woman in a loose, flowered caftan stood in the doorway. She had a wide nose on which wire-rimmed glasses perched, and her hair was a soft mop of brown waves in which silver was beginning to take over.
Frannie smiled. “Aunt Esther, I’d like you to meet your new tenant, Polly Black.”
“Welcome,” the woman said in her booming voice, but her gaze was on Laurel, who had finished eating and was squirming on Polly’s lap. Esther held out her arms. With just a moment’s hesitation Polly handed her the baby.
“Oh, you adorable thing,” Esther crooned. Only after she had nestled Laurel over her shoulder and begun to sway gently on her thick legs did she turn her blue eyes, magnified by her glasses, on Polly. “Frannie tells me you’re settling here and that you’ll be working part-time for the medical center. Any time you want a baby-sitter, day or night, even while you’re working, you tell me. I adore babies.”
Polly froze. Someone else was acting as though she were helpless. But this was help she really needed.
She would pay Esther. It would be a business transaction.
“Thanks,” she said graciously. She let her body relax. It was good to know she had alternatives.
And, perhaps, friends.
STIFLING A YAWN as he walked down the corridor after doing his hospital rounds, Reeve inhaled the ubiquitous odor of disinfectant. The yellow walls of the medical center’s office annex reminded him of sunshine, but their brightness failed to perk him up this afternoon. He’d had a late night; an elderly patient had slipped in his shower, and Reeve had come in to handle his treatment.
Reeve stopped at his office door, hand poised on the knob, as a squeak from down the hall caught his attention.
Polly Black pushed a stroller toward him, one that had seen better days. In it was the baby, Laurel, propped up with blankets. She was wide awake, her large blue eyes staring merrily ahead, tiny arms waving.
They stopped in the middle of the hall, and the squeak ceased. Reeve found himself grinning. “Hi. I thought you were discharged from the center this morning.”
“I was. But I wasn’t allowed to explore as a patient, and I wanted to see where I’ll eventually be working. It’s windy out, so I cut through the office building. Didn’t want Laurel to get too blown.”
“Of course. Frannie told me you’re staying at her aunt’s place down the block. Are you okay to walk around like this? You look a little tired.”
“I’m taking it slow and easy. We won’t be out long.”
Polly’s bruises and cuts had faded, and the bump on her forehead had nearly disappeared. She looked slender in her cinched plaid top and slacks. Her cap of dark curls framed a face with perfect bone structure. Her full, pink lips, smiling in what seemed like a perfectly innocent and friendly manner, nevertheless reminded Reeve of his too-frequent urge to kiss her. The thought, as usual, caused a chain reaction—warmth that crept up his body, a tightening in his groin….
Alicia had attempted to get him interested since his wife had died. She had tried too hard. But Polly…
“Your stroller makes a lot of noise,” he said, to change the direction of his thoughts.
She looked abashed, and that made him feel ashamed of his criticism. “Sorry,” she said. “I borrowed it from Frannie’s sister and didn’t know how to make it stop squeaking.”
He stared at her in surprise. The solution seemed elementary to him.
But maybe not to everyone. Certainly not to Polly. “Oil. Or WD-40. I probably have some in my office. Come in, and we’ll find out.”
The small squeak pursued him into his office as Polly followed with baby and stroller. Sure enough, he had a can of spray. Waiting until Polly picked up the baby, he used the spray liberally on the wheels, then tested it. In moments, the squeal was gone.
“Thanks,” Polly said. “You’ve saved me again.” A flush immediately crept up her lovely face, and her hand went to her mouth. “But that doesn’t mean you have any responsibility—” She stopped, reddening even further.
She charmed him, with her sweet blushing. He wanted to take her into his arms, baby and all, and assure her that helping her had been his pleasure.
How ridiculous. What was it about this woman that caused him to forget professionalism and turn into a drooling idiot?
It was the baby, of course. And his memories.
And this woman had a husband somewhere—former or not—who had the right to see his daughter.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, keeping his tone level. “My responsibility is to the medical center. You wouldn’t want that squeak disturbing the patients, would you?”
“Of course not.” She looked even more disconcerted. Reeve silently cursed himself. He seemed to be going out of his way to make this woman feel uncomfortable. And he had no right to judge her for the way she treated her divorced husband…no matter how Annette had treated him.
But the baby—
“Is it all right for me just to wander around the hospital?” Polly sounded concerned. “Frannie said I could, but…well, I don’t want to break any rules. She was on duty this afternoon, or she would have taken me.”
“I can show you around,” Reeve blurted.
Why had he said that?
“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.” But there was relief in her gray eyes, and he knew he wouldn’t back out now, even if he wanted to.
Which, he admitted to himself, he didn’t.
You’re a thousand kinds of fool, he told himself. This woman is not Annette. Hanging around her and her baby isn’t going to bring Cindy back to you.
And if her husband—ex-husband, she’d said—was idiot enough to let Polly and her baby go, that was his problem, not Reeve’s.
“Okay, ladies, step right up,” he said, letting his voice project like an old sideshow barker’s. “Follow me to the stupendous, the unequaled, Selborn Community Medical Center.”
DAMN IT! thought Polly, following Reeve down the office corridor. She wanted to stamp her foot. Scream. Do something to ingrain the lesson deep in her soul so she wouldn’t have to learn it even one more time.
She had done it again, acted helpless. Allowed someone else to fix something for her.
And that someone had been Reeve Snyder. The very handsome man, she reminded herself constantly, who had saved her life, then helped her find a job.
If she weren’t careful, she could come to rely on him. And that was the last thing she wanted to do.
Never mind that her latest folly had been as trivial as a squeaky wheel. She stared with dislike at the stroller she pushed, then shook her head. It wasn’t the stroller’s fault. It was hers.
“Thanks,” she said as Reeve held the door open for her, then she exclaimed, “Oh, this is lovely!” The path between the office building and the hospital was a concrete walkway, surrounded on both sides by a large, attractive garden. Fall flowers not only emitted a wonderful fragrance, their gold and orange shades were a bright relief from the sterile sameness of the surrounding buildings. Wooden benches lined the walk.
And towering above them, just like over the rest of the small, quaint town, were the giant, craggy Rockies.
“It is a nice oasis, isn’t it?” Reeve brushed a leaf off a bench with a proprietary gesture. “I sometimes come here to eat lunch and get away from the chaos of the center and my office.”
“Maybe Laurel and I can, too.” She glanced at Reeve and found him staring at her. Was it her imagination, or was there a look of longing in his golden-brown eyes? Surely he didn’t want her to invite him to join them.
She wanted to.
She didn’t want to.
She stayed silent.
They continued walking, and in moments, they were inside the medical center. It was a much smaller facility than Polly was used to. She always equated hospitals with the big-city facilities in Boston where her mother and stepfather had gone for their minor surgeries. And the one where her father had been taken….
Laurel began to cry. Polly stopped the stroller and unstrapped the baby, taking her into her arms. “It’s all right,” she crooned, not having the foggiest idea what had upset the sweet, squirming infant. She had fed Laurel not more than half an hour earlier, had changed her diaper. Still…She pulled up the tiny pink dress she had borrowed, like everything else, from Frannie’s sister, and stuck her finger inside the diaper. Sure enough, it was wet.
“Oops, you’re a quick one, baby,” she told her daughter. Placing Laurel carefully on a bench, she managed to change the diaper swiftly. She was getting to be a pro at this.
The idea of her being a pro at anything made her smile.
“What’s so funny?” Reeve asked. He didn’t snap at her to hurry, hadn’t said anything at all when she delayed his progress.
He was so different from—
“Nothing,” she said hurriedly. “Now, little one, let Mama know if you get uncomfortable again.” She gave Laurel a kiss on her soft, smooth cheek, strapped her in the stroller again and stood. “Not that I’ve any doubt that she’ll tell me next time she’s wet. She’s not one to keep things to herself.” Polly knew she sounded proud, but why not? She would encourage this little one to speak up for herself forever.
“Sounds like you’ll be a good mother.” Reeve’s voice sounded wistful, and Polly glanced at him. He gazed down the hallway with a blank expression on his face, as though he had just commented on the weather.
Polly recalled what Frannie had told her: that Reeve had lost his wife and child. Maybe just being around babies made him uncomfortable.
“Look,” she said, “if you have work to do, I’m sure we can find our way ourselves.”
Was that an expression of pain that crossed his face? Darn it! She didn’t seem to handle anything right with this man. “I’ll show you to the patient accounts office, at least,” Reeve said. “And maybe the child care center, too, for when Laurel gets older.” He took Polly’s elbow as they began walking again. She remained utterly conscious of the small contact, as though every nerve in her body had suddenly marched through her to congregate in that one small spot.
She sought a topic of conversation to take her mind off the warmth of Reeve’s fingers through her light maternity blouse. “Having a child care facility right in the medical center is a wonderful idea.”
