positive she’s a girl? ’Cause she sure don’t look like one.”
Maddie reached up and ruffled his hair. “Yes, baby, I’m sure. If you don’t believe me, you just go on ahead and ask the doctor.”
“You think maybe Daddy might’ve liked her better’n Katie Grace an’ me?”
The room went so silent, you could hear the muted thumping of the dryer, clear out in the pantry. Standing at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed, Ryan didn’t move, not reacting when Ivy’s gaze shot to his. But he saw the flush leap into Maddie’s translucent, speckled cheeks, and anger suddenly knifed through him as he remembered the scars he’d seen on the child’s back. They’d been old, healed up for some months, but they hadn’t been the result of any accident.
Maddie blinked several times, then swallowed, obviously trying to figure out what to say. With her free hand, she reached up, drew her firstborn down onto her chest to place a fierce kiss in all those spikes. “Doesn’t matter now, baby. Only thing you have to remember now is how much I like you and Katie. And I love all three of you with all my heart, forever and ever and ever. You hear me?”
Ryan’s eyes burned. How many times had his own mother, gone now nearly twenty years, said the same thing to one or the other of her three sons? Except then Noah, as kids will, switched the conversation to more practical matters by announcing he was hungry.
Ivy beamed. Feedin’ and birthin’—the woman was in her element now. “Well, I just bet you are, sweetie. And Mama, too.” She turned questioning brown eyes on Ryan. “I didn’t figure you’d have anything decent in that kitchen of yours to make breakfast, so I brought my own fixin’s, if that’s all right.”
He feigned a hurt expression. “I’m not a barbarian, Ivy. There’s eggs. I think. And coffee.”
“Oh, well, then,” Ivy said on a huff. “As if you could give a nursing mother coffee, for goodness’ sake. Not to mention children.” Elbows pumping, full skirt flapping around her calves—this one had mirrors and embroidery all over the bottom tier—Ivy sailed toward the bedroom door, turning back when she hit the doorframe.
“Noah and…Katie, right?” The kids turned to her with synchronized nods. Ivy held out her hand. “Let’s go see if your clothes are dry yet before you trip in those T-shirts. Then you can help me make pancakes.”
Two pairs of questioning eyes turned to their mother. Katie’s thumb popped into her mouth.
“It’s okay,” Maddie said with a smile. “You go on, now.”
They went. Maddie at once sank back into the pillows, letting out a sigh as her eyes drifted shut. Worn out from the strain of pretending, would be his guess. As if reading his mind, she said quietly, “It’s been a long time since they’ve had pancakes.” She opened her eyes, but didn’t move. “I’m very grateful to you. And Ivy. But we best be on our way as soon as I can move, before they get spoiled.”
Ryan grabbed the footboard, a scowl digging into his forehead. “Giving the kids a good breakfast is hardly spoiling them. And unless you can assure me you’ve got someone to help you out for the next few days, you’re not going anywhere until I say it’s okay.”
A pointed little chin, only marginally bigger than her son’s, reared up. “It was an easy birth. And I was up after the other two in a few hours.”
“By choice?”
He was actually startled to see tears well up in those gray eyes. She looked away, busying herself with unbuttoning her gown to put the baby to breast. A flush of self-consciousness stung Ryan’s cheeks as he watched Maddie help her new daughter find the nipple. Why he should be reacting at all made no sense. He’d watched dozens of mothers nurse their babies. Hell, how long had it been since nakedness had meant anything more to him than anatomy?
The alert, hungry infant hit pay dirt almost at once; Maddie’s soft laughter glittered with love and momentary surcease from her worries, and something inside Ryan warmed a little more…and made him feel as if he needed to justify his presence in the room.
“Tired?” he asked.
Maddie shook her head. The fingers of her left hand—graceful, short-nailed—stroked her baby’s cheek. “No.”
“It’s not a sign of weakness to admit you’re tired after having just given birth, Maddie.”
Her mouth stretched thin. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, you’re fine. Feel like talking, then?”
After a moment, she said, “Answering questions, you mean?”
“A stranger gives birth in my house, you might say I’m curious. And concerned.”
Pride flashed in those silvery eyes. “I’ll pay you for delivering the baby.”
“I’d bet my life on it. But that’s not what I want to know.”
Again, he saw the tears, figured she’d do just about anything to keep them from falling. “I could say it’s none of your business.”
Ryan tried real hard to squelch the exasperation this woman seemed determined to stir to life inside him. “You made it my business when you showed up here in labor. You’re at least twenty pounds underweight. So forgive me for taking my job seriously, but I want to know why. You’re blamed lucky the baby’s as fit as she is, but it won’t do you or her any good to neglect yourself any more than you already have. Did you even have any prenatal care?”
Maddie stared hard at the baby, her mouth set. With her free hand, she swept a hank of straggly hair off her face; it fell right back. “This is my third child. I know how to take care of myself.” She looked up at Ryan. “I don’t smoke or drink, if that’s what you’re thinking, and I ate as well as I could. I never have weighed more than a hundred ten pounds, even when—”
She stopped, cleared her throat, fingering the baby’s cheek.
Ryan let out a ragged sigh, deciding a cup of coffee sounded real good, right about now. “I’m not judging you, Maddie,” he said, and she snorted her disbelief. “I’m not. I just wonder how you’re going to take care of yourself. And your children.”
After a moment, she said, “I’ll get by.”
He folded his arms. “You know, why didn’t you just go ahead and have the baby in the car?”
Her mouth twisted. “There wasn’t room.” A beat or two passed before she added, “I don’t like being beholden to people.”
“I gathered that much,” he said, then waited until she looked at him. “But it looks to me like you haven’t got a whole lotta choice in the matter right now. All I want you to worry about for the next few days is feeding that new daughter of yours and getting your strength back.”
The eyes sparked, like the flash of sword-steel. “I don’t need—”
He stared her down. She got quiet, but her embarrassment pricked his heart when she palmed away a tear. “We’re strangers to you. Why should you feel obligated to take care of us?”
Ryan suddenly felt hard pressed not to strangle
