it kind of did. Of course it was a good idea to get as much done in advance as you could. But it was a drop in the ocean.
They stood there, him with the basket hooked over his arm, her leaning on the piled-up cart. Her hair was gleaming and pretty but a little too tightly wound for his taste. He liked fullness and bounce, soft waves shadowing a woman’s face, something to run his fingers through, something to tickle his shoulders or cheeks or chest when he came in for a kiss. Was the tight style another piece of efficiency on her part?
Knot it and go. Nothing to get in the way.
She was incredibly well-groomed close up, even more so than he’d observed when he’d first seen her on the porch. Soft hands, their long fingers tipped with a French manicure. Neat gold earrings with just the right amount of sparkle and dangle. A touch of lip gloss. Perfectly arched eyebrows with not a hair out of line. Low-heeled ankle boots and that artfully arranged scarf.
And what was the deal with the scarf, anyhow? If he had something like that fussing around his neck, it would either choke him or fall off every time he moved. It’d drive him crazy. She carried it with casual grace. He wondered if he was underestimating her and she would soon carry a baby on her hip the same way.
Due in five and a half weeks. First babies weren’t always late.
Would she manage on her own? Did she have support systems in place that she hadn’t mentioned yet?
I’m going to find out …
A danger signal suddenly clanged in his head. His father had accused him in the past of being a soft touch for people in need. You don’t know how to keep your distance, Andy. When you let yourself get overinvolved, all that happens is mess and complication.
Was Dad right? He often asked himself this, because Dad was right about a lot of things and knew it. He was a heart surgeon, and patients came to him from hundreds of miles away. But was he right that Andy had a tendency to become overinvolved?
The question hung in the balance for what felt like too long. He murmured something polite in Claudia Nelson’s direction. See you back at the house. Good luck with your shopping. The words didn’t matter. He was only using them as an exit line. Then he moved on down the aisle.
But when he turned at the end, remembering he needed to pick up some milk, he looked toward her, saw her pick up several cans of tomatoes from a lower shelf and once more straighten and rub the band of tightness around her lower back. Suddenly, she looked far too alone, marooned in the middle of a brightly lit supermarket aisle in her designer maternity clothes.
“She’s not going to go five more weeks …” he muttered to himself in a flash of medical intuition. “One or two if she’s lucky. A couple of days if she keeps on with the superwoman stuff.”
Trying to look casual about it, he wandered back. “Hey, I’ve just thought, would you like to come next door for dinner tonight, since you’ve had a full day? Save you calling out for pizza?”
“I wasn’t calling out for pizza, I was going to cook.”
Of course she was going to cook!
“Save you cooking, even better,” he said, keeping it cheerful and bland. “It’s only going to be steak and green salad and microwaved potatoes.”
“Well, the baby does need iron,” she murmured, half to herself, frowning as if working out complex numbers in her head. “But for vitamins, just a green salad …?”
Andy hid another smile. She probably calculated her nutritional intake on a daily basis. He shouldn’t laugh about it, when this was so much better than the patients he saw who paid no attention to their nutrition during pregnancy at all. “Will an offer of broccoli on the side seal the deal? Fresh fruit for dessert?”
Reading his attitude, she fixed him with a patient, tolerant expression, and drawled, “Organic? Locally grown?”
“Great. We’re on the same page.” And she had a sense of humor, even if she was a trifle scary.
“What time shall I come over?” she asked.
“Six? I don’t want to keep you late.”
“Six sounds good.”
They parted company and he went to the produce section and lost his head a little, throwing into his basket broccoli, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, mangoes, purple onion, baby spinach, parsley, carrots, strawberries and corn.
Standing at the checkout, he looked at the crowded plastic basket and clicked his tongue. His father was right. Ten different items from the fruit and vegetable group was definitely overinvolved.
Chapter Two
Andy heard Claudia’s neat knock at his front door at five after six, when he had the electric grill heating up, the broccoli and corn in the steamer, the potatoes circling in the microwave and the colorful salad already tossed in the bowl.
He’d even cooked up the mushrooms, parsley and onions to make a gravy for the steak, and the mangoes and strawberries sat on the table in another bowl ready to serve as dessert, little cubes of orange and blobs of red.
His new tenant wanted nutrition and she was going to get it, with bells on.
She seemed a little edgy after she’d followed him into the kitchen and looked at what he had on the table and stove top. “You’re doing all this for me?”
“I’m a doctor, remember? I totally support women eating well during pregnancy.”
“Thank you.” But you still think I’m nuts.
She didn’t say it, but she looked at him, head tilted a little, and he could read her face.
Or rather her chin and her eyes.
The chin was raised, showing her lovely, streamlined jaw. Her eyes were narrowed in a mix of defiance and uneasiness. The dark, gleaming knot still sat tight on the top of her head. She was pretty sure of herself with this planned solo pregnancy thing, and yet something—or someone—had put some doubts in her mind at some point.
“No problems with your half of the house so far?” he asked, throwing the steaks onto the grill.
“No, it’s beautiful, a great environment, a wonderful sense of peace and space and light, just what I was looking for. And the town is lovely.”
“What else are you looking for?” he asked before stopping to consider what a personal question it was. He added quickly, “Here in Radford, I mean.” The addition made his query somewhat more acceptable.
“Well, I’ve chosen the Spring Ridge Memorial Hospital for the birth, if that’s what you mean.”
“Mitchum Medical Center is closer.” Radford itself was too small to warrant a hospital.
“Mitchum didn’t have the high-level neonatal facilities I was looking for. Not that I expect to need them.”
“Still, it’s a good hospital.” He sent patients there all the time, delivered most
