to the table and came back to join them.
“Here. You finish with Emily,” Alexis said, offering the baby to her husband, “and I’ll take care of the food. Lucy, come help me and we can talk.”
Lucy hesitated a second before she scooted away from Ryan to go to the dining table.
Lucy had given the impression she was shy when they’d met but in reality she had a backbone as sturdy as the Brooklyn Bridge and the sweetest way of showing a man that he mattered. She didn’t give half. She gave all.
He glanced away from where Sam was settling in a chair with his daughter to the women moving around the table. As always his attention rested on the gutsy blonde woman. Lucy would be a fierce warrior and protector of anyone she loved. That’s why she cared so deeply for Alexis and for Emily. It was who she was. She expected to receive the same in return. Would accept nothing less. Could he give it? He had no choice but to try, unable to imagine her not being in his life.
“Lucy’s a special person,” Sam said.
Ryan looked at him. Was that a warning? “Yes, she is. Very special.” He glanced in Lucy’s direction a number of times to check on her. The tension in her face had eased. He was sure that having something to focus her mind on helped.
Alexis obviously doted on Lucy. They shared some facial features but that was where the resemblance ended. Where Lucy was tall and unassuming, Alexis was petit and feisty. He liked Alexis but Lucy’s gentle, easy way suited him much better. Even Sam had shown his affection for Lucy in his hug when they had arrived and his smiles in her direction. She had a family who obviously cared for her so why did she feel like she was on the outside?
“Okay, guys, food’s on the table,” called Alexis.
They gathered around the small table. He let his leg touch Lucy’s. Just a reminder that he believed in her.
She gave him a weak smile.
Alexis spent most of the meal tending to Emily, who sat in a seat on the floor beside her mother. Sam watched the mother and child with a look of adoration on his face. Ryan now understood why Lucy felt like an outsider. Alexis and Sam probably had no idea of how they shut others out. Lucy would never tell them. She watched them also as if she couldn’t pull her eyes away.
“Lucy, how do you like that great big old hospital you are working in now?” Sam asked.
“It’s fine.”
“She stays lost half the time,” Ryan remarked smiling at her. “I’ve threatened to send a search party out for her a number of times.”
Lucy grinned but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Sam, you interested in baseball?” Ryan asked, trying to steer the discussion away from her. Her face showed obvious relief when the conversation turned into a heated discussion about who would win the baseball pennant that fall.
During a lull, Ryan looked at Lucy. Her attention was on her plate as she pushed her food around. She had eaten little.
Alexis must have noticed also because she asked, “Lucy, are you feeling okay?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” Lucy sounded artificially bright.
Just then Emily demanded Alexis’s attention and she let the subject drop.
Sam, watching his wife and child, said, “Lucy, thank you so much for giving us this.”
If Ryan hadn’t been so in tune with Lucy he might have missed her barely perceptible flinch. That was the last thing she needed to hear. Emily was a gift she’d given her sister out of love and the Lucy he knew didn’t want them to feel indebted. Being reminded of what she’d done made her feel uncomfortable. He found her hand under the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She gripped it back as if it were a lifeline.
“This little one has fallen asleep. It’s time for bed,” Alexis said. “Lucy, would you like to help me?”
“Sure,” Lucy said, with little eagerness. Before she left the table she looked at him. He smiled encouragingly.
Ryan liked Alexis and Sam but couldn’t they see how hard this was on Lucy? If Alexis wasn’t so caught up in being a new mother she would notice Lucy was less than excited about being here. Lucy put on the same determined face he’d seen her wear when she was fighting for a patient as she followed Alexis and a drowsy Emily into another room.
He’d never been prouder of anyone. She was fighting an emotional battle like a champion. Heaven help him. He’d fallen in love.
It was a wonderful, scary and totally bewildering feeling. Yet somehow so right.
* * *
Lucy stood motionless in the doorway of the bedroom. Alexis would be destroyed if she ever found out her twin wanted to run.
Why couldn’t she handle this better? Her job was to help people through tough situations and she couldn’t even be rational about her own problems. Known for her calming and forthright encouragement with patients’ families, she was completely irrational where her own issues were concerned. She was such a fraud.
“Would you mind taking her dress off while I get her nightclothes together?” Alexis asked over her shoulder as she laid Emily in a crib. “I had no idea it took so much stuff to travel with someone so small.”
Lucy took a breath. Just knowing Ryan was close had gotten her this far. She stepped to the bed and began to undress Emily. The sleepy-eyed baby looked up at her with complete trust. Unable to stop herself, Lucy leaned down and gave Emily a kiss on her forehead.
She wanted what Alexis had. Not this child, but her own. A family.
Alexis’s bright sunny world was in complete contrast to the dark, lonely one Lucy lived in. Jealousy was a nasty emotion and Lucy wanted it to go away.
“I hate to wake a sleeping baby to change her clothes but I wanted her to look cute when you got here.” Alexis came up beside Lucy, who gave the job of dressing Emily over to her.
Minutes later, as Alexis finished tucking Emily into her crib, Sam entered and came to stand beside the crib. Lucy stepped back, giving him room. He kissed Emily then, putting an arm around Alexis’s shoulders, he kissed her temple. Together they looked down at their sleeping child. It was a poignant family moment.
A moment that Lucy wasn’t a part of. She and Alexis had only had each other for so long, and now Alexis had her own family. Lucy had been pushed out.
Panic, fiery and foul, bubbled in her. Disgust rose in her throat. She had to get out of here. If she didn’t she might burst. I can’t let her know. It might cut that thin thread of a relationship she still had with her sister.
With blurry eyes, she rushed out of the room. Ryan met her, his forehead wrinkled, and his look penetrated her. Why couldn’t she hide anything from him? “We have to go,” she said tightly, reaching for her coat. “I have to go.”
“You can’t just leave,” he whispered. “It’ll hurt your sister’s feelings.” He took hold of her shoulders, stopping her frantic movements.
“If I stay I’ll hurt her
