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.”
“Thanks,” he said.
She looked at him in puzzlement.
He chuckled. “It was my idea.”
“Really? It sounds like something a woman would dream up.”
“I dreamed it up to attract women. And men. The best medical personnel that we could lure to such a small, out-of-the-way town to create a community medical center. And it’s worked remarkably well.”
“Then this
